A Wicked Power

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “I won’t do it.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” he said smartly, reaching for the iron bar once more.

  “I don’t care what you do to me but I am not going to be handed over to them. I would rather die.”

  Jon paused and met my gaze. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  I bit my tongue in an effort to keep from giving him a smart-ass reply. The thought of feeling the pain that tiny piece of iron could deliver was enough to stifle my typical responses.

  He sighed. “You will go to the fae whether you like it or not. Any kind of subordination will have consequences.”

  “Yeah I get it. You’ll use that thing on me. But I don’t care. I just told you I would rather die.”

  He shook his head. “Have you ever heard of a whipping boy?”

  I stared blankly at him. What the hell did an early European form of corporeal punishment for royalty have to do with me.

  “A whipping boy was typically someone used as a stand-in who would suffer the punishment intended for their royal counterpart. And while you are not royalty, it’s still a perfectly acceptable explanation for what will happen if you reject your duty. In this instance, I think Victoria would be a suitable whipping boy.”

  “Do you really think hurting her will go over all that well with the fae?”

  “Actually,” he said, with a smirk, “I think it will go over perfectly with them. Changelings are not welcome creatures in Faerie.”

  “She wouldn’t let you hurt her. She’s stronger than you think.”

  “And a collar will soon make her compliant.”

  I couldn’t see a way out of this. If I didn’t acquiesce, he would kill Victoria, I had no doubt about that. And if I did, then I would be at the mercy of the fae once more.

  “I’ll take my chances with the fae,” I said, quietly.

  “That’s a good girl.” The patronization in Jon’s voice set my teeth on edge and I curled my fingers into the palms of my hands to stop from lunging across the table and pounding his face into a fine paste.

  “I have one condition.”

  Jon quirked an eyebrow at me. “You’re not exactly in a position to bargain.”

  “No but I figure you’ll let me have this.”

  He steepled his fingers in front of his face. “What is it?”

  “I need a few hours to round up the locations of the preternaturals.”

  “You can do it here.”

  I shook my head. “No. I need my own supplies. If this is what you want then you need to let me do it my way.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Fine. I’ll give you two hours.”

  “Five.”

  “Three.”

  “Done.” I smiled sweetly at him but Jon didn’t smile back.

  As I got to my feet and headed for the door, the uncomfortable hum of the collar seemed to intensify.

  “Oh, and Amber?”

  I placed one hand on the door handle and turned to face Jon.

  “No matter where you go, so long as you are wearing the collar, I can reach you.” As though to emphasise his words he brushed the iron bar down the front of the poppet. Gritting my teeth, it took all of my strength just to stay on my feet but I managed it and when the pain dissipated, I gave him a tight smile.

  “I understand.” And it was true. So long as I was wearing the collar I was little more than his puppet. He could do whatever he wanted and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

  Pulling open the office door, I stepped out into the office. The few remaining Elite officers paused in whatever they were doing to watch me make my way to the exit. Every step I took, I could feel their gazes pressing against my skin as though they had reached out with their hands to touch me.

  How had he managed all of this in such a short amount of time? It seemed impossible and yet…

  Picking up my pace I practically started to run and the collar around my neck only seemed to grow heavier with every step I took.

  17

  Victoria’s answering machine picked up for the third time and I groaned in frustration. Why wasn’t she answering the goddamned phone?

  I parked the car haphazardly in front of my apartment building and climbed out as the beep sounded.

  “Victoria, where are you. I need you to call me. It’s urgent.”

  I hung up and immediately regretted leaving the message. Jon probably had our numbers tapped. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me. He seemed to have everything else tied up nice and neat.

  For what felt like the millionth time I adjusted the collar around my neck. It was radiating heat and my skin prickled with the discomfort of wearing it. Where had they gotten the collar from? And who the hell were the new Saga Venatione guys?

  Scrolling through the numbers in my phone I called Nic and listened as it rang out. What were they doing to him?

  Glancing down at the phone, I weighed up the pros and cons of calling Jason. He had left me to die the night before. But then again, he was the only other witch hunter I knew in town who might have some idea about what was going on. Doesn’t mean he has to tell you, the little voice in the back of my mind piped up.

  But what else did I have to lose?

  Dialing his number, I held my breath as I waited for him to answer. It seemed like an eternity but finally, the call picked up.

  “What do you want?” There was no mistaking the hostility in his voice.

  “I need your help.”

  Silence travelled down the line and I found myself checking to make sure he hadn’t actually hung up on me.

  “Jason, are you there?”

  “What do you need?”

  I filled him on the details as quickly as I could and he listened without saying a word. When I’d finished, he sucked in a deep breath. “Where are you now?”

  “At my apartment.”

