Darius screams in agony, but fights through the pain, muddling the flames with a bite. The longer he sucks, the weaker the flame becomes, until Tara’s body finally goes limp.
“So, you weren’t just a pretty face,” he says, discomfort evident in his voice. Darius drops Tara’s body to the ground and her lifeless eyes stare right at me from between the crates I’m watching from.
“Are you okay?”
A vampire enters the warehouse from the same darkness that Darius did, slipping right under my nose amidst all of the commotion. Shit. There goes my window, not that it was much, anyway. Dealing with two psychics in close quarters isn’t a good look. If they disarm me, I won’t be able to put up half the fight that Tara did.
“No thanks to you,” he muses. “But it’s settled now.” Darius staggers back and falls to one knee. “Prepare the ritual.”
His vampire assistant comes to his side, but Darius raises a hand, signaling him to stop.
“You heard the man,” Matt says. “Best not keep him waiting.” Trevor and Matt walk over to Darius as he rises to his feet. Matt puts his hand on the vampire’s shoulder, but Trevor is apprehensive. “Come on, man.”
“I do appreciate your previous assistance, but your participation is the only thing keeping you alive.”
“He doesn’t mean that.”
“I do. And the same goes for you. The ritual.”
“Okay. You have the bracelet, correct? We can kill two birds with one stone. Once we perform the link, we can cast the spell through you as a conduit. We have everything we need. I have the orb right here, and Matt has the blood…actually, on second thought, I think we should activate the bracelet first. The orb and the blood; they’re delicate. It’s best to get them out of the way first.”
“I assure you that I’m not as weak as I look in my present state,” Darius growls. “And I grow stronger by the second.”
“I’m not doubting it. Trust me. It’s just that we’re down two witches and it takes a lot to activate the spell. I was thinking we’d at least have the other two to help us past the first hurdle…but a hunter killed Woodrow and you feasted on Tara. It’s just us two, now. Me and Trevor.”
“Very well. Bernard, the bracelet,” Darius says to his servant.
“And the materials you told me to bring?”
“Yes.”
Bernard goes to the trio and places a gold bracelet, a ruby stone, and a bowl onto a rollup mat he unfolds.
“Trevor.” Upon Matt’s request, Trevor unveils a rectangular, sturdy black bottle. “Good. Didn’t I tell you to bring it with you? Good things happen when you listen to me. You live.” Trevor doesn’t respond as he places the sealed bottle on the ground next to the other items. “Humor is highly inappropriate right now. I get it…but you gotta make lemonade out of lemons, yeah?” Again, there’s no response. At least from what I can hear from my position.
Matt begins to chant as he grabs the ruby and the glowing orb. He presses the two of them together and the light from the orb begins to wane. Eventually, I no longer see the radiating light from the orb, and at that point, he casts it aside. Next, he places the ruby into the bowl and rests his hands on his lap as he lurches forward.
“Is there a problem?”
“No problem, just a little tired. Trevor, I’m going to need you for this one.”
“Yeah…yeah, I got you man.” Trevor places his hand on Matt’s shoulder and Matt picks up the black bottle. From what I can see, he pours it into the bowl, over the jewel.
“Sangu—”
“Wait!” Trevor pulls his hand away from Matt. “If we do this, we link him first. Keep all that shit there. I want assurance. You’re doing all of this shit when he can just kill you.”
“I’m sure I’ve proved my loyalty multiple times,” Darius answers.
“Yeah, well loyalty doesn’t seem to get far too much these days, now does it?” He glances at Matt.
“Calm down. We were going to do it anyway before we completed it. We’re not even halfway done.”
“Well, let’s do it now.”
“Fine,” Matt says as he rises to his feet. “Glad you found your balls again. And don’t think I don’t have a failsafe for something like this. I know the stakes are high. No magic required.”
“You plan to kill me?” Darius asks.
“Only if you try to kill us, first,” Matt responds.
