Saul sucked in a breath to give the asshole an earful, but Jack beat him to the punch.
“We don’t have time for meaningless banter,” Jack said sternly. “There are lives at stake here.”
Saul bit his tongue, then mumbled an apology. I’ve got to stop letting this bloodsucker rankle me.
Bankroft clipped the end of his cigar, and as he went in search of a match, he said, “What is it that has put you so on edge, Agent Montesano?”
Jack told him. Not everything. But enough for him to grasp the severity of the situation.
Bankroft went still at the mention of Morgana le Fay, his lit match held an inch from the tip of his cigar. “She’s back?”
“You’ve met her?” Saul asked.
“Twice, back in the early nineteenth century,” he confirmed, finally bringing the yellow flame into contact with the cigar. “It did not end well either time.”
“You’re aware, of course,” Jack said, “that she’s not exactly the same woman she was during that time period. This is a new incarnation, a woman who had a normal life before her revenance, so her personality is likely much different.”
“Can’t be that different”—he puffed the cigar a couple times and shook the match out—“if she’s in cahoots with another Arthurian revenant.”
Jack rolled his shoulders, a sign of irritation. “My point is that she isn’t yours to pursue, no matter how she may have wronged you in a previous life. Her actions in the modern day, so much as we are aware of them, fall under the purview of the PTAD.”
“Of course. I understand.” He took a drag off the cigar. “I would never dream of overstepping my jurisdiction, or stepping on the toes of the lovely agents of the FBI.”
Uh-huh. I’ll believe that on the tenth of never.
“So, about that favor…” Jack pressed.
“Yes, yes, what do you need?”
“To utilize the specialized services of your submagistrate.”
Bankroft bit down on the cigar with a fang. “And which ‘service,’ pray tell, do you intend to utilize?”
“Her clairvoyance. We need to locate the three missing girls”—Jack eyed the grandfather clock in the corner—“preferably before midnight.”
Bankroft’s eyes narrowed. “What happens at midnight?”
“Hopefully nothing, but there’s a strong possibility that a sacrificial ritual will occur at that time. If it doesn’t, then there is practically a hundred percent chance that same ritual will instead occur at three AM.”
“Sacrificial ritual?” Bankroft ground out his cigar in the gold ashtray next to his silver case. “For what purpose?”
“We believe,” Jack said carefully, “that they will be attempting to trigger a mass revenance event.”
Bankroft’s deceptively handsome face collapsed into the vicious sneer of an enraged predator. “The last thing I need,” he spit, “is more fucking revenants running around my territory and sabotaging all of my hard work.”
Then, just like that, the façade of the polite businessman returned. “I will happily repay my obligation to you, Agent Montesano. One moment, please.”
He picked up his monogrammed smartphone and tapped out a short message to someone. In the time it took him to set his phone back down, that someone arrived outside the office and knocked in the same cadence the pale blood donor had used.
The doors acquiesced to the request and swung open with nary a creak—to reveal Sofia Moretti standing on the other side.
Moretti looked like she’d strutted off a New York catwalk. She was six feet tall, with the willowy build of a high-fashion model and the dark, luxurious hair common to those of Mediterranean descent, and she dressed exclusively in designer brands.
Saul had never seen her wearing anything that wasn’t a perfectly tailored business dress or a two-piece suit with a silk blouse. Today, she wore a royal-blue suit and a white blouse with black polka dots; the suit jacket lay over her shoulders like a cape, a little silver chain connecting the two ends of the collar.
Moretti strode into the room in a pair of five-inch stilettos that made her tower over everyone else, even Jack. She walked as if she’d been born to walk in those heels, the catlike elegance of her vampiric nature on full display.
She cut through the group of PTAD agents like they weren’t even there, expecting them to step out of her path without prompting. Which they did, because no one wanted to get pushed out of the way by a woman with superhuman strength.
Stopping just short of the desk, she said to Bankroft, “You rang, sir?”
