by Melissa Marr
“That hurt,” she said in a hoarse voice, and then choked out a laugh. “Don’t know how fish stand breathing that…”
She stopped speaking. I was terrified that she’d lost the remaining scant space she needed to breathe, and I couldn’t angle my head in order to see. Her grip had loosened, and the currents from the incoming tide now had me facing away from her.
“This’ll be weird,” I thought I heard her say, and then her grip on me vanished completely.
Without it, I sank to the bottom of the cave. I tried to see where Denise was, but the green glow from my gaze barely cut through the water. Then, a tremendous thrashing turned my limited vision into nothing but movement and bubbles.
Pain ripped at me. That must be Denise, drowning. Oh, God, she’d suffer that horrible death over and over because she’d refused to leave me, and there was nothing I could do to help her! How many hours until low tide…?
A large shark suddenly filled my vision, mouth open as if grinning while it swam straight at me. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! I’d never wanted to move so much in my life, but I could do nothing but stare as rows of knifelike teeth sank into my arm.
Agony shot through me, and inwardly, I screamed. In my darkest wonderings about how I’d die, and I’d had many of those, getting eaten by a shark had never made my list. Guess I hadn’t given Fate enough credit. Good one, you sick bitch!
The shark bit me again, this time catching my upper shoulder. Amidst the new burst of pain, an image of the last time I had seen Bones flashed in my mind: his deep brown hair, creamy alabaster skin, high cheekbones, winged brows, full mouth, and eyes so dark brown they could have been black. And Katie, my beautiful little girl, standing next to him, watching me solemnly as I promised that I’d be back soon—
Red light suddenly suffused the shark’s black eyes. Shock numbed me for a few seconds as to what that meant. In that short amount of time, the shark swam us out of the sacrificial chamber and into the cave’s winding tunnels. There, its sleek body easily maneuvered around the bends and turns. I was the one who hit every protruding wall. Those hard jostles caused the shark’s serrated teeth to tear deeper, but aside from holding me in its jaws, the shark didn’t bite me again.
Red eyes. Only demons had those…or people whom demons had branded with their power, thus transferring some of their supernatural abilities to the branded person.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I thought with awe this time. You have outdone yourself, Denise!
Chapter Six
If the shark’s new red eyes weren’t proof enough that this was Denise, the fact that it was carrying me out of the cave instead of eating me did. Sure, I knew that being branded by a shapeshifting demon years ago had given Denise the ability to transform into anything she wanted to, but I’d forgotten that anything meant, well, anything. I’d also forgotten that in many ways, the transformation was literal. Unlike the glamour used to cover the cave entrance, this wasn’t a magical mirage. Denise didn’t just look like a shark; she was one, as the water rushing through her gills and her toothy grip attested.
Don’t know how fish stand breathing that, she’d said when she choked on the water, followed by a muttered, this’ll be weird.
She must have realized the only way she’d get out of this unscathed was to breathe water like a fish, and not just any fish. The most badass fish in the sea. I might have been too heavy for her to carry before, but now? She glided us both through the waves like a hot knife through butter. If not for the searing pain in my shoulder, this would almost be fun.
In minutes, we were out of the cave. I expected Denise to drop me now that we were free of that labyrinth, but she kept swimming parallel to shore, adjusting her bite every so often when her many rows of teeth nearly severed my shoulder and almost sent me tumbling out of her mouth.
Each new bite had me mentally gritting me teeth. How did you spend your girls’ getaway, Cat? Oh, getting eaten by my best friend. No, not in the fun way. In the wow-that-hurts! way.
I was starting to worry that Denise had taken her transformation a little too literally when she suddenly beached herself and spat me out with a painful rip. I lay there healing while the shark next to me shuddered several times before skin replaced scales and then Denise rose naked from the sand.
“Weird as fuck,” she pronounced, spitting what was probably little bits of my flesh out of her mouth. “But it did the trick. There’s the hotel, and unless I’m wrong, there’s our cottage.”
