Blue Blood (Series of Blood Book 3)

by Emma Hamm

  It was a fair point. The stories about Pitch were legendary. No one knew where he came from, only that he could kill with shadows. Rumors said he was a silent killer. He arrived in darkness and rode it like a Horseman of the Apocalypse.

  Light didn’t help. There was no shield that would hold Pitch at bay. The more light there was, the stronger his shadows were. Darkness grew from light. If a man was marked by Pitch for death, then he would most assuredly die.

  There was no sanctuary from the Shadow Man.

  “Thank you,” Jasper relented. “The help is appreciated.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Pitch said sarcastically.

  The shadows rolled over the floor and climbed the iron bars to hang above Mercy’s cell. Jasper gritted his teeth as the overwhelming urge to protect rose within him again. He shouldn’t worry, Pitch would never harm Mercy.

  The bastard always had a soft spot for women. Case in point, the shadows trickled down the edges of the iron bars. They darkened the shadows already existing in her small space, small tendrils of ink tucking her hair behind her ears.

  “This is her, then?” Pitch asked.

  “Her name is Mercy. She’s the one Malachi sent me to collect.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t care less about that. I’m more interested that she’s the one fulfilling the prophecy.”

  Jasper’s breath caught in his throat. “Pardon?”

  “You didn’t make that connection yet?” The shadows bounced as though they were laughing. “Oh Jasper, your world is so limited. Look at her. Forgotten in moss is the creature that sees, One who destroys, ruins, and decrees.”

  “None of that suggests a Phoenix.”

  “Well, she was certainly forgotten in moss for a very long time. A little known fact of the Phoenix is that they used to be capable of foreseeing the future in their flames. Of course, she’s very young. Perhaps she doesn’t know that yet.”

  Jasper couldn’t imagine that this angry creature would save the world. She was too destructive. Too volatile. Hell, she had been locked up for two hundred years. She wasn’t ready to take on that much responsibility.

  “I’m sure you’re wrong.” Jasper shook his head. “She can’t be.”

  “Suit yourself. Did you hit her with Fairy Dust?”

  “Yes,” Jasper said while gritting his teeth.

  “You know that stuff is dangerous on certain species.”

  “I know.”

  “As in, she’s going to wake up even angrier than she was before.”

  “I told her to wake up calm.”

  The shadows danced again. “You foolish man! Do you not understand women at all? Calm is the worst kind of anger for a woman. You’re going to need all the luck in the world with this one.”

  Jasper blinked, and suddenly, Pitch was gone. The shadows had returned to normal, and his headache disappeared. He could almost believe the entire interaction had not happened.

  He looked down. The little bronze key was still next to his foot, so it couldn’t have been a dream.

  Should he use it? Jasper searched the prison, but it did not appear there were any guards around. They did not have regular rounds so any attempt at escape would need to be quick.

  “You should definitely use it. I like that man.”

  “Pitch?”

  “Well, he’s rather pretty.”

  He didn’t have time to argue with Bluebell. He stooped to pick up the key. The metal was cold against his palm and solidified his immediate future. If he so wished, he could get out of his cell.

  He supposed, in the end, that this was not the time for questioning Pitch’s charity. Now was the time for action.

  “Ella?” he whispered. “Ella, are you awake?”

  He heard her stir in her cell. “Now I am. Why?”

  “I can get us out of here.”

  “You keep saying that.” Her voice was thick with sleep. “But we both know that there is no way for us to leave.”

  “I have a key.”

  She sat up straight, her hair a nest of thistledown puffed around her shocked expression. Jasper watched as she struggled to her feet and pressed close to his cell.

  “Where did you get a key?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He couldn’t tell her that Pitch had given it to him. His was a household name made of nightmares and horror stories. “I have a key, and I can get us out.”

  “Do you have a key for your cell or all of them?”

  He didn’t know. He looked down and turned the skeleton key in his hand. The skull at its base grinned at him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  There wasn’t any reason for him to wait. Jasper lurched towards the door and reached for the lock. Iron burned his bicep as he awkwardly angled his arm towards the padlock. It was out of his reach, his bicep too large to give him enough room to twist the key.

  He grunted in frustration. This was already a losing mission. Why had Pitch given him a key if he couldn’t even reach the damn lock.

  “I can’t fit. If I throw it to you, can you get your arm through?”

  “I’m small, Jasper, but my bars are even closer than yours. I’d need to be a child to fit through that space.”

  The key vibrated in his hand. As he glanced down, words appeared on the aged bronze.

  Teleport.

  “I can’t teleport,” he told it. “The iron prevents me.”

  The words disappeared, replaced by a short sentence that somehow conveyed a sense of urgency.

  Do it.

  He was going to kill Pitch the next time he saw him. Whatever the Shadow Man was, Jasper was going to find his weakness, and he was going to kill him.

  Teleporting through iron bars was a terrible idea. Iron was deadly to all magical creatures and could not be bypassed by magic. This was why it made an effective prison. Theoretically, he should’ve been able to pass through the gaps and out to the other side. But iron did strange things to magic.

