Wicked Blood (Dark Fae Hollows)

by Margo Bond Collins

  For the first time in a long time, I opened myself to the Vision, calling it to me.

  I shuffled through the cards again, this time drawing out both her card and one to represent me—the high priestess for Gypsy, the Magician for me.

  Staring down at them, I considered their meanings briefly. For Gypsy, I’d chosen the card of mystery, intuition, and the subconscious. In a way, Gypsy had become all of those things for the Hollow. And here I was, poised on the edge of taking the final step of positioning myself as the Magician, the adept calling upon all my power, skill, and resourcefulness to overcome her. I just hoped it would be enough.

  I sat the cards down on either side of me, placed the fingertips of one hand on each figure, closed my eyes, and finished opening myself to the Vision. I directed it toward the vampires’ stronghold that I now knew contained Gypsy’s almost-final resting place. My eyes rolled into my head, my head fell backward, and my mind touched Gypsy’s power.

  Instantly I knew it was a mistake as all of Gypsy’s attention fell on me. The intensity of that astral gaze horrified me to my very soul and, like a child jerking her hand out of the fire and running to safety, I leapt away from Gypsy’s regard—and straight into Sorin.

  Chapter 19

  A blue haze dropped down over Sorin’s vision and his head spun for a moment—just a few seconds, but long enough that he feared if Sanda noticed, she would get the better of him.

  Work with me.

  It was the voice inside his head again—Mirela and her magic.

  I don’t know if I can do this without your strength. Help me.

  He didn’t know what she needed, but if he could offer it, he would. Rather than press the attack on Sanda, Sorin backed up and resumed pacing, circling as if looking for the perfect opening to strike again. Sanda followed his lead. As he moved, he felt power well up inside him, flowing from a source he didn’t recognize—it must be Mirela’s power, he thought—and moving through him like a shift but without any physical changes he could see.

  No, all these changes were internal, were new, like nothing he had experienced before. It was as if his cells filled up, burgeoning with new strength, new vitality, new vigor. He wanted to close his eyes and bask in it, like warmth and love and joy. Instead, he let it suffuse him—he let it roll through him rather than the other way around. Everything took on a glow in shades he’d never seen before. One part of his mind translated them as a hundred different tones of blue even though he knew some of them had no actual corollaries in the visible world.

  When he was full almost to bursting with this new power, he zeroed in on Sanda as time slowed and his vision sharpened. Every tuft of fur stood up, outlined in tiny cerulean sparkles. All her power shined through her—and so did her weaknesses.

  At her heart, a black stain spread, sending tendrils spreading through her.

  The vampires, Mirela’s voice whispered.

  And the Human-Fae Council, Sorin replied, drawing their attention to the similarly black splotch emanating from her brain.

  Head and heart. Their thoughts intertwined so completely that it was impossible to tell who said this. But one thing was clear: if her head and heart were unwell, Sanda’s vitality could not last.

  We attack now. With one leap, Sorin threw his body at the same instant Mirela threw her magic, pouncing on Sanda so hard that they rolled in the dirt, slashing with teeth and claws, but always pushing toward the weaknesses they’d spotted. With swipes of his back claws, Sorin opened rents in Sanda’s defenses, and Mirela pushed her magic into them, shoving her killing power hard against the other lynx. That magic entered Sanda’s bloodstream and rushed through her beating heart, picking up the rot within, sending it speeding throughout the rest of her body, drawing it out in long, black creeper vines of decay. Soon, tendrils of the diseases from her head and heart touched one another, weakening Sanda’s entire system. As soon as Mirela saw it happen, Sorin threw the female lynx down into the dirt and stood on her neck. With just the right amount of pressure, he could snap her neck. Everyone around him went completely silent. Without taking any weight off of Sanda, Sorin shifted back into his human form.

  As I withdrew from Sorin’s consciousness, I gave an extra shot of magic, pushing it into Sanda to keep her perfectly still.

