Blood King (Spirit Seeker Book 1)

by Amber K. Bryant

  She floated towards the door, ready to slide through it. “Take me to my husband. Now.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The air still smelled faintly of Peter’s sage smudging ritual. Devin sat on the Esmond’s couch trying to let the aroma soothe him as he contemplated the shit show he’d somehow become a part of. He couldn’t believe he was going back to the Low less than a day after he’d fled the damned place in fear for his life. If it was up to him, he would never return, and he certainly wouldn’t contemplate bringing Sybille there. Elis, on the other hand… Devin was perfectly willing to throw that guy to the wolves. The monsters of the Low were Elis’ kind of evil, anyways. It would be fitting to make him figure out what was going on. Meanwhile, Devin and Sybille could sit back, drinking a Johnny Walker Red neat (for him) and a triple espresso made from magic rainforest-preserving beans (for her) somewhere well away from the Low’s reach. It’s not like they’d miss him if he died attempting to solve their little mystery.

  Well, Devin wouldn’t, at least.

  Regrettably, Elis wouldn’t be traveling to the Low all by himself. That dream had died for Devin as soon as Sybille declared she would be leading their little expedition into hell that very night. The Low was a dangerous place for her under normal circumstances. Factor in the Blood King, a drug ring, and an environment increasingly hostile to people like her, then top it all off with that craptastic vision of hers—they were just asking for trouble. Sybille was not to be swayed, however.

  “How else are we supposed to figure this out, Devin? Do you have a better plan?”

  “Wait here for Nathanial Atkins to figure out where we are. At least we’ll be on our own turf, he’ll be out of his comfort zone, and your vision won’t have a chance to come true. I’d call that a better plan.”

  Sybille wasn’t having it. “Do you seriously want him to find out where I live? Just down the road from Zareen and her kids, in a neighborhood filled with innocent people? We can’t let him have the upper hand like that, home turf or not. We have to go in, Devin. I have to go.”

  “She’s right. As much as I’d like to avoid the Low, we need answers that can only be gotten there.” Elis had slipped inside the front door in time to hear their conversation. He sauntered over to them, dropping a duffle bag on the coffee table. Inside were a few items he’d gathered from his house in case they needed to remain in the Low for a few days. “You know, I’ve always stayed away from that place. Newer bloodthirsters aren’t my thing, though I do envy them for designing such a perfect environment in which to attract willing donors.”

  “I’d hardly call them willing.” Devin zipped up his own pack, stood and slung it over his shoulder. “Would you say a woman given date rape drugs was willing?”

  “Of course not!” Elis held his hands up, a look of genuine befuddlement on his face, like he couldn’t believe Devin of all people had been able to call him out on his own assholery. His eyes shifted to Sybille and then back to Devin, who did his best to look like he wasn’t happy as hell that Elis had unintentionally showed his amoral side. “That was the old Elis talking. The Elis without a soul. Current Elis thinks the Low thirsters are a sick bunch, of course.”

  “Whatever, man.”

  “Cut it out, both of you.” Sybille buttoned her jacket and pulled a blue knitted alpaca hat down over her ears. “I knew boys like you back in middle school. They kind of sucked. In fact, middle school all around sucked for me. Stop reminding me of it with your senseless bickering.”

  “Middle school was not a thing that existed when I was young. You realize I’m three hundred and forty-nine years old.” Elis picked at a loose thread on his bag.

  “Start acting it then.” She hesitated. “Or act like you’re in your mid-one hundred-twenties, at least. A mature mid-one hundred-twenties.”

  “We’ve got food for the road,” Uncle Peter called from the kitchen. After waking from their all-day naps, both he and her mother had begrudgingly agreed with Sybille’s assessment: the three of them—Sybille, Devin and Elis—should head to the family cabin in the Low tonight and start figuring out first thing in the morning what was happening there.

  Peter and Margot wandered out of the kitchen now, Margot continuing the feeble protests she’d carried on most of the evening. “Darling, I know it might be necessary for you to go to that dreadful place, but I am worried about you. After the possession, well…and the Low is such an unseemly corner of the world for people like us. I’d feel better if you stayed home.” Margot futzed with the collar of Sybille’s jacket as though she was a preschooler.

  “So, you’ll go in my place? You and Uncle Peter?”

  Her face fell. “Honey, we would never be able to figure all of this out. We aren’t like you. Oh, I wish we were, you know I do, but we simply aren’t. I hate the sacrifice you must make for this family, and if I could lift that burden from your shoulders, I would, but the Universe blessed you, Sybie, and with that blessing comes a responsibility which can’t be redistributed. You know how sorry I am.”

  Of course, she was. She always was, but that hardly changed anything. And in this case, Sybille wouldn’t have let them go in her place. In a way, her mother was right. No one else was quite as qualified as she was to deal with this situation. Maybe Zareen, but she had the kids to think about. What did Sybille have? She looked at the two men staring each other down and sighed.

  She had both more and less than what she wanted.

  Her uncle handed her a small cooler filled with iced tea, cheese, and four different kinds of cold cuts. Sybille kissed him on the cheek. “Keep Nate out of trouble while we’re gone, okay?”

