“Nothing else was in the box?” I asked.
“No,” Lark said.
“Have you killed the mortals who set the fire yet?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been busy. I’ll deal with them soon.” Her tone was icy, murderous, and she flashed her fangs. I winced, the primal part of my brain screaming in fear.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
I set the box with Harold’s skull down. “I wanted to wait until I had a name. Maybe a head to bring you on a silver platter.”
“I’d have preferred to know he was gone,” she said, and just for a moment, I could see the pain and grief in her eyes. She’d lost her lover and now a dear friend in a very short span of time. Vampires are used to losing those they care about, but after a certain age, after your mortal family is long gone, it’s rare to lose people in quick succession like that.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You will bring me the person who did this,” she said.
“It’s possible that person is already dead,” I said, thinking of Beverly. “But it’s likely they weren’t working alone. If I can get the guilty party alive, I’ll be happy to let you do the honors.” I glanced at Angela. She rolled her hand in a go on gesture. I sighed. “There’s something else I should mention.”
“Oh?” Lark asked, as though she couldn’t care less. Her stiff posture said otherwise.
“The mortals you kicked out are working with this witch. Not all of them,” I added quickly. “But half a dozen or so. The witch promised them immortality. That’s why they set the fire.”
There was a long, deadly silence. Neither Lark nor Angela moved, and I started to feel like I was in a wax museum rather than in the company of living creatures.
Finally, Lark shattered the quiet. “Did the witches promise you that as well, in exchange for your help?”
“No,” I said. “God, no.”
“Good. I didn’t take you for that great of a fool, but one never knows.” She stood. “Now get me Harold’s killer, or I’ll be forced to handle the situation myself.”
I left not long after that, promising to bring good news, and maybe a few warm bodies for her to punish, or, of course, I would face her wrath myself for not bringing her up to speed sooner.
I called Erin on the way to my car. She agreed to meet me at a coffee shop near her place, and I headed in that direction.
Chapter 25
“Shit, shit, shit,” Erin said into her hot chocolate. We sat at a table in the coffee shop near the window. The place was crowded for the hour—almost ten o’clock at night—and we’d taken the only free table. “We’re dead. The whole Guild. All of the witches. Dead.”
“You’re not dead.”
Erin finally stopped and shot me a very dubious look. “Queen Lark knows—”
“She’s not a queen,” I interrupted, but Erin ignored me.
“And now she’s going to come after every witch in the area until she’s gotten even.”
“She won’t,” I said, although I couldn’t actually promise it. Lark had no obligation to divulge her plans to me, and now that she knew a good chunk of what was going on, she was unlikely to wait long before acting herself. Especially because the mortals who’d tried to burn her alive were involved. It made these ritual sacrifices more personal than they might have been if they’d involved random vampires she didn’t know. So did sending her one of their skulls in a box.
“What do we do?” Erin asked.
“How the hell would I know?” I said. I was still a little shaken from being in a room with two vampires who would have happily killed me if it would have solved any of their problems. Angela especially had watched me like I was a steak she wanted to sink her teeth into. And worse, part of me wouldn’t be opposed to that if I thought I stood any chance of surviving the encounter. I normally wasn’t skittish around immortals, even though I no longer was one, but I’d been worn thin these past few nights, and my tolerance for feeling threatened had been depleted.
I sipped my Americano, letting the hot coffee warm me. “Who disposed of the body in the barn?”
“Beverly, I think,” Erin said. “Carla sent her and Byron to deal with it, but Byron whined about his leg, so she did it alone. We didn’t know yet that she was involved, of course.”
Erin cupped her hands around her mug. “I’d have voted her least likely to be the culprit, honestly. She’s always adored Carla and Jones, and she’s never been very proactive about anything. She’s a follower. She does what she’s told. Or did.”
“She was probably following the lead of whoever killed her,” I said. “So you think it was Beverly who sent Lark the skull? Maybe she had the mortals deliver it?”
“I guess. I just can’t figure out why they’d do that, whether it was Bev or her accomplice. It’s like waving a red flag at a bull.”
I had to agree. It seemed incredibly stupid to try and provoke a war with the vampires like that, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do it. Even if this person planned to be immortal or otherwise untouchable, it didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to get the vampires against all of the witches in the area. It would make anything else you wanted to do a million times harder.
I was about to say so when I saw a familiar figure out on the sidewalk that stopped me short. Brad, the former vampire groupie, came walking up the street. He had thick eyeliner smudged around his eyes and wore black lipstick and his hair was spiked up with gel. He wore a black trench coat and looked like he was on his way to The Mercury, a local Goth club, or someplace similar. He stopped at the window and scowled at me.
I scowled back. I was about to go outside and ask him what the hell he wanted when he produced a grenade. He grinned, pulled the pin, and tossed it right through the glass window.
I flew backward, knocking over my chair as I hit the floor. People around me screamed as the glass shattered. I braced for the impact, for the explosion, for fire.
