by Michele Hauf
The vampire caught the stake in his hand, mere inches from entering his chest. Tucking the gun under an arm, he made show of studying the deadly stake tip, drawing a finger along the length of it.
“She can’t give you the formula,” Kaz said. If he could talk to the vampire, he might win Zoë a chance to escape. “It’s in her head.”
“Then I’ll have to extract it with persuasion,” Mauritius said. He tested the paddles and the stake pinioned back into the column. “Handy thing, this. A nice addition to my collection. Give the Order my thanks, will you? Oh, wait. You won’t live to report on today’s adventures. Such a pity.”
Kaz wavered on his feet. He wasn’t sure how long he could stay conscious with the incredible pain searing his arm. And there was that damned faery perched above he needed to keep an eye on. If the vampire didn’t shoot him, the faery would fire one of those nasty, poisoned flechettes directly into his skull. If the thing could see him wearing the coat he’d turned inside out.
“I’ll spare your hunter,” Mauritius said to Zoë, “if you come along with me. You’ve only to demonstrate how you concoct the Magic Dust, and then you are free to go, as well.”
“That’s a lie,” Kaz barked when he sensed Zoë step forward.
“He’s right,” she said from behind him. “You lied to me about Luc getting better. You’ve lied to me about selling my blend. You just want to make money.”
“Money is very useful. And with that blend I can rule FaeryTown.” Mauritius laughed loudly.
Kaz noticed the faery above aimed his weapon at the vampire. Interesting. If he could just keep the longtooth rambling about his evil plans...
“Won’t the faeries have something to say about that?” Kaz called to the vampire. “You ruling them, and all?”
“They are idiots. Stupid creatures who would sell themselves to make a few bucks so they can live in this realm. Bunch of outcasts and ne’er-do-wells. I’ll make it easy for them. I’ll buy their ichor—by the body—and end their miserable lives before they can comprehend the futility of an insignificant mortal lifestyle.”
“Is that so?”
Both Kaz and Mauritius watched as a female faery alit from above and landed on the cement floor beside them in a predatory crouch. Dressed in strips of leather that barely covered the important bits, and sporting white body tattoos, she looked a warrior. The weapon she held in a hand resembled a pistol made of copper, but...not.
Kaz noted the dark faery remained en pointe with his weapon, high in the rafters.
Standing, the female drew in her pink wings with a snap. Crossing her arms over her chest to display the weapon warningly, she cast her violet gaze at the vampire. “The Sidhe Cortège will have a say regarding your grand plans, longtooth.”
“The Cortège?” Mauritius gestured dismissively. “Bloody faery mafia. Riské—the idiot with wings who runs the group of glitter freaks—is a fool.”
“He is my lover,” the woman pronounced. “And the Cortège ruler, le Grand Sidhe.”
Kaz felt Zoë slip her hand into his, and he leaned against her, only now realizing she already supported most of his weight. It felt as if sandbags weighted his eyelids. But he battled to keep one eye open, on the dark-winged faery lurking overhead. A battle he was losing.
* * *
Using every ounce of her strength, Zoe braced herself to hold up Kaz, but he slumped to his knees. She held his arm, though her eyes never left the vampire and faery before her.
“Tell your lover I’ve a deal for him,” Mauritius said to the winged creature.
“No deals.” The warrior faery slashed a wing across Mauritius’s cheek, leaving in its wake a thin, red cut. “You’re dead, vampire.”
Before Mauritius could protest his death, his arms flailed outward and his head jerked back. In succession, half a dozen of the flechettes attached to his shoulders, back and skull. Induced by a high-pitched banshee scream from the dark-winged shooter, the flechettes snapped and sprang free from the vampire’s back in a plume of iridescent dust. Mauritius dropped to his knees, his limbs shaking violently as the poison coursed through his system.
“The poison doesn’t kill vampires,” Zoë said to the female. “It—well, maybe. If he’s not a dust addict and doesn’t have any in his system, it could prove lethal.”
“Never!” the female faery called for her cohort.
The dark faery in the rafters lighted down with impeccable grace and stood beside her. Wings extended regally, he imbued a tethered menace into the cold, sterile warehouse that touched Zoë’s very soul. His eyes raked Kaz. The inside-out coat apparently served no efficacy.
“Kill the hunter,” the female faery commanded.
“No!” Zoë dropped Kaz’s arm, and he slumped to the ground, sprawling before the vampire, who now shuddered manically. “He’s no harm to you. He was after the vampires selling the Magic Dust. He wants to end it as much as you do.”
“And yet you are the very witch who put the product out there. Wait, Never,” Coyote said to the dark faery who reloaded his crossbow. “The hunter will die from blood loss soon enough. I do prefer a slow death. As for witches, I believe—”
“I don’t believe in you,” Zoë said with as much fury as her shaking voice could manage. “You are nothing to me.”
“Your lack of belief is apparent. How else could you manufacture such a vile substance without a care for those who gave their ichor?”
Zoë couldn’t reply to that one. When she’d received the ichor it had been detached from the faery who had given it, making it easy enough to overlook the heinous act that must have occurred to actually obtain it.