  Poor Nate. He really was sweet, when he wasn’t possessing her. It wasn’t his fault his bloodthirster was so fucked up. If they didn’t find a way to destroy the Blood King, Nate might be staring at lace tablecloths until the sun went supernova.

  She took the basket her mother offered her and peeked inside. It was filled with muffins, sandwich breads, and various assorted carbs. “You do remember there’s only two of us who can eat all of this, right?” She breathed in the yeasty, gluten-rich goodness. One thing that could be said of Margot and Peter—they’d never let Sybille starve. She latched the basket closed and turned towards the front door.

  “Come on boys, let’s get going. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

  Elis shouldn’t be letting the human drive. His vision was better at night, his reflexes quicker. Devin insisted, however, and Sybille backed him up before Elis was able to mesmerize the weakling into giving him the keys. He’d settled into the cramped back seat of Devin’s truck where he could stare daggers into the back of the man’s head.

  In all honesty, Devin wasn’t so bad for a human. He was resourceful, he was of moderate intelligence, and Sybille thought highly of him.

  Too highly.

  That was it, then, the reason Devin annoyed him so much. It burned him that he could be petty enough to become involved in a human love triangle, if that’s what this was. How was it that he was thinking of Devin as competition? It was pathetic.

  Elis had chosen Sybille. Clearly, she was into him too. But she had known Devin longer than she’d known him and there was a connection between them Elis couldn’t just write off. He’d thought about killing and eating Devin when Sybille wasn’t looking, but his spirit half had been quite insistent that that was not an appropriate solution to this problem. It was wrong and he knew it. Plus, if Sybille believed any harm had come to Devin at Elis’ hand, she’d never consent to what he wanted her to.

  On this point, he was insistent: Sybille must give her consent. He wouldn’t turn her by force. That’s the sort of thing a soulless thirster would do. It’s what had been done to Juliana and it’s what she had done to him. He wasn’t like that; he would never be like that. Never.

  Elis was an enlightened bloodthirster. Or as close to one as the world was ever going to see. He wouldn’t turn her unless she let him, so it was simply a matter of convincing her. I
t would take time, of course. He wasn’t going to rush it, but it would be at the back of his mind, waiting to whittle its way out to the front of his mind when the time was right.

  Heading to a bloodthirster haven to confront an immortal drug kingpin was probably not the right time.

  It rained gently the whole way. Sybille and Devin chatted about inconsequential human things while they slowly made their way towards the Low, a damp breeze and the scent of fallen leaves permeating the truck’s cab through its cracked windows.

  Devin gave them both progress reports as they went along. “About an hour out. Almost there—five miles or so from the Low’s border. Here we are, Sybille…Sybille?”

  Elis jerked awake at the sound of Devin’s panicked voice. He immediately reached for Sybille, shaking her arm.

  “What’s wrong with her? Dammit, there’s no shoulder on this road, I can’t pull over!” Devin shot his gaze back and forth between Sybille and the road. “Her eyes are open. Why isn’t she responding?”

  “I don’t know.” Elis scooted as close to her seat as he could get and gently turned her face towards him. “Sybille.”

  He patted her cheeks. She was immune to his hypnotic abilities, but perhaps his voice would still have some effect on her. “Sybille, come back. Wherever you are, we need you here with us. Come back.”

  As though she’d been drowning, Sybille’s body shook and she took in a strained, choking breath. All the time he’d spent with her and this was the first moment he’d ever seen her look truly scared.

  “That’s it. Breathe, breathe. Easy now, love.”

  “Is she okay? What’s going on? Is she breathing?”

  “You can hear her, can’t you?” He stroked her hair. “That’s it, that’s it.”

  Her eyes closed, then opened, then closed again. “God dammit,” she whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “My mother.” She caught Elis’ hand and stilled it as he pressed it against her face. “She was right. The Low is no place for our kind.”

  It had started as soon as they’d crossed into the Low. Most people wouldn’t have noticed anything, but Sybille wasn’t most people and she noticed everything. It was a pull—that was the best way to describe it. Something or someone was pulling on her as though she was a chunk of space debris being drawn into the planet’s orbit. She knew how that would end. The debris would be sucked closer and closer until it burnt up in the atmosphere.

  That was how it felt. She was being pulled by something that wanted her, something that welcomed her, but it would kill her if she let herself be taken by it. It would use her and then discard her. She would burn and burn as she fell to Earth. Even the ash would dissipate, floating away on the slightest wind until there was nothing left of her to reach the ground.

  To Sybille, she’d experienced this horrendous pull and nothing more. To her traveling companions, it had been something much more startling. Elis described it as a trance. It had taken Elis and his charming, ancient thirster voice to bring her back.

  “That was scary and fucked up, Sybille,” Devin said as they continued towards their destination. “Do not do that again, okay?”

  “Yeah, well…” she replied noncommittally. It must have been lack of sleep. In the past thirty hours or so, she’d been possessed by a violent spirit, gotten burned in more ways than one, glimpsed into a potentially deadly future, and had put up with well-meaning but pain in the ass friends and family. And now some unseen force wanted to kidnap her, snatching her consciousness from her body so that it could do who knows what with it.