Matt and Trevor reposition themselves to their original formation; both of the witches at each side of him. Matt starts off the chant, and Trevor goes along with it. Their hands glow red in tandem with their words and Darius’s body slightly jerks as if someone nudged him. The magic from their hands becomes visible and I see a stream of red energy run from his shoulders to the core of his body. And then, the light fades.
“It’s done,” Matt says. “Now, let’s get on with this.” He lowers himself back to the bowl. Now, where were we? Right. Trevor, I need you to help me with this one.”
“Got it.”
“And keep an eye out on Dracula, yeah?”
Matt begins to chant again, and Trevor places his hand on his shoulder like before, focusing his efforts on the jewel now submerged in the blood of Creshell Martin.
I have to do something, but I can’t. It’s not wise, they’re too powerful. Sitting on my hands sucks, but it’d be a wasted effort if I die or get turned here…and that’s not happening. As horrible as it sounds, I need them to complete the spell so I can have some wiggle room to work the floor.
“There,” Matt says with a sigh. He grabs the gem and then the golden cuff before standing. I maneuver over for a clearer view behind cover as I watch him as he inserts the ruby into the center of the bracelet. “And now we seal it. Grab the other end. You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Matt begins to chant again, but this time, something’s different. I can feel it in my gut; some deep primal fear telling me that what’s to come is bad news. I can feel it in my core.
What the hell is going on? Just how powerful are they?
As Matt continues to chant, his voice grows more aggressive. I inch up from my cover to line up my shot, but the infrastructure begins to tremble, which screws with my aim.
Damn it. I try to steady my arm, but the combination of the pulsing ground and magic-saturated atmosphere deters me from pulling the trigger. If I don’t kill them, they’ll kill me.
Instead of pulling the trigger, I return to cover and press my back against it as I focus on staying safe while crates and equipment begin to fall from the shelves and other structures inside the facility. The situation’s escalating pretty quickly and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I’m lucky Bernard didn’t spot me earlier…and that brings up another problem. Dealing with vampires on top of two psychics; I’m going to need a lot of stopping power and some grade “A” accuracy. I don’t want to risk close range against those two.
The rumbling’s short-lived and I hear the witches groan from exertion. More so Matt, than Trevor. Regardless, I have to move quick. I’m not going to get a better shot than this one.
“Okay…so now, put this on and we can make ou—”
I pop out from cover and my hand recoils from my Beretta as I let off a stream of shots. I manage to tag Matt twice in the bicep as he hands off the bracelet to Darius. He clutches his wound in reflex while my other bullets fly toward his friend and vampire pal. Trevor puts his hand up to redirect my shots, but he doesn’t make it in time. One of the bullets pierces through the center of his palm and he screams in agony as he falls to the floor. A few of my shots also manage to line Darius’s torso amidst their exchange.
“Bernard, quickly!” he yells as crimson leaks from his attire. He stumbles back and falls to one knee, the bracelet still in his grasp.
Shit.
A sudden burst of force pushes me off my feet and flings me back towards a wall. I shoot off balance but it seems to go wide and completely miss my target, leaving me vulnerable.
“
Should we he—”
“No, leave them.”
My pain sensors erupt as the back of my head jolts against the surface, momentarily disorienting me. Nothing like a telekinetic push to rattle your brain. I rise as quickly as I can to finish what I started, but I don’t rise quite as fast as I thought.
Darius is gone. Compliments to Bernard, his bitch. I hope I got him, too.
Tara had weakened Darius, but him being shot up wasn’t enough. If he wouldn’t have fed on her, it would’ve been a different story. I would have been able to kill him.
The thought of Roc bleeding out on the floor somewhere comes to mind, but I quickly push it away. If Roc did in fact die to Darius, I’ll find out soon enough, but first comes survival, then comes revenge. Darius was dead the moment he started working with witches. I already have a thing against vamps because of what they did to my family. If I lose Roc to vamps, too. There’ll be hell to pay. No doubt.
