by Carmen Caine
Darling
The spider shrieked as it died, a kind of night-owly, unnerving screech, a sound I didn’t know spiders could make.
Stricken, Lucian dropped on one knee next to the shoebox. “I knew it had to be close,” he murmured as if in a dream. “It’s the only explanation for the door and Cassidy—why she couldn’t detect Culpepper or the mana in this place.”
Tabitha chose that moment to burst into the room. Her eyes widened upon seeing the ward, but she only said, “They’re coming. We maybe have three minutes.”
Lucian began to swear. “We leave now then,” he said, plucking the ward from the box.
“But the tracking spell?” Heath asked with a fearsome snarl.
I glanced up to find him once again a werewolf, his white-tipped gray fur standing on end and his teeth bared.
The narrowing of Lucian’s eyes betrayed his anger and frustration, but staring straight ahead, he replied in a deceptively calm voice, “You can see as well as I that it shattered.” He waved an elegant finger to where the now-cracked amulet lay on the floor. “I could only see that it was a witch.”
“Gray eyes. Honey-blonde hair. A star-shaped scar on the back of her hand.” I offered the choice details with a cool smile of my own.
The shock on Lucian’s handsome face was priceless.
Figuring the witch in question was likely still eavesdropping, I couldn’t resist goading her a bit. Placing my hand on my hip, I tacked on a spray of criticisms, hoping at least one would hit the spot. “Self-centered. Vain. Definite lack of fashion sense. Fairly plain-looking and not that bright.”
I didn’t divulge the green door with its gargoyle knob on Park Avenue. I didn’t want her to know that I knew her location. And anyway, it was obvious that I’d said enough.
Lucian looked positively ill. He clearly knew who it was. Apparently, so did Heath.
“Anya,” the werewolf growled low in his throat.
“Can’t be,” Lucian whispered hoarsely. A bead of sweat appeared on his brow.
Ricky didn’t like the news, either. “Oi! It’s cheerio for me, duck,” he gulped before zipping back to safety under my collar.
I cocked a curious brow, but before I could press further, Culpepper swiveled in his chair to face us, slack-jawed, limp, and with a completely blank expression in his eyes. But that didn’t stop whatever possessed him. The corner of his lip jerked up as if attached to a puppet string to say, “Your recent engagement changes nothing between us, darling.”
Darling? So, we really were dealing with an ex-girlfriend of some sort. The same Romanian witch he’d tried to send a breakup message to by pretending to be engaged to me.
Lucian ground his teeth together. “What do you want from me, Anya?”
She’d apparently thought about it. A lot. Her answer was immediate. “Your agony,” she responded through Culpepper’s body. “And a knife in your throat.”
One thing I’ll say for Lucian. He was resilient. Recovering quickly from his ex-girlfriend’s unexpected appearance, he tilted his handsome head to one side and curved his lips into a smile of the most chilling kind. “Don’t play this game with me, Anya,” he warned. “You’ll lose.”
Anya laughed. It had a kind of monotone quality to it. It was creepy, watching that sound come out of the corner of Culpepper’s lips. “You thought me a simple witch. A fool to bend to your will. You used me.”
Lucian’s icy blue eyes glittered, but he didn’t respond.
“It doesn’t matter. Your power will soon be mine,” she promised. “My lovely, my pet, already completed his mission. He’s a special breed of my own design. Clever, isn’t it? Soon, you’ll discover the real danger, darling. But I shan’t tell you more. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
I glanced in alarm at Lucian’s ward. The spider was dead, but the trace of sickly mana stench was still there. Was she trying to control Lucian as she did the spiders?
“I’ll never bow to your blackmail and free Dorian,” Lucian interjected curtly. “Your bluff is doomed to fail. No witch or warlock can control the mana of living things to that extent, and certainly not you.”
I wasn’t so sure. I took a deep breath. Reaching out with my mind’s eye to the mana swirling around Lucian as he held his ward, I tried once again to travel back to the source. It was faster this time. Almost at once, Anya’s half-shrouded face appeared in my mind. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could see her mouth.