“I’m afraid I need to borrow your services for the night, my dear.” Bankroft gestured to Jack. “Agent Montesano has come to claim his favor and requires the skills of a clairvoyant. I’ll pay twice your usual fee for the inconvenience.”
“Thank you for your generosity, sir. It is unnecessary but appreciated.” Moretti’s crimson eyes languorously slid toward Jack, finally admitting his presence on this plane of existence. “What information do you seek, Agent Montesano?”
Jack withdrew a small blue purse in an evidence bag from the pocket of his coat. “I need you to locate the girl this belongs to. She’s been abducted by a powerful sorceress and is currently being held somewhere in the city. We tried getting a psychometrist to read the history of the object, but the snooping tripped one of the sorceress’s alarms. She threw a blood curse across the spiritual connection between the purse and its owner. Several innocent people died as a result.”
Moretti strutted over to Jack and snatched the evidence bag, holding it up to her eye level to examine the purse. She clicked her tongue in a manner that was at once impressed and bemused. “That was an exceptionally strong and well-structured curse, so violent I can still smell the burns left in the fabric of reality. Someone does not want this girl found.”
“That someone is the revenant of Morgana le Fay,” said Bankroft. “That bitch has come back for another round of war games.”
Moretti hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve never tested my mettle against a sorceress of that caliber. It’ll be an interesting battle, to say the least.” She unsealed the bag and slipped the purse out, the strap pinched between two manicured fingernails. “Given that there’s likely to be further magic backlash, I recommend we move to a room with more defenses against…well, everything.”
Bankroft was at the door before the rest of them even turned around. “We have numerous rooms suitably warded for performing dangerous magic. I’ll show you to one.”
Moretti cocked a finely plucked eyebrow. “Do you not have a phone conference in half an hour, sir?”
“They can wait. This matter is of great importance to our region, and I’d like to oversee the proceedings.” He cracked the door open. “Not that I don’t wholeheartedly believe in your skills, Sofia. But we are dealing with a revenant sorceress and a revenant necromancer who are apparently bent on causing a global disturbance.”
Moretti bowed her head. “I completely understand. I will do my best to pin down the location of this girl, for the good of all preternaturals in the city, and beyond.”
It took every ounce of restraint Saul possessed not to roll his eyes. He hated it when vampires pretended to be benevolent. He hated it when they pretended to be anything but what they were: predators who used their vast wealth and extensive political connections to manufacture loopholes in the law that allowed them to prey on innocents.
Vampires did nothing for the good of the world. They served only themselves and their violent delights.
Bankroft led them to a room a full quarter mile from his office. With a flick of his wrist, the heavily warded door swung open. The fluorescent lights recessed into the room’s high ceiling flickered on as Bankroft entered, illuminating a wide space with a bare stone floor and padded walls.
Wisps of chalk dust curled up as Bankroft sauntered across the room, the remnants of countless magic circles. In the center of the room lay a permanent circle, a ring of solid gold inlaid into the floor. A
base upon which all manner of spells could be constructed.
Moretti click-clacked over to the gold circle and set the purse in the middle. To the PTAD agents and Tanner, she said, “Please stand near the wall while I work. If the revenant of le Fay instigates another spiritual attack, the resulting clash between her magic and my own may result in an energy surge that bleeds through the circle’s defenses.”
Bankroft, loitering behind Moretti, added, “Or you could wait in the hall, if you prefer.”
Saul nudged Adeline, and when she caught his eye, he subtly motioned for her to drag Tanner back through the door.
Unfortunately, Tanner picked up on his intention. “I’m not going anywhere. If I can survive a harpy and a manticore, I can survive this.”
Bankroft rocked back on his heels. “Goodness, Mr. Reiz, it sounds like you’ve had quite the day.”
“And it’s still not over,” Tanner said.
Bankroft grinned. “Perhaps you’d condescend to tell me the whole story sometime.”
“He’s not telling you shit,” Saul growled.
Tanner glared at him, but Saul refused to budge. His brother didn’t have a good grasp of how dangerous vampires were. All he knew was the popular mundane lore, which paled in comparison to the monstrous reality.