I had to take her word for it since I couldn’t angle my head to look. Denise gave me a sympathetic glance, and then dragged me by the shoulders up the beach. I saw the steps of our cottage moments later, and then felt a hard thump from each of them as Denise dragged me up the stairs.
Once inside, she positioned me so I was sitting on the floor with my back braced against the couch. Then, she left my line of sight. Moments later, she was back, wearing a robe and a contemplative expression.
“Can you blink?” she asked me.
I tried and found that I could. She made a relieved noise.
“Okay, blink once for yes, twice for no.”
I blinked once to show I understood.
“I saw a naked kid run out of what looked like a solid wall in the bluffs. He was cut up and screaming about witches and monsters, so I gave him my jacket, helped him up the incline, and told him to head for the hotel. While I was going back down, two women ran out of that ‘solid’ wall as well. So, I knew it was fake, and since you hadn’t come out yet, I went in to find you. Were those women really witches?”
I blinked once.
“What about monsters? Were those real, too?”
I blinked twice.
“Guess that’s good,” she said in a weary tone. “So, if they were witches, a spell did this to you?”
I blinked once.
“Fuuuuck,” she breathed out.
My thoughts exactly.
“I’ll call Bones,” she said.
I blinked twice in rapid succession. I couldn’t wait to see him again after coming so close to death, but Bones wasn’t an expert on magic, and we needed someone who was. Before I worried him halfway to his grave with my condition, I at least wanted some facts about it first.
Denise sighed. “I get it. You don’t want him to see you like this until you know if it can be fixed.”
I blinked once while fighting back tears.
Yes, exactly.
“Ian, then,” she said. “Between him and Veritas, they’ve forgotten more magic than these witches probably ever learned in the first place.”
I blinked once, hard. Yes, Bones’s rebellious vampire sire, Ian, had been illegally practicing magic for centuries, and his several-millennia-old new wife, Veritas, was half-vampire, half demigod, so she almost had magic coming out of her pores.
Denise left. When she came back, she had her cell phone. “Calling and texting both of them now.”
They must not have answered because she left two voicemails. Then, over the next few hours, she kept calling and leaving more voicemails and text messages. I was disappointed that she couldn’t reach them, but I couldn’t say I was shocked. Ian and Veritas had taken an extended honeymoon to parts unknown these past several months. Even Bones hadn’t talked to them in a while, and he was Ian’s only living family member.
“I’m sure they’ll call back,” Denise said, trying and failing to sound optimistic. She was married to a vampire, so she knew they didn’t measure time the way humans did. It could take them days to check their messages, at least.
“In the meantime, let’s get you cleaned up—”
“Don’t bother.”
The words came out of me, shocking us both. I’d thought them, but hadn’t expected my mouth to form the words.
“Testing, one, two, three,” I found myself saying.
Denise leapt forward and hugged me. “You can talk!”
“Seems so,” I said, now trying to move, too. Still no motion in the limbs, but were my toes
and fingers wiggling? With Denise blocking my view, I couldn’t tell.
“Off,” I said, and Denise jumped back.
“Sorry, did I hurt you?”
I could laugh, too, apparently. “Not then, but can we never play ‘shark and chew toy’ again, even if that was a great way to get us out of there?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, shuddering even though she was smiling. “It’s been killing me not to leave you so I could brush my teeth, like, a thousand times.”
I laughed again, and then gasped when I saw my hands and feet. Yes, my fingers and toes were moving. The spell was finally starting to wear off!
Denise’s face suddenly drained of color, and she stared at something behind me.
“What?” I said, trying to turn around and failing. All I could do was crane my neck a little, and it wasn’t enough to see what was behind me.
“Company,” Denise said in a strained tone.
“Yes, company,” an unknown female voice replied, followed by a wave of supernatural power that almost knocked me over even though I was still braced against the couch.
From the power stinging me like dozens of angry hornets, our “company” wasn’t human, and she also wasn’t alone.