“Destroy the girl,” Culpepper suddenly droned from behind, lip-syncing with the woman featured in the movie playing in my head. “She’s a danger to the plan.”
Somehow, Culpepper moved, rolling my way as if pushed by invisible hands. Heath bounded forward to stop him as Lucian once again raised his hand to cast some spell, but before either could execute, there was a horrible hissing, gargling sound.
A black wolf spider launched itself out of the Templar’s nose, straight at me, but it only made it half way before Lucian thundered the completion of his spell.
The creature burst into flames mid-air, falling in a soft rain of ash at my feet.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lucian growled, tucking his ward into some hidden pocket. Tilting his head at Tabitha standing just a few feet from Culpepper, he added, “Your revenge on him will have to wait.”
She bowed in acceptance.
We filed after Lucian, through the destruction and out the corridor, taking the steps to the floor below. With a swift kick, Lucian opened the door leading out onto a rusted, creaking fire escape and disappeared into the darkness.
Tabitha and Heath quickly followed.
Police sirens wailed in the distance, and a brisk wind blew against me as I stepped into the night air. The fire escape groaned under my weight. It only inspired me to jump into the alley below faster.
I landed near the dumpsters where I’d found Ricky.
“Wait,” Lucian hissed, holding a staying hand.
I watched him disappear with Tabitha, presumably to scout out the safest avenue of escape. It was hard to just stand there and wait, especially with what I’d felt in the shadows there before. I cast a quick glance around, but nothing moved.
At my side, Heath growled.
“What is it?” I asked, on alert.
“Nothing,” he said mildly.
I frowned. “Then why did you growl?”
“Just in case,” he said, tossing his great wolf head in the equivalent of a shrug.
Yeah. This conversation was going nowhere fast. Deciding to make it a worthwhile one, I prodded, “So, just who is this Anya? I want to know what I’m dealing with here.”
He cringed a little, looking guilty just like a dog caught digging into the trash by its master. “You should ask Lucian, you know. But it’s all cool. She didn’t mean anything to him,” he said. “Not really.”
His response confused me a moment, until I caught his eyes darting to the engagement ring on my finger. Right. “Not worried about that,” I said with a curt, chopping motion of my hand. “Just who is she?”
It took about two minutes to extract the information from him this time and not the usual thirty seconds. He kept stressing just how little she meant to Lucian. Obviously, he was convinced that Lucian and I were really engaged. I didn’t bother to explain otherwise. I wanted to learn all I could about this Anya, but in the end, there really wasn’t that much.
Her full name was Anya Maria Tudor, a simple Romanian witch affiliated with the minor houses of necromancy and spell-crafting. Lucian had swept her off her feet, dating her to gain access to her uncle in order to turn him into a marionette. Once he had, he’d dumped her. For being such a smart warlock, it was a pretty dumb move.
The werewolf wrapped up the tale with, “She’s a Scryer, a pretty weak one.” He looked doubtful. “She was always scared of spiders. Kinda hard to believe she’s really behind this. Gnarly.” He shook his great head from side to side.
I knew he was wrong about her arachnophobia. The woman styl
ed her hair with a tarantula barrette and deployed spiders all over New York to act as her evil minions. She was neither scared of spiders nor weak.
Lucian and Tabitha returned then, accompanied by another tall, familiar figure that summoned a sour taste in my mouth: Strix.
“Sense anything, Cassidy?” the Nether Reach keeper asked, coming up to me.
The criminal barcode tattooed into my flesh chose that moment to burn. I glanced down to see it pulsing in the dark.
I simply sent him a dark look—and paused. He’d apparently been in a scuffle since I’d seen him last. A cut graced his chiseled cheekbones, his white-blond hair was disheveled, and the sleeve of his gray hoodie was torn. He was breathing heavily.
“Gloria,” Lucian supplied, catching my look. “She’s here with her clan. It’s time for us to leave.”
I glanced up at the rooftops, half-expecting the vampires to come flying down to surround us.
“Oh, it’s not Gloria that you should fret about, Cassidy. It will come to you soon, haunt your every waking step,” Strix leaned forward to tell me. “It’s just waiting for you to call it. But we’ll chat later. Don’t worry, you’re my prisoner. I’m right behind you.”
