He looked at her then and noticed she’d been crying. He wiped a stray tear from the witch’s cheek. For the first time, it hit him that Soleil was dead. Gone. His chest felt heavy.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” Grateful whispered. “Soleil was a bridesmaid at my wedding. She gave me a hand-embroidered baby blanket at my baby shower not two weeks ago. She was one of my best friends.” The powerful witch rubbed circles over her belly, suddenly looking vulnerable and unbelievably sad.
“Mine too,” he said. “Mine too.” He pulled Grateful into a hug, then prepared himself to break the news to Astrial.
Chapter 20
Silas both anticipated and feared what he was about to hear.
“Soleil was murdered.” Captain Manahan kept his voice low, his eyes darting toward his office door. “By Meredith.”
“Meredith shot her, but she said she was defending me,” Silas said.
“She didn’t just shoot her. She finished the job at Bojingles.”
“What?” Silas shook his head. “She was in my room with me when Soleil died.”
“Officer Brighton said Meredith visited with Soleil moments before she died, and he thinks he saw her put something into her IV.”
“She must have done it while I was sleeping before she came to see me.” Silas scrubbed his face with his hands.
“I trusted her. I really trusted her. Impeccable references.” Manahan stroked his chin. The fae looked tired like he’d been up all night trying to process the news about the detective he’d hired. “Of course I’ve got my people on this. We’ll find her.”
“She might not have been acting of her own free will. Alex has ways of controlling people.” Silas wanted to think she was under the influence of sulfralite, but she’d been in the room when Grateful had drawn the black powder out of Laina and Selene. As of then, she wasn’t infected. And he’d spent most of the days since in her company.
“Yeah, well, we can figure that out when she’s behind bars.”
Silas rubbed his palms on his thighs. “I’ll need to search her place.”
“You still have a key?”
“Yeah.”
“No sense bothering with a warrant then.”
“Right.”
“What about the book?”
“Grateful Knight says she knows someone who’s seen The Book of Flesh and Bone in person. He might remember something about the spell. She’s taking me to see him tonight.”
“A vampire.” Manahan spat the word out like it tasted bad.
“How’d you guess?”
“Anyone who was alive long enough to read that book is either ancient or a friend of the last vampire who had it. Ancient or evil, or both.”
“She’s worked with this guy before. He might have a clue for us. After seeing that vampire stake himself in the chest, it’s time we spoke with someone from his coven anyway.”
Silas’s skin tingled with a sudden rush of air in the closed room. Manahan. He was on to something, his wide eyes and sparked intuition making the air vibrate.
“You ever think that vamp stabbed himself because he knew Meredith would shoot him anyway?” Manahan asked.
Was it possible she’d been playing him the entire time? Goddess, he needed a shower. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Be careful out there… but not too careful.” Manahan picked up his coffee and took a long swig.
Silas stood to leave. “You know better than to think I would be.”
At times like this, Silas wished he still had a zafka. After Alex murdered his last one and hospitalized Laina’s, Silas decided to leave the position unfilled temporarily. He didn’t want anyone else’s blood on his hands. But as he followed Grateful through an abandoned garage to a door with a conspicuous smear of red across the chipped paint, he would have liked to have had a decoy.
“You’d better let me go first. As a rule, vampires don’t love werewolves. You know, on account of your bite being fatal to them,” Grateful said.
“Only when we’ve shifted into wolf form. The rest of the time, vamps are stronger and faster.” Silas eyed the dark doorway. “Is this the only way?”
“There are other passageways to Club Cabal, but they take longer. Believe me, once we’re down there, you’ll thank me for choosing the shortest route.” Her sword, Nightshade, ignited. Its purple glow illuminated a cobwebbed staircase that spiraled toward the gates of hell for all Silas could see.
“You were saying something about going first?” He swallowed hard and moved aside to allow her to pass.
