by Vivian Wood
Cassie waited it out, then focused on her surroundings. She wiggled her feet, quickly realizing that she stood in grass. She writhed against her restraints, trying to get free, and was rewarded with a low chuckle.
Icy gooseflesh spread over her entire body. She knew that voice, knew it all too well.
“Pere Mal,” Cassie groaned.
The blindfold was yanked off her head, and she blinked into the bright moonlit night. All around her were towering crypts and statues guarding graves. Cassie shivered, a shudder of pure fright invading her veins.
“I was wondering when you’d wake, Oracle.” Pere Mal regarded her with a chilling smile, and Cassie stared back at him in confusion.
“Where am I?” she asked. “Jesus, is this a friggin’ cemetery? Why are we in a cemetery at night? Oh god, am I tied to someone’s grave marker?”
She tested her bonds again, though she knew her chance of escape was nil. Sure enough, she was tied to a massive stone cross.
“Cassandra, Cassandra. You disappoint me,” Pere Mal tsked. “Do you not recognize the Gates of Guinee when you see them? We are in St. Louis Cemetery, at the Third Gate. You should know, as often as we discussed the Gates.” He paused for another long moment while Cassie tried to piece together his words, then went on, “You were one of my favorite assets, you know. I kept you in much better style than most.”
Cassie’s upper lip curled with disgust.
“I’m a person, not a possession, you sick jerk. You can’t just keep a human being in captivity. It’s wrong.”
Pere Mal’s eyebrows raised in what seemed like earnest surprise.
“My dear, we made an agreement. You wanted to leave the blood brothel. I wanted you to give me visions. A bargain was struck!”
“I was a child when I said yes, and I was facing death. How many years did you expect me to serve you without complaint?” Cassie asked, fury boiling in her veins.
“I expected you to fulfill the terms of our agreement as we negotiated it. You signed a contract, Cassandra. If everyone were to put aside their own contracts so easily, the world would be a hard place.” Before Cassie could reply, Pere Mal went on, “It matters not. You have proven to me that your word is worthless. Therefore, I am revoking my end of the bargain, as you have yours.”
“You’re what?” Cassie asked.
“Returning you to the brothel,” Pere Mal said. Stepping closer, he ran a finger along her bare arm, tracing her scars. “Usually I would just take what I want and leave you to your pathetic little life, but you’ve been dishonorable. You’ve grown so pretty since they last drank from you, Cassandra. I think the Vampires will welcome you back with open arms, don’t you?”
To her shame, Cassie began to wretch again. Her stomach had never been so sensitive before, and now it was betraying all her fear to her worst enemy.
“Morning sickness?” Pere Mal asked, patting her arm.
Cassie stilled, her eyes slowly dragging up to meet his.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“It’s funny that they call it morning sickness, isn’t it? I’ve heard it can happen at any time of the day or night. Near midnight, for instance,” Pere Mal said, pointing up at the full moon.
“I— I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cassie sputtered.
“Liar. And a poor one, at that.” Pere Mal checked his elegant platinum wrist watch and tsked again. “We’re running out of time. I was so hoping that your Guardian would appear in time to see the show, but I think he’s too slow. Pity.”
Pere Mal put two fingers to his lips and gave a shrill whistle, summoning several dark-robed figures forward from the shadows.
“What are you doing?” Cassie asked, tucking her wrists against the stone cross and trying to rub the rope against it, hoping to wear it away and free herself. It was useless, of course; she didn’t have nearly that kind of time.
“I can’t just give the Oracle to the Vampires,” Pere Mal said, clicking his tongue. “I’ll need to remove her and place her in a… more willing vessel.”
He clapped his hands and another pair of dark-robed men appeared, carrying an unconscious woman. She was slight and pale, her raven locks spilling down over the thin white dress she wore.
“Alice!” Cassie cried, tears springing to her eyes when she saw her friend lying limp and seemingly lifeless.
Pere Mal’s eyes widened for a moment, then he bared his teeth at Cassie.
“Of course you two know each other somehow,” Pere Mal hissed. “Troublemakers, the pair of you. Well no more. After tonight, I will remove two problems from my life. Permanently.”