What could I really say to that? Especially when the hair on the back of my neck already stood on end from the shadows playing on the walls behind me. But, before I could summon any kind of snarky response, he’d lifted his hand and wove a symbol in the air.
It wasn’t the Mindbreaker’s emblem this time, but it burst into flame all the same, and the moment it did, I couldn’t move. It was a repeat of the Nether Reaches, when I’d stepped into the gate unbidden. A heavy, sinking sensation anchored me to the ground. The theater alley around me just kind of melted, and suddenly everything swirled, like it was going down the drain. It felt like my insides were being sucked right out through my toes.
There were at least five seconds of utter chaos, a swirl of melted colors enveloping me in ice. And just when I thought my brain was going to explode, I heard a pop. I found myself standing next to Lucian and Heath, inside an airport security fence next to a large hangar and warehouse emblazoned with the FedEx logo.
I whirled to Lucian, confused.
“The advantages of having a Keeper of the Gates in your employ.” He graced me with a condescendingly cool smile before brushing me curtly aside to clap his hands together. “Well now, Heath, what’s the status?”
As Heath bounded into the darkness behind the warehouse to presumably find out, Strix appeared, seemingly rising from the ground. This method of travel was as disturbing to watch as to experience. “They’ll be here shortly,” he warned Lucian. “They’re quick.”
“We won’t be long,” Lucian replied calmly. “And once we’ve secured Dorian, we’ll find Anya and finish this thing.”
They moved away from me then, bowing their heads to converse in low tones.
I suppose I could’ve interrupted them, to tell Lucian about the green, gargoyle-knobbed door on Park Avenue, but something held me back.
Well, maybe not something. Some-one.
Dorian.
It was like I could almost hear his voice whispering in my head. “Aye, lass. Aye, ‘tis time to free me. We’re of the same clan and there canna be a bond greater than that. ‘Tis time for you to come into your own. ‘Tis time to join me, my bonny wee glaistig.”
I froze. That thought had taken an unexpected turn. Glaistig? That bit of what I assumed to be Gaelic certainly hadn’t originated in my brain.
“You canna run from me, lass,” Dorian chuckled.
It was the laugh. I remembered then. It all came flooding back, the numerous dreams I’d had of late, dreams featuring that Scottish Highlander of a vampire.
So. Dorian was back. He’d been dispensing advice to me all along, reaching me through my dreams. And now he was close, close enough to access the clan mental connection while I was wide awake.
My pulse quickened.
It was odd, hearing his voice again. It had the strange effect of whetting my revenge anew.
Revenge.
Was my first real act of revenge really within my grasp? Was my moment coming?
I knew in my bones that it was.
I snapped the black puppet string tied about my wrist. Revenge, Cassidy. It’s all you’ve lived for. I didn’t let myself think of anything else. It didn’t matter. The only thing that did was Dorian making Emilio’s life miserable.
“You canna turn a deaf ear to me forever, lass,” Dorian chided in his soft, Scottish burr. “We’re the same, you and I.”
“Shut up,” I thought back at him. “I’m not your minion.”
“’Tis time to free me from this curse. All is forgiven atween us, ionmhainn,” he pressed on as if I hadn’t said a thing. “Come to me. I sense you are close. So close.”
Interesting. Could I only receive? “Helloooo, Dorian. Can you hear me?” I tried broadcasting again.
“Ach, now ‘tis not the time to play as a cat does with a mouse,” he snapped, losing momentary control of his temper. “Speak to me, lass!”
Well, that confirmed it. He couldn’t hear me. Either because I wasn’t doing it right or couldn’t do it at all. I grimaced. Great. That meant I couldn’t order him to shut up. I was stuck with a one-way conversation playing in my head whenever he decided he was in a chatty mood.
My inner dialogue was cut short by Heath padding our way, followed by a smaller snow-white wolf. It morphed into a thin, gangly teenaged boy with a nose ring and a blue mohawk. He bowed respectfully to Lucian before saying, “The package is secured, my lord. Follow me.”