“These passageways connect businesses all over the city,” Grateful said as she descended. “They were built by humans during prohibition to smuggle moonshine. The vampires learned to feed on the smugglers. Bootleggers were less likely to complain to the authorities when one or two of their kind went missing. Doing so would give away their illicit activities.”
“Great. So basically that rusty fetid scent is, in fact, dried human blood.”
“Do yourself a favor and don’t look too closely at the walls.”
“Too late.” Silas turned his gaze away from the scratch marks in the stone. At some point in the past, someone had wanted out of this tunnel bad enough to try to claw their way through solid rock.
“So how’s Lucas?”
“He’s walking now. That’s normal for a one-year-old. The floating, not so much.”
“Floating?”
“Right out of his crib. We’ve had to pad his room.”
“That bad, huh?”
“You know how human babies are using a spoon at this age? Maybe saying dada?”
“Yeah…”
“Imagine if instead they could start the walls on fire or make a million roaches pour from the pipes.”
“No.”
“Yes. He has quite the temper and an ever-growing grasp of his power. Rick and I are trying to teach him control, but I think he’s too young to understand what he’s doing. If he uses his magic without permission, he gets a time-out.”
“Has to sit in the corner, huh?”
She glanced sheepishly in his direction. “In my attic. It’s the only place that’s safe.”
Silas grunted. “You don’t leave him up there?”
“No! Not alone. One of us is always with him, and he likes to play with Poe. But I’m not gonna lie. The kid spends a lot of time up there. I don’t know how I’m going to do it with two.” She sighed heavily.
“You’ll do fine. You’re a great mom. And hey, about the attic, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Can’t have the little tike raising the dead or anything.” He laughed.
She chuckled briefly before her smile melted into a more concerned expression.
“I hear music,” Silas said.
“We’re almost there.”
They reached a set of stairs that led to another door, this one newly painted. A much different series of scents tickled Silas’s nose: the spicy tang of cologne, alcohol, cigar smoke, and the musk of desire. A cool jazz tune grew louder as Grateful opened a door at the end of the corridor.
They entered a speakeasy lifted straight out of the 1920s. Waitresses milled through the crowd in flapper dresses and bobbed hairstyles. Red velvet fabric contrasted dark wood furniture and mirrored walls. A dance floor was surrounded by a few dozen tightly spaced cocktail tables, each laden with guests dressed to the fang in jewels and couture. One face turned toward them, then another, until the entire establishment was staring at Grateful.
The music stopped, appalled expressions on the band member’s faces. Fangs dropped. A female ran for the back exit.
“What are they staring at?” Silas whispered. “Is it because you’re pregnant?”
“No. It’s because I could end them in a heartbeat.” Grateful sheathed Nightshade and held up her hands. “I’m looking for Julius,” she said in a loud, clear voice.
The bartender pointed to a staircase at the back of the establishment. “He’s in his bedroom.”
“Please, as you were!” Grateful said, hands still in the air. Gradually, as she led the way to the back staircase, the music started up again, and the place came back to life. “Being a Hecate does not always mean a warm welcome.”
“I guess not.”
The second floor was enormous. Grateful stopped at one of twelve doors along a lengthy hallway that looked like something out of a modern-day castle.
“How do you know which one is his bedroom?” Silas asked.
“That’s a story for another time.” Grateful raised an eyebrow before rapping three times on the six-paneled mahogany door. There was no answer. “Hold on to your ass. This could get ugly.” She whispered a spell and the knob turned a bright shade of purple. It opened easily at the turn of her wrist.
Inside, Silas gaped at a room that belonged in a movie. Two stories high, the walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes from an age gone by. A massive four-poster bed wrapped in red velvet stood at the center of the room, oddly out of place among what otherwise could be a library. A fireplace blazed near a pair of Louis XVI-style chairs. And between those two chairs, a tall, dark vampire drank from the neck of a twenty-something human. She wore a medieval-style dress, the bodice of which had been pulled down to reveal her breasts. Silas averted his eyes.
