A scoff escaped me. “You buy into the story that vampires were created when God cursed Cain to forever drink blood after killing his brother, Abel? I don’t. If that were true, how come no vampire on earth has ever met Cain?”
“Perhaps because long ago, someone killed Cain and all those loyal to him,” Ashael nearly purred.
“We’re not here to debate the vampire creation story,” Vlad said shortly. “If your kind invented magic, then breaking any spell should be well within your purview, yes?”
The demon gave a careless shrug. “Perhaps.”
I narrowed my gaze. Ian had said that demons were always in the market for a profitable bargain. Did Ashael truly not know the answer? Or was he only acting unsure in order to increase our desperation and thus increase his fee? I’d seen that negotiation tactic before from my old carnie pawnbroker pal.
Vlad had seen it before, too. He smiled at Ashael as if this situation didn’t have life-or-death stakes. “Leila has a spell on her, as you have clearly seen. I want it broken. Can you do it, or do I take my embarrassment of riches, as Ian called them, elsewhere?”
Ashael rose, coming over to me. Vlad didn’t stop him when the demon reached for me, but his aura crackled with anger. Maybe that’s why the demon didn’t touch me. Instead, he ran his hand over the space right in front of me.
“This spell isn’t bound by an inanimate object like most are,” Ashael said. He sounded surprised, and a furrow appeared between his brows. “It’s bound to another person. I see both vampire and sorcerer traces here . . . no, wait. More than a sorcerer. The vampire you’re bound to is a necromancer.”
I stifled my gasp. We hadn’t told Ashael that. We hadn’t even told Ian that. How had the demon figured it out?
“Yes,” Vlad said, displaying none of the surprise I felt. “And as I said, I want the spell broken.”
Ashael dropped his hand and his eyes glittered red. He also lost his cool, debonair demeanor and suddenly seemed annoyed. “The only sure way to break this type of spell is to kill the necromancer who cast it.”
“We can’t,” Vlad replied tightly. “It would kill her, too.”
“That would also work,” the demon muttered.
Flames flashed all around Vlad, so sudden and quick, it was as if his aura had caught fire. Just as fast, those flames disappeared. “Are you mocking me?”
“Are you threatening me?” Ashael shot back.
The temperature on the roof spiked about thirty degrees, and the new heat wasn’t coming from Vlad. I tensed. The demon had said that fire was mother’s milk to his kind. What if Vlad wasn’t the only one on this roof who was pyrokinetic?
Ian stepped between them. “Come now,” he said in a cajoling way. “This situation could still make one of you very happy and the other very rich, so let’s save the violence for later, hmm?”
Vlad’s gaze never left the demon’s face. Ashael didn’t move, either, but the temperature began to drop back down to normal levels.
“You see how much this means to me,” Vlad finally said. “Is there truly no other way to break this spell?”
Ashael’s gaze gleamed. “There is one way . . .”
“No,” Ian interrupted. “Not that—”
Vlad’s hand shot out, crushing Ian’s throat to cut him off. “You were saying, Ashael?”
“A simple sale,” the demon replied in a much lighter tone. “Your soul in exchange for Leila’s freedom from the spell.”
“Fuck no,” I burst out, grabbing Vlad’s arm. “Don’t even think of it! I swear I will silver myself in the heart if you do. I mean it! You make that deal and I will take myself out, so you wouldn’t be saving me. You’d be guaranteeing my death!”
Fear had me sucking in breaths to get the words out before Vlad could agree to something so awful, and my grip on his arm was so fierce, I’d dug my fingers an inch into his flesh. “I mean it,” I said again.
Vlad let go of Ian, who garbled out, “’razy ungrateful ’astard . . .” as soon as he could speak. Then Vlad finally broke his staring contest with the demon, but I couldn’t read the look he gave me. Was that anger? Frustration? Amusement? All three?
“I wasn’t going to say yes, Leila. We’re not there yet.” When I opened my mouth at the ominous “yet,” he pressed a finger to my lips. “I heard your warning, and I believe you. Ashael,” he said, turning back to the demon. “If that’s all you have to offer, then I decline.”