  The switch from his body to my own left me disoriented and for several seconds, I couldn’t tell what I was seeing in front of me. It took a moment to figure out I was still huddled behind the ruins of an old car, my cards spread in front of me. Hastily, I gathered them up and wound them back into my scarf. I could hear Sorin’s voice but couldn’t see him and hadn’t been listening soon enough to catch what he’d just said.

  I heard Ciprian’s voice clearly enough, though. “I promised safe passage, nothing more.”

  “I will spare her life if you give us three hours’ head start.” I followed the sound of Sorin’s terse response until I could see him and the lynx’s Chain leader. I scooped up my partner’s clothes on the edge of the circle as I waited to hear the lynx leader’s reply.

  Ciprian’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Three hours isn’t long enough—and there’s nowhere safe enough for you to run away to.”

  Sanda snarled and Sorin’s bare foot pressed down harder on her neck, his claws snicking out. A droplet of blood formed around one of them. I watched, fascinated, as it welled up and slid down the side of her coat while Sorin and Ciprian stared each other down. After a long moment, Ciprian nodded once.

  Sorin leaned over to catch Sanda’s gaze as her eyes rolled up in her head and she bared her fangs. “When I let go,” he said, “I’ll step away from your neck. If you run or leap toward anyone other than your Chain leader, I will end you.”

  With visible effort, Sanda covered her teeth, pulling her mouth closed entirely. She blinked once, squeezing her eyes together to gesture her acceptance of Sorin’s terms. His claws disappeared back into his toes, and with a final shove of his foot against his opponent, he jumped backward in the circle. I tossed his shirt and pants in his direction. He caught them without even glancing toward me and pulled them on without taking his eyes off of Sanda. She struggled to her feet and backed slowly toward Ciprian, who placed one soothing hand atop her head and said, “Your three hours begin now.”

  Sorin nodded and strode out of the circle as if he were perfectly calm, pants and shirt still unfastened. As he passed me, his hand shot out and he grabbed my arm, pulling me along with him. I stumbled but managed not to fall. The blue haze still partially covered my vision, coloring everything shades of magic.

  “We both enjoyed that too much,” I muttered as we moved out of what I judged to be the Lynx Chain’s ability to hear us. “How much more killing would either of us have to do before one—or both—of us becomes a Wicked Blood?”

  “It’s stronger when our minds are linked like that.”

  “And so are we. I don’t know how we can win any of the battles we might have between here and the vampires’ stronghold—much less how we can possibly beat Gypsy—unless we join together.”

  Sorin closed his eyes as he picked up speed, setting the pace for us by jogging fast enough to leave me too breathless talk, but not so fast as to wipe me out completely. As we moved through the park toward the exit into the rest of Bucharest, word spread among the Lynx Chain’s territory that Sorin had bested their Second. All along the sides of the road, lynx appeared out of the surrounding foliage. They melted out of the underbrush, all in their animal shapes, and all staring at us in unnerving silence. Their eyes glowed golden in the afternoon sunlight.

  I didn’t know if it was tribute, threat, or both.

  I was too winded to ask. And maybe too afraid.

  “Wait.” Outside Ciprian’s territory, I stretched out my hand to stop Sorin, my breath ragged. “The wolves. They’re our only possible allies left. We need to go to them.”

  Sorin shook his head. “Look at the sky. It’s late—the wolves are all the way on the other side of town. We don’t
have time to get to them and back to the vampires. Besides, they wouldn’t listen to a lynx-shifter.”

  “Maybe they’d listen to me.”

  “You’ve spent too much time with me and in Titan Park. They’d smell me all over you. We’d have to fight our way out.” A wry grin flashed across his face. “And that would definitely take up too much time.”

  I put my head in my hands, tugging on my now-blonde hair as if pulling it out would yield answers. “Then we’re on our own.”

  Sorin’s voice turned thoughtful. “Maybe not. We might have one more possibility.” He began walking and I followed, having finally caught my breath.

