Devils & Thieves Series, Book 1

by Jennifer Rush

  He turned to me and whispered something, and the black-and-crimson ribbons of stolen magic around him struck like snakes, burying themselves in my mind. Even through the chaos of magic around me, I could see that the same thing was happening to Crowe.

  “Jemmie, if Crowe so much as moves, you slit his throat. Crowe, if Jemmie moves, you shoot her in the head.” Darek’s eyes met mine. “I really did love you.” He sighed and walked toward the mill.

  “Darek!” I moved to stand and Crowe cocked the gun and put the barrel against my forehead.

  “Don’t. Move,” he said.

  I froze in place.

  “We have to stop him. He’s about to do the spell.”

  “I know.” Crowe’s voice shook. Sweat shone on his forehead. “Please don’t move. I’m really close to pulling the trigger, Jemmie.”

  “I’m not moving.”

  For a moment, we just stared at each other. Then Crowe spoke, as if every word was a struggle. “You have to undo this spell. You can see it. You can see how to break it down.”

  “I don’t know if it works that way. I’ve only undone my own kind of magic. This is a whole other ball game.”

  “Just try.”

  I concentrated on the threads that bound us to Darek’s orders. I could see the magic when I squinted: thick red ribbons of it zigzagging between Crowe and me. But when I tried to pull on one thread, the knots only seemed to tighten.

  “I don’t think I can undo this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I can’t, Crowe. We are going to sit here forever until one of us moves.”

  “Then I’m going to move,” he said. “And you do what you have to—and then you find a way to stop Darek.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  “Listen to me. Jane said one of us would die tomorrow, but it’s just past midnight. It is tomorrow. And I think she meant me, Jemmie. So it’s okay.” He gave me a brave smile. “No guilt, all right?”

  “It’s not you,” I whispered. I gave him an apologetic look as his smile faded. “I grabbed Jane’s hand as Hardy was dragging her away. She said it was going to be me.”

  Even in the darkness, I could see the blood drain from Crowe’s face. “Tell me you’re lying,” he demanded, his voice breaking.

  “If this is how I die, here with you, then I’m okay with that.”

  “Goddamn it, Jemmie. I will not be the one to kill you.” His hand shook.

  I closed my eyes, breathing deeply even as I felt the barrel of his weapon against my skin. “If that’s what it takes for you to get out of this and go save all those people, then you have to do it. Your sister. My parents. Our friends. They’re depending on you.”

  “What about you?” he whispered.

  I opened my eyes. “I guess my story might end right here. But it’ll be quick, right?” I sounded a lot braver than I felt. Hopelessness was tearing at my heart.

  Crowe started to shake his head, then hissed as I brought the knife to his throat. He froze. “I can’t be the one,” he said in a low voice. “It would kill me anyway. I only ever wanted to keep you safe.”

  I offered him a tremulous smile. “Is that why you told me to leave Hawthorne?”

  “You really want to talk about this right now?”

  “What better time? This is probably the last conversation we’ll ever have.”

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “I thought you’d be better off far away from this place.”

  “You mean far away from you? From what you might have to do, now that you’re president of the club? Is that why you got with Katrina, too?”

  His eyes slid away from me and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple sinking. “Yes.”

  “I think that’s horseshit.”

  He smiled. “Did you just say ‘horseshit’?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I can tell.”

  We fell into silence again. Crowe shifted his weight an inch on the woodpile, and without thinking, I pressed the blade to his skin. He pushed the gun harder into my forehead.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  The harder I fought Darek’s order, the less control I seemed to have over my body, the more compelled I felt to listen to my hand instead of my head. It was only a matter of time until one of us wouldn’t be able to hold back the urge to kill.

  I didn’t want to die not knowing the truth.

  “Did you ever love me?” I whispered. “Was I ever more than just a distraction?”

  Crowe blinked. “Jemmie.”

  “If I’m going to die, I want the truth.”

  “Yes. I loved you. I love you. I’ve never stopped.”

