“I known, son.” Reuben patted his hand gently. “I’ll do everything I can. In the meantime, don’t do anything rash. Head home and fill your mother in on the details.”
“Rash? You think I can just sit around and do nothing when Ashley’s been taken who know where, for we can only imagine what purpose? If you think I’m going to sit around and do nothing—”
“That’s precisely what you’re going to do. We already have people looking into the disappearances.”
“And how’s that working out?” he snapped. “Last I heard, you’re running into dead end after dead end.”
“But we have something we didn’t have before, a crime scene. We don’t even know if it’s the same people. They’re been careful before, but leaving her bike was careless. You getting here when you did could be the only reason we have what we do. But there’s nothing more you can do here. Let me do my job.” Conrad couldn’t help but notice that, despite the assurances that they would do all they could, his father never once said they’d get her back, and he saw a shadow in his father’s eyes he’d never seen before.
When Conrad stepped out of the car, he saw Tess and Jack straighten, their pale faces looking washed out against the glow of the emergency lights. Someone must have told them he was being interviewed, because they had been waiting for him, their hurried footsteps closing the gap at speed. Their expressions of concern and fear were no doubt a mirror of his own.
“Conrad, thank goodness! No one would tell us what happened.” Tess pulled him into a quick embrace, her gaze drifting towards the bike currently being examined. “What’s going on?”
“Not here, there’s too many ears. But just answer me one thing. You knew she was in trouble, didn’t you? That’s why you called.” Tess nodded. “You’ve been tracking her using her watch.”
“Yes. I knew something was wrong. The notification came on that she’d left work. When it didn’t dismiss, I checked her data. I was hoping she’d just lost it. I gave it her so I could check on her, especially with everything that’s been going on and the insane hours she was working.”
“Tess, you have a spare key to Ashley’s. Can we head over to her place? There’s still a chance to get a lead.” Conrad glanced around, ensuring no one was close enough to overhear. “If Liam is how they discovered her, then our best hope is that he doesn’t know what’s happened and we get answers.”
“Who’s Liam?” questioned Jack and Tess almost in unison.
“I’ll explain everything on the way.”
Ashley’s small house stood bathed in an oppressive blanket of darkness. While it still looked like the same place where they had shared movies and created fond memories, it somehow seemed darker. It was a place no longer filled with laughter and friendship. Devoid of their friend’s presence, the charming, ramshackle property in need of a few touch-ups had morphed into a broken shell, cold, rundown and abandoned.
When Tess had opened the door, he had stood for a moment upon the threshold, savouring the lingering scent of her clothes and hair. The drink he had brought her just last night still sat abandoned on the small coffee table, awaiting her return. He stepped inside, plucking it from its place and swilling it in the kitchen sink. He had decided it no longer mattered who knew what Ashley was, what she was capable of. She was already in the worst imaginable danger and so, as he pottered around, returning things to their places, tidying her home just a little for when she returned—because she would be coming home—he told them everything. Every single detail. Including about Liam.
“I can’t believe all that has been happening under our noses, but I knew something was off.” Jack sighed as Tess dropped heavily onto Ashley’s sofa.
“What do you mean?” Tess questioned, shifting slightly to remove the headphones she had managed to sit on.
She tossed them on the table, where Conrad scooped them up, wrapping them tidily. He sat for a moment, before finding something else that needed his attention. The fragrances he associated with her were everywhere, reminding him of how he had failed to protect her. If only he had ridden to meet her like he wanted to; but he had been grateful for the extra few minutes to decide exactly what he was going to say, and now he may never get the chance.
“That day Will said he saw her come out of a Taphouse, it didn’t sit right, and I drew this.” Jack tossed his open sketch book onto the table.
“What’s that?” Conrad lifted the book, his gaze lingering on the black charcoal figure before being drawn to the adjoining page, which showed a discarded bike on the pavement. He stood in silence for a moment, flicking through the sketches, a frown creasing his brow. “What are these?”
