The back of his hand caught me across the cheek, and my world spun for a moment. So maybe that wasn't the right choice of words. "It's my house, and it's protected so that vampires can't pop in and out."
He paced in front of me for a moment. "Once you're dead, the spells around the house will disappear."
"Yes, my spells will disappear." The wording made sure that it wasn't a lie, and I made sure not to put any emphases on the word 'my.' I licked the inside of my cheek and tasted blood.
A tingle went through me, and I knew what was about to happen. Another flashback to him feeding. "I'll stop it if you take down the spell."
I spoke between deep breaths, trying to stop the flashback on my own. "Whatever you're looking for isn't there."
That clearly wasn't the answer he was looking for because the pain and the feeling of his fangs pressed against me came back in a giant wave. I screamed trying to stop it all and thrashed in my chair. When I came back to, Oliver was standing behind Ira, watching me closely.
I tried to catch my breath. "Levi took everything out of the house before I moved in. Anything you're looking for isn't there anymore." I locked my jaw trying to keep the pain out of my voice.
Ira used two fingers to tilt my chin up and look at him. "I'm looking for your spellbook."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. "What's a vampire like you going to do with it?"
"Don't you want it when you're changed?" He leaned toward me, and it caused me to lean back in the chair to try and get away from him. Like hell I was going to let him feed off me again.
I looked at Oliver who nodded.
Two feet, that's all I needed. I let the words for the transportation spell fall like a breath off my lips with my eyes closed. I opened them the moment I felt my hands against the ground. Not perfect, but I was free. I shot to my feet, batting the dress away again, cursing the stupid garment. I didn't have time to tear the skirt shorter. I spun around and called a flame to my hand. Ira snarled, and his gaze instantly went to Oliver. "You've betrayed me."
Oliver said nothing, but Ira rushed him and grabbed his shirt. "I will kill them all. You will watch as I strip the flesh off your daughter and torture Abigail until she dies. Then I will make you witness her rising, and you will die by her hand."
I threw the fire at Ira, hitting him square in the back. He threw Oliver at me, knocking me over.
Oliver muttered and groaned. "You weren't supposed to react."
I said nothing as I put a hand to his back trying to push him off me and found what I needed. I could feel the butt of my gun there, but I couldn't get a clear shot from here. We both needed to be standing. If I pulled the gun now, Ira would react, and it would all be over. Oliver stood and helped me up.
"I hate this dress," I snapped. Ira was suddenly in front of me.
"You look beautiful in it, fit for a princess." I felt the draw and tingle of his power. Shit shit.
I fell to my knees as his power shot through me. The pain was just as bad as when he originally fed from me. When it disappeared, Oliver wasn't in sight, and Ira was cradling me against his chest.
"Just let it happen, Abigail. You'll be joining me soon."
I shoved away from him stumbling to my feet. "I will never join you. I'm more likely to walk out into the sun as a vampire than join you."
Ira stayed where he was, his head tilted to one side. "Is it so bad to be a vampire?"
"You are a fucking monster." I threw another ball of fire at him, but this time he held his hand out, and it simply disappeared. I saw a rune on his hand. Hannah's work, or Oliver's?
Fine, fire wasn't an option, but magic was. I threw up a red circle around Ira, and the magic started to form the vampire binding portion, but Ira disappeared.
I turned around in the room looking for him. He hadn't reappeared yet, but I did find Oliver in the corner, lying face down on the floor. Oh shit, oh shit. I ran to him and checked his pulse. It pounded strong against my fingers.
I let out a sigh of relief and lifted the tail of his shirt to find my gun.
I moved away, but Oliver groaned.
"Dead Abigail, he must die."
I wasn't sure if he was talking in his unconscious state, or if he was faking his consciousness so that he didn't draw Ira's attention.
Something took me from behind, and I found myself instantly regretting the distraction.
My body was pressed against the stone of the wall, and I could feel Ira getting closer.