  He might not piece himself together correctly. Or worse, he might leave parts of himself behind in the cell. He shuddered. It would be a slow, terrible way to die.

  “Bluebell?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah me neither. You sure we won’t make it through the iron?”

  “I’m not sure about anything. We’ve already tried a few times, and the pain was terrible. It’s unpredictable.”

  Jasper nodded. “Great. So you know about as much as I do.”

  “No one is stupid enough to teleport through iron. Don’t do it.”

  He knew that, but there weren’t a lot of options here. He looked over at Ella and met her wide-eyed gaze. Teleporting was a death wish, he thought Ella might know what would happen if he tried.

  But Pitch wouldn’t kill him by teleportation. Pitch was twisted, but that kind of kill wasn’t his style. He was far more bloodthirsty than that.

  Time was running out. Jasper had to make up his mind before the guards came back, which he had to assume would be soon. Malachi wouldn’t be so foolish as to wait long when Mercy was around any number of creatures who could be made her master.

  So far, he had proven to be an intelligent man.

  “You’re not actually considering….” Bluebell was thin and reedy. “Jasper don’t do this. I like living in your mind.”

  “You’ll find someone else to inhabit if I don’t make it. Hopefully a female this time.”

  With his potential last words a joke, Jasper took a deep breath and focused on the space outside his cell. There was plenty of room between the bars. He could do this in his sleep.

  If he wasn’t blocked by iron of course.

  Enough stalling, he told himself. The ground was an easy target. He cleared his mind, exhaled, and imagined himself standing just outside the cell.

  Pain exploded inside of him as soon as his body dissolved. He was nothing and everything. His body became the ground, the bars, the gentle wind s
tirring the air. And through all of it, every fiber of what had been his body screamed.

  Bluebell’s usually sparkling happy voice shrieked through the roar of the nothing they had become.

  Flesh gave way to agony. Bone became ache, and soul became torture. He could not find his way back. He could not bring together all the tormented fragments of his body. They were gone. And he was unravelling like a ball of yarn tumbling down a stairwell.

  She was screaming. His tiny, adorable Fairy — who was always happy and kind— screamed in his head until he could not take it any longer.

  With a surge of control, he pulled the pieces of himself back together. They had stretched far from the place he wished to go. He had become a firework, the smoldering explosion of self dispersed on the wind. It was nearly impossible to find all those pieces and force them back together.

  He did not know how or what god looked favorably upon him. But Jasper managed.

  He materialized on the ground before his cell. His legs were incapable of holding his weight, and he crashed to his knees. It was a long way down. For once, Jasper wished he were not such a large man.

  He gasped in air as though he had never breathed before. The relief was short-lived as his back spasmed and burned. He knew before he looked what ailed him.

  Jasper glanced over his shoulder to stare at the mangled mess of his wings. They hadn’t survived the teleport as well as his body. One was crunched in half, drooping sadly towards the ground like a broken dragonfly wing. The other… The other looked as though someone had twisted it. It had become a corkscrew, spiraling rather than laying flat.

  He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by pain. The guards may return any second, and he held the skeleton key in his hand. It was their salvation if he could move.

  Lurching to his feet, he stumbled to Ella’s cell. His hands shook as he inserted the key into the lock, praying it would open all of them. Shadows curled around the stem of the key and, before his eyes, the tines of the key changed.

  “It will work,” Bluebell told him. “I know it will work.”

  The key turned easily. “Thank you, Pitch,” he muttered.

  The door swung open, and Ella stared at Jasper, stunned.

  “I’m free?” she asked.

  “We’re not out of the dark yet.” He barely managed to finish the sentence before she threw herself into his arms.

  How long had it been since she had touched another person? He curled his arms around her and touched his cheek to the top of her head. Pity nearly made him shake. She was so little in his arms. Delicate, frail, in need of protection.

  “I’m afraid to go. But we need to,” Ella whispered against his shoulder. “Do you have any plans?”

  “Teleport out of here as far away as we can go.”

  “Where is that?”

  “I have an idea.” He couldn’t take them back to Haven. Not yet, anyway. Jasper didn’t know what kind of magic Malachi had up his sleeve, but if he had any Trackers, going to Haven would only endanger them all. They needed to run for a few days before they went back home.

  Ella pulled back to look over his shoulder. “I don’t know if we should wake her.”

  Neither did he. Mercy had all but told them that she couldn’t be trusted. She was volatile and unpredictable, a living weapon, and a prophecy piece. Taking her with them would likely endanger them as well.

  “You can’t leave her!” Bluebell shouted. “She’s important!”

  He sighed. “We have to take her. Who knows what Malachi will do with her.”

  “We might regret it,” Ella said. “I hate to leave anyone in this cursed place. But she is…different.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it.” Jasper found himself nervous around Mercy. Not because he was frightened of her magic or her creature, but because there was a possessive part of him that echoed Bluebell’s words — she was so shiny.

  He gritted his teeth. The day he gave into his Fairy impulses was the day he put himself down. He was a man. Men did not fall prey to pretty objects that sparkled in sunlight.