“Pictures, images I’ve seen. I can link most of them to things that have happened,” Jack confessed. He glanced to Tess. “I told you my nana said we’re from a family of Seers. I think that’s what these are. I’ve been seeing.” He raised his fingers, drawing air quotes around the final word.
“You drew these?”
Jack nodded as Conrad flicked to the beginning of the book. “Tombs and gasoline?”
“That’s one of the few I can’t figure out.”
“I think this was about Ashley. After she was bitten, she was going to seal herself in a tomb and incinerate it, rather than live as a vampire,” Conrad disclosed, his grip tightening on the book as he turned the page to the picture of the bandstand. “She told me the night she stayed at mine, but when my mum uncovered what she did about her, the plan changed.” He flicked to another image, a carving of Medusa, her neck being pierced by Perseus’s swor, bordered on one side by shadow.
“I think we have other problems too,” Tess warned, glancing up from her device. “I just checked Ashley’s historical location data. Given everything you told us, it seems obvious, but I wanted to make sure, she’s never been near a Taphouse. So why would Will say she had?”
“He had to know more than he let on. We should get him here. Maybe he knows who this Liam guy is. After all, he has been cosying up to the vamps lately.”
Chapter 11
Darkness enveloped Ashley, her eyelids refusing her demands to open despite the rising dread that surged through her. Her mouth felt dry, lacking the saliva needed to ease the unpleasant taste in the back of her throat. Mind racing, she tried to reconstruct her last few hours. She had been on her bike, that much she remembered, but everything else was a little hazy. She probed her memories for answers, wondering if she’s been in an accident, but then, when she heard the voice, a cold dread sped through her and everything came flooding back in a nauseating realisation.
“Assign her designation FAB-EB98V.” The voice seemed to echo in her ears, the sound bringing some awareness to her body. She could feel a cold breeze upon her and her finger finally twitched in response to her attempts to move. She tried again, relieved when this time her finger obeyed with only minimal delay.
“What’s her poison?” asked someone to her left. A strange heat swelled within her. The room, even through closed eyes, felt as if it were in motion. Moving her head to the side she vomited, flinching as a cool cloth wiped the mouthful of bile from her skin.
“With a purity like that, none. We’ll get her listed on the Black Card Menu tonight. When Devon told the master he had something special, I never expected this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen figures this high. It must have something to do with the Elder blood.”
On hearing this, panic consumed her and her arm jerked, hoping to connect with her kidnapper, except, for all her effort, it didn’t move far. The movement caused pressure around her midriff to increase, returning the waves of nausea. She jerked again, still gaining no leverage, this time feeling the sharp bite of tight leather around her wrists and elbow, pinning her arms to her side. “Looks like she’s coming round. I thought you said she’d be out for hours,” scolded the voice.
“She should have been.”
“Not to worry, she’s not going anywhere. Those bindings have held shifters far larger than her.” Ashley hear
d herself whimper as a firm hand grasped her face, turning her head from side to side as if studying her. “The Elites will be fighting over themselves for this one. We’ll exhaust her tonight, that’s for sure. I don’t think she’ll cause us much trouble after that.”
“What do you think he’ll want to do with her?”
“Could go either way. If we treat this one right, we could keep her on tap for years before we see any degradation of quality. We’d have to cycle the houses, of course. But there’s always the chance he’ll sell her on. Depends on how tonight goes.”
The voices began to fade, as if whoever was in the room with her was leaving. She tried to pry open her eyes, once more finding them unresponsive.
“You think there’s something worth bidding on, aside from the purity?” At his words, she felt herself stiffen, knowing, for the moment at least, they had not uncovered all her secrets. She had to make sure that remained true. She needed a plan, an escape. But first, she needed to regain something more than just the sporadic control of her arms.