“Are you certain?” Ashael said, his smooth tone deepening with promise. “You don’t know the power that such oaths unleash. I could have Leila freed before the next tick of the clock.”
“No means no,” I snapped, furious at his continued attempts to damn Vlad. “Go soul-scrounge somewhere else!”
The demon’s eyes flashed red again. “Scrounge?”
“That was rude,” Ian said, shooting an accusing look at me. “Not right for her to insult you simply because of your species. Would she criticize a lion because it eats gazelles? No, because it’s a bloody lion and eating gazelles is what they do, just like making soul contracts are what demons do.”
“The bigotry does get wearisome,” Ashael agreed. “And demons don’t scrounge, we negotiate. There’s a vast difference.”
I had so much to say to that, but I clamped my mouth shut. “If we’re done here?” Vlad said, trailing off with meaning.
Ian elbowed Ashael in a companionable way. “I doubt it. Since you can’t get the real prize you’re after, you’re going to drive up the monetary price on your services, aren’t you?” When the demon hesitated, Ian chortled. “Crafty bugger, I knew it! It’s why I so admire your kind. I’d tack on an insult surcharge, too. Teach her to mind her mouth.”
I stared at Ian in disbelief. “Whose side are you on?”
“Mine, always,” he replied, and the demon chuckled.
“Ah, Ian, if you didn’t have fangs, I’d swear you were one of ours.”
Ian bowed as if that were the highest compliment. Ashael chuckled again, then he regarded Vlad and me with a lot less humor. “As I said, without a soul contract, I don’t have the power to break her spell, and no other demon will, either.”
I could hear a grinding noise as Vlad’s jaw clenched. “Then we’re finished here,” he said, striding us toward the edge of the roof. “Ian, stay or leave, I don’t care.”
“Wait.”
The single word stopped Vlad from vaulting us over the roof’s edge, but it didn’t come from Ian. It came from Ashael.
Vlad turned, arching a brow. The demon’s smile was sharklike. “There might be one other way.”
“And that is?” Vlad prodded when Ashael didn’t go on.
The demon lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “Her magic.”
“Her who?” I asked, barely concealing my dismay at the thought of going on another magical wild-goose chase.
Ashael looked at me as if I were slow. “You.”
Chapter 17
“Me?” I said.
At the same time, Vlad ground out, “I am not amused,” in a tone that sounded like sharp-edged gravel.
Ashael let out an elegant snort. “Don’t play coy. When I drew forth your aura, I could see the magic in you, and it has nothing to do with that spell.”
Ian cast an interested look at me. “Hiding a big secret, were you, poppet? Naughty lass, and here I thought we had agreed to honesty all the way ’round.”
“I’m not hiding anything!” My arm flung out in Ashael’s direction. “He’s lying. I don’t have any magic.”
Another snort from the demon. “No, you just vibrate all over from electricity because you’re excited to see me.”
Oh, so he’d misunderstood. “That’s not magic; it’s a crazy side effect from touching a downed power line when I was thirteen.” That power line accident had given me my psychic abilities, too. Before it, I had been completely normal.
Ashael cocked his head, staring at me. “You didn’t know,” he finally said. “How curious. Di
d you, Impaler?”
I expected Vlad to say, Know what? in his usual annoyed, imperious manner. But he didn’t. Instead, Vlad looked at me in a way that made me take several steps backward.
“No,” I whispered. “You don’t believe this, do you?”
“I suspected,” he replied, shattering me. “No human ever came close to harnessing your level of abilities. It either had to be magic, or you had vampire blood somewhere in your lineage.”
Ashael grunted. “Not just magic; she’s a trueborn witch with an added benefit of legacy power. That’s as rare a combination for witches as Cain’s legacy is for vampires.”
I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But I’m not a witch. And even if way up in my family tree someone else might have been, how would you know?”