  She was exhausted, and that meant her resistance was down. This was not the right place for her to be off her game. “How far are we from the cabin?”

  Devin squinted at the darkened road. “We’ll be there in ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Can you hold out that long?”

  “I guess I’ll have to.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence, Elis’ hand pressing her shoulder every few seconds to remind her that this place—right here, right now—with these two troublesome, troubled, troubling men was where she needed to stay.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sybille collapsed onto a cot next to the fireplace, letting Elis drape an old moth-eaten army blanket over her while Devin brought the fire to a roar. The Low’s influence barely registered within the cabin’s walls, though it had been pressing against her right up until the moment she’d crossed its threshold. The sudden lack of a struggle was as relaxing as a thousand cups of chamomile tea. As soon as she was horizontal, it became impossible to keep her eyes open.

  Uncle Peter deserved the credit for the cabin’s haven-like feel. During his days as a field agent, he traveled to the Low as often as Devin did now. The only way he could handle its strange pull was by creating a space that would repel it. Lucky for her, his powerful charms hadn’t diminished over time.

  When Sybille was in her teens, Peter had had enough of the Low’s torments. He and Margot found a string of hired help to do their slaying for them. This revolving door of field agents swung around for years until Devin finally came along. Sybille was sure he didn’t stay because of the meager amount her family paid him or because it put his life in danger. She refused to think about the real reason he remained. By her side. Whenever she needed him.

  Sybille refused to think about anything. Even thoughts of Peter’s shadowy past dwindled quickly once the cabin had surrounded her in its magical embrace. Thoughts were overrated. Soon, there was only the scratchy blanket tucked beneath her chin and the slowly growing warmth of the hearth.

  Sybille was safe, for now. She stopped forcing her eyes open and let herself rest, thankful that between Peter’s spells, Devin’s loyalty, and Elis’ intuition, she could let go for just a few hours.

  What in the blasted hell?

  “You have got to be kidding me. Elis, what are you doing here?”

  Elis looked around. He could have sworn he was at the Esmond’s cabin in the Low last time he checked, but now he was in an alpine valley on the sunny side of a mountain. Birds twittered to each other from nearby trees. Sybille stood before him dressed in a tank top, shorts, and hiking boots, a faded green canvas backpack slung over her shoulders. She carried a walking stick in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

  He turned around again trying to make sense of everything. “I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

  Sybille pointed her walking stick at him and tapped him in the shin. “You’re in my mind, asshole. You’re asleep and your stupid roaming spirit decided it wasn’t spending enough time with me during our waking hours, so it came and invaded my dream. My dream. Dammit.” She turned around and started walking away. “You are going to be in so much trouble with me when I wake up.”

  “Look, it’s not like I did it on purpose.” He jogged to catch up with her. “It just happened.”

  “Nothing just happens with you, Elis. You must have been thinking about me while you were falling asleep.” She turned and stared at him. He couldn’t help the wave of heat rushing over the surface of his skin.

  Sybille scowled. “Ugh, you were! There you go again, blushing. That’s your tell, you know.”

  “Is it so awful that I would be thinking about you?”

  “No. Yes.” She shifted the weight of her pack and sighed. “I don’t know, okay? What I do know is that I needed a break—a total break from everything in my waking life. You are part of that waking life. Here you are, though.”

  “Here I am. Just you, me, and the mountain.”

  “Stop smiling like that. You already know you can’t mesmerize me.”

  “No, but I can charm you in the more traditional sense of the word, can’t I?” His smile fell. “I can, can’t I?”

  She turned and walked away again. “Go have your own dream, Elis. Maybe I’ll join you there later. Maybe I won’t. Don’t wait up.”

  “A little late for that!” He watched her hike along the trail until it twisted to the left and she was los
t among the spindly pines. Sniffing the air, he tried to make out the warm, tingling scent of cinnamon that always accompanied her, but it had faded away just as she had. He could run after her. He wanted to, but it was best not to push Sybille Esmond. He knew when to do as he’d been told.

  Elis headed away from Sybille, down the mountainside. The trail weaved along a river heavy with water from the mountain’s thawing snowcaps. He followed it until it weaved past the shaded woods and instead abutted a wide sandy beach, finally merging with the ocean. Calm blue waters sparkled in a bay under clear skies. He turned around hoping to see Sybille’s dark twist of hair bobbing down the path behind him, but the mountain, the pine trees, even the trail itself—all of it was gone. Instead, there were rows of palm trees and a tiki shack with a sign on it that read “help yourself.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  In the shack, Elis found a tiny fridge and searched its contents for the one thing he wanted, but there was no blood, only cans of pop and a bottle of margarita mix. He took the latter out, found the tequila and triple sec behind the bar and got to mixing. Strange. He’d never had a margarita. He didn’t even know he knew how to make one, but there he was doing just that.

  The glasses on the counter were already rimmed with salt. Lime wedges sat in a tray off to the side. He poured his concoction, squeezed in some lime and brought the glass to his lips. Sweet and sour flavors danced on his tongue. It had been too long since he’d tasted anything like this.

  “I hope you made enough for both of us.”