“I can’t tell. But that charm she’s wearing nearly turned my hand to cinders, and the only reason someone would wear something like that is if they needed to hide.”
Finally finding her voice, Ashley screamed, crying out for help, hoping someone, somewhere would hear her. It was a short-lived sound, countered by the paralysing charge that ripped through her body and plunged her back into the dark abyss.
Will pounded on Ashley’s front door, each strike seeming more urgent than the last. When he had received the emergency notification from Tess asking him to come to Ashley’s house immediately, he knew something was wrong. After being let inside, Tess filled him in on her disappearance and all of a sudden the room felt suffocating.
“What do you mean, Ash was abducted?” Will paced, pushing his hand through his honey-coloured hair in distress. This was his fault, it had to be. Or maybe someone had been watching her, waiting for an opportunity to strike. But if that had been the case, then he would have noticed. After all, he had spent many a night lurking in her garden, waiting for his visit.
“They only found her bike, her chip has been disabled. The Blue Coats say it matches the MO of the other abductions.” Tess’s voice was filled with panic, and the way she sat huddled close to Jack, his arm around her, showed the extent of her distress. “They even had the sense to remove the watch I gave her.” She sniffed, barely holding herself together.
“What can I do?” Will sat for a second before rising once more and pacing. “Shit, this is all my fault.” His hand passed through his hair again.
“What do you mean, your fault?” Conrad demanded. Turning towards him, Will was overcome by the intense glare being levelled at him. Tugging his collar, he turned away before removing his light jacket. It was really getting hot, and he was certain he wasn’t the only one to notice.
“I had to take out a loan for protection for my gran. I was struggling to make the payments so I started going to the Taphouse more often,” he began, knowing there was nothing for this situation but the truth, no matter how shameful. It could be their only chance of finding Ashley. “I was working my way back through the park. I was exhausted. My final letting put me back to Tapped-out but I’d barely reached their threshold, anyway. I remembered what one of the servers said about getting a boost if I ingested some blood.” It was a partial lie, but Will was about to confess his greatest sin. They didn’t need to know everything.
“Everyone knows that only works for other preternaturals,” Jack interjected.
“But technically he is one, he’s a healer,” Tess deduced. “It just never manifested in your dad.”
Will nodded, tugging his t-shirt as sweat began to prickle his upper lip. “What’s that got to do with—”
Will felt his head snap back and Jack’s voice sounded muted as a fist connected with his jaw just seconds before another strike followed, driving him into the wall, where the only thing he could do was raise his arms to shield himself while Conrad lashed out verbally, each word punctuated with another crippling blow that stole the breath from his lungs and sent swarms of darkness across his vision. Blood poured from his nose, each twisted expression of pain causing his swollen lip to split further. The devastating blows kept coming, pummelling his torso and the arms he barely managed to raise to shield himself. The agony of every strike jolted through his body and he continued to scream even when the pressure abated. With his legs too weak to hold him, he slid down the wall as the pressure pinning him there abated and, through his defensively raised arms, he saw Tess and Jack wrestling Conrad away, his eyes maddened with vicious hatred, the like of which he had never seen before.
“Conrad, what the hell?” demanded Tess, the strain in her voice revealing the effort it was taking to restrain him. Will knew the only reason they were succeeding was because he didn’t want to hurt them. With punches that powerful, the two of them would have no chance of restraining him, not unless part of him let them. Perhaps he was even finding a measure of control through their touch.
“He’s Liam. William healed her in the park,” Conrad spat, his eyes narrowing. “That’s why the scars are so prominent, why he’s never bitten her. So what, you were Tapped-out, your energy waning, and you thought you’d just have a taste?” Conrad growled, shrugging himself free of Tess and Jack as they stood staring at him in disbelief.
“Yes,” he admitted, cradling his midriff. “But if I hadn’t, she would not have survived. Luckily, her blood gave me a boost, enough to finish healing her.”