Cassie tried to be calm, reminding herself that the Oracle would rise to protect her the moment it sensed a threat to her life. She made herself be still and quiet as Pere Mal’s men laid Alice out on the ground, her body looking more frail than ever as they cleansed and anointed her.
“What are you going to do to her?” Cassie blurted out after a few minutes, unable to contain herself.
“To her?” Pere Mal asked. “Nothing she doesn’t deserve. She will be unharmed, physically. You, on the other hand…”
Pere Mal brandished a long, wicked-looking dagger.
“I’m going to take everything from you, little Cassandra. By the time I throw you to the Vampires, you’ll long for death,” Pere Mal informed her.
Pere Mal reached out and ran the dagger’s tip along her jaw and throat, but he didn’t break the skin. Cassie closed her eyes and tried to summon the Oracle, but Pere Mal broke her concentration.
“The Oracle can’t protect you now, Cassandra. You’re not the one she’s guarding anymore.”
Cassie stared at him, uncomprehending.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Your child, Cassandra. Honestly, I thought you were smart enough to know that the Oracle will pass on to your daughter.”
Daughter.
The word hit Cassie like a punch to the gut, and she burst into tears. What the hell was Pere Mal talking about? Worse, what was he going to do with her baby?
“Crying won’t help,” Pere Mal said, checking his watch again. “In less than a quarter of an hour, the ceremony begins. The Gates will open, the spirits will come to my aid, and then I will have what I want.”
“And what’s that?” Cassie asked through her tears.
“You gave the Oracle new life,” Pere Mal said, cocking his head as he considered Cassie’s prone body. “In doing so, you gave her a soul, a spirit. Now I will simply separate spirit from flesh,” he said, pointing his dagger at Cassie’s stomach.
“No,” she breathed, a sick comprehension flooding her brain. “No, you can’t!”
“Yes. And then my ancestral spirits will guide the Oracle to her new Vessel,” he said, pointing at Alice’s still form.
“You’d kill my child?” Cassie asked, then began to beg. “You want the Oracle that badly? Take me instead. Take me, use my child as insurance. I won’t ever run from you again.”
Pere Mal gave another low chuckle, and Cassie’s heart lurched.
“We’ve already established that your word means nothing to me, Cassandra. Just as empty my lovely Alice’s promises,” he said, turning to gaze at Alice.
Something about the way he said her name triggered a thought in the far back of Cassie’s mind, but she couldn’t put it together just now.
“Pere Mal, please,” she cried. “I’ll do anything, anything!”
He merely sighed.
“All you can do is wait,” he said, turning and walking over to confer in low tones with one of the robed men.
Cassie swallowed back a sob, tears slicking her face and neck now. Gabriel and the other Guardians were nowhere to be seen, and it seemed that no help was forthcoming.
She’d had her mate for less than three months, her child for a fraction of that. How could she possibly lose them both now, when she’d only just found them?
Closing her eyes, Cassie did the only thing she could thin
k of: she prayed.
13
“Damn,” Aeric said, peering into the scrying mirror over Gabriel’s shoulder.
“Two results,” Gabriel muttered, shaking his head. “Pere Mal is hiding Cassie’s location somehow. An occlusion spell, maybe.”
“How do we decide which one to go to first?” Rhys asked, pacing the floor a few feet away. When Rhys and Asher had shown up, Gabriel opted to bring the scrying mirror downstairs to the conference table, giving them all a little room to breathe and move about. Four huge guys in Aeric’s quarters quickly proved uncomfortable.
“Flip a coin,” Asher suggested. Gabriel turned and regarded the brawny former soldier, frowning at how casually Asher was sprawled out over one of the Manor’s couches. He looked utterly unconcerned, as if the abduction of Gabriel’s mate meant nothing. True, he’d only told Rhys about the pregnancy test, but it wouldn’t kill Asher to look as if he recognized the direness of the situation.
Hell, even Aeric was managing to look a little stressed, and Aeric barely had visible emotions.
“Don’t talk again until I tell you to,” Rhys said, swooping in before Gabriel could yell at the odd new addition to the Manor staff. “And Gabriel, you and I will go to one place, Aeric and Asher to another. You choose. Either way, we’ll find Cassie, I promise.”