  “There’s no one else in the city,” I said, frowning and shaking my head. “No one with a group big enough to…” I trailed off. “Oh, shit, no.” My eyes rounded. “You cannot possibly think this is a good idea.”

  “I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I do know it’s my only idea. Besides,” he called back over his shoulder as he set a path toward the old firefighting Museum, “if anyone can fight Gypsy on her own terms, it’s the winged Fae.”

  Chapter 20

  The tower fortress of the flying Fae stretched tall and imposing in front of us. It wasn’t the highest building in the city, but its connection to Bucharest’s only winged people made it loom larger in local imagination than it was in reality.

  “This is a terrible idea,” I whispered. “They’re going to say no and then they’re going to swoop down from the sky and rip our heads off. And that’s if they bother to even listen to us first. Otherwise, they’ll just do the head-ripping thing.”

  Sorin snorted in amusement. “Then I guess we’d better talk fast.”

  Our gallows humor notwithstanding, my hands trembled as we approached the tower’s entrance. Since we left Titan Park, I’d caught glimpses of lynx following us—a flash of a fang here, the glint of a green or golden eye there. Despite what I feared might be their murderous intent, even they, with their claws and teeth, didn’t scare me the way the Fae did. Something about the fairies’ ability to rain death from above made my stomach curdle.

  But Sorin was right. If the Fae were willing to help us, we had an infinitely better chance at defeating Gypsy. And they were at least as likely to hear us out as the wolves.

  “Besides,” Sorin muttered, as if he were listening to my thoughts, “if the Fae agree to help us, they can get word to the wolves.”

  “Then let’s go.” Despite my firm tone, neither of us moved. As we stood staring up at the tower, the Fae emerged from the top levels, swooping around in ever-expanding concentric circles until they were flying directly above us.

  “Looks like we’ve been noticed.” Sorin squared his shoulders, inhaled deeply, and took a resolute step forward. The tension rolled off him—I could almost feel the concentration it took to keep all his claws sheathed, even in human form, as if they were my own.

  “Maybe I should go first.” My heart stuttered in my chest, but I gritted my teeth and stepped in front of the lynx.

  I never been this close to the winged Faes’ tower, but I wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that the bottom level had been bricked over with stones from older buildings. Plenty of structures had fallen when Gypsy’s power divided Bucharest from the rest of Old Earth, leaving building material strewn about the city. Much of it had been used to create the walls around the various enclosures—the glass atop the wall around the enclosure where I’d grown up came from shattered windows, for example. Bucharest’s residents made do with what was already easily available as often as possible. In that respect, the winged Fae were no different from the rest of us.

  The closer we got to the tower, the lower the Fae guards flew. Their ability to threaten us without doing anything more than flying over us both impressed and terrified me. I stopped several meters back from the tower and tilted my head to call out to them. “I have news that affects all of Bucharest. I wish to speak to your leader.”

  Part of me wanted to be as formal as possible—but I couldn’t see the Fae taking me any more seriously if I used old-fashioned terms like parlay or seek audience. My intuition served me well, as the closest Fae flying above me threw his head back and laughed as he came to a hovering stop far enough overhead that I still had to tilt my head up and block out the sun with one in order to see him.

  “What news could you possibly bring us that we wouldn’t already know?” he demanded.

  “That’s for your leader to determine.”

  “What could you have to say that would be of any value to us?” Another Fae fluttered in beside him to jeer down at us. “Ground dwellers can’t know any more than we do—we control the skies and we see everything below.”

  A low growl rumbled through Sorin’s chest and throat. I put one hand out to touch his arm. The contact seemed to calm him, at least for a moment. “Idiots,” he snarled, but quietly.

