by Linsey Hall
“The sorcerers will be coming?” I stiffened and looked at the Devil. They would not like finding us here, that was certain.
“Yes. Soon enough, I imagine.”
“Then we’ll tell them what we know.”
“They’ll strike first and ask questions later.” She shrugged. “You are intruders, after all.”
12
The Devil
Damn it, the sorceress was right. We probably wouldn’t have time to explain why we were here. This guild hated me, and they were notorious for protecting their space with violence.
I leaned forward. “Tell us how to stop Ivan. Please.”
She nodded. “First, you must vow that you will repair the door to my crypt and remove my symbol from the stone. I do not want anyone else paying me a visit. My protections were clearly not enough.”
“I vow it.”
The Sorceress looked toward Carrow, her eyebrows raised.
“I vow it as well,” Carrow said.
“Good. You have the ability to read people and things?”
“Yes, but I can’t control it well.”
“Try anyway.” Mariketta held out her hand.
“All right.” Carrow leaned closer, resting her fingertips against the top of Mariketta’s hand.
Her magic flared, strong and bright. The scent of lavender overpowered the seaside aroma of the room, and the taste of oranges exploded on my tongue.
Mariketta’s eyes widened. “Your signature is quite something.”
“I know. I need to get control of it.”
“Indeed, you do. Unless things have changed drastically, the Council will not stand for it.”
“Things haven’t changed.” Carrow’s eyes shut, and she drew in a deep breath.
Her signature grew even stronger, and I frowned.
Mariketta met my gaze, and I could see my thoughts reflected in her eyes.
Carrow's magic was changing—growing. I sensed it. This was highly unusual.
We’d have to hide it from the Council somehow.
Minutes passed, and I shifted. This was taking too long. The air seemed to grow restless, the tower seeming to come alive.
“They know you’re here,” Mariketta said. “That’s what you are feeling. They’re coming.”
Carrow’s eyes popped open. “The sorcerers?”
“Yes. They’ve sensed the disturbance. But the tower is enormous on the inside. It will take them a moment to reach this place. Did you get what you need?”
“A spell, yes.” Concern echoed in Carrow’s voice. “I have the words in my head. But I don’t know what to do with it. If I say it, will it stop Ivan?”
“You don’t know how to stop it?” I asked.
Carrow shook her head.
“You’ll know when the time comes.” Mariketta leaned forward and tapped the crystal that hung around Carrow’s neck. “And you have all that you need.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Carrow frowned.
A shout sounded from the other side of the walls that wavered through the tropical scenery, carrying over the sound of the waves.
I stood. “We must go.”
“Please.” Carrow turned to Mariketta. “I don’t feel prepared. Tell us anything helpful. Anything.”
“You must go under to reach them. Not through. Under.”
“What?” Confusion flickered in her gaze. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. And don’t forget…you’ll only make it past the barrier at dusk. Make it into the church, and you have everything you need to stop them.”
“That’s still unclear.” Frustration echoed in Carrow’s voice.
“It will become so.” Mariketta voice rang with conviction.
I spun in a circle, searching for the door. The sorcerers were getting closer. “How do we get out of here?”
“There’s only one exit,” Mariketta said. “And they’re going to come through it.”
Shite. “We’ll have to fight our way past.”
“Tell them we’re here to help,” Carrow said.
“I’ll try, but…”
“Carrow, come here.” I needed to be able to protect her. “Mariketta, where is the door?” The beautiful scenery flickered, revealing the stone wall beyond, but no door.
“I don’t know. This space is always changing. The room itself is unknown to me.” Mariketta moved toward her daughter. “Best of luck to you.’
“Tell them we’re here to help,” Carrow repeated.
An explosion sounded from behind me, and I spun. A man burst through the door, his dark cape flowing around him. His brow lowered over his eyes. “You.”
He hated me, and so did the rest of them.
“We’re here to—” Carrow began.
The sorcerer threw a fireball. She dove left, narrowly avoiding a hit.
I lunged for the guard. Raising my hand, I flung my magic at him. “Do not attack us.”
His mouth snapped shut, and fire blazed in his eyes. He raised his hand, his palm glowing with red light.
“Do not.” I forced him to comply, shooting Carrow a look. “Get out of here. I can’t hold him for long.”
“They’re here to help, Mauritius,” Mariketta said.
Mauritius didn’t spare her a glance. He didn’t want to hear her. He was enraged by my presence in their tower. No one invaded the sorcerers’ space without consequences.
Carrow raced for the door. Mauritius struggled against my hold as Carrow slipped around him.
I looked at Mariketta. “Thank you. I will mend your crypt. When he’s calm, I’d appreciate it if you explained things to him.”
She shrugged. “I will try.”
I nodded and hurried after Carrow, not letting go of my hold on Mauritius. He growled as I went by, and I prayed that Mariketta could talk some sense into him. We might need help taking down Ivan.
The hall outside of Mariketta’s enchanted room was long and dark. The stone floor and walls blended, and the air glowed with a faint gray light that seemed to have no source.
I heard footsteps to our right.
“Which way?” Carrow looked frantically in either direction. “I can hear them coming, but I can’t tell where they are.”