"He must care an awful lot about you." Ira chuckled. "He made sure that none of our experiments harmed you and suggested that we destroyed the rest of your blood so no witch or warlocks could use it against you and take you from me."
I didn't respond. I held the gun within the folds of the dress and hoped he hadn't noticed that I drew it.
"I should have seen it coming, but he was so powerful and so helpful, and he had so much more control than Hannah." He breathed against my neck. "I want your blood, but I promised Oliver I'd torture you in front of him and let you die that way."
I swallowed, but I still said nothing. No words were going to help me here. I just needed to wait for the right moment.
"And then Alfie was set up for you. It was perfect, he lured you in, Oliver did the spell, and boom, here you are, delivered to me."
Holy shit, who had set Alfie up? One person came to mind, and I swore to the goddess that if I made it out of here alive, I was going to kill him. Grayson.
"All of this because you were too weak to just take me yourself? Are you afraid of your brother?" I needed to make him angry. I needed him to throw me again.
Ira snarled in my ear. "I don't fear Levi."
I was getting him there, but he probably wasn't willing to let me go at this point. Maybe he had seen me pull the gun off of Oliver. My mind raced with what else I could do.
Pain slowly started to march over my skin in pinpricks. I looked down to see dots of blood form on areas of my arm. Ira laughed and licked some off. "I can use my powers to harm you. Small wounds, big wounds."
I called on my own magic and shoved it outwards. I had no idea if it was going to work, but I felt his power snap away from me, and I turned to face him.
I raised the gun and fired once, the bullet took him in the shoulder. Fuck.
Ira looked at the wound and laughed. "Come here, Abigail."
There was a power in me I didn't know. I couldn't fight the command. My feet moved forward of their own free will. The dress flowed around me as I continued to close the gap between us. My brain said no, but my body still listened to Ira.
When I was close enough, he smeared his blood over my lips. "I can bind you to me, make you serve me until I decide to change you."
The fear slipped through me like ice, and he smiled. "I can see that fear. I like torture better. But clearly, you want a fight."
He waved his hand, and his power wrapped around me, slicing my skin. I cried out as his power felt like knives against me. It left as quickly as it came. I stumbled from the pain. My vision threatened to leave me as the wounds tried to bring shock with it. I wasn't going to let this happen. Oliver moaned, and Ira turned his attention to my uncle. "Seems he's awake to play with us."
I raised the gun with shaky hands and prayed to the goddess that I could kill him.
I shot once and took him in the back of the head. He turned around to face me. Holy shit.
He rushed me, slower now than before, but his image was blurred. I shot again, and his blurred image stopped. A shocked look spread over his face, and then he laughed as blood blossomed on his shirt.
"Your vampire abilities. You could see me because you're part vampire."
No. I could see him because his abilities were weakened because I shot him in the head. I could feel the pressure of him against me and his fangs at my neck as the flashback start to march through me. I would not
let this happen. He would not get out of this. I shot two more times as he tried to take a few steps forward. Both in the heart.
He fell to the ground and the pain faded. I stumbled over to him, my whole body shaking as the blood started to dry on me. I aimed the gun at his head, and I emptied the rest of the clip into him.
When the gun was empty, I fell to my knees. All adrenaline was fading, and the pain was consuming me. The wounds were taking their toll. The gun fell from my fingers as I looked at the mess of a body in front of me.
"Abigail?" Oliver had come to my side at some point. He wrapped an arm around me as he tried to pull me up.
Slowly I rose from the ground, and Oliver supported my weight. "We're leaving now."
I barely understood the words, but I nodded anyway. Everything disappeared, but I didn't remember it reappearing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"I have her at my place." Oliver's voice was soft. "I assure you, Levi, she's safe. A bit of a mess, but she's safe. I'll bring her to you as soon as she wakes." There was a moment of pausing. "She slept through the whole day. She needed it. No, she wasn't magic exhausted, just typical fought a vampire exhausted."