“Well done.” Lucian respired with the first genuine smile I’d seen in days.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Strix warned again, scanning the surrounding area.
We moved quickly, following Heath and the gangly teenager to the back of the warehouse and through a side door. The place smelled like wet cardboard and for a good reason. There were walls of the stuff, partially shrink-wrapped wooden pallets stacked four to five high on metals shelves.
Stepping around a forklift piled high with boxes that had clearly just arrived, we approached a small group of people standing about ten feet away. Heath’s pack? The moment they spied Lucian, they drew back to reveal a small, briefcase-sized package resting on the cold, cement floor.
Dorian.
My pulse leapt.
But before anyone could move, a tiny red dot of a laser appeared on the very center of Lucian’s forehead.
A moment later, a swarm of spiders descended from the ceiling.
War
Tabitha appeared from seemingly nowhere, looking very dangerous. Viper-like. Every cell coiled and ready to spring.
“They’re here.” Strix dropped to a crouch, pointing out the obvious.
I eyed Dorian’s package, standing by itself just ten feet away. I almost went for it. But I never would’ve made it. Echoes of laughter surrounded us, and I smelled them then.
The Terzi.
At least two dozen, with more arriving every second. A few of them appeared on top of the pallets just a few feet away, grinning widely, shaking their shoulders and heads and laughing in anticipation of the clash to come.
But we weren’t alone. Reinforcements of our own arrived, Charmed folk I’d never seen before, filing in behind Lucian in a show of support and ready to fight.
A vampire with black lipstick. A suave man in a blue suit. A girl with hair dyed pink and yellow at the tips. An old hippie with a lip ring. A man with a potbelly wearing a bedazzled crown. A punk teen with a shaved head and a bandanna, and a young woman with jeans, t-shirt, and white sneakers. An eclectic bunch.
There were a few more coming, I could sense them outside the warehouse, but nothing like the numbers facing us. We were vastly outnumbered.
I swallowed, glancing over at Lucian.
He just stood there, his handsome face once again masked, but I thought there was something oddly off. Was it the col
or of his skin?
The Terzi standing on pallets suddenly parted, making way for one of the most striking, compelling vampires that I’d ever seen. A scar ran down the side of his face, but it only served to make him interesting, enhancing his beauty in the strangest of ways. He stood there, rolling a toothpick in the corner of his mouth with his tongue and his head tilted curiously to one side.
“You can leave, Lord Rowle,” he called down to Lucian. “You can simply just walk away.”
Lucian didn’t reply.
The vampire grinned, still playing with his toothpick.
I took a deep, nervous breath. Were we really going to fight? Judging by the ever-growing Terzi ranks, the odds weren’t in our favor.
“Are you truly foolish enough to stay, young one?” The scar-faced vampire laughed at Lucian.
With a cool smile, Lucian slowly removed his gloves and unbuttoned his black trench coat, letting it drop off his broad shoulders and onto the warehouse floor. In a slow, deliberate movement, he withdrew a pair of metallic handles linked by a chain. Silver. They were obviously more than just the odd, decorative fashion accessory. The sight of it made more than one face in the Terzi clan blanch.
Heath growled as Tabitha lifted her arms. From the corner of my eye, I saw Strix cover the bottom half of his face with a blue scarf before cracking his neck and knuckles in preparation.
The Terzi waited.
All eyes were on Lucian, standing there tall, calm in the eye of the impending storm.
I found myself holding my breath.
And then, ever so slowly, Lord Lucian Rowle brandished his silver chain, spreading his arms wide to stretch it into a taut lethal line.
"We're too many even for you, Lord Rowle,” the beautiful, scar-faced vampire with the toothpick warned again. “Rolf will dispatch you in less than a second. Is that truly how you desire the House of Rowle to end?”
Lucian replied by lifting his hand and beckoning with two fingers.
The vampire grinned. “Then, Lord Rowle, may I say I shall miss you. You were a worthy opponent.” He bowed, long, deep, and respectfully before straightening with a shrug to call over his shoulder. “Rolf, the floor is yours. Make it quick.”