Once this chaotic night finally came to an end, Saul would carve out time to tell Tanner everything he needed to know about all the creatures he could now fully perceive with the Third Sight.
Vampires would be first on the list. They came with the most warnings.
Bankroft, amused by Saul’s protectiveness, motioned to Moretti. “Looks like we’re all staying put for the show. You may begin when you’re ready, Sofia.”
“Yes, sir.”
In a swift motion, Moretti plucked a short switchblade from a hidden pocket inside her coat cape and slashed her left wrist. Blood trickled down to her fingertips. When enough had gathered, she crouched before the gold circle and used a fingernail like a fountain pen to draw a series of symbols atop the metal inlay in a flawless calligraphic script.
When finished, she removed a white handkerchief from another hidden pocket, wiped the blood off her knife, and then daintily dabbed it off her hand, revealing the cut had already healed. Double-checking her circle work for accuracy, she hid her knife away, brought her palms together in a loud clap, and closed her eyes.
Under her breath, she whispered a spell that encapsulated the room in utter silence, as if the specter of death had crept in to watch the show as well. And then, the gold circle lit up mauve, followed by the bloody symbols.
The purse in the center of the circle vibrated as Moretti sought out its connection to the abducted teenager, the metal clasps and zippers clinking, the only sounds in the room.
At first, Moretti was like a priceless statue, her artful figure unmoving. But as the seconds ticked past, signs of strain broke through the statuesque air.
Her brow furrowed slightly. Her lips pinched together. Her jaw clenched. She was fighting to pinpoint the location of the girl, and someone on the other end of the spiritual connection was fighting back.
“Aha!” Moretti abruptly shouted, startling everyone except Bankroft. “1543 Baker Street. That old Episcopal church on the edge of town. They’ve got the girl locked in an office and—”
Moretti gasped and recoiled from the circle, but it was too late to stage a retreat. A wave of noxious energy exploded out of the purse, shredded it, zippers and all, and slammed into Moretti, throwing her across the room.
She hit the padded wall and bounced off, an impact that should’ve barely affected a vampire. But Moretti, suddenly stripped of all her vampiric grace, took two stumbling steps before she crumpled to the floor, clutching her left hand and hissing in pain.
Bankroft swept his foot across the gold circle, smearing the blood and shorting out the spell in the process. The toxic fumes that had bled across the spiritual connection quickly dissipated, but a hint of steaming brimstone lingered on, stinging eyes and stuffing nostrils with the stench of rotten eggs.
Saul covered his nose and mouth with his coat sleeve and hustled over to Moretti. Bankroft was already at her side, having moved twenty feet in a split second. He was trying to coax her into letting him see her injured hand, but she wasn’t having it. She cradled the hand to her chest, spitting swear after swear in Italian.
Saul directed a bit of energy between her hand and chest, and fashioned it into a force spell just strong enough to push her hand into view. In a confused rage, she reared up and bared her fangs at Saul, but Bankroft grabbed her hand before she could pull it back, and the distraction allowed Saul to scuttle out of biting range.
“Sofia,” Bankroft said in a surprisingly gentle tone, “what is this?”
The skin at the very ends of her fingertips had turned a mottled purple. Like the blood flow had been cut off until the flesh began to die.
Moretti bit her lip with her fang, drawing blood. “It’s a…It’s a wasting curse.”
Bankroft frowned. “You mean it will drain the vitality out of you even if you feed regularly, and if left unchecked, it will eventually kill you.”
Moretti mutely nodded.
Saul loitered behind Bankroft in a state of subdued shock. Shock that someone would be brazen enough to try and kill a high-ranking vampire like that. Shock that someone had the magic skills to inflict such a curse upon a vampire in the first place.
There weren’t many ways to kill a vampire, and the majority of the verified methods were swift and nearly painless, like decapitation. Killing a vampire slowly was just…not done.
To the PTAD, that style of killing wasn’t justifiable. It was classified as torture, and it was highly illegal.
