by Alys Arden
“Really? Even though he probably already has your death planned?”
In that moment, it suddenly became harder to ignore the fantasies I’d seen inside Nicco’s head. How he kissed me.
“I bet he knows exactly how he’s going to take you,” Callis continued.
How he bit me.
“I bet he’s counting the seconds down in his sleep as we speak.”
How he drained me until my pulse slowed to nothingness.
“They are monsters, Adele. But we are Fire witches. We belong together, and if you’ll let me, I can protect you from him.”
“I don’t need protection from him,” I snapped.
I need to protect him.
And I need my coven.
Three on one was no good. On complete impulse, I pushed Callis away and made a run for it.
But he was faster, and as the fireballs rose out of my palms, his arm was already around my middle, his ring-clad fingers digging into my ribs as he lifted me into the air. I swung all of my weight against him, and we both fell back, hitting the ground. I let go of the magic and elbowed him in the ribs, hard. He grunted, releasing me. I scrambled to my feet, but he did too, right behind me.
A black blur up ahead ran directly at me, sprang over my shoulder, and collided with him. I whipped around as he fell backward, roaring, the hissing cat clawing at him.
“Onyx, no!” I screamed, but there was no cat.
Callis was wrestling with a guy in a U of A baseball cap.
The guy slammed Callis down on the ground. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” His baseball cap fell off his close-shaved head.
“Codi!”
“Just get out of here, Adele!”
“You’re a—? I knew it!”
As I stepped toward them, people descended all around us.
Callis’s coven members?
“I’m not joining you . . .” My voice deepened, practically a snarl as I stumbled back.
Two of them grabbed my arms and hoisted me up. I jerked and twisted, keeping one eye on Codi. Another four of them pinned him to the ground. Instead of just restraining him, the guy with the long ponytail kicked him hard with a steel-toed boot.
A bone cracked so loudly, even Annabelle turned away from the sound.
“Nooooo!” I screamed, trying to yank myself out of their grip, my legs kicking up in the air, but they only held me tighter.
Flames erupted from my palms, but then something heavy smashed the back of my head. I fell to the ground, everything going dark.
“Adele . . .”
Cold. Stiff. Marble.
“Adele . . .”
My eyes peeked open. Little fireballs buzzed around my head with panicked energy.
“Adele!”
The sound of my name echoed through my brain, but cradled my attention. My head fell to the right, toward the familiar voice. Through the slits of my eyelids, I saw Codi—and suddenly I was fully conscious. I tried to move to him but couldn’t. My arms were bound from behind. I was tied to one of the white marble statues. The convent courtyard.
Callis.
“You’re alive,” Codi said, his head leaned back against the marble nun in relief. He was tied to the statue next to me. “Are you okay?”
“How did you know I was here?” I jerked my wrists, but the more I struggled, the more the statue dug into my back.
“I didn’t. I’ve been tracking Callis ever since he started at the shop, but he threw me off tonight. My guess is it had something to do with that.” He nodded toward the sky.
A glimmering dome twinkled over the entire property, just like the one at the brothel.
“Annabelle,” I said through gritted teeth.
It could only mean that whatever they were up to, they wanted to be completely unseen and unheard. I jerked harder against my restraints, the plastic cord digging into my wrists, ripping my skin with every move.
“I’ve been watching him whenever he was around you, Adele, I swear. I never left you alone with him. We were always there—me or Julie. I’m sorry, Adele!”
Onyx. “How long have you known about—?”
“Whatever they’re about to do, Adele, you have to resist, okay?”
“Codi, can’t you just turn? Go get help! Go get Isaac and Dee. Or Chatham. Anyone! Just get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Go!”
“I-I-I can’t.” His eyes dropped down.
Mine followed. “Codi! Your leg!”
His pant leg was soaked through with dark liquid, and where the denim was ripped, white bone, pink with blood, protruded from his skin. I gagged.
“Adele! Don’t look at it! Look at me.”
Only then did I notice how pale he was. Sweat dripped from his chin.
“Calliiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!” I screamed, and in a whoosh all of the candles ignited all around us.
His circle.
And then all of his people were stepping out of the darkness in long, dark, hooded robes.
His coven.
Callis emerged into the candlelight.
“Callis!” I half screamed, half pleaded. “Codi needs to go to the hospital!”
“Well then, let’s get to it.” He took his spot at the head of the circle. “The sooner we’re finished, the sooner he can receive medical attention.”
They’re binding their circle. They have the grimoire, and now they have . . . me.
“That is,” Callis added, “if he survives.”
As his witches took formation around us—the brute on his left and Annabelle on his right—the supernatural energy ripped through my bloodstream.
“Annabelle! Codi needs an emergency room, now!”
She didn’t so much as turn my way. I know she can hear me. “Annabelle!” I tried to bring a flame into my hand to burn off the restraints, but my palms were bound against each other.
Callis’s voice was steady but aggressive. “Adele, this is your last invitation to rescind your coven and join mine.”
“No. Chance. In. Hell!” I screamed, pulling against the ropes until I felt the bones in my wrists sliding apart. I fell back hard against the stone.
