Taken

by Jennifer Blackstream

  I didn’t realize I was staring at Flint until he cleared his throat. “Let me take you out of here, Shade,” he said quietly.

  “Power?” I demanded. “That is what you’re thinking of? Power?”

  “Shade!” Flint snapped. “We need to leave— No!”

  Too late. I charged Grace. She let out a yelp of protest as I buried my fingers in her red hair and dragged her by that ridiculously high updo, jerking her from side to side to make it hurt more as I hauled her away from Lindsay.

  “You miserable—” Grace sputtered, fury heating her words.

  I didn’t stop. Instead, I swung her around, using my body as a counterweight to get more momentum. Grace lost her balance, thanks to her impractically high heels. I snarled and released her, watching her sail toward the door. Flint caught Grace and wrapped his arms around her, but his attention was on me. He opened his mouth to say something, but I turned away. Back to Lindsay.

  The sound of blood rushing in my ears shut out the world around me. For a minute, I could pretend I was alone. Just me and Lindsay. The girl I’d failed.

  I knelt by the canvas, Grace’s string of curses only white noise in the background. I had to blink twice to see through the red haze of my anger, had to clasp my hands together to stop their shaking long enough to open the pouch at my waist.

  “Shade, what are you doing?” Flint asked. He sounded as though he were straining to hold Grace.

  “I should have followed her,” I told him. Pressure built in my throat, and I swallowed hard. “I should have demanded to see the artists, should have called the Vanguard, and damn my lack of evidence of any wrongdoing. If they’d been here, they would have seen what I didn’t. They would have stopped her in time.”

  “Shade—”

  “I should have done something besides let her walk away. But no. No, I played it safe, gathered information before I made everyone too angry to speak with me. And now she’s dead.”

  “Nothing you are doing counts as playing it safe.” Flint grunted as if Grace had elbowed him.

  “What are you doing?” Grace demanded. She snarled in frustration, and Flint grunted again. “What are you doing?”

  I reached into my pouch, digging around for the handkerchief with the sample of Matthew’s blood. The gods must have taken pity on me, because I found it immediately. I unwrapped the small white square and held it next to the bloody dagger near Lindsay’s limp fingers.

  “Par sanguis.”

  The blood on the dagger glittered, then glowed, a soft red flame like a candle behind painted glass. Most of the blood turned purple—female. I poured more magic into the spell, and flecks of blue appeared near the hilt of the blade. Matthew’s blood glowed blue. I held the two closer together, careful not to let them touch. The blue light of Matthew’s blood sample undulated, then reached out in a tiny thread of power to touch the hilt.

  A match.

  “She killed Matthew, didn’t she?” I aimed the question at Grace without turning. I didn’t trust myself to look at her yet.

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Grace snapped. “Lindsay was a grown woman—”

  “She was a child,” I snarled, shooting to my feet and whirling to glare at the sidhe. “She was a child who needed protection, who needed security, someone to trust!” I pressed my lips together, blocking the spells that leapt to my tongue. Don’t kill her. Don’t attack her. Not here.

  Not yet.

  When I was sure I could speak something that wasn’t writhing with the potential for destruction, I glared at Grace. “Instead, what she got was that miserable cretin Oisean, who coaxed her away from the only people who cared about her. And you.” I filled the last word with contempt, the syllable crackling on my tongue as if my hatred alone would infuse it with magic. “You, a heartless monster who saw her dead body and thought only of your reputation. How you could profit.” Bile coated the back of my mouth. “I believed you. I believed you cared. But you didn’t. You don’t. You’re nothing more than a—”

  “Now, now, Shade,” Flint interrupted, his tone soft, soothing…warning. “Don’t speak in the heat of the moment.”

  I noted that he was still holding Grace. Protecting me. I had no idea what power Grace held, what she might do to me.

  And I didn’t care.

  Tears blurred my vision, and I clenched my teeth and looked away. The gesture put Lindsay in my line of sight. “You knew she killed him. And you got rid of the body.”

  I heard an intake of breath, then Flint’s soothing voice, too low for me to hear. A soft exhale from Grace. When she spoke again, she sounded subdued, almost drugged.

  “Yes,” she mumbled.