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  The line went dead. Had calling him been the right choice? I needed answers; the kinds of answers I could only get from the witch-hunters themselves and yet… A feeling of trepidation washed over me. What if I was wrong? What if last night, when he’d locked me in that room, had been just the tip of the betrayal iceberg? What if he was now on his way over with a bunch of his friends and they were going to—

  I shook my head, forcing myself to draw in a deep calming breath. There was no point in allowing my mind to work overtime on this. He was on his way over and there was nothing I could do but wait and see how all of this panned out.

  Pushing open my apartment door, I was surprised to find the place still intact. At least Alastor and Lily hadn’t killed each other yet.

  However, the place was ominously silent as I dumped my bag on the floor and made my way into the living room.

  A noise from the bathroom caused me to freeze and cautiously I pulled my gun from its holster. At least Jon hadn’t thought to take that from me.

  “Hello?” I called out and the bathroom door flopped open to reveal Lily looking tired and panicked.

  “Where have you been? There’s something wrong with your demon and I didn’t know how to contact you.”

  “What do you mean something wrong with—” I glanced past her and caught sight of Alastor on the bathroom floor.

  Dark blood crusted around his nose and a trickle of dark fluid leaked from his black eyes. He shuddered and his human skin bulged and split as though there was something much larger and nastier inside trying to escape. Of course there was something larger and nastier inside him. He was a pure blood demon and the handsome blond haired stranger who had attacked me in my apartment that first night was not his true form.

  “How long has he been like this?” I asked, sliding my gun back into the holster and crossing to the bathroom.

  Lily absentmindedly scrubbed her hand over her forehead and into her dark hair, leaving a blackened smudge of Alastor’s blood on her face. “A while. It started shortly after you left. At first I thought he was joking around. You know, trying to
intimidate me. But he went into the bathroom and I heard a crash. When I came running in, he was already down.”

  I fingered the collar around my throat and Alastor groaned on the floor his black eyes rolling in his head as his spine bowed upwards. The sound of his skin rupturing set my teeth on edge and when I released the collar he dropped back down onto the rug.

  “I think it has something to do with this,” I said, gesturing to the metal ring around my throat.

  “What is it?” Lily leaned in toward me and then leaped backward, her back slamming into the door jamb as she scrambled to get away from me. “What the fuck? Why are you wearing that?”

  “You’ve seen one of these things before?”

  “Jason threatened to collar me in the prison if I didn’t behave but he never actually did it.” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Did he do this to you?”

  I shook my head. “No, my boss did it.”

  Lily stared at me for a moment before she erupted into laughter. “Oh this is too good,” she said between bouts of giggles. “You--little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes--gets collared by the Elite. This has made my day. It really has.”

  Biting back the resentment that threatened to spill out of me I waited for her to stop laughing before I continued.

  “This isn’t the only toy he has. He has some kind of iron bar with a star on the top of it.” I pulled down the neck of my T-shirt, exposing the burn mark in the centre of my chest.

  “Holy shit,” she said, eyeing it.

  “Something like that,” I said. “Jon says it belonged to the witch-hunters, that they used to use it on Shadow Sorcerers in the old days.”

  Lily chewed her lip. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Well count yourself lucky. That sucker packs a serious punch. When he used it on me, I went down hard and there was nothing I could do about it.”

  A soft knock on the front door made us both jump. Alastor squirmed on the floor and rolled onto his side before his body went limp.

  Bending down next to him, I pressed my fingers against his neck and searched for a pulse. It beat steadily beneath my touch and I let go of some of the tension I was carrying in my shoulders. Being unconscious was probably the best thing for him right now. As I pulled my hand away he shuddered, his skin sliding over his body as though it were made of something more fluid. It came to a juddering halt and he went still once more.

  If I couldn’t get the collar off, then he was going to die and if he died, then I was a goner too.

  Straightening up, I headed for the front door.

  “You’d better make yourself scarce,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure that’s Jason at the door.”

  Lily’s expression grew troubled and I left her in the bathroom with Alastor. Pulling open the front door, I found Jason looking shifty on the step. His arm was in a sling and his face was drawn and ashen.

  His gaze automatically went to the collar around my throat and I took a step forward as he reached out toward me.

  “Shit, Amber.” His fingers bumped against the brushed steel of the collar, sending a frisson of unpleasant energy tinkling through my body.

  “Don’t,” I said, drawing away from him. The collar was uncomfortable enough without him disturbing the energy of it.

  “It’s beginning to burn you,” he said, nodding in the direction of my throat but thankfully he heeded my request and didn’t reach out to touch the collar again. “The more power you posses the worse the symptoms. Can I come in?”

  I said nothing, just stepped aside to let him into the hall.

  “If I’d known this was going to happen, I would have—”

  “You would have what?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “Would you have warned me? Or would you have left me to die like you did last night.”

  “Last night was different. I couldn’t just agree to letting a known sorcerer out of the prison. They would have branded me a traitor.”

  “So leaving us to die in there was a better option?”

  He sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face. When he looked back at me once more, the dark circles under his eyes stood out in stark relief against his grey complexion. He looked as exhausted as I felt.