It didn’t happen. I looked up. The grenade had stopped midair, like time had frozen or some invisible hand had caught it and was holding it aloft. Slowly, way too fucking slowly, it began moving back the other direction, toward the jagged gap in the window. Erin’s hand was extended toward it, palm flat, as she used magic to direct it back outside. Her face was strained and her bracelet glowed as she pushed the firebomb back through the window, its speed increasing with a final push. Glass shattered outward as her magic threw the thing clear of the coffee shop.
“Get down!” Erin yelled as she hit the floor.
The grenade exploded. It was deafening, a loud boom, and then silence. Debris flew through the window and hit my coat. The rest of the window shattered inward, and acrid smoke filled the air. I lay on the floor for what felt like ten minutes, though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.
I stood slowly, wiping debris off my jeans. People were still screaming, but the sound was muffled. My ears rang, though the explosion had been mild in terms of bombs. Erin clapped a hand on my shoulder, pushing me toward the door. Other people had already clogged the doorway in an attempt to flee. I extracted my purse strap from the back of my chair, which had tumbled over. I dug through it until I found a weapon. I clutched my Taser as though it could protect me from anything even as we headed through the exit.
Erin tugged me away from the group of patrons and baristas who assembled to the side of the store, all of them carefully avoiding the giant scorch mark left in a pile of crumbling concrete. Sirens blared in the distance.
Brad was gone, the fucking coward.
“We need to go,” Erin urged, leading me up to the street toward her apartment. She fumbled with the key to get into the building, her hands shaking. The smell of burned tar and smoke was stuck in my nostrils.
“I’m going to murder that little arson-loving rat,” I said.
“I’ll help.” Erin wiggled her fingers like they hurt. Her voice was still a little distant. “That asshole just made me use magic in fro
nt of a dozen witnesses.”
That was a problem, but not a big one. Humans were notoriously good at denial even when they witnessed something supernatural with their own eyes. Soon everyone who’d been in the coffee shop would convince themselves that the grenade only hit the window instead of coming through, bouncing back onto the sidewalk. Or that Erin, being a hero, caught it and threw it out with her bare hands. If anyone did cling to what they saw, they’d be in the minority, and it was doubtful anyone would believe them.
I mentioned this to Erin, who was staring at the wall, looking haunted.
“But they’ll all remember me,” Erin said, opening her unit’s door. “And the barista knows who I am. I’m in there all the time. The cops are going to have questions.”
“Tell them you were panicked and ran home,” I said.
She let out a breath and picked up the orange cat that was winding around her legs. She hugged the animal, who endured it for a moment before trying to wiggle out of her arms. “I can’t believe he tried to kill us with a fucking grenade. Who the hell does he think he is? Where does someone even get a grenade?”
“He’s one of Cazimir’s old groupies. He’s working for the evil witch,” I said. “Beverly or her accomplice promised them all immortality if they helped, which is why they’ve been going after vampires, I assume.”
“Good gods,” Erin said. “This is such a fucking mess. Immortality spells don’t work. If this is all for some fairy tale…” She trailed off, but I got her point.
If it was all for naught, then the murders and attacks were even more egregious. I, of all people, understood the desperation to be immortal. But flinging firebombs into public places? Trying to burn vampires alive? Ritual sacrifice? All way too far in that quest, whether it was a viable solution or not, and it damn sure didn’t seem to be.
“I need to go find him,” I said. “Or at least chase down his friends and make sure they’re not planning similar attacks.”
“Good call,” Erin said. She set the cat down on its cat tree. “I should go out to the farm. Call a meeting of the Elders, let them know what’s going on. Figure out how to stop whoever it is.”
“Just be careful. It’s likely one of them is the culprit, and they’re obviously happy to make you collateral damage.”
Erin’s expression was grave. “I know. But at least if I have them all in one place, they can’t sneak off and do more death magic. Besides, I know it’s not my brother, and they have him locked up in his bedroom like a kid being punished. It’s fucked up. Meanwhile, whoever was helping Beverly is still running amok, and is probably going to try to kill us all before they’re done.”
“We’ll stop them.”
She almost rolled her eyes. “You don’t know that.”
“Sure I do. They’re getting sloppy.” I popped a handful of Altoids into my mouth and extended the tin to Erin, who waved a hand in refusal. I crunched down and peppermint filled my mouth. “They sent a mortal lackey to throw a grenade into a public place. That kind of sloppiness means they’re getting reckless.”
“Or it means they’re getting so powerful they don’t care if they’re caught.”
On that grim note, I went to go wave my sword at the former Factory mortals and threaten answers out of them.
Chapter 26
I pulled up in front of the house where the vampire groupies had been squatting in only nights before. If they’d done the smart thing and run, I’d find an empty ruin, but since Brad had just thrown a grenade through my window, I was willing to bet cash money that they hadn’t all booked travel to the Philippines or some other faraway place.
I made my way cautiously to the front door. Neighboring houses were lit up, but curtains were drawn and blinds were closed. No nosy neighbors were keeping watch.
The mortal groupies’ house was dark and silent. If they were inside, they didn’t want anyone to know it. No light crept around the edges of the boards that covered the windows, and there was no noise that indicated anyone was alive inside.