  Flint was influencing her, exerting his power over her will to keep her sedate, make her answer my questions. Good.

  “You treated him like rotting meat. Refuse.” I shrugged. “Garbage.”

  “Shade,” Flint warned. He released Grace, keeping a hand on her shoulder until he was certain she’d remain calm. Her glazed eyes followed him when he took a step toward me, but she didn’t speak.

  “Shade, you’ve had a shock. You’re in pain. But this is not the time to lose control—and coming from me, you know that’s saying something.” He took another step, giving me that playful smile that seemed to come so easily to him.

  I fought to take a calming breath, but that brought more blood to my nose, the thick, coppery stench of it enough to make my stomach roll. I hadn’t eaten much today; there hadn’t been time. Now stomach acid sloshed in a way that promised an unpleasant end to this evening.

  “It’s okay, Shade,” Flint said softly. “She’s beyond pain now. Now we have to find the others. You want to find the others, don’t you? It’s not too late for them.”

  Others. Yes. There were others. The leannan sidhe needed more. More than three. Three artists. Three children. They’d wanted more, had kidnapped more. Six Taken. Two dead.

  Adrenaline burned through my veins until my blood ran hot enough to scald. I glared at Grace. “You are all monsters.” I took a step closer. “You’re monsters, and I can’t think of a single reason not to treat you like any other foul creature who preys on children.”

  “How dare you speak that way to me,” Grace said, her tone dropping to a dangerous level. She stepped closer in a rustle of green skirts. “Get out of here. Get away from Lindsay’s work.”

  Her work.

  Her work.

  “Grace.” Flint didn’t take his attention off me, but he held out an arm. I watched the indecision play out over his features. He couldn’t watch us both.

  Grace drew a breath, and her hands rose from her sides. She swept them toward me as if she stood in the ocean surf and it was water she scooped up and sent spraying in my direction.

  Power hit me in a wash of thick energy, heavy and viscous. I bent in half, a soul-crushing despair dragging me to my knees. A sob wrenched its way up my throat, followed by another. Tears streamed down my face. Lindsay’s body lay only five feet away, and I could think of nothing else.

  I pointed at her, magic shooting down my arm like a flame crackling down a thick line of gunpowder, painful and hot. “You’ll pay for this,” I said. “I’ll make you pay for this.”

  “Shade, shield yourself! She’s manipulating you! Fight past it!”

  Flint stood between us, arms held out in either direction. Frantic as he was, he still embodied temptation itself, his bedroom eyes promising pleasure in the dark. But tension ruined his practiced sensuality, his natural grace. His muscles bunched as he readied to leap for whichever woman lost her cool first, and the grim set to his jaw said he knew stopping one of us wouldn’t be enough. As I stared, I would have sworn I saw the tattoo on his chest slither beneath his shirt, writhing like a living thing.

  Or maybe that was the tears blurring my vision.

  “Shade, think about what you’re doing!” Flint snapped. “You are on sidhe territory. This will not end well for you.”

  “Get out of the way,” I
shouted. My words faltered under a rush of fresh tears, but I raised my chin. “Get out of the way, or join her!”

  Raphael’s voice came from the doorway. “I will deal with Grace, fledgling. You see to our lovely witch.”

  The long-haired sidhe’s voice picked at my nerves, setting every one to humming with that crackling sensation that made me think of steep falls and moving shadows. My heart skipped a beat, and I watched him enter the room.

  Raphael stood beside Grace, with one large hand covering most of her upper arm, but his hematite-colored eyes held mine, and every second I held his gaze, my pulse raced faster.

  “Grace is calm, aren’t you, my dear?” he asked.

  The frazzled redhead didn’t look away from me, but she lowered her hands to her sides, her chest rising and falling with shallow, rapid breaths.

  “Don’t let her do anything foolish,” Flint growled. “Marilyn will have our skins if we disrupt her party. The Vanguard will have our freedom if she dies while under the protection of hospitality.”

  “Get the witch out of here, fledgling,” Raphael drawled. “Show me how good you are with women.”

  Flint ignored the barb and moved away from Grace, approaching me as if I were some rabid werewolf. “Snap out of it, Shade. Grayson is with the kelpies. Do you want to save him or not?”