  “I knew you’d find a way out.”

  “Oh really,” I said, incapable of hiding the sarcasm in my voice. “Did you know Jon was planning this?”

  “No.”

  “Somehow I find that hard to believe when it was your witch hunter buddies who helped him get the collar on me in the first place.”

  I didn’t think it was possible but Jason’s face paled further. “There are others here in King city?”

  “Yeah, big burly bald dudes with a serious tattoo addiction. They damn near ripped my arm off just holding me down so Jon could get the collar on.”

  “Knights…”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re not just witch hunters like me, they’re what we call knights.”

  “And what’s so great about these knights?”

  “They’re stronger,” he said. “They dedicate their lives to the order and in return it gives them a power boost. For a while I thought maybe Nic was heading down the route but then you two seemed to be getting cozy again.”

  “Have you heard from Nic?”

  Jason shook his head. “No, but that’s nothing new; I’m the last person he would want to contact.”

  “I’m worried about him.”

  “You should be worried about yourself. You’re the one wearing a collar.” His eyes darkened as he stared at me and before I could stop him he’d caught the edge of my t-shirt and jerked the collar down.

  “Son of a bitch. He used the Star of Torment on you. I’m going to rip his head off and—”

  “I don’t need you to wade in there and make this worse, Jason. I need you to help me get it off. It’s killing Alastor and—”

  “So all of this--you calling me over here and asking for my help--was just to save your pet demon?” He sighed. “Typical, just bloody typical. I thought we were over all of this? I don’t care about what happens to demons or—”

  “Me?” I finished for him.

  “No, I care about what happens to you. I just—”

  “If he dies, then I die.”

  Jason fell silent and began to pace up and down the hall.

  “Come on, you know this is wrong. Jon plans to round up every preternatural in King City and do goddess knows what to them. Even if you don’t want to help Alastor, think about all of the innocents who are going to get hurt--or worse, killed--in this stupidity.”

  He stopped his pacing. “If I could help you get the collar off I would but there are two ways that thing comes off. Either you find someone strong enough magically to do it or—”

  “Or?”

  “Or we lop your head off and the collar will pop right off your neck.”

  Crossing to the couch, I slumped down into the seat. Things were definitely going from bad to worse.

  “If he hands me over to the fae and I’m wearing this...” I flicked the collar and a shudder raced over my skin.

  “Wait, you’re going to be the peace offering?” Jason’s eyes widened and he crouched down in front of me. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Sorry, among the million other things going wrong with my day, that part slipped my mind.”

  “You don’t need to get sarcastic with me, Amber. I’m trying to help.”

  Swallowing down the ball of self-pity building in the back of my throat I nodded. “What can you tell me about this meeting then?”

  “The fae are sending a party to negotiate over the peace treaty with the humans. The humans had promised to give a sign of good faith. A peace offering of sorts.”

  “And I’m it.”

  He nodded. “Aside from that I’ve been kept out of the loop on most things.”

  “What about the prison breach. Do you have any idea what my father wanted from the pit?”
r />   “Best we can tell, only one prisoner escaped from the pit. Thank God or this town would have a serious shit show on its hands.”

  “There was a strange man with him last night.” Jason cocked his head to the side and sat next to me on the couch. “After I shot the bear shifter, this guy came over and stared at me. I was trapped so I couldn’t move but when he approached me, I felt this kind of sickness. Like his very presence made me feel ill.”

  “Did he do anything else?”

  I scrunched my face up, struggling to remember what else the stranger had done but my brain refused to cooperate. “I don’t know. I think so…” Closing my eyes I fought to conjure the memory of the night before. The way he had smiled at me, his body covered in scars. “He whistled,” I said. “I don’t know what the tune was but he—”

  “He did what?” Jason’s voice was icy but I would have recognised the note of it fear in it anywhere.

  Opening my eyes, I met his gaze. “He whistled. He tried to touch me and I didn’t want him to, so I tried to set him alight. And then he started to whistle.”

  Jason shifted on the couch, turning his upped body completely toward me as he gripped my face gently in his large hands.

  “This is very important, Amber. Are you sure it was a whistle?”

  I struggled to free myself from his grip but despite the tenderness in his touch, his hands were vice like and I couldn’t shake free of his hold.

  “Let me go. Of course I’m sure he whistled. I’m not an idiot. He started to whistle and then my father called him away.”

  “And you don’t remember the tune?”

  “I think maybe it was—”

  Jason clamped a beefy hand over my mouth and I squeaked in protest.

  “Don’t. Don’t whistle it out loud. Don’t ever repeat the sound.” He sighed. “I’m going to let you go now but if you think I shouldn’t, then shake your head.”

  I glared up at him and he slowly removed his hand from my mouth.

  “What the hell was that about?” I asked, indignation causing my voice to rise. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Nearly,” he said. “From what you’re describing, Amber, your father released a creature called the Whistler.”