In a flash of rage, I shoot Matt again, this time in the back, killing him. He tried to run, it seems, but the adrenaline got the best of him. There’s a stream of blood leading up to the spot he fell. Turns out I got him in the leg, too. I wasn’t aiming that low, but it looks like Trevor fucked up and tagged his buddy on accident with a ricochet of my initial spray.
“Don’t move,” I say to Trevor. “Hands behind your head and stay where you are.” Trevor’s down, too, completely stunned, on the floor. I watch him as he shakily moves his hands and press them behind his head. I bet it hurts like hell having to put pressure on that wound of his.
Unfortunately for him, things are going to get a lot worse.
Chapter 12: Desperation
“Sucks being at someone else’s mercy, huh?” I stab into Trevor’s thigh and let his screams marinate the air. “Manipulating women to get them to sign over their life? How does that work exactly?” I slightly torque the blade embedded in his thigh and his body rumbles violently. “Creshell Martin and how many others?” I say as I step away from the chair I tied him to.
“Please,” Trevor slurs. “Please.” It’s impossible to feel sorry for him. He’s a monster, despite his human face and his sudden change of heart. He’s killed more than Creshell. Far more. He’s just like anyone else who’s done something unspeakable. He’s only sorry because he got caught. Sure, betraying his friends didn’t seem to be his bidding, but he made his choice when he chose to back up Matt and sealed Tara’s fate. If he wanted a clean conscience, he shouldn’t have dove into the occult. There really isn’t a way to pardon someone who willingly tricks people into signing their life away. As far as I’m concerned, he’s less than human in my eyes and there’s nothing he can say or do to change that.
I pull out my gun, press it to the front of his bicep, and pull the trigger. He wails in agony and writhes, but I watch him in silence.
“I hope you know I’m serious by now,” I finally say once he calms down. “I killed your friend, and it’s going to happen to you, too. Your level of cooperation determines how. As you probably figured out by now, you can’t use your abilities. I neutralized them…so it’s just you and me. No tricks. Only time. I want to know what all this shit is, from top to bottom, and you’re going to tell me. If not, you get to be one of the rare few who’s had their toes shot off, or anything else that would oddly suck and leave you gimped.” I smirk. “So what’cha got for me, Mr. Blood Mage? Don’t keep me waiting. If you can’t tell, I’m in a bad mood.”
Saving Trevor and ending Matt was a deliberate choice. Matt seemed to be the one who orchestrated the betrayal and had no problem doing what needs to be done. He was tough. He even backstabbed his allies for a shot at power. Trevor was different, though. He was flashy, arrogant, egotistical. I got that much from seeing him in the bar. Sure, he did his dirt, too. But when push came to shove, he relied on his allies as opposed to his own power, and even then, he was scared shitless by Darius.
He preyed upon the weak to feel strong. He’s a parasite with no backbone. I’ve dealt with his type before. They’re always quick to fold when the stakes are high and their backs are against a wall. If I were dealing with Matt, there’s a good chance he would have died before saying anything worthwhile—and with a smile.
“We…we were gathering the ingredients for a spell,” he forces out. “That’s why I killed her, but you’re the one who killed Woodrow, right?”
“Irrelevant,” I hiss. “But yeah, it was me. Picking her off was what led to eventually finding you.”
“Funny how that works.” Trevor snorts and a bit of blood dribbles down his lips.
“…You guys were trying to bring a powerful witch back from the dead. Through that same spell you were working on.”
“Yeah, and the Bracelet of Trascair.”
“The gold cuff that the vamp ran off with,” I respond, filling in the gaps. “In Woodrow’s notes, it was mentioned, but not much.”
“We didn’t even know it existed until Darius showed up. I didn’t like him. None of the other witches did, either. Couldn’t trust him. Vampires’ll do anything to get what they want.”
“You’re not that much different, if you haven’t figured it out yet. Do I need to remind you of what you’ve done? Apparently, your friend was worse. You know he was going to eventually kill you, right?” Trevor responds by letting the silence of the room fill the void. “You were slowing him down. You hesitated. Almost let the fire chick roast him. And of course, Darius and company. left you both to die as well. The people you’ve been running with haven’t exactly been good apples.”