Denise visibly tensed, but she planted her feet and didn’t move. “All of you, don’t come any closer.”
“Begone, mortal,” a new voice said, and Denise was suddenly yanked up by an invisible force and hurled out of the cottage.
I was strafed with broken glass before I tried and failed to stand. My feet and hands only made weird, jerking movements while the rest of my body stayed put.
Dammit, the spell wasn’t wearing off fast enough!
“Don’t get up,” said yet another new voice, with an undercurrent that was more ominous than seeing how Denise had been magically swatted away as if she were a pesky fly. “I promise you that this won’t take a moment.”
Chapter Seven
At least a dozen vampires wearing the same style of blue robes as the witches I’d killed earlier came into my line of sight. Good lord, of all the places to vacation in, we had to pick the one that was apparently a hotbed of witches!
One of the robed figures stepped forward and tilted her head. Her hood fell back, revealing hair the color of dark umber, deep brown eyes, and lovely sepia-and-cream skin.
“I am Morgana,” she said.
“How unoriginal,” I replied.
Okay, antagonizing a vampire witch while I was still mostly paralyzed wasn’t my smartest move, but come on! Naming yourself after the sorceress who trapped the famed wizard Merlin from the King Arthur stories? She was asking for that sort of clapback.
Morgana glanced at my hands and feet with a smirk. “You must be very strong to have such motion. That spell doesn’t expire until sunrise, but it matters not. Your death is sure.”
I couldn’t move enough to get away, but my hand worked well enough to give her my one-fingered opinion about that threat.
“Heard that from the other witches,” I replied while focusing my energy on the silver knives I had stored in the bedroom. Even now, I was using my borrowed telekinetic ability to quietly pull back the zipper on the knapsack they were in.
Angry emerald light flashed in Morgana’s eyes. “Do you have any idea what you did tonight?”
“Stopped an innocent kid from getting murdered,” I said while thinking, Keep talking. Your friend made that mistake, too.
Now her brown gaze was all green, and fangs peeked out from her lips. “You interrupted a sacred ritual and killed seven of our newest coven sisters. Half of them weren’t even vampires yet! Then, we had to sacrifice one of our sisters who survived your butchery because our goddess had already been summoned, and lifeblood is required after a summoning. At least our surviving sister gave us the means to avenge ourselves. We found you by following the magic in the spell they had left on you.”
Some days, I really hated magic. Today was one of them.
“We’d kill you now, while you’re still helpless,” Morgana went on, almost hissing with rage, “but you don’t deserve a quick, merciful death. So, we are giving you to our goddess.”
With that, Morgana said something in an unknown language and drew her finger across my forehead. Everywhere she touched burned as if a hot poker was scorching me.
I quit being subtle and ripped open the satchel with my mind. Several silver knives flew out of the bedroom, but though they hit their targets, none of the vampires dropped the way they should have with silver in their hearts.
Morgana bared her fangs in a smile. “Before we had to sacrifice our coven sister in place of the boy you freed, she told us of your abilities. That’s why we’re wearing these.”
With that, the vampires drew open their ceremonial robes to reveal that they were all wearing Kevlar vests. Murderous they might be, but dumb they were not.
Morgana traced my face with her finger again. This time, it didn’t burn.
“Don’t worry; you won’t die tonight. I want you to think about what awaits you first. So, you have until the moon is full and the tide is high before our goddess comes for you.”
I took it back—they were dumb. If they didn’t kill me now, I would find a way out of this.
Morgana must have read some of that from my expression because she gave me a nasty smile. “Go ahead, let your loved ones gather around you trying to save you. You will only doom them, too. Everyone who spends so much as five minutes in your presence will be marked as a sacrifice, too, because this”—her finger traced my forehead—“is contagious. That’s why we’ll be leaving, but in case you’re capable of surprising us with your abilities again…”
She said something else in that strange language. All of a sudden, I couldn’t move a muscle. What had taken the other vampire several minutes with a supporting group chant to accomplish, Morgana had done by herself in seconds.