  My shoulders fell, and Crowe seemed able to ignore the shift in my posture, though his eyes squeezed shut and his gritted teeth were telling me it wasn’t easy. I’d been waiting over a year to hear him say those words. Now he had, and it was bittersweet. Because I was going to die today, one way or the other. I could feel the finality of it settling in. I didn’t need to have omnias blood in my veins to feel fate crushing down on me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “I wanted to protect you,” he said. “From me, from what I might become, and from everything that came along with that.”

  “And now?”

  His gaze fell to my lips. “Now I just want you.”

  A smile. A sigh. I had a gun to my head, but I was ridiculously happy in that instant. “I’m yours.”

  His hand came up, like he meant to touch me. I dug the blade harder against his throat, leaving a small gash. Blood welled in the wound and spilled from it like melted wax over the edge of a candle.

  The blood ran toward my hand, the one still clutching the knife. “I have an idea,” I said, inching my palm up the hilt, toward the blade. I forced myself not to move any other part of my body except my fingers and prayed I wouldn’t accidentally drop the weapon before I’d gotten what I needed.

  When I felt the bite of the knife’s edge, I smiled. Crowe’s blood was streaming down the side of his neck, and mine was dripping from the pads of my fingers. I tried angling my hand a fraction of an inch to bring our essences together. Crowe’s finger slid back to the trigger.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Saving us.”

  “I can feel you moving. So you should either hurry up or stop it.”

  I counted down in my head. Trying to propel myself into action, coiling the necessary energy I’d need to move fast enough to dodge a bullet.

  One.

  Two.

  “Jemmie,” Crowe warned.

  Three.

  I pressed my right hand to the wound on Crowe’s neck where locant blood met venemon blood for the second time. As the power surged inside me, I threw my left hand up, grabbed Crowe’s arm and pushed it away. The gun went off inches from my face.

  My ears ringing from the blast, I reached for the magic we’d just created together. It exploded out around us, gold and sapphire and the indefinable shimmer that was both of them together.

  After this morning, I’d thought I knew what it felt like to work blood magic. But I didn’t. Crowe had been in control this morning, casting the spell he’d needed to survive—I’d mostly been an observer.

  Casting the magic in a blood-powered spell was ten times more potent.

  Time stood still as warmth ran through me. This tingly-all-over feeling. Like velvet. Like rose petals. Like smooth chocolate melting in your mouth. Breathing felt like freedom. The beating of my heart was the thundering of a storm electrifying the air. The ground vibrated beneath me. Colors became more vibrant. Sounds more refined. My magic surged inside me, with his wrapping around it, breathing life into it.

  It was like I was seeing and hearing and feeling the world for the very first time. With a grin, I reached up and drew my finger through the crimson ribbons of animus magic imprisoning us. Blue and gold twined together and cut through the crimson power. The mind-control power Darek had stolen from Killian shattered all aro
und us, crumbling like an afterthought.

  I slid off the woodpile, my body melting with the magic, and collapsed to my knees. Crowe caught me, hugged me close.

  “Jemmie. Talk to me.”

  I looked up at him. Stupid, handsome Crowe. More handsome than ever before.

  His eyes were black again, but so were mine. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, the blackness of the magic bleeding into my eyes. It stung just as much as it thrilled. But I didn’t care. The good far outweighed the bad.

  “Get up. We have to go,” Crowe said, letting me go quickly. “Darek is going to be doing the spell any minute now.”

  The euphoria of our blood magic faded quickly, just like it had before, and I climbed to my feet, Crowe’s arm laced around my waist. I was here but not here, delighted and floating on the revelation of his love yet strangled by the certainty of my own impending death. But I was ready even though it was way too soon. I was part of this, and it was time.

  Somewhere far away, I heard the whisper of the Undercurrent, where the blackness lived. And it was calling my name.

  EIGHTEEN

  “HARDY AND I USED TO PLAY HERE ALL THE TIME WHEN we were kids,” Crowe said as he led me around the junkyard, headed for the riverbank. “There are a few ways to get to that second floor.”