That was a funny way of putting it. I felt myself smile a little bit and I tried to open my eyes.
"I won't leave her side," Oliver promised.
My eyes opened, and I found myself in an unfamiliar bed, in a room I didn't know, but there was a warm fire to my side. Oliver stood in front of it, a phone held to his ear. He hadn't changed clothes since we'd left Ira's.
"You'll want to call a council meeting. I put in a tip to PIB, so I'm sure you'll be getting a call about a connected case."
I slowly sat up and hissed as my muscles ached and my movements pulled on the wounds. Damn it. Everything hurt.
Oliver turned around. "She's awake. We'll be there in a few. I want to give her a chance to clean up and change." He disconnected the call and shoved the phone into his pocket. "Abby." He came to my side.
"Way to leave a girl to fight a vampire alone." Was the only thing I could think of to say.
Oliver smiled. "He would have killed me instantly if I attacked him, or he would have used us against each other. You were better suited for the fight."
"Yeah, he's dead, right?" I couldn't keep the fear from my voice
"Very dead, Abby. You unloaded a full clip into him." Oliver touched the side of my face, and I flinched. "Nasty bruises, and some wounds from his power. You look a bit like he wrapped you in barb wire. But you'll live."
I stood slowly. "I hurt. I can't even begin to tell you how much I hurt."
"He threw you around pretty good. Not to mention the fall with the spell placed on Alfie."
Alfie.
I growled. "I want to be at that council meeting."
"That's up to Levi."
I ground my teeth. "Let me get cleaned up and out of this stupid dress and I'll talk to him about it." I stumbled a little as I got out of the bed. "Can you heal me?"
"Not until after you see the council. If you're going to go in there, you need to go in there and remind them that you are human and they fucked up." Oliver steadied me with a hand on my elbow. "Let me help you to the bathroom. A hot shower will ease the soreness a bit."
It would also give me a chance to see how bad the damage was. I looked at Oliver. "Levi didn't kill you."
"Levi knew all along that I was working both sides. I was the best for that position." Oliver helped me to the bathroom. "Ira dug into my past after I was at Hannah's so the threat of him killing my daughter was very real."
I slowly walked with him. "Alfie?"
"Was set up by a contact that I don't know." Oliver stopped outside the door. "But you do. I saw the look on your face."
I nodded. "Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what to do about it."
"I'd kill him."
Though that wasn't typically my style, it sounded like a good idea. "Yeah, I might just have to do that."
Oliver chuckled and left me at the door. I closed that bathroom door once I walked fully in. After a few minutes of struggling to unzip the stupid dress, I was able to step into the hot shower and take inventory of my body. Oliver was right, I had some nasty bruises. Some were turning green while others were already a dark purple. I had slices that wrapped around my body from Ira's magic. I probably should have had a couple of them looked at and stitched up.
I washed the blood and dirt out of my hair and off my body before stepping out. I wrapped a towel around me and went back into the bedroom to find my clothes and some first aid supplies laying on the bed.
I patched up what I could and put my clothes on. I frowned at the tank top when I slid it on. What on earth was Oliver thinking? It showed the damage.
Ah. That was the point. To remind the council I was human if they saw me.
"Abby?" Oliver called from outside the door. "Are you ready?"
I opened the door and nodded. "Thanks for the clean clothes."
"I didn't think you'd want the council to see you in that dress." He smirked. "Besides, you could barely fight in that thing."
"My gun and my phone?"
"In the living room." He stepped to the side so I could pass. When I got out of the room, I realized that we were actually at Oliver's. The room was just one I'd never been in. Of course, I didn't make a habit of searching his house.
We walked side by side together to the living room in silence. I felt like something was going unsaid between the two of us, but I didn't know what it was.
Oliver motioned to the coffee table where my gun was next to my phone. I picked it up and debated on texting Merick and Simon to let them know I was alive.