“But it was worth it.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Who wouldn’t risk their lives to have power over death, itself?” he asks as if possessed by a wave of bravado. The way he says it strikes me to the core.
Sailor’s face flashes in my mind. Our memories. My family, too, and the life we shared. And then, Roc and the others I’ve lost along the way.
My head swirls from the weight of it all, but I quickly snap back to my senses, though the thought still lingers in the back of my mind.
“What can you tell me about Darius?” Trevor lifts his drooping head and smiles; that same sense of bravado flaring up again…like he’s titillated that he knows something that I don’t, despite his situation.
“He’s old. Strong. Terrifying. And he has the bracelet. He’s searched for it for years. Maybe a century. Maybe more. Can you imagine all the shit you can do with a bracelet that can revive the dead?”
“He can make an army.”
“Or just bring back the right people.”
“The right people? What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. That kind of talk is never a good thing. It almost always means something bad.
“I don’t know. We all had our tasks…before Matt double crossed everyone. Matt said Darius told him that, and nothing more. We really didn’t tell him much about our plans, either. Figured it didn’t matter. We planned on killing him, anyway.”
“But now he’s alive and in the wind, so anything you can give me will be a big help, unless you prefer to spend your final moments in agony.”
“Darius is a vampire from Kansas. Well, he’s not from there, but you get what I mean. He tracked down Woodrow and made the proposal. She enlisted us. Told us about the bracelet and that it wouldn’t be safe in his hands.” He grunts. “We were gonna use him to filter our spells, then kill him after we got what we wanted.”
“There’s a cost to using the bracelet,” I muse. I’d gathered that much from their conversations and connecting the dots. No reason to bring a vampire otherwise.
“Yeah, it draws from your life force…your soul. You won’t die, but it has its drawbacks. Nothing anyone would want for themselves. The soul is durable…elastic may even be a more suitable term. It can be manipulated, and each one has a tremendous source of renewable energy, if you use it right, but some things are harder to bounce back from than others.”
“So, if you were Darius, where would you b
e?” I ask, taking control of the conversation.
“I don’t know. Never asked. We barely talked. Matt probably knew…but you killed him. I just know that he showed up here because of the deal, but other than that, I don’t know. Couldn’t read his mind. He made sure of it. Darius isn’t dumb, and he has resources. You’re a hunter, right?” He smirks. “Do what it is you do best. Hunt. You guys have worked off of less, I’m sure.” I snarl and point my gun square in his face.
“Do I need to remind you why you’re here?”
“No. I remember. No need for that. No need for any of that, but if you’re going to stop Darius, there’s something you may need.”
I really hate how confident he’s become all the sudden. It’s starting to piss me off. “What?” I growl.
“Well, not something you need, necessarily, but it is something of interest.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
“Matt has it in his coat. The grimoire. If Darius gets his hands on it, no telling what he can do.”
“But didn’t you guys link with him or something?”
“Yes, but I’m sure he’ll be quick to make arrangements to nullify our spell. He’ll just reach out to someone else, like he did with us. It would take time…a lot of time, but he’s a vampire. Time is all he has. Matt told us that he’d add another layer to the spell…we each had our own parts, originally, but he took it upon himself to dig deeper. It’s encrypted.”
“Encrypted?”
“Added security. He did some digging and modified the link to include some things he picked up from reading. I thought he was being overzealous, but with what he had in mind, it makes sense. On top of that, we didn’t tell him, but there was also another spell involved that protected us. Made it so that he couldn’t harm us. It takes a lot of magic, but we pulled it off. A little added insurance doesn’t hurt, right?”
“A link and binding spell, a protection spell, and you still end up with the shit end of the stick.”
Blaze Monroe and the Shattered Heart: A Supernatural Thriller (The Hunter Who Lost His Way Book 2) Page 8