  We reached the bottom of a conveyor-belt ramp along the side of the building that must have been used to move logs up from the river to the processing facility inside. The ramp connected to a section of the second floor that jutted out over the Sable and was held up by a few rickety-looking wooden posts. Even from here, I could see that part of that floor had rotted away, revealing the lighted space inside the building. “This is my entrance,” said Crowe, leaning close, his voice just a whisper. “He probably won’t expect anyone to go in this way.”

  “Probably because it’s crazy—be careful you don’t end up in the river.”

  He grinned, hard and dangerous. “You can go in through the building and get up the stairs. How’s your magic?”

  I looked down at my hands, at the wisps of locant trailing from my fingertips. The blood spell had amplified my magic temporarily, but it was already wearing off, as was the feeling of euphoria, leaving me with only dread—even if we saved everybody, I wasn’t going to make it out. “Not a hundred percent yet, but better.”

  If I told him it wasn’t, he would feel the need to protect me, and I needed him to protect Alex and my parents and everyone else.

  “That barrier around him is going to be wearing off really soon,” I said. “Unless he uses my dad to recharge, that is.”

  “We’ll have to take our chances. I’m going to get Darek as soon as I find a way in. At the very least, I can keep him busy. You focus on getting people out and protecting them from Killian’s magic, since he’s under Darek’s control. Start with your dad, because he’ll be able to help you shield the others from any animus magic. Then free Alex and Hardy. Can you unbind magic yet?”

  I offered him a brave smile. “I’ll give it everything I have.” All I really had to do was get to my dad—if I failed or went down, he could do the rest.

  “There are two staircases inside,” Crowe continued, his lips brushing against my hair. “He’s probably been using the one nearest the front entrance, but there’s a narrow set of steps through there.” He pointed to an old door, just crooked planks barely holding together, that was situated beneath a sagging overhang. “If he’s got a barrier up to wall that entrance off, you’ll be able to take it down.”

  “Be careful,” I whispered as he tested his weight on the ramp. “Remember how many people need you. My mom—” My throat constricted over my last request. Take care of her after I’m gone.

  He raised his head as if he’d heard it anyway. “This isn’t the end, Jemmie. I won’t let it be.”

  We stared at each other, and I drank in the sight of his moonlit face. “Okay. Go,” I whispered, knowing that if I lingered a moment longer, I might lose my courage altogether. Now I fully understood what Crowe had meant when he said he didn’t want to know when he would die for fear it would make him hesitate.

  Crowe’s long fingers tightened on either side of the conveyor belt, and he began to climb, ascending like a big jungle cat, silent and dangerous. I tore my gaze from his body and crept over to the rotting wooden door. It hung open slightly, leaving just enough space for me to slide through without having to pull it wide.

  Guided only by the dim silver glow of the moon through filthy panes of glass, I began to make my way to a set of stairs that led up to the second floor. My parents and Alex and the others were directly above me—I could smell the faint waft of their magic now, all mixed together. I flexed my fingers and smelled the stinging mint of my own power, and I couldn’t help but think that Alex would be so proud of me; I’d dug my power out from under all those layers of denial, as she had said I could, and now I was going to use it.

  The darkness at the bottom of the staircase was nearly complete, but I could see where the steps ended near the ceiling in a trapdoor. There was no locant barrier there. Maybe Darek had been arrogant enough to leave it unprotected.

  “Sorry, Jemmie,” came Killian’s voice from behind me—a moment before his arms slid around me—and his fearsome animus magic did the same, winding around my head and body like ropes before I could conjure any type of shield. A sense of numbness came over me, and I sighed. If Killian was here, it meant Crowe might have a chance. There was no point in fighting.

  “Come on,” Killian said as he tugged me up the sagging stairs. His muscles were trembling. I swear he didn’t want to be doing this. But I understood his magic well enough to know that talking wasn’t going to change things.

  We reached the trapdoor, and Killian swung it up and helped me through into a cavernous space. The ceiling had rotted away in some places, revealing the starry sky above as well as the huge missing section of the floor that we’d seen from outside—from here, it was just a black pit. Even though we were a few dozen yards away, on the other side of the space, I could hear the rush of the river below. Next to the giant hole in the floor was a stack of massive logs, which probably concealed the ramp Crowe was using. The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as Killian guided me out of the shadows with his mind, his hand resting lightly on the back of my neck.