Oliver put his hand on mine. "All parties who need to know have been told that you are alive."
I stuck the phone in my pocket and went to my gun. I ejected the clip to find it loaded with one in the chamber. I looked at Oliver, and he smiled. "Like I said, I'd kill the person who set me up."
I holstered it. "Okay, let's go see Levi."
He put his hand on my shoulder, and the world around us disappeared. When I opened my eyes, I found us standing in front of Levi's house. I put my hand on the scanner to let us in. I stumbled as I stepped over the threshold and caught myself on the wall. "Damn it."
"Take it easy, your body is still recovering." Oliver stepped up behind me.
"Take it easy? All I did was step over the threshold." I tried to keep my voice calm. "I feel like the bastard sucked all my strength."
Oliver sighed. "Your body has physical limits too, Abigail, not just magical ones."
But it was very rare that I hit those limits. Apparently I needed a reminder. "I just need…" My words disappeared as Levi was suddenly in front of me, his blue eyes wide. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight against him.
"You stupid, stupid witch." For a moment it sounded like he was crying.
I wrapped my arms around him. "I had no choice but to kill him. My life was in danger, Oliver's was in danger, a lot of people were in danger." I kept my voice calm. "He wanted to change me."
Levi hugged me tighter, and I winced. He pulled away and touched my face. "You look like hell."
"Yeah, well, defeating a vampire is not really an easy thing to do." I smiled. "I promise, I'll heal, I'll be fine."
Levi dropped his hand. "You always are Abby, but one day that won't be the case." He looked at Oliver. "Thank you."
"You and I have the same mission here, Levi. Keep Abby alive." Oliver chuckled. "It's just proving to be a bit harder than we thought."
Oh, I wanted to smack him. I let it go, but I really wanted to. "I want to go to the council meeting with you." I started to walk to the main room. Levi hooked my arm around his so that if I stumbled, he could support me.
"No, you're too weak. You need to rest and let Oliver heal you." Levi shook his head.
/> I took a deep breath. "Oliver can heal me when I get back. I'll only stay for a little bit. Mario can bring me back here, and after Oliver heals me, he can take me home."
"I don't want you at home, I want you here." Levi pressed his lips together. "Unless you tell me who is watching your house, who is helping you protect it?"
I wasn't ready to give that secret up. I glanced behind me at Oliver. He shook his head, and I knew the time wasn't right. "I told you, I swore I couldn't tell anyone who it was. I'll stay here for a couple nights, as long as a case doesn't come up."
Levi was silent until we got to the living room. "Three nights and you can come to the council meeting."
I wanted to argue, but I also wanted to go to the council meeting to reveal the traitor. "Deal."
"That will allow us enough time to see if Samuel will react immediately."
I nodded. "Now, let's go to the council meeting." I looked up as Mario walked in the room.
He gave a small bow. "How are you faring?"
There was no 'princess' attached to his words, nothing that hinted at him being an ass. "I'm okay. I'll need you to bring me back here after I address the council, please."
Mario nodded. "I'm glad you trust me to do such."
His words hit home. "I've learned there are others who I trust much less."
Something passed in his gaze that I couldn't name, but I would have almost said it was relief. Levi looked at my hip. "Your gun?"
"Is coming." I left no room for argument. "Let's do this. I'd like to get back before sun up."
Levi sighed, and the room disappeared.
∞
We reappeared outside a set of oak doors. I almost fell to my knees. "I don't know why I'm so weak."
Mario was the one who helped me up. "You're covered in wounds and bruises, and you shouldn't be here. You should be in bed."
He was right, but this wasn't going to take too long. I took a moment to steady myself and push off the aches in my body. It was nothing compared to the pain when I received the wounds. Levi looked at me before he pushed open the door. I limped in behind him, resisting the urge to lean on him or Mario. Levi sat, and Mario pulled my chair out for me, but I didn't sit. I looked over the faces of the council members and my gaze settled on Grayson.
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