“The same way you know which color is yellow and which is red,” Ashael replied in a mild tone. “You were born with the ability to see and differentiate colors. I was born with the ability to see and differentiate magic from a person’s aura, whether that magic is infused by a spell, inherited, or other.”
It shouldn’t sound too incredible to be true. After all, I saw people’s worst sins if I touched them with my bare right hand. But I still couldn’t believe that the demon could just look at me and know more about me or my family than I did.
“How could Leila’s magic be used to break the spell?” Vlad asked, moving right along while I still grappled with disbelief.
Ashael came closer. Then he did that weird, feel-the-air-around-me thing again.
“Those with trueborn magic are rare. They didn’t used to be, but most trueborns were killed centuries ago in the great witch purges. Yet a trueborn with legacy magic is even rarer. I’ve only come across one other person with both. If memory serves, she was one of the Ani-kutani.”
I flinched, and Vlad noticed. “You’re familiar with what that means?” he asked me.
“I’m one quarter Cherokee,” I replied. Vlad’s look became pointed. Right, he knew a lot of history, but obviously not much Native American lore. “The Ani-kutani used to be a powerful Cherokee ruling priesthood. No one knows how long they reigned, but they were rumored to have been the ancient Appalachian mound builders. Legend says the Ani-kutani eventually became so corrupt and hated that their entire line was massacred by the Cherokee around the thirteenth century. To this day, most Cherokees still despise their memory.”
Ashael’s gaze gleamed. “Yet you are most likely a direct descendant from the Ani-kutani. That’s what you get when you leave annihilation to humans. Someone usually weakens and spares a baby.” He punctuated his criticism of humanity’s mercy with a contemptuous snort. “With all that incredible magic in your bloodline, you never noticed anything special about your family?”
I didn’t like the disdain in his tone, as if I wouldn’t have noticed if Mom was fond of pointy hats or rode around on brooms. “Unless you count the fact that Mom had a real talent for gardening, no, there was nothing unusual about her.”
“How did she die?” Ashael asked bluntly. “I’ll bet there was something unusual about that.”
My hand tingled as grief and self-blame caused electricity to surge into it. “Yeah. She tried to pull me off the power line I accidentally touched and it killed her.”
Satisfaction spread over the demon’s features. “Both you and your mother experienced the same deadly voltage, yet you lived and she died. Did you never wonder why?”
“Of course I did!” I snapped. “What’s your point?”
A thick brow arched. “Those with trueborn magic can use their inherited powers to enhance their abilities, but they still have to learn those abilities first. Yet legacy magic allows for an instant transfer of fully functional power.”
“What does any of this have to do with my mother’s death?” I asked impatiently.
Ashael passed his hand in front of me again. Now I knew what he was doing. He was drawing upon my aura to see the different types of magic hidden beneath it.
“It’s called legacy magic because it’s passed from one relative to another. It also changes according to the needs of the person who receives it. You’re a trueborn witch, but that wouldn’t have saved you when you touched that power line. Only a sudden, incredible infusion of magic would. Your mother must have willed her legacy magic into you that day. When she did, it not only saved your life—it also transformed all the deadly voltage you’d absorbed into a functioning part of you.”
I stared at him. As fast as I could reject what he was saying, it also made sense. Doctors had never been able to explain why I’d lived and my mother had died when we’d both been exposed to the same lethal currents. In fact, I’d been exposed to them longer than her. I had been stuck to that power line for a couple minutes before all the sparks shooting from me alerted my mom to something horrible going on in the backyard. Yet not only had I survived, I’d also kept all my brain functions and eventually regained full mobility, two things all my doctors had said were impossible at the beginning.
Since then, I couldn’t count the times I’d wondered why, why had I lived but Mom had died? I’d also endlessly wondered why I had woken up from that horrible accident with freakish new voltage running through me and even more frightening visions of other people’s sins. Now, at last, it looked like I had those answers, and only years of hardening myself from various pains kept me from breaking into sobs.