Concentrate, Adele. Concentrate.
I felt around for metal, but nothing called me. Nothing tingled. Well, not nothing.
“Then you leave us no choice but to take what we need.”
His voice lowered, and his coven moved closer. Their hands clasped one by one. Annabelle released her grimoire into the air—it floated open in front of them—and she took his hand.
Together the two of them began to chant. The pages of the book fluttered in a swirl of wind; I desperately looked around for Isaac, my hopes rising, but it was just Mother Nature. The rest of the coven joined on the third verse.
“Adele, you have to resist!” Codi said, turning to me.
“Resist wh—?”
My own scream interrupted my question as I slammed back against the statue, banging my head. I could feel the blood trickling down the back of my neck.
Monstrous flames erupted all around the yard.
“He’s siphoning your Elemental power!” Codi yelled over the chanting. “He’s taking your Fire!” His head whipped to Callis, and I felt something cool pelt my cheeks. Water.
Water witch.
Codi had activated the sprinkler system.
Callis’s eyes popped open, and his arm flung toward me.
I screamed again. It felt like my insides were being slowly drawn out, like Callis’s coven was extracting my magic out with a giant magnet in the same way I drew metal objects toward me.
I tried to pull the magic back inside me, to hug it tightly and put up a mental wall, but it slipped through my fingertips, and out of my pores, and through every strand of my hair, my screams never ceasing.
There were too many in his coven; the tugging came from all sides.
The chanting became louder, and Codi continued to yell to me. My eyes smashed closed as the tu
gging sensations turned to slicing.
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Stop!”
Chanting and smoke. The sounds of kindling crackling and branches snapping became louder.
I forced my eyes open. All of the citrus trees around the convent, all of the bushes and hedges, were on fire. The shadows of firelight flickered against Callis’s face—his smile of satisfaction.
Sweat dripped from my chin, and tears poured down my cheeks.
They’re going to burn it all down. They’re going to torch the convent—and everyone in it—using my Elemental magic. I’m burning them down.
I’m going to kill my mother. I’m going to kill Nicco.
And they’ll have their coven bound. All in one fell swoop.
More sweat poured from my brow as I felt for the fire and pushed against it, but it was like trying to push a sand dune—the more I pushed, the more it caved in around us. Smothering us.
My chest tightened as the smoke filled my lungs.
“Adele, we’ll get through this. I’ve got you!”
High above, the metal in the attic shutters called to me. Adeline’s necklace bounced against my chest.
“I can’t break the spell on my own,” I muttered to her, my voice so raspy I was unable to hear my own words. What did your father do, Adeline, to get us into this mess?
“Adele, do not let him win! Fight back!”
Smoke billowed around us; I could hardly breathe.
What if I’m too late? What if I have no more magic left?
I forced myself to concentrate. I pictured them all: Lisette and Martine gently swaying from the ceiling. Martine humming a French lullaby in her sleep. Gabe, shackled and dreaming about undressing some Portuguese princess who had broken his heart. My mother, curled into Emilio’s arms.
I’m not going to burn you alive, Mom!
And Nicco.
I pictured Nicco most clearly. Alone. Cold. Trapped. Slumbering inside la cassette and tormenting himself even in his sleep.
“Wake up, Nicco.” Tears dripped as I said the words out loud. “Wake up.”
A glow came from within his chest. Icy blue. I reached out for it, repeating the words of the slumbering spell as I mentally pulled. The spell wouldn’t completely break without Dee and Isaac, but if the Medici wanted to live, they were going to have to fight through what was left of it and wake up.
Just as with the root, I mentally pulled on the spell. It’s just positive space that needs to be moved to a different point of negative space in the universe.
Smoke continued to fill my lungs, but I focused and kept pulling.
I trust you, Nicco. I trust you.
“I trust you!”
Through the chanting and the screaming, a rooster’s crow echoed out of the convent. Hopefully it was enough to wake them.
I twisted my hands and pulled at the ropes with my mind, trying to move them too. I tugged, desperately, but without any effect. With all of the tugging and pulling, I felt something else. Something metal.
Not just one thing—a thousand things pulsing toward me.
Suddenly I could sense every single nail in the attic shutters. I felt the stake turn slightly, wanting to come to me, and the locks on the attic door rippled—the locks my hands had brushed against so many times. All those times I’d wanted to open them.
Now I finally would.
I would not let Callis kill my mother.
Or Nicco.
You were wrong, Callis, you overconfident piece of shit. You didn’t remove every piece of metal.
I mentally raised my consciousness to envelop the entire convent grounds and then ripped it back to me, bringing everything metal back with it.
The enchanted stakes shot down from the shutters like missiles, and a giant explosion boomed. Glass rained down on us.
And then everything went dark. No more fire. No more light.
I felt nothing.
Around me screams rose through the smoke and through the haze. The church bells rang, just like the first time I’d opened the attic, but now in the chaos, they reminded me of the night in the bell tower. Nicco had rung them for me that night, and now I rang them for him.