I listened at the door before heading around back, picking through the tall grass to reach the porch with the glass door. The black sheeting still blocked the view inside. I listened again. I heard something, but it was faint and impossible to tell what. Could have been someone inside. Could have been mice.
I tried the door. It slid open easily. I froze, heart in my throat, waiting for a trap to spring.
A moan emanated from inside. After a long moment, I pulled the curtain back with my free hand, holding my sword out, and went in.
Jeff was sprawled on the floor. His face was swollen and streaked with blood. It looked like he’d been propped against the rotting sofa but had slid down, unable to hold himself up. He craned his neck to look at me and then dropped his head, panting, like that small act had taken all of his effort.
“Jeff?” I stepped closer. His lips quivered as he tried to speak. His bottom lip was split and bleeding. One of his eyes was bruised and black. Someone had beaten the shit out of him.
He was holding his side. I bent down, lowering my sword. I gently eased his hand off his side.
I sucked in a breath. He’d been shot, and he was bleeding out. His shirt was torn around the red, sticky wound. “Guess you didn’t want to join the Dark Side, so your friends shot you, huh?”
Jeff made a noise low in his throat that I took as confirmation. “S-Stupid.”
I frowned and looked around again, worried he was bait for an ambush. But there was no sound and no indication anyone else was in the house or on the lot.
“You’re not stupid.” It felt like the right thing to say, even though secretly I thought it had been monumentally idiotic to get involved with this witch. At least he’d had the smarts to cut his losses when it became clear they’d been manipulated.
“Them,” he corrected. He swallowed and gathered himself. Eventually, and with several pauses, he spat out, “The witch. They think she can make them immortal. It’s stupid.”
“Where did they go?” I asked. I knew where Brad had gone, but presumably he’d run to the others after his little attempt at mass murder.
Jeff shook his head and swallowed again. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911. He wasn’t going to live very long if he didn’t get help. He was shivering, and there was way too much blood on the floor.
“Some farm,” he said finally.
My veins turned to ice. But it made sense. Where else would the witch herd them? Evan was locked up and unable to protect the farm. The witches had installed a rotating guard, Erin had told me, to keep watch on him, each of the Elders taking a turn. All the culprit had to do was wait for their turn and they’d have the farm to themselves to do whatever nefarious magic they wanted.
And Erin was heading there right now.
Well, fuck, I thought.
The 911 operator picked up. I gave her the address and told her my neighbor had been shot and was bleeding out, and they needed to hurry if they wanted to find him alive.
She asked questions: Who? How? When? Why? I repeated the address and hung up on her. She had what she needed to send help. I knew they could trace the phone to my current alias, but I was thinking it was about time to burn it anyhow.
“Help is on the way. How long ago did they leave?”
“Don’t know,” he said, the words ragged.
I listened for sirens in the distance, watching the color drain from his face. He didn’t have long. I wouldn’t have bet on his chances. I felt weirdly sorry for the kid. He was in his mid-twenties, maybe a little older. Who knew how many years he’d lived in Cazimir’s kingdom, waiting for the right pair of fangs to come along? And now he was helpless and bleeding on the floor of an abandoned house, left for dead by people he’d considered friends.
For the first time in years, I had the desire to make another vampire. Of course, I couldn’t now, not in my mortal state, but if I’d had fangs, I honestly might have done it to Jeff right then if he’d agreed. I’d never turned a
nyone, and I didn’t even know the guy, but the urge to do it was almost overwhelming. Maybe because the same asshole who’d just lobbed a grenade at me had probably shot him and I felt a strange sort of solidarity with him. Maybe because he’d put up with plenty of vampire bullshit to get here and deserved some sort of payoff for it. Or maybe solely to spite the asshole mortals who’d signed up with the witch and then left him like this, to die alone in the cold. Spite was a powerful thing.
But it didn’t make any damn difference. I was still mortal, just like Jeff, and I couldn’t do jack shit for him but hope that the ambulance arrived in time.
I called Erin. No answer, but she was probably driving. I didn’t bother to text her a warning. She already knew that one of the witches in her Guild, likely an Elder, was the culprit, and she knew the odds she’d arrive at the farm to find them there alone.
“I need to go,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jeff said. His eyes were glassy. The sirens finally sounded in the distance.
“Help is coming. Try to live until they get here, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, but it was garbled, and I didn’t know if he could do it.
I pushed back the curtain and made my way back outside to my car.
Chapter 27
During the long drive out to the farm, I rolled the facts over in my mind. Two witches, presumably both Guild Elders, had used a dead Guild member’s theoretical spells for…well, whatever they were for. Immortality, power, something like that. Beverly had been one of them, but Erin had been shocked by her involvement, citing her fierce loyalty. The other person was unknown. I still thought it was Byron. He struck me as the sort of guy who’d spent his life charming his way out of trouble, both magically and in the usual mundane fashion.
So either Byron or someone else had started doing these rituals. First they killed some mortals in the field near the farm, which they’d managed to do without being noticed until the bodies were found. I didn’t know where in the field, but Evan hadn’t been arrested on suspicion for failing to see anything, so I could guess it was pretty far out and away from his house. At some point, this evildoer had recruited the mortals Lark had kicked out of the Factory.
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