Julius came off the girl’s throat with a pop and whispered something in her ear. She covered herself and staggered from the room. Silas assumed her drunken swagger was more likely due to blood loss than alcohol. The vampire wiped blood from the sides of his mouth with his thumb.
“Grateful Knight, to what do I owe the pleasure?” His eyes flicked to her enormous belly and he grimaced.
“Is she going to be okay?” Silas interrupted, gesturing in the direction the human girl had hobbled. “She could barely stand up.”
Julius leaned an elbow against the mantel. “Not that I owe you an explanation, wolf, but Stephanie is a professional blood donor. Believe me, she can take care of herself.”
“Since when do you hire out for blood?” Grateful asked.
“Are you here to talk about my love life, or would you care to explain why you’ve brought a werewolf into my home.”
“This is Silas. I think you’ve met before, at my wedding. No? He’s a detective for the CCPD.”
Julius ran a hand through his longish, dark brown hair. He reminded Silas of a petulant rock star, good-looking in a cologne model sort of way with a perpetually brooding air. “I’m hungry, Grateful. Get to the point.”
“Soleil is dead. The Book of Flesh and Bone was taken from her room. It’s out there again, and we think Alex Bloodright has it.”
Julius stilled. Silas hadn’t spent much time with vampires, but he found his lack of movement unsettling. He didn’t even breathe. But then vampires didn’t need to breathe, did they?
“Would you like a drink?” the vampire said. “I suddenly feel I need one.” He paced to a bar behind the giant bed. “Silas, can I get you a brandy? I take you for a brandy man.”
“Brandy would be fine.”
“Water,” Grateful said. “While you’re pouring, what do you think Alex is doing with the book? I take it from your reaction that you know who he is.”
Brandy gurgled from the decanter, Julius intent on its dark flow into the snifter in his hand. “I know who Alex is. Everyone in the vampire district knows of Alex.”
“Where is he?” Silas growled.
Julius returned to where they waited by the fire and handed them their drinks. “Down, doggie. If I knew, I’d tell you. Alex and I are hardly besties. I know of him, that is all.”
“I found sulfralite in one of his victims,” Grateful said.
“Sulfralite?” Julius tipped his head skeptically. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Grateful sniffed the water in her glass before taking a long drink.
“One of your kind staked himself right in front of me,” Silas said. “That’s not usual behavior for a vamp, is it?”
Julius stilled. “Did, by chance, the vampire in question have a tattoo of an ankh symbol on this area of his neck?” He ran a finger along his throat.
“Yeah. How did you know?” Silas asked.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Julius murmured. He tossed back his Scotch and poured another. “I think Alex is up to something. Something dark.”
A chill traveled Silas’s spine. “We came to the same conclusion. We think he’s trying to raise Panaal.”
The vampire stiffened, his body going still as marble, eyes cold, dark. “Perhaps we should take a seat and discuss this further.” He pointed his long, tapered fingers toward the chairs near the fire.
The entire situation made Silas jumpy. He turned too quickly, bumping into Grateful and accidentally dropping his glass. It shattered near his toes. He bent down to pick up the pieces, but Grateful grabbed his arm.
“Don’t bother. I’ll get it.” She took a deep breath and blew. The pieces of glass whisked off the floor, binding together and reforming in his hand. The remaining brandy poured itself back inside. When it was whole again, she took another deep breath and licked her lips. “I wouldn’t drink that.” She glanced knowingly toward the floor and shook her head. With a sigh, Silas followed her to the chairs, handing the repaired glass to Julius on the way.
“What do you know about the spell Alex might be using?” Silas sat down, crossing his arms against the less-than-magical feeling going on within his chest. It wasn’t comfortable knowing you were sitting between a vampire who could drain you dry and a witch who could blow you to bits with a whistle.