I’d always felt responsible for my mother’s death because we wouldn’t have been in that storm-prone state if I hadn’t told her about my dad cheating on her. I’d also blamed myself because Mom wouldn’t have died if I’d stayed inside the house after that storm instead of trying to rescue a dog from what I assumed was only downed tree branches. Now, I knew it went much deeper.
Mom hadn’t grabbed me out of mindless panic when she saw me stuck to that power line, as everyone had always believed. If the demon was correct, then she’d put her hands on me in order to transfer her legacy magic into me. If she was thinking that clearly, she would have known that touching me while I was stuck to the power line would kill her, but she made a deliberate choice to give her life for mine.
I wanted to fall onto her grave weeping in awe at her courage and self-sacrifice while also yelling at her for doing it. I wanted to ask why she had never told me about trueborn magic or legacies or anything else I’d just learned from this smug demon, and why she hadn’t told my father, either. He sure as hell hadn’t known, not with how he’d freaked over the discovery of vampires, and Gretchen hadn’t known. If my aunt had, then she’d taken her secrets to the grave a few years ago.
I was startled away from those thoughts when Vlad’s aura flared. It didn’t feel like its usual blast of energy. Instead, it curled around me like a warm, tingling cloud, enveloping me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. It was as personal as a loving embrace without him moving a muscle, and I knew why he did it when he spoke.
“Get to the point, Ashael. While interesting, none of what you’ve told us gives any indication how Leila’s magic might be used to break the spell on her.”
The brusque words would have stung if I wasn’t still wrapped inside the cocoon of his aura. How like Vlad to sound like an uncaring prick even while secretly comforting me.
Ashael smiled. “I told you those other things for free but that, Impaler, is going to cost you.”
“How much?” Vlad asked flatly.
Ashael tilted his head, his smile turning knowing. “I’m not negotiating with you today. You’re not nearly motivated enough. Besides, you only half believe what I’ve already said. Go, verify the rest of it, and we’ll talk price after that.”
Now Vlad’s aura flared with such anger that the former comforting embrace changed into the sting of a thousand tiny, invisible whips. The demon waved a dismissive hand, making it worse, but before Vlad could even speak, Ashael disappeared.
I was still blinking at the empty space in front of me when Vlad began to storm around the roof.
“Don’t bother searching for him,” Ian said. “Demons love their vanishing acts, and remember; no one can find Ashael by looking.”
“Then I’ll summon him,” Vlad all but snarled.
Ian grunted. “You can summon him all night and all day, but if he doesn’t want to talk to you, you’ll be wasting your time.”
Vlad continued to pace in long, angry strides. My head felt like it was about to explode from everything I’d learned, which was why I was mildly surprised to hear myself say, “So let’s do it,” in a very calm tone.
Vlad stopped pacing. “Do what?”
“Find out if Ashael is right about me.” I let out a short laugh. “I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to take a demon at his word. With some digging, we can find out if any of my mother’s family is still alive. If they are, maybe we’ll be lucky and one of them will know about this magic legacy thing.”
“And if you’re very, very lucky,” Ian chimed in, “that same person might also know the possible spell-breaking information that Ashael intends to charge you so handsomely for.”
Vlad gave Ian a level look. “You don’t truly believe that.”
“I don’t,” Ian agreed with a laugh. “But I’ve been wrong before. Think it was on a Tuesday.”
Chapter 18
My mother hadn’t spoken much about her Cherokee heritage. Neither had my aunt Brenda. I knew that Mom and Aunt Brenda had spent their childhood on the Cherokee Indian land trust in North Carolina, but that was about it. Not that I’d shown much interest in finding out more. As a child, all I’d been interested in was gymnastics. I’d trained obsessively, winning competition after competition until I finally had a chance at making the U.S. Olympic team.
Then, after the power line accident, all I could focus on was how my life had been blasted apart. Mom was dead, Dad was emotionally distant, and in addition to terrifying new psychic visions, I had also become a walking live wire. Fast forward six hellish years to my becoming a carnie with my now-best-friend and father figure, Marty, and I’d spent exactly zero time dwelling on my Native American heritage.
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