Gabriel rolled his neck, producing several loud pops. He turned back to the scrying mirror and the map spread out beside it. Holding out a hand over the map, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, centering himself. He splayed his fingers out and kept his mind blank, sweeping his hand in circles, trying to get an impression.
He pictured Cassie in his mind, setting aside his heart-pounding panic about their possible unborn child. Rhys had coached Gabriel to prioritize, so he did. He thought about Cassie in his bed, lying in his arms. He summoned the memory of her scent, vanilla spice. The softness of her skin, the silky texture of her long auburn mane. The tenderness in her beautiful gray eyes when she looked at him, the love he saw written there…
Gabriel fist landed on the table. He looked down and found that his knuckle was squarely atop one of the two choices, a cluster of cemeteries near the Treme neighborhood that experienced equally high volumes of tourism and Kith activity.
“I guess this us,” Gabriel said, glancing up at Rhys. “Aeric, you two go to Metairie Cemetery. We’re going to the St. Louis Cemeteries.”
“Number One or Two?” Asher asked. He looked on the brink of a yawn, which pushed Gabriel over the edge. Gabriel shot him a derisive look.
“If it was that precise, I’d already have saved her without your help,” Gabriel snapped. “I can only hope that should you become a Guardian, I get to watch you go through this with your own mate.”
Asher’s brows shot up and then he scowled, shaking his head as he rose and followed Aeric to the gymnasium to prepare for their mission.
The team suited up in record time, but to Gabriel every minute seemed to drag by with infinite slowness. When he and Rhys were finally in the car, speeding the opposite direction of Asher and Aeric, Gabriel double checked his guns, sword, and wand before closing his eyes and concentrating on Cassie again.
When Rhys and Gabriel were a dozen blocks from the cemeteries, Gabriel started getting quick flashes of emotion from Cassie. Gut-wrenching fear and panic interspersed with a quiet kind of acknowledgement, as if she were close to accepting her situation. Gabriel opened his eyes and pounded the dashboard, startling Rhys.
“She thinks I’m not coming to rescue her,” Gabriel growled. “Fuck me, how can she believe that?”
“Females are not my area of expertise,” Rhys said, staring grimly as he floored the SUV through a red light. “In any event, Cassie will see your face in a handful of minutes. Focus on her, try to figure out which cemetery she’s in.”
Gabriel closed his eyes. As they pulled onto the road that ran between the two graveyards, Gabriel raised his hand and pointed.
“Number One, then,” Rhys said. “Gives me a bad feeling. The third Gate of Guinee is supposed to be there.”
Gabriel didn’t say any more, opening his eyes and watching as Rhys pulled the car up beside the cemetery’s elaborate wrought iron entrance gate. As soon as they climbed out the car, Gabriel nearly jumped out of his skin when a loud pop sounded all too close to him, followed by a shower of sparks. Magic?
“Lads with poppers,” Rhys said, grimacing and pointing to a group of teenage boys fleeing the scene as they disappeared around a corner. The pops, cracks, and bright sparks receded but didn’t fade entirely, so the boys hadn’t retreated very far. For their sake, Gabriel hoped they stayed clear of cemetery tonight. Pere Mal wouldn’t think twice about striking down a human bystander, especially not one as vexing as a boy with firecrackers.
“Let’s move,” Gabriel said, taking off at a trot. If they were lucky, the sound of firecrackers would actually cover Gabriel and Rhys’s approach, allowing them to sidle up to whatever hidey hole Pere Mal was lurking in without being noticed.
When they entered the graveyard, they waded into an endless maze of tall, crumbling brick and mortar crypts, weeping angel statues, and stone crosses of every size and variety imaginable. The cemetery was old but neatly kept, with flowers and gifts laid here and there as tokens of respect to the dead. Gabriel patrolled this particular cemetery regularly, as it was said to house one of New Orleans’ most famous figures, Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau.
Gabriel led the way into the older section of the cemetery. The thought of Marie Laveau’s tomb reminded him of Rhys’s earlier comments about the Gates of Guinee. Laveau's tomb was supposed to be one of the Gates, and Gabriel supposed it would be a draw for Pere Mal, who gathered information through whispers and old scrolls.