My magic was gone.
It was all I felt. Heaviness. Lifelessness.
In my delirium I smelled leather and soap as one tiny moment of relief came: one slice at my restraints and my wrists were free. I dropped to the ground. My cheek hit the wet, charred grass; I couldn’t command myself to move farther away.
Through the smoke and screams, a blur of vampires tore through the yard—a blur of witches’ throats being ripped open, but even that made me feel nothing.
His witches took my magic.
Then, through a momentary parting in the smoke, I saw Codi still tied to the statue next to me, his head hanging down limply.
No.
“Codi!” I shrieked.
In one final surge of adrenaline, I threw myself up and staggered over to him. I didn’t know if they were my screams or the screams of others as I popped off what remained of the plastic ropes around his wrists, trying not to look where the plastic had melted into skin. “Codi! Hang on! I’m going to get you out of here!”
One last pop and he dropped to the ground, howling. “My leg!”
Thank God he’s alive.
I fell next to him and wriggled myself under his arm. “All right, you’re going to have to work with me here.”
He nodded, squeezing my shoulder, and I heaved him up, both of us yelling.
Weren’t we just eight years old? When did he turn into this heavy man?
Step by step, I dragged him off through the hazy ash as the screaming and fighting echoed behind us like a distant dream. Coughing, I directed us toward the convent door, praying that we weren’t leaving a trail of blood behind. I knew I’d be the one who’d have to fend off anyone or anything that came our way.
I could feel Codi fading, more of his weight pressing down on me—with each step my knees shook harder, wanting to give in. “Come on, Codi, just a little farther.”
Using my shoulder, he pulled himself up. I grunted, absorbing the shift in weight, and fought through each step forward, not letting myself buckle underneath him as we went down the dark hallway. Spots appeared around us as I dragged him past my history classroom. Greens. Pinks. Blues.
In the silence, I heard the ringing in my ears.
There was nothing left to do but hide. I threw us against the nearest door, pushing it open with my shoulder and letting it swing wide.
The dim, stone-floored room felt cave-like. It was mostly empty, other than a crucifix on the wall and a kneeling bench underneath it. The shattered window lay in pieces over the stone floor. With one last heave, I dragged Codi across the room to the corner, crumbling underneath his body weight, both of us sinking to the floor. I propped him against the wall.
“I’m going for help,” I said, despite knowing I’d never make it anywhere, but I couldn’t do nothing. Just one foot in front of the other, Adele.
And that worked for three steps.
My right knee hit the ground, and then my wrists, and my face hit the floor, and I was lying flat, cheek against the cool stone, using all remaining energy just to stay conscious.
I should have shut the door, I thought as everything began to blur. I stared out into the hallway. The alcove in the corridor wall encased a statue of Mary holding a baby with a crown and scepter, all blinged out in gold. I loved that gold. The metal.
I don’t know why, but I loved that they were looking down on me now.
I wondered if my mother was here, somewhere, or if she’d run off into the night.
Had Nicco?
I hoped not.
I hope he’s killing Callis.
If he wasn’t, and if I ever got off this floor, I would kill him myself.
I now understood how you could chase someone through the centuries.
CHAPTER 45
Save Jade
I’d never flown so
fast.
I zoomed down the street, not caring that I was pushing my tiny bones too hard. I had the perfect vantage for things I’d never wanted to see: smoke rising from the back of the convent, and supernatural energy radiating from the building like an A-bomb. The scent of fire wafted through the wind.
I flapped harder, tearing through the overwhelming feeling that I was too late . . . though for what I had no idea, other than that I was absolutely certain Adele was not at the brothel. Suddenly it was Halloween night all over again—Adele breaking away from the plan. Breaking away from the coven.
I should have gone to her house before Dee’s. Before the tearoom. I should have found her first.
Up ahead, shimmering magic arced over the Ursuline property. It couldn’t be the protection spell, or I’d have seen it before. This was something else. It glimmered more like . . . an invisibility shield.
Annabelle. Caws tore from my throat as I soared higher.
I swooped over the concrete wall, hearing little tinks, like metal raindrops hitting the bricked ground. They grew louder as I flew over the maze of hedges, preparing for a roof landing.
Then everything exploded in a deafening boom.
The shutters slammed open against the stone walls, and glass blasted from the window frames.
I’d imagined this scenario so many times over the last few months. Imagined how mad I’d be when it happened—an all-consuming, blinding anger. But it wasn’t at all how I felt now. Instead I was filled with an all-consuming, blinding fear.
Not of the vampires. A fear that Adele was dead.
I fought the current, but then a magnificent wave of energy shot out, throwing me backward.
The church bells clanged as I tumbled through the air. I crashed into a magnolia tree, struck two heavy branches, then thumped onto the ground.
I hopped up onto my claws with the intention to take off, but instead I staggered, wooziness gripping me as I looked up at the open attic. There were only two ways Adeline’s spell could have broken. The first was that Adele had broken it on purpose . . .
The second was that she’d been killed.
As everything went black, for the first time ever I hoped Adele opened the attic.