“That’s why there was no blood when I found her,” Tess commented, her disgust clearly evident. From the weight of their repulsed looks, he had to wonder just how much they knew, how much Ashley had dared to tell them. He tried to move, pain splintering through him despite his own energy already working to repair the damage.
“The thing was, I’d been so exhausted, and then her blood… it rejuvenated me and I never remember feeling so powerful.”
“So you went back for more.” The fire in Conrad’s eyes scared him and sweat—or perhaps it was blood—trickled down his face as waves of heat washed over him. There was no doubt in his mind, the only reason he was still alive was because Tess had positioned herself between them, her dainty hand and manicured nails pressed firmly against Conrad’s chest. “You used your friendship to manipulate her, some kind of glamour to make sure she didn’t know who the hell you were. You terrorised her in her own home, threatened her friends, and—”
“I’m not proud of it. I was desperate. You don’t understand. Devon said if I fell short again, Gran would have an accident, just to remind me how seriously I should be taking my debt. He’d already had me steal data from the faculty office to make up a minor shortfall. I couldn’t take the chance. I used a glamour charm, my letting name, and implied I was a vampire. I knew her blood would help me get my count back up and I could let again.”
Conrad, whose expression had turned smouldering, clenched his fists, clearly using every ounce of restraint to control himself.
“Who did you tell?” Conrad growled. His fist connected with the kitchen door frame with a splintering crack. Tess jumped, retreating backwards a step. For a second, Will was just relieved he hadn’t been its target.
“No one, I swear.”
“So how did someone find out about her?” Tess pressed, as Conrad turned his back to them. Will could see his shoulders heaving, hear the slow, deep breaths. He was furious, and the subtle change in his aura suggested he was fighting hard not to shift. It was at that exact moment that Will realised exactly how much Conrad had been holding back. He was on the verge of change, his anger and distress so extreme that whatever lived inside him was clawing for release, hungry for the blood of the one causing such internal disharmony. He released a shaky breath, wondering if any of his friends knew Conrad’s secret. He was preternatural. What exactly, he couldn’t be sure, but given what he was seeing, a shifter of some kind seemed likely. No, not a shifter, so
me manner of fire elemental.
“I went to the Taphouse a few nights back. My purity was seventy-four, I’m normally a sixty, turns out that caught a few people’s attention,” Will explained, his voice lacking any strength, as he stared at Conrad’s back.
“Her blood made yours purer?” Jack questioned stiffly. “She made you feel more powerful, rejuvenated you, and we know she can also reverse unwanted transitions, which was maybe what protected her from being changed after the attack… Oh shit.” Jack snatched his bag from the sofa, his hand grabbing something Will couldn’t quite see from within. “Shit, shit, shit,” Jack repeated before he dared to interrupt him.
“What?”
In response, Jack opened his sketch book, flicking through the pages before throwing it on the coffee table. Trying to see what was so important, he pushed himself upwards a whole few inches before collapsing back down.
“Isn’t it obvious? She’s a Phoenix, a Perennial.”
Will bit back through the pain, pulling himself to his knees, crawling to the chair to drag himself up high enough to see the drawing on the table of a woman engulfed in flames with what looked to be flaming wings expanding behind her.
“Impossible. They were hunted to extinction,” Tess interjected.
“Apparently not.” Jack gestured again towards the drawing.
“There’s a bigger issue,” Conrad announced, finally turning back towards them. “They won’t just want her for her blood. As I told you, my mum ran her blood, and it showed she had Elder blood and an unknown lineage. What I didn’t mention was, if the wrong people get hold of her, her life is over, they’ll think she’s a breeder.”
“What?” Will questioned, sending a fresh dribble of blood from his split lip as a looming feeling of dread built in the pit of his stomach. “No, that’s impossible. Breeders aren’t preternatural, and she incinerated those guys at the park. I mean instant ashes.”
Salvation's Kiss (Tales Of Mython Book 1) Page 16