“Go left.”
She sprinted down the hall, and I followed, covering her back. It seemed endless, impossibly long for a tower at the edge of Guild City.
Up ahead, another hallway intersected with ours. Footsteps pounded toward us.
“Look out ahead!” I said.
Carrow slowed. Two sorcerers sprinted out of the darkness, a man and a woman in cloaks, their eyes flashing with anger.
The woman raised her hand. Crimson light glowed from her palm, matching her red hair. She hurled it at us.
We dove out of the way, skidding on the stone ground.
The male sorcerer hurled another blast. It struck me in the leg, and pain flared. I forced it back, calling upon the strength and power I’d harnessed over the long centuries.
I surged upright and launched myself at them. Grabbing them by the lapels, I smashed their heads together. They dropped to the ground, unconscious.
“Are they dead?” Carrow asked.
“No.” I’d pulled my punches to avoid it, though I could have crushed their skulls if I’d wanted. Hopefully, they’d realize that when they woke and not create too much trouble. “Let’s go.”
We sprinted around them, heading farther down the hall.
“We need to find stairs to the roof,” I said. “We’ll never make it through the main part of their tower.”
Magic surged around us. The sorcerers were gearing up for battle, searching the halls for us, ready to strike. We couldn’t run into anymore.
“Stairs!” Carrow pointed ahead, and I spotted them.
A narrow stairwell diverged off the hall.
We raced toward it and stopped in front of the entrance, panting. The darkened stairwell stretched up and down. Carrow headed up.
I followed. She
stopped abruptly, and I slammed into her, grabbing her waist as she stumbled forward. “What is it?”
“This doesn’t go up.”
“Yes, it does.”
“It doesn’t.” She turned with a frown. “I can feel it. We need to go down if we want to reach the roof.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve always had a great sense of direction. Eerily so. I’m right, I know it.”
“Let’s go, then.”
Side by side, we raced along the wide stairwell.
The stairs shifted and headed up instead of down.
“Sorcerers.” I shook my head. “Tricky bastards.”
We sprinted up flight after flight, passing several other hallways on different levels. Two of them were empty, but the third…
We passed it, and a surge of magic prickled the air. I turned back as a sorcerer lunged out of the hallway behind us. Cloak whipping in the darkness, he raised a hand that gleamed with sparkling green and gold magic.
My heartbeat thundered. This was a killing blow, a deadly variety of sorcerer magic impossible to mistake and one powerful enough to kill even me.
The sorcerer hurled it at us with an evil sneer.
The green vortex of magic expanded, filling the stairwell. I threw myself in front of Carrow, blocking her from the assault.
The magic plowed into me, blinding me. Agony exploded throughout my body, sending my organs into a meat grinder.
I stumbled and collapsed on the stairs.
Carrow
Green magic exploded around us, and I staggered and went to my knees. Behind me, the Devil cried out in pain.
I scrambled to my feet and spotted him below me on the stairs. He was unconscious. He’d taken that blow to protect me.
Dead?
Fear spiked.
The sorcerer raised his hand again, a vengeful gleam in his eyes. The magic that sparked around his palm was faint. Was he recharging?
I didn’t know much about magic, but I prayed that was true. I couldn’t survive the kind of blast that had hit the Devil.
I rushed the sorcerer, leaping over the Devil and hurtling down the stairs like a train. As I plowed into him, he crashed onto his back, breaking my fall with his body. Struggling to rise, he struck me with his palm, and pain blossomed as his magic slammed into me. My vision blackened, and my organs trembled in shock.
Blindly, I raised my fist and punched him on the chin. His head snapped to the side, and I blinked, my vision returning. I’d taken a partially charged blast, and it had almost wiped me out.
If he fully recharged, I’d be dead.
The sorcerer beneath me seemed dazed. I hit him again and he slumped, unconscious.
Heart pounding, I scrambled off him and up the stairs, crouching by the Devil’s prone form. I gripped his big shoulders and shook them. “Wake up, Grey! Wake up!”
His eyes fluttered open, though his gaze seemed blurred. “You called me Grey.”
“I…did.” He’d taken a hit for me, and that had changed how I thought of him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The sorcerer struck you with green magic. I don’t know what kind of spell it was, but it looked bad.”
“Killing blow.” He groaned. Pushing himself upright, he staggered to his feet.
I joined him. Wrapping my arm around his waist, I helped him up the stairs. He gained strength with every step, but I could tell that the attack had taken a lot out of him.
“We’re nearly there,” I said, panting from the climb.
“You can sense it?”
“Wishful thinking.” I pushed harder, climbing onward.
Finally, we reached the roof. The cold evening wind whipped across my cheeks as I searched for the stairs we’d taken before. The secret stairwell was located on the exterior of the building, hidden within the wall.
“There.”
Grey stumbled forward, and I hurried to his side, offering my support to him. We found the secret stairwell and started down. At one point, we lost our footing and nearly rolled to the bottom. It almost would have been a relief. I’d never felt so weak and exhausted.
Finally, we reached the top of the wall that surrounded the city and tottered out.