“I’ve seen this before,” Julius began, lowering into one of the antique chairs. “A thousand years ago, there was a witch…”
“A thousand years ago?” Silas chuckled, but Julius and Grateful stared at him without a hint of levity in their expressions. “Sorry. I forgot you, uh, live that long.”
“As I was saying”—Julius sipped his Scotch—“around a thousand years ago, there was a witch, a dark sorceress who wanted to raise Panaal—”
“Seems like this is a popular goal of you darky-dark types,” Silas said.
“You might believe such a thing, wolf, but in fact, only a creation of the goddess can complete the spell.”
“Huh?” Silas glanced at Grateful for an explanation, but it was Julius who gave it.
“Witches, shifters, and the light fae, in all their forms, are the goddess’s creation. Dragons and other dark fae, vampires, and demons were created by the horned god, Panaal.”
“What about ogres? Leprechauns? Trolls?” Silas asked.
“Leprechauns are a type of dark fae. The others evolved over time from mixing species.”
“Primordial bom-chicka-wow-wow. Got it.”
Julius turned to Grateful, a look of annoyance on his face as if Silas was an oversized and inconvenient dolt. Grateful refused eye contact and sipped her water.
What a pretentious asshole. Silas stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle.
“As I was saying, Alex is only capable of completing this specific ritual because he is a werewolf. Legend has it that every supernatural being has strengths and weaknesses that were won or lost based on a game of chance between Hecate and Panaal.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t Parcheesi.” Silas laughed and shifted in his chair. Julius stared down his perfectly straight nose at him. “Just trying to lighten the mood.” He quieted, wishing he had another brandy.
“No one knows the games of the gods. It is assumed it had something to do with a labyrinth, as both Hecate and Panaal live in one. But I digress. Hecate won the game and chose to rule over the day, and Panaal received the night by default, and that is how we have existed to this day. Humans were another matter entirely. They have their own creator, their own gods. We’ve lived in balance with them based on ancient magic and natural law.”
“Sooo, I take it Panaal isn’t a fan of the status quo?” Grateful asked.
�
�Existing as a creature of the night is not the paradise you might think it is.” Julius stared into the fire, swirling his Scotch. “My kind would have performed the ritual centuries ago if it was possible, but the old magic doesn’t allow it. Only a creation of the goddess can undo what has been done.”
“No offense, but since you admit you are in the ‘raise Panaal’ camp, how can we trust anything you say?” Silas asked.
Julius exchanged a long, wistful look with Grateful. “If you couldn’t trust me, you’d be drained and fed to the ogres downstairs by now. No one would ever find your remains, wolf. Ogres ingest everything, even the bones.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A reality. I have made my peace with this existence of mine. There are things… people… I would hate to see come to an untimely end. Suffice it to say, I’m on your side. Although my patience wears thin with your discourtesy.”
“You were saying,” Grateful interrupted, giving Silas the side-eye. “One thousand years ago...”
“I was close to a dark witch who wanted to break the natural law. It is said that if a son or daughter of Hecate sacrifices a representative of each of the primary sons and daughters of Panaal, that Panaal will rise, all the prior rules of order will end, and the game will be played again, most likely with a much different end.”
“Why would you assume a different end?”
“Because while the original game was played by the gods, with their new creations waiting in the shadows, the book says that the new game will feature all of us playing against each other. It will be an all-out war between creatures of the night and those of the day, and humans will be our pawns in the game.”
Silas shrugged. “Doesn’t mean your kind will win.”
“Yes it does,” Grateful said. “Because not only will our kind be battling the creatures of the night, our nature will require us to protect the humans from slaughter. We’ll have to fight twice as hard, and we won’t have the protections we do today. Vampires will be able to walk in daylight. Demons will possess humans at will.”
“Exactly.” Julius finished his Scotch. “Chaos. Disorder. Thousands of years of war.”
Vengeance: A Knight World Novel (Fireborn Wolves Book 3) Page 14