  Darek had lit lanterns he’d clearly stolen from the festival. They were placed against the walls. A big wooden trough sat in the center of the floor, maybe eight feet long and a few feet wide. Around it stood all the people we were missing. My parents, Alex, Flynn, Hardy, Boone, and Gunnar. Katrina and Jane were there as well. They stood on either side of the trough, their bare arms stretched out over it, palms down. Their eyes were unfocused.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Dad!” I wanted to run to them but couldn’t get my feet to move.

  “They can’t hear you,” said Darek. He was standing on the far side of the trough, looking triumphant. “I’ve put my uncle’s magic to good use. They’re deaf and blind. So are the others.”

  There were nine total. Alex and Gunnar stood across from each other, both of their faces stained with dirt, their hair a tangled mess. They’d fought, and they’d lost.

  “Let them go,” I said. Where was Crowe? I couldn’t look for him. I couldn’t do anything but stand like a zombie at the opposite end of the trough, completely lost in Killian’s influence.

  Darek was watching me intently. “I heard the gunshot and thought he’d killed you,” he said.

  “I ducked.” My arms were slack at my sides as Killian’s magic stroked at me, filling my nose with the smell of copper and salt and ash and sweat. Mine and Killian’s.

  Darek arched an eyebrow. “Is Crowe dead, then?” Around him, the locant shield glowed weakly, revealing a few spots that had worn away. It was still there, but fading fast. “He’d better be dead.”

  “Not as dead as you’re about to be,” came a voice from the darkness behind him.

  Darek whirled around as t
hick whips of venemon magic flew outward from the shadows and slammed into his body, making the locant shield flicker and fade. With a desperate sound, Darek dove for Flynn, who was standing nearest the end of the trough, right next to Old Lady Jane. Darek squatted low as he wrapped his fingers around Flynn’s unyielding forearm while the older man merely stood placidly, as if lost in a dream.

  Crowe moved into the lantern light, his power perfectly controlled and absolutely terrifying, like an army of vipers just looking for a place to strike. Each loop of it spiraled in the air, the ends narrowed to sharp, stabbing points. His lip curled when he saw Darek hunkered down behind the trough. “How’s that stolen shield holding up, asshole?”

  Darek let out a nervous laugh, still holding tightly to Flynn’s arm. Something about it felt wrong, but I couldn’t quite break through the numbing peace of Killian’s magic to figure out why. “I guess you’re as strong as everyone says, Crowe,” Darek replied. “But you’re not about to stop me.”

  “Wanna bet?” Crowe spread his fingers, and one of the golden vipers lashed out, slamming into Darek’s shoulder. He fell backward with a scream, blood welling from what looked like a stab wound. He rolled over quickly, though, green inlusio magic slithering from his fingertips.

  He’d just siphoned a hefty amount of Flynn’s magic, and Crowe couldn’t see it. He had no idea. The sight of Crowe stalking toward Darek, the urgency and need I felt to save him, tore at the bonds of Killian’s magic inside my mind. But it wasn’t enough. As Crowe raised his arms and his magic reached for Darek one last time, Darek flung his arm out.

  The inlusio magic arced through the air and engulfed Crowe. Threads of it slid into his ears and over his eyes. He gasped and froze. “What happened?” he whispered, his voice cracking as he stared blindly at all of us. “Did I just do this?”

  With a stifled curse, Darek pressed his hand to his bleeding shoulder and got to his feet. “How’s the view from there, Crowe?” he asked with a pained chuckle. “Did your mighty powers have a few unintended consequences?”

  My heart twisted as I witnessed something I never thought I’d see. Tears, streaking down Crowe’s handsome face. “Alex?” he asked in a broken voice. “Flynn!” His arm rose from his side, reaching for them. “This can’t be real,” he screamed. “Jemmie? Answer me! I know this isn’t real!”