Grey dug into his pocket and pulled out a transport charm, but he didn’t throw it.
“Come on!” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Need to get farther from their tower. A spell prevents us from transporting.”
Together, we weaved along the wall and away from the tower. Suddenly, shouts sounded above us, and I looked up. Silhouetted against the moonlight, three sorcerers stood on the roof.
“Will they attack?” I asked.
“Probably not outside of their tower.”
A blast of yellow magic hurtled down at us.
With the last of his strength, Grey shoved me aside and lunged in the opposite direction. The force of his blow sent me skidding out of harm’s way as the blast plowed into the stone. The shock waves hit Grey, slamming him the wall.
“Those bastards.” He heaved himself upright and lurched toward me. “They shouldn’t be attacking outside their tower.”
He held out his hand, and I took it. Quick as a snake, he hurled the transport charm to the ground. Silver smoke poofed upward, and we leapt inside.
The ether sucked us in and spun us around, spitting us out in front of his tower. He swayed, his strength flagging. The bouncers at the door hurried over, worry on their faces.
“What’d you do to him?” growled the one on the left. A lion shifter, from the look of his wild golden hair.
“Not…her fault.” Grey went to his knees.
“The sorcerers hit him with something.” I knelt beside Grey, worry twisting in my chest.
“Come on, boss.” The lion shifter gripped Grey and hoisted him upright, nearly dragging him toward the door. “We’ll get you the healer.”
The other shifter opened the door for them, and I raced after them. Miranda darted from behind the desk and hurried up to Grey.
“What happened?” she asked, patting Grey’s cheeks to rouse him.
“The sorcerers hit him with a huge blast of green and gold light,” I said.
She gave me a fierce look. “A killing blow? You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“Bastards. We’ll have their heads for this. That’s deadly magic.” She looked at the guard who wasn’t supporting Grey’s big frame. “Fetch the healer. Immediately.”
“Will he be okay?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. If he weren’t so strong, he’d be dead already.”
“His immortality won’t help him?”
“It makes him stronger, but he’s not immune to trauma or powerful magic.” She looked at the lion shifter who was holding Grey upright. “Take him to his quarters.”
“Aye.” The shifter helped Grey along, who stubbornly stayed on his feet.
When I started to follow, Miranda glared at me. “I’m coming,” I insisted, my voice firm, and she nodded in assent.
We wound through the halls, rising several stories and reached a part of the tower that was new to me. Slowly, Grey raised his hand and pressed it to the huge wooden door. Magic sparked, and the door opened.
The lion shifter dragged him in. Miranda and I trailed after them, walking into a beautiful, though austere, living room with massive windows overlooking a moonlit sea. Waves crashed on the rocky shore.
I blinked in surprise. This couldn’t be real. Not in London.
But it looked real.
“Magic,” Miranda said, catching my shock.
We entered another room, a massive sleeping chamber decorated in the same spartan style. A huge window overlooked snow-covered mountains gleaming in the moonlight. Again, the scene was so real that I could swear I smelled the icy snow through the glass.
They helped Grey to the bed, and the vampire lay on it with a groan.
“What did the magic do to him?” I stared, g
azing worriedly at him.
“Pulverized his organs.” Miranda sounded pissed. “Watch over him. I’m going to go help find the healer.”
Both she and the bouncer moved toward the door.
“Wait!” I followed them with my gaze. “Will he die?”
Miranda’s jaw tightened, and she said nothing.
Yes.
That was what her silence meant. Yes.
I went to Grey and sat on the bed beside him. He lay on the dark sheets, his skin pale and cold. I reached for his hand, gripping tightly. My feelings were jumbled and confused.
He’d saved me.
He’d lied to me.
He might die.
“Grey.” I squeezed his hand. “Wake up, Grey. You’re fine.”
The words were stupid. He clearly wasn’t fine.
“Why did you push me out of the way?”
He said nothing, but the corner of his mouth perked up the tiniest little bit. I rested my hand on his heart, feeling the slow, soft thud. It was so weak.
Fear chilled my skin.
“Grey, you have to hold on.”
But he wouldn’t be able to. I could feel it even now, in the slowing of his heart. How long would it take Miranda to find the healer?
Not in time.
The terrifying thought blasted through me. She wouldn’t find the healer in time. He would die.
Grief pierced my soul. I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t know what he meant to me or how I really felt, but I knew I didn’t want him to die.
The memory of his bite at Temple Church flashed in my mind. My blood had healed him then. It could heal him now.
It was worth a try.
My heart pounding violently, I leaned over him and pressed my neck to his mouth. “Drink, Grey.”
He didn’t move.
Fear pulsed through me.
I climbed on top of him, straddling his hard body so that my neck was better aligned with his mouth. I gripped his hair in one hand, lifted his head, and pressed his lips to my neck. “Bite me.”
A low groan tore from his throat, and his lips parted. Despite their chill, they were soft and smooth against my skin. When his tongue swiped against my skin, heat blazed in its wake.
I shuddered, unable to help myself.
Grey’s fangs sank into my flesh, slowly and precisely. Pleasure exploded through me, and every muscle in my body seemed to clench.