  I could barely see him through my tears. They wouldn’t quit coming, wouldn’t stop dripping onto my clothes, soaking my black shirt under the preposterous glamour. Another sob twisted my throat on the way out. “Make it stop,” I begged.

  “Shhh.” Flint stepped closer and put an arm around my waist. “Shhh, listen to me. Listen to my voice and let me hold you.”

  I knew he was using his power on me, using that wash of emotion to manipulate my mind. But I didn’t fight him this time. I was on the edge, and if I fell, I might survive it—but Grayson wouldn’t. The kids Oisean had taken today wouldn’t.

  I closed my eyes, sending another warm rush of tears down my cheeks. The room spun faster and faster, and I couldn’t think over the pounding of my heart. I wanted to scream, to charge, to throw magic around like a berserker in the heat of battle. But the sadness was crushing me. Moving was too hard. Goddess, what had I been thinking? Grace had said herself there was power in the room, power she could bathe in, pull inside her. And I’d challenged her to attack me.

  “I can’t move,” I whispered.

  “I know. It’s Grace. At the height of her power, she wields not only sadness, but depression. That is what you’re feeling now, and it will crush you if you let it. Don’t fight me. Let me help you.”

  I tried to let go, tried to focus on his voice, and only his voice. Give up control and let him pull me back from the precipice.

  Magic struck me in the gut with enough force to knock the wind out of me. Shock and anger sizzled, screamed, and exploded like illegal fireworks, and the depression closing around me evaporated like a water droplet on a hot iron. I careened out of Flint’s arms, only semi-aware he’d been holding me to begin with.

  “What was that?” I demanded hoarsely.

  Flint held his palms outward, the epitome of harmlessness. “It’s okay. Calm down.”

  My eyes were too wide, and I trembled as if someone had changed out my blood for pure caffeine. Blood and bones, I felt like I would shatter any second, fly apart into a thousand brittle pieces. “It is not okay. What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  I stumbled to the side. “What did you do? My…my heart’s going to explode. What did you do?”

  “I did nothing,” Flint said. There was more tension in his shoulders now, and he lowered, ready to tackle me.

  Grace screamed. Flint whirled around, but she was too fast. She bolted past him, and I had less than a second to register the dagger before she plunged it into my side, the hilt hitting my ribs with bruising force.

  “No!” Flint shouted.

  I choked on a gasp, my hands falling to the blade’s hilt. The world slowed down, blocked by a bubble of deafening silence. I was vaguely aware of Flint pulling Grace away from me, the red-haired woman flailing in his grasp, her green eyes like shattered emeralds, glowing with unholy fury.

  She stabbed me.

  My fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger, and I pulled it out as I got to my feet. There was no pain. Only a burning adrenaline, a blessed battle euphoria I hadn’t experienced in…ever. The caffeine-like sensation that had been so unpleasant a second ago was now my best friend. It numbed the wound, urged me to get up, to fight. I squared my shoulders, fixed my stare on Grace…and smiled. The bubble of silence popped.

  “Tell me, Grace,” I called out, sauntering closer, ignoring the rush of blood down my side. “Will you nail Lindsay to the canvas? Will her rotting corpse be part of the ‘amazing art’?” I tapped my chin with the bloody blade of the dagger, still warm from its time in my body. “How will you preserve this masterpiece, this child you’ve so dehumanized, reduced to property?”

  “Not another word,” Grace screamed. Blue energy crackled around her fist.

  My vision blurred again, but I didn’t bother fighting the tears. Let her make me cry.

  My target was large enough that I wasn’t afraid I’d miss.

  I pointed at the canvas and the dead girl. “Incendium.”

  I hurled my magic through the air, pushing into it all the anger, all the sadness, all the despair the wretched leannan sidhe had so infused me with. A ball of fire the size of my fist shot forward, landing with a soft whoosh on the canvas. A wash of sapphire flame spilled over the surface, so blue it appeared as water at first glance. My anger fueled the magic, drove it to burn hotter than it should have. The blue climbed higher, turned red, then orange, then yellow as it roared up to lick the ceiling. I smiled at Grace. Blistering heat battered my spine, but I ignored it.

  I felt nothing.