Maybe she’d chosen her name aptly after all.
The front door burst open, revealing Denise. She had cuts in several places and she was soaking wet…and furious.
“Back away from her, or I swear I will turn into a dragon and eat every last fucking one of you!”
The other vampires laughed. Morgana’s brows rose, and she gave Denise an amused look.
“For the most entertaining threat I’ve heard in a while, you may live. For now,” she added, with a sly glance at me.
I seethed, but I couldn’t tell Denise to stay away from me. I couldn’t so much as blink anymore.
Morgana gave me a final smile. Then, with a poof of smoke worthy of a B-grade horror movie, she and the other vampires disappeared.
Denise rushed over to me.
“Bitches knocked me all the way out to sea,” she said while running her hands over me to check for injuries. “Sorry it took so long to get back. Are you hurt?”
I only stared, hoping that Morgana’s threat was bogus. Maybe she’d only told me the mark was contagious because she wanted me to be too afraid to ask for help getting rid of it, assuming I could find a way to do that.
Denise made a sympathetic sound. “They hit you with another immobility spell, hmm?”
When I didn’t blink or speak, she said, “Guess so. This one’s stronger, if you can’t even blink now.”
God, what a cruel curse, forcing someone to be trapped in their own body while also dooming everyone around them. If I found a way out of this, I’d make those bitches pay.
“Something’s on your forehead,” Denise said, using the hem of her wet robe to wipe it. Then she frowned, rubbing harder.
“Sorry. It’s not coming off.”
No, it’s not because it’s a frigging contagious curse! I wanted to scream, but I could do nothing to warn her, and my helplessness burned more than the scorch of the mark.
Denise sighed and gave up trying to rub it off. “At least we know your paralysis is temporary, although it doesn’t make sense that they’d find you, paralyze you again, and then not kill you. Yes, I threatene
d to eat them, but they don’t know that I could really change into a dragon and do it.”
Hope perked in me. That’s right, Denise, figure out that there’s more going on here!
“Something’s up, isn’t it?”
I stared at her as emphatically as I could.
“Thought so.” She sounded resigned but not scared. “I’m calling Ian again. He can’t ignore a ringing phone forever.”
She spent the next ten minutes calling Ian and Veritas over and over. I swung back and forth between hope and terror as the time ticked by. Morgana had said anyone who spent more than five minutes in my presence would be cursed, too, but so far, Denise seemed fine. Maybe the witch had lied…
Denise suddenly dropped the phone. “I don’t feel so good…”
Horror pierced me when a line appeared on her forehead. Then another one slowly snaked its way above her brows. Then another. Denise grabbed her forehead while, inwardly, I screamed.
No, no, no!
Denise walked toward the mirror above the bar, touching her forehead as her reflection showed more marks appearing. After a few steps, she staggered and almost fell.
No! I mentally roared again. Please, God, no!
“Shit,” she murmured. “This is…bad, isn’t it?”
Her words slurred, as if she were having trouble speaking. My God, it wasn’t just the “sacrifice” curse that was contagious. The immobilization spell must have been, too!
And I could only watch, tears trickling out of my eyes. Oh, Denise. I’m so, so sorry…
She suddenly grabbed a bottle and a glass from the bar. Both almost fell from her hands, but she held on, and managed to spill some of the dark amber liquid into the glass.
What was she doing? I loved liquor as much as the next person, but this was hardly the time to drink!
She sank to her knees, yet one hand remained raised, holding up the glass. “Ashael,” she rasped out, and then swallowed some of the liquor.
Ashael? The mostly not evil demon who was Veritas’s brother? Sure, if anyone knew about magic, it was demons since their kind invented magic, but didn’t demons require specific symbols drawn with virgin blood plus their true names in order to be summoned? That’s the complicated ritual I’d had to do the one time I’d needed to summon a demon.