To the vampires, that style of killing was an insult. It was tantamount to claiming that the victim was inferior. And if there was anything vampires hated, it was being called inferior.
“Who dared to harm you like that? The revenant of le Fay?” Bankroft roared. “I’ll have her head on a pike.”
Moretti swallowed thickly. “It wasn’t her. It was a man. And it definitely wasn’t a necromancer.”
Saul glanced at Jack. “The big boss?”
“Probably.” Jack shuffled past Saul and crouched beside Moretti. “Can you tell us exactly what happened?”
Moretti dragged her gaze away from her hand and said slowly, “It all went fine. I circumvented the psychic traps laid out by le Fay’s revenant with relative ease—they were nothing I hadn’t seen before—and I obtained a clear reading of the girl’s location. But just as I was about to withdraw, this overpowering magical force intruded into the spiritual connection and chased my retreating mind through the ether. I tried to end the spell before it caught me, but I was a millisecond too slow. It struck out like a snake and laid the curse on me.”
Her lips curled into a bitter frown. “Punishment for overstepping my bounds, I suppose.”
Bankroft gently patted her damaged hand. “Can the curse be lifted?”
“All curses can be lifted,” Adeline cut in, peering at Moretti over Saul’s shoulder. “But about half the time, the only way to make it happen is to kill the curse maker…or otherwise convince them to undo it.”
Jack sighed. “Mr. Bankroft, I’m very sorry—”
Bankroft held up one finger, silencing Jack. “This is most certainly not your fault, Agent Montesano, but rather the fault of a criminal element that has grown in our fair city like a cancerous tumor. And like a tumor, it needs to be excised forthwith. With that in mind, I propose that I, along with a few of my associates, accompany the PTAD on what I assume will be a raid of the aforementioned church.”
Jack picked at his scar, no doubt arguing with himself about how to manage Bankroft’s building anger without insulting the man and marking the PTAD as a future target of vampire vindictiveness. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that there was only one way to avoid upsetting Bankroft further, and that was to capitulate to his thinly veiled demand
.
“I’ll have to run that by Roland to get approval,” he said, “but I’m sure he won’t object. We could certainly use some extra manpower, given the threat level that the revenants of le Fay and Mordred have demonstrated today.”
“Excellent,” Bankroft said in a completely flat tone. “Then let’s head up to the surface, shall we?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tanner
The drive to the church was rife with dread, all the PTAD agents brooding over what had gone down in the vampire magistrate’s luxurious crypt. For his part, Tanner wasn’t sure how to feel. He wasn’t acquainted with the pretty viper of a vampire, Sofia Moretti. So only a passing guilt had rattled him when he’d learned the extent of her plight. Guilt that he was, however peripherally, involved in the events that had resulted in her terrible curse.
He’d promised himself on the laborious walk back up the stairs to the Bank that he would do all in his power to help Saul and company resolve this situation with the kidnapped girls, and he hoped that the curse problem could be resolved along the way.
The vampire magistrate seemed extremely upset, and though Tanner knew fuck all about how the vampires interacted with the rest of preternatural society, he figured that a furious vampire magistrate could cause a great deal of trouble. Since the PTAD dealt with preternatural trouble, Saul and his colleagues could wind up in the line of fire.
It seemed to Tanner that the PTAD already put their lives on the line more than enough. As the agents mostly appeared to be good people, he didn’t want to watch them get hurt by the teetering mound of chaos related to this crazy ritual sacrifice scheme.
He wanted to help. Problem was, he didn’t know how.
That was where Kim came in, yet again.
For much of the trip to the outskirts of Weatherford, Kim taught Tanner (the traditional way) a number of basic spells. How to erect a strong, stable shield. How to manipulate fire, water, and air in simple but effective ways. How to throw a blast of force that could injure a runner or stall a pursuer. And a few other handy concepts that, Kim assured him, all good practitioners learned in their early years of study to create a robust foundation of magical knowledge.
A Knight of Cold Graves (The Revenant Reign Book 1) Page 30