It didn’t take them long to find Pere Mal. A few of his usual suited goons were sprinkled in a wide circle, lounging against tombs and keeping guard. As Gabriel suspected, Pere Mal was only a few yards from the supposed tomb of Marie Laveau. Surrounding him were twenty or more men in dark, hooded robes, some sort of ceremonial garb. The men in robes were smaller and less brawny than Pere Mal’s guards, but Gabriel was willing to bet that they were Voodoo practitioners. They could very well be more dangerous, especially standing on a site of such power.
The tomb itself was small, the bricks decaying to the point of near collapse. The whole tomb was covered in tiny chalk Xs, left by hopeful visitors seeking a favor from the renowned Voodoo Queen. The ground around the tomb was knee-deep in flowers and beads and trinkets, plus countless tiny gris-gris sachets.
Pere Mal wore his customary tuxedo and held a fearsome silver dagger. In all the melee of robed men, it took Gabriel a moment to spot Cassie. She was facing away from Gabriel’s position, standing on a raised stone crypt, tied head to foot against a towering stone cross. He couldn’t see her face, but her head sagged to the side. When Gabriel tried to sense her emotions, he came up blank. His vision went red when he realized that she was unconscious, and that Pere Mal had likely rendered her so. His fierce little mate wasn’t much for fainting.
Once he’d ascertained Cassie’s whereabouts, Gabriel noticed a final figure in the picture. A frail brunette in a white nightgown was laid out on the ground, pallid and still as a corpse. After a moment, he saw her chest rise and fall, meaning that she still lived in some sense, though the stranger seemed to be in a coma or worse. Possessed, bewitched… who knew?
Gabriel pulled his wand and his sword, ready to fight his way to Cassie. Rhys’s hand on his shoulder surprised him, and Gabriel looked up at his friend and fellow Guardian with something close to murderous intent. Rhys gave him a hard look and held up a finger, advocating patience.
Rhys pulled out his cell phone and started texting, and it was everything Gabriel could do to remain still. After a few moments, Rhys moved closer and whispered in the lowest possible voice, “We’re vastly outnumbered, my friend. Pere Mal will gut your girl before we get within a dozen feet of her.”
“We can
’t wait for Aeric,” Gabriel said. “Pere Mal is going to make his move soon, I can feel it.”
“Let me draw off some of the men first, at least,” Rhys said. “Give us a fighting chance.”
“I’ll need you at my side,” Gabriel said, watching Rhys closely.
“S’okay. I’m going to pay those lads to make a big scene, distract everyone,” Rhys said. “It’s the best we can do at the moment.”
“Make sure they do it from as far away as possible, and then run. I don’t want Pere Mal catching up with if this goes awry.”
“Of course. Do your best, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Gabriel nodded slowly, then waved Rhys on. He waited for several tense minutes, startling when Rhys reappeared behind him on silent footsteps. Rhys pointed in the direction of the front gate, then motioned for Gabriel to be patient. Mercifully, the firecrackers began to crackle all around them moments later.
Pere Mal moved a few feet away from Cassie as sparks, cracks, and pops sounded all around the graveyard. The robed figures and guards drew away to investigate, and Rhys followed them with a look of grim determination on his face. Gabriel focused on Cassie and Pere Mal once more, noting that now there were only two priests remaining to back Pere Mal up.
Sword and wand at ready, Gabriel charged. The second Pere Mal saw Gabriel, he moved back to Cassie and laid the dagger at her throat. Gabriel struck the two men in robes first, firing twin spells that dropped them in their tracks. A soft shudder ran through Gabriel, a kind of carnal knowledge. He didn’t perform spells against people any longer, not since Caroline’s death, but now he fired without flinching.
Anything to save Cassie.
He squared off before Pere Mal, wand and sword at the ready. Pere Mal stood inches from Cassie’s bound form. Her head hung down, the flame-red curtain of her hair obscuring her face. Pere Mal had the nerve to look nearly relaxed as he held the six-inch blade against Cassie’s collarbone, the barest distance from slicing her vulnerable neck.
“Leave now, and I will not pursue you,” Gabriel said. “It’s the best offer you’re going to get.”