  Mercy was only a few cells away, but it was closer to the door. Jasper would have to be careful. His footsteps were silent as he crept to her door and inserted the key. Shadows curled out of it, fitting perfectly into her lock. Her door swung open.

  It was the second time he was close enough to really look at her. She was so tall. Her legs didn’t seem to end. Like her magic, he could tell she was physically stronger than most women. She might even stand close to his own height.

  Jasper frowned. He wasn’t certain he liked that.

  He stooped down beside her and tried not to let his eyes linger upon the bare skin of her legs. Two hundred years hadn’t left much hair upon her body. In fact, as he lifted her arm, he realized she had no body hair at all.

  The little lizard, Ignes, poked its head out of her hair. “It’s the fire,” it lisped. “In case you’re wondering.”

  “I wasn’t,” he growled.

  “You were.”

  Mercy stirred. She rolled towards him in her sleep, and for a moment her face was smoothed with peace. He wished she looked like this more often, it made her more approachable.

  “Mercy,” he whispered, “you need to wake up quietly.”

  She froze and he knew she was awake, her chest stopped moving in the deep rhythm of sleep. Yet, she kept her eyes closed.

  “Quietly,” he repeated. “We’re getting out of here.”

  She opened her eyes and stared up at him. “How did you get out of your cell?”

  “Talent. Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m teleporting us to where I found you.”

  She pushed him away from her, stumbling as she forced herself to her feet. “That seems a little obvious, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s the best option we’ve got. I can’t teleport us anywhere else without endangering others.”

  For a moment, she looked like she was going to argue. Jasper had no question that she didn’t care if anyone else was harmed in the process of gaining her freedom. In a way, he couldn’t blame her. Being released from one prison only to be thrown into another must have been torture.

  Instead of arguing, she nodded in agreement. “All right. Lead the way then, Fairy boy.”

  He stepped ahead of her, leading her towards Ella. He paused only when he heard her speak in an impossibly deep voice.

  “I haven’t forgotten the Fairy Dust. I will make you pay for that.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “I look forward to it.”

  Now all he had to do was teleport. Easy. The women reached for his arms and held tight as he closed his eyes and concentrated. In his mind’s eye he saw the forest. The dappled light filtering through emerald leaves. The scent of earth and the feeling of dirt under his toes.

  He tried many times, but they did not move.

  Mercy arched a golden brow. “Are you feeling guilty for leaving the others?”

  “No,” he told her.

  “Ah. Then it must be a little performance anxiety.”

  He gritted his teeth and glared. The woman was already getting under his skin. He might come to regret letting her out of her cell.

  “If you’re coming with us, you need to keep quiet,” Jasper growled.

  “That’s not a talent of mine.”

  “Learn.”

  Mercy shrugged a shoulder. “Don’t want to. Sorry bud, you let me out, and now you need my help.”

  He pushed their hands off of his arms and suppressed a groan. He didn’t want to admit it, but he did need her help. There was something about this building that made it impossible to teleport outside of its walls. Jasper didn’t know what it was, but now he was stuck.

  “How are you going to help?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re capable of creating a portal and getting us out of here.”

  Mercy snorted. “No. I’m not that good. We’re going to do it old school.”

  “Old
school?”

  “Yeah. I happened to be awake when they dragged me back. I remember how to get out of the building. The idiots had me in front of the windows. I’m guessing if we get far enough away from the dungeon, you can teleport us?”

  “Absolutely. Malachi must have changed something. I thought could teleport out of here,” Jasper said.

  “Then I can get you outside.”

  Mercy looked over her shoulder, and a troubled expression crossed her face. Jasper’s stomach lurched. He wanted to help her. That expression shouldn’t ever cross her pretty, heart shaped face. More distressing was the knowledge that he needed to squash that desire.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “We can’t take them all with us.”

  “Figured that.”

  “They won’t want us to leave without them,” her brows furrowed. “They’re going to put up a fuss.”

  “No they won’t.”

  Leaving the other prisoners would be difficult. It was the practical choice, taking them would make leaving impossible. Though the other prisoners longed for freedom just as much as Jasper, this was every man for himself. The thought didn’t settle well.

  Mercy looked so strange standing before him. She stood in the darkness with nothing on but an oversized man’s shirt, yet she looked calm and confident.

  Her ombre eyes pierced his soul as she caught his gaze.

  “You’re right. They won’t.”

  Her hands began to glow. First it was just sparks at the tips of her fingers and soon flames crawled up her legs. The prisoners who could stand were quickly on their feet and murmuring. They had stayed quiet thus far, but the sight of her flames caused fear to make them careless.

  Mercy lifted a hand to her mouth and blew. The flames upon her palm warped and took shape. Long, serpentine necks stretched and grew until snakes of fire poured from her hands like water and dripped onto the floor.

  They slithered towards the cells. Whispers grew louder, all saying the same thing over and over again. Not the prisoners voices, but Mercy’s. Her lips did not move but he could hear her voice amplified a hundred times.

  The snakes, he realized with horror. Each time their fiery tongues lashed at the air, they repeated Mercy’s words.

  “Silence or death.”