  “No!” Grace shrieked. She threw her hands out as if she would somehow plead with the flames to stop. “No!”

  “You! You’re doing this!”

  Flint was yelling at someone, but it wasn’t me or Grace. Raphael, then.

  “Get out!” Flint shouted.

  “I’m going nowhere, fledgling,” Raphael snarled. “And neither is she.”

  Another surge of energy hit me, adrenaline spiking hard enough to steal my breath. I gasped, my head falling back. My skin buzzed, and my thoughts turn to liquid. I’m invincible.

  “I’m going to get Grayson,” I said, my words echoing with my magic. I turned to the door. “I’m going to get them all.”

  I don’t know when I fell. One minute I was stalking toward the door, the next I was lying on the ground looking up at a cloud of thick black smoke. A gunshot rang out, so loud I wanted to cover my ears, but my arms wouldn’t work.

  “You need to put out the fire!”

  Flint’s voice. Panicked.

  I lolled my head from side to side. The adrenaline had receded, so rapidly it left me sluggish. I frowned. “No. Not until every thread of canvas is gone, every last…” I swallowed hard. My throat hurt so bad. Why did my throat hurt? And my eyes burned. And my side… My side hurt worse of all.

  “Lindsay is gone. Grace can’t use her anymore. Put the fire out. We need to get out while you can still breathe.”

  “Burning human flesh should smell bad,” I said, stupidly. “It doesn’t. Just smells like cooking meat.” I coughed. Again and again. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go,” I croaked. “I was supposed to save her.”

  “Shade! Put out the fire. Now.” He jerked my body, and I had the vague idea that he was trying to see through the smoke, trying to find the exit.

  I was coughing harder now. Fresh pain exploded in my side, and I touched something wet. Blood. My blood.

  “She stabbed me.”

  “Yes, she did. You’re bleeding and you’re inhaling too much smoke. Put the fire out. Now.”

  Panic chased away the hysteria, giving me one clear moment of thought. I
gathered my wits enough to twist my fingers through a quick round of symbols, forcing myself to focus on the canvas that was the fuel for the flames. “Extinguo!”

  Blue light rolled from my palm, growing larger and larger as it rolled and sloshed toward the flames. It hit the canvas as a giant sphere of liquid, then collapsed, extinguishing the flames with a loud hiss.

  Flint lifted me into his arms and bolted from the room. I heard the door slam behind us, and he lowered me to the cold floor in the hallway.

  “If you can heal yourself, I’d recommend it,” he rasped. He coughed to clear his throat.

  I couldn’t unzip my pouch; my arms wouldn’t move. My body felt like melting rubber, and my eyelids were too heavy. I closed my eyes.

  “No, no, no, no, Shade, do not close your eyes. Look at me. Look at me, Shade.”

  “Shade!” Peasblossom screeched.

  I lost track of time. Peasblossom was here. She was back. Her emotions battered against me like water from a drinking fountain. Panic. She was scared. After the huge emotions Grace had leveled against me, the panic wasn’t so bad. In fact, it hardly registered at all.

  Something cold and hard touched my lips, clacked against my teeth. It hurt, but before I could say so, liquid was flowing down my throat. A minute passed, then another.

  “Shade!” Peasblossom shouted.

  “Shh, it’s all right, small beauty. The bleeding has stopped. Her flesh is closing.”

  Something warm shifted beneath me. I pried open one eye.

  A pink face took up the entirety of my vision.

  “You’re awake!”

  My eyes crossed, and I forced them to straighten, then open. “Peasblossom,” I croaked.

  “I’m back!” she said, breathless. “I’m here.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked.

  “To get help,” she said.

  I didn’t like the way she’d said that. As if she expected I wouldn’t be pleased with whatever she’d done. But before I could push for more information, Flint slid an arm beneath me and pulled me into his lap, supporting me so I could drink the rest of the potion. Even that minor movement sent a frantic pulse of pain over my nerve endings, and my lungs spasmed with my next breath, reminding me of the black smoke I’d inhaled far too much of. The potion flowed past my lips, and I nearly fainted with relief as the cool magic washed the back of my throat, then pulsed through my body in rippling waves. The next breath was blessedly pain-free.