She swallowed, feeling her stomach revolt. The things she had done... But Kaz had encouraged her to accept it because she’d not known better. And now that she did? She would do better.
She mustn’t allow the sidhe the upper hand, or she would again be unable to utilize her magic. By all means, she must remain strong with Kaz fighting to survive beside her.
“Begone with the both of you,” Zoë commanded.
With a cry to rend the very stones from their plastered walls, Mauritius suddenly ashed in a wicked dusting of blood, ash and glittering ichor.
Zoë turned her head to avoid getting the stuff in her eyes. In her peripheral vision she saw the female faery approach, and something inside her clicked. Yes, she had committed grave acts against many, both sidhe and human, but she would redeem herself. Somehow.
Thrusting out an arm, she recited a repulsion spell, “Suivre repulsus!”
The faery’s body was tugged backward away from Zoë, slamming her into the dark one, and thrusting them across the room. She did not land, however, and instead, gained control midair. She flew up and away before the dark one landed against the wall.
Gliding overhead, the faery chuckled. “I hate witches.”
“I’m not so keen on faeries, either,” Zoë offered.
“But you believe in me now, yes?”
“Hell, no. You’re just a bit of dust and wing. A faery tale.”
The faery swooped overhead, dashing a wingtip close to Zoë’s cheek.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Zoë called. “I didn’t realize I had created such a powerfully addictive blend. I’ll never make another drop. But that’s a promise I make to myself, not you.”
“Insolent witch.”
“I want to learn how to craft the poison your dark warrior puts in his flechettes,” Zoë said. “That poison seems to get dust junkies clean.”
“We will never help the vampires,” the faery said as she landed on a rafter and sat there, her legs dangling. “Nor an ugly, old witch.”
Zoë stroked the scar on her cheek, momentarily put off by the accusation. But really? What did she care what a homicidal faery thought of her?
&nbs
p; Not one iota.
This time she summoned resonance from her soul and enforced its strength by humming deep in her throat. Forging it from all she had learned from her father, Zoë thrust out the molecular magic. It caught the faery around the feet and tugged. Flailing, the faery fell through the air, and couldn’t catch herself before hitting the cement floor. Hard. Magic crept along her skin and lighted in her wings, glowing and smoking, changing the composition of her wings until they began to melt.
The dark faery picked himself up and walked over to his mistress. Zoë kept a keen eye on his trigger hand. The one called Never looked to Zoë...and winked.
“Soon,” was all he said, and then he flew off and exited the building through the open door.
The female faery groaned, slapped a hand over her shoulder where her wings oozed through her fingers, and grumbled at the grossness of it all.
Meanwhile, Zoë nudged Kaz upright. He suddenly gripped her by the hand and pulled her forward. Zoë fell, her palms hitting the glass-littered floor as the faery’s clawed hand missed cutting her throat.
Kaz yelped. The claw had cut his forehead and one eye.
“No!” Zoë tried for her magic but before she could summon a spell, one of Kaz’s stakes pierced the faery in the heart.
The sidhe laughed and clutched the weapon. Mortal metal would not keep her down.
Kaz charged the faery, who tugged out the stake just as their bodies collided. Zoë couldn’t throw magic at them and risk harming Kaz. While the faery’s wing literally dripped from her back, Kaz struggled to pin her flailing arms.
Another banshee cry pierced the air as the faery fell, lifeless, at Kaz’s feet.
That was when Zoe saw the stake. In the struggle, the faery had managed to turn it on Kaz. He tugged it from his gut and faltered, but not before winking at Zoë.
In the faery’s chest, a rough, old blade had been hilted.
“Iron?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kaz said before he dropped.
* * *
Two blocks away from the ER entrance, Zoë stood with Kaz’s arm across her shoulder to brace his weak stance. He refused to go inside.
“Order rules,” he insisted.
“Yeah? Does the Order offer emergency care? Kaz, you’ve a bullet in your shoulder.”
“Take it out!”
“No, I— You’ve been stabbed in the gut. You haven’t stopped bleeding. And your eye—”
“It’s just a scratch.”
Zoë gasped as she pulled her hand away from his gut and his blood trickled down to her wrist.
“Please, Kaz, don’t be foolish.”
“A knight lives to serve and dies fighting,” he said with a growl. He was talking incoherently.
“Don’t recite some stupid macho rules.”
“I’m off the grid. Can’t go into a public place like a hospital without a lot of questions I can’t answer. I took a vow, Zoë.”
She managed to shove him against the brick wall and pressed her chest against his to keep him from toppling forward. Bracketing his face with her bloody palms, she pleaded, “What about the vow you made when you won my heart?”
He peered at her, blood blurring his wounded eye. “I...vows. Yes...”
“You can’t die, lover. After all we’ve been through, is that what you want for us?”
“No, I...love you, Zoë.” His eyelids fluttered.
She kissed him, knowing now was not the time or the place to infuse him with her molecular healing magic, but wishing it was so easy as this kiss to save him.
“All I have is the Order,” he managed. Bowing his head to hers, he whispered, “And you.”
Much against her better judgment, Zoë helped him onto the Metro and managed to get him home. She wasn’t so keen on mortal institutions of medical care herself. And if she couldn’t save him, then no one could.