  I stared at the two hovering Fae warriors wordlessly as the seconds ticked by, my eyes narrowing as I tried to decide the best way to approach my need to speak to someone in charge. In the end, the silence seemed to do as much good as any words I could’ve said. The Fae exchanged glances, the second one muttering something to the first. I didn’t hear the exchange, but the Fae who had spoken first nodded and waved one hand, and the newer arrival flew away.

  We all waited silently for several moments until the second Fae returned to report to the first, who then turned to us and executed a bow midair. “Her Majesty will see you.”

  Sorin and I exchanged startled glances. This was apparently the first he had heard of a Fae Queen among those with wings, too.

  Four new Fae emerged from the top of the tower and flew down to land beside us. The first Fae, apparently a leader of some kind within the guard, said, “You will be lifted to her Majesty’s chambers. Please hold your arms stiff and straight and don’t struggle.”

  I shuddered as I stared up at the tower. I had never liked heights, and in Bucharest, many of the taller buildings were off-limits to most people—we had only so much we could keep and repair, and the tallest floors of the buildings were repaired much less often. I’d been dared as a child to climb the tall stairs and look out the windows, of course, as probably had every other child in the city. I’d done it only once.

  Now, as the Fae lifted me into their fortified tower, I glanced down, a tremor running through my entire body. One of the Fae holding me laughed. Up close, they looked much like all the other inhabitants of Bucharest—though their features were more delicate, probably the result of finer bones. Maicǎ had speculated once that the winged Faes’ bones might be hollow, like birds’, enabling them to fly on their gossamer wings—which, close-up, actually looked more like that leather than the diaphanous fabric they resembled from far away.

  I distracted myself with thoughts like these until he landed us safely atop the tower. The two flying Fae took us up to one of the balconies that used to be part of the watchtower and walked us in through a window as big as a door, its shutters thrown wide. They deposited us in a circular room paved with gold and white stones and filled with winged Fae, their multicolored wings lightly fluttering, sending a gentle breeze through the top floors of the tower.

  Although the room wasn’t covered in gilded icons, I was reminded of Ciprian’s wooden-church throne room when I saw a tall, elegant woman sitting on an ornate chair raised slightly on a dais. At first glance, she seemed to be wrapped in a multicolored shawl. But when she started to move, I realized that she’d had her wings folded around her. As she stood, she spread them out behind her. They stretched out easily to six feet on either side of her and were almost as tall as she was. Shaped like a butterfly’s wings, they had more ornate markings than any insect’s, in shades of golds and blues and greens. Her long, blonde hair—natural, not bleached like mine now was—fell in braids on either side of her head and her pointed ears would have given away her heritage even if her wings had not.

  “Welcome to my fortress.” Her alto voice thr
ummed with a kind of magic I had never felt before.

  She styled herself a queen, so I felt it best to play to that. Executing a clumsy bow, I murmured, “Your highness.”

  Sorin continued to stand straight and tall beside me, so I nudged him with my elbow. When he still didn’t respond, I kicked him in the ankle. He twitched, then gave his own bow, much less clumsy than mine.

  The Queens lips quirked in amusement. “My guards tell me you have news you said I could not gather from my own scouts?” She gestured us closer and sat back on her throne. Until we had made our circuit of the city, I hadn’t realized quite how many leaders of various factions fancied themselves monarchs of their small fiefdoms.

  “Yes, your highness. It’s about the vampires.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously when I mentioned the blood-suckers, and I quickly sketched out what we had learned.

  “I see,” she said, quietly tapping her fingers on the armrest of the chair. “It would do no good to have Gypsy rise early. You say your people had predicted she would rise after a hundred years?”

  “Yes. Our seers all agreed on that until very recently.” I waved my hand, encompassing all her retainers around her. “Surely your people have also seen the recent rise in violence throughout the city.”

  The queen—I realized she had not told us her name—inclined her head. “We have, though my people have instructions to remain above the fray, quite literally in most cases.”

  “If you continue that policy,” Sorin said, speaking up for the first time, “your people will also be caught in Gypsy’s new world, whatever it may be.”