* * *
Kaz woke to the burning of a thousand bees stinging his shoulder and burrowing under his skin with a precision that focused the pain and made him yowl through his tight jaw.
A hand pressed upon his chest, beckoning him to lie down. Soft hair dusted his face. Smelled liked the witch with whom he had fallen in love. Yes, Zoë, of the strange hair, and the scar she’d gotten from a vampire whom she called friend. A witch who had saved his ass after he’d saved hers.
His thoughts blurred and he passed out.
When awareness next teased, he saw a white mist being moved about by the witch’s hands, directing it above his face and toward his shoulder. Felt like ice droplets kissing his skin, cooling the burning wound.
God, he loved the witch.
The third time he touched consciousness Kaz looked into heaven. Bright blue eyes held his gaze. Angels had eyes like that. And she even smelled heavenly.
She kissed his mouth and whispered, “I love you. But you almost died.”
“Died?”
“I would never let that happen.” She sighed and Kaz felt her exhaustion in the strain of her voice.
“Zoë?” He touched the hair on the side of her head. Where once it had been streaked with white, now it was more a swath, four times as wide as before. “What happened?”
“Takes a bit out of me when I have to bring someone back from death. If I stick around you for any amount of time, my hair may grow completely white.” She yawned and smiled sweetly before laying her head on his chest. “I’m tired. Do you mind if I snuggle?”
Her body melded against his and he wrapped an arm about her and together they slept through the night and beyond noon the next day.
* * *
Zoë woke against a warm, hard surface that smelled like the best night she’d ever had. Turning her face to nuzzle Kaz’s bare chest, she kissed him below the curve of his pectoral muscle. It flexed and he murmured something low and deep that sounded like, “I love you.”
Healing him had drained her. It was well after noon to judge the bright sun that beamed across the hardwood floor. She’d needed that rest.
“Love you,” he said again.
No magic in the world felt as good as those words.
Zoë went up on an elbow to inspect his shoulder, upon which she had not laid a bandage, wanting the wound to scab and heal. The skin was pink and rough. She kissed his shoulder.
“How’s it look?” he asked. “It feels...like nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I mean, I don’t feel any pain. You have the magic touch. Literally.”
“Anything for you, lover.”
He stroked aside her hair from her face, wincing. “So every time you save someone from death your hair grows whiter? Weird kind of payment for using redeeming magic.”
“It’s because the life is literally sucked out of me. It’s a small price to pay, don’t you think?”
“You could work the white hair. Did I tell you I love you?”
“You did, but you can say it as many times as you wish and I’ll never tire of hearing it.”
Nuzzling his chest, she breathed in the sweet, masculine scent of him. He was hers. She was his. They belonged together in a strange clash of human and paranormal, and...they worked.
She reached down and unsnapped the button on his jeans and slid her hand inside his pants.
“Whoa. You always wake up so horny?”
“I woke up on top of the most handsome man I’ve ever known. You think I’m not a little horny?” She found his erection, which was as hard as one of his stakes, and squeezed it. “You did say you were invigorated.”
“That I am.”
“Any objections to a little fooling around?”
“Besides the fact my breath might kill you? Uh, no.”
“We’ll save kisses for after the shower.” Zoë glided down to k
iss him below the belly button. “Mmm, I’ve found something to play with.”
“Oh, you witch.” He raked his fingers through her hair. “Great way to start the day.”
Chapter 24
The shower pattered over their skin, washing away the kisses Zoë had placed on Kaz’s body, so she quickly replaced them, and he didn’t even have to ask.
He loved what she did to him, how she made him feel. He loved that he’d been able to confess to her about his father blaming him for his mother’s death, and that he hadn’t wanted to run away and hide from her after doing so. He loved that she’d had to hurt him to make him finally feel and not want to push those feelings away, because feeling had healed him.
Being with Zoë had changed the way he thought. And that was everything right.
So he’d caught the vampire who had killed Ellen and Robert. Sort of. He didn’t ever want to see Luc again. He could forgive a vampire who had been under the influence of a mind-altering substance, but he could never forget. He’d keep track of him via Zoë, and Vail had left him a text that Luc had contacted him.
As well, he’d stopped the distribution of Magic Dust when the dark faery had taken out Mauritius. The only way the streets of Paris would again see the addictive drug was if Zoë manufactured more of it. And she would never do that.
And with Mauritius dead, Zoë’s use of molecular magic would not be discovered by the witches of the Light. Thus keeping her safe from the brand of warlock.
He’d achieved his goals and completed the job for the Order. On to the next job, the next vamp, another stake in the chest. It would never end. He didn’t need it to end. Someone had to police the bloodsuckers, and he couldn’t imagine working nine to five or wearing a business suit. The party never ended.
Yet what remained were Zoë’s goals, and he wouldn’t feel as if he’d completed all his goals if hers were not tidied up, as well.
She wanted to manufacture the faery poison. It sounded risky, but if it could cure vampires of their addiction to dust, then he was all for it, because there were always the crazies to deal with. Though he intended to be right there as bodyguard when Zoë started to interview faeries for the job.
