by Rob Cornell
I was all Odi had left.
Lucky him.
He climbed out of the coffin, smoothed his hands down over his shirt, rolled his shoulder, then shook like a wet dog. “Man, I slept good. But I’m starving.”
My wrist tingled.
Odi cringed. “Sorry, dude. That was totally rude.” He cocked his head and smiled. “But I’m a poet, and I guess I know it.”
“You’re a goof, is what you are.” I slid my coat off and pushed up my sleeve. Despite my quicker healing, I could still grow scar tissue, and I had a pair of ugly knots on the inside of my wrist from repeated puncture wounds. The tingle around the scars turned to a dull pain, my nerves anticipating what came next.
Odi wrinkled his brow. “You sure you want to keep doing this? I know the lighting’s bad down here, but you look green.”
“You have a better idea?”
See, Odi had never fed directly on a human before me. Toft had let Odi drink from him. I didn’t exactly understand why. I knew Toft kept thralls on hand to feed himself. For whatever reason, he had spared Odi from that step. I suspected it had to do with Odi’s undead youth. He probably couldn’t enthrall even the most empty-headed human, which meant, if he wanted mortal blood, he would have to take it by force. And since that was a violation of Ministry law, it could put Odi in the cross-hairs of a demon hunter.
Now if you were wondering how enthralling a human to take their blood while they were basically a mindless puppet did not break Ministry law, welcome to the subtleties of paranormal politics. As long as vamps didn’t kill their thralls, and didn’t enthrall too many at a time, the Ministry looked the other way. Also, believe it or not, some humans wanted to offer themselves to vampires. That suggested a level of psychological damage I could not comprehend—so I tried not the think about it.
When Odi didn’t offer any new options, I held out my hands in a see there gesture.
He hitched a shoulder. “Whatever, dude. It’s your blood.”
He came over and got to work. The bite was always the worst part, feeling my skin pop against his fangs like a hot dog casing. The sound of him slurping at the wound was the second worst part. The lightheadedness from blood loss didn’t bother me so much, though. It was like a mini high, and something better to focus on than the pulsating suction on my wrist.
Thankfully, he had gotten good at drinking without spilling. And, when he was done, I could press a little magic into the wound to close up the teeth marks, keeping things nice and clean. The third worst part of the whole process was his slobber glazing my skin.
I wiped my wrist off on my pants, pulled my sleeve back down, and put my coat on.
Odi took one look at the coat. “We going somewhere? Gonna teach me some new tricks out in the field?”
“Teaching later,” I said. “Witches first.”
Chapter Eight
The Maidens of Shadow lived like a group of college kids in a four-bedroom apartment across the street from Wayne State University. There used to be six of them, but one of them, Wendy, died in our confrontation with Logan Goulet. Probably why the rest of them didn’t want to see me ever again. They were all in their twenties, or at least appeared to be. Witches were good with glamours. They could have all been old hags with warts on their noses for all I knew. Whatever the truth, they blended in well among all the University students living in the Cass Corridor. A nice cover for a black witch coven.
I had decided to start with a stakeout. I had parked my newly leased Jetta at the curb a half block down from the apartment building. Odi sat in the passenger seat, but enough shadow escaped the glare of the streetlight that he could make himself invisible to the mortal eye. The kid had perfected his shadow walking to a scary degree. He could manipulate the smallest shred of darkness to hide himself.
Toft would have been proud.
Unfortunately, he was currently using this skill to annoy the hell out of me. He would flicker into sight, then flicker out again while chuckling like a bad impersonation of Beavis or Butthead—I couldn’t tell which.
I gritted my teeth while I stared at the front door of the Maidens’ apartment building, trying not to let him get a rise out of me. But I could still see him in the corner of my eye, blinking in and out of sight like a neon sign above a strip club.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Would you please stop,” I growled between my teeth.
“Fine. Spoilsport.” He materialized back into view and grinned at me. “Have to admit, that’s pretty good, right?”
“It’s pretty something.”
“So how long we gonna wait here before we go in?”
“Who said anything about going in?”
He sighed like an impatient child. “But Daaaad. I’m booooored.”
I twisted in my seat to face him. “You didn’t get the chance to meet these ladies,” I said. “Trust me. You do not want to screw with them.”
Odi narrowed his eyes and sniffed the air. “You’re afraid of them. I can smell it.”
I scowled. “Am not. I’m being cautious. You learn a bit about that before the next time you play with your fire magic.”
“Are you always going to hold that over my head? I did save your ass once.”
“You also nearly killed me and Mom.”
He spat air and rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
We sat there until after ten, but none of the Maidens had come or gone. I counted the stories up to their floor. I could see bright light coming through their bay window. Someone was up there and awake. Maybe all five of them. I would have preferred to know for sure.
“Is this where you ask me to shadow walk in there and scope out the sitch?”
I could have smacked him. I didn’t like it when he knew what I was thinking. Only this time, I had dismissed the idea as soon as I’d had it. “You can’t,” I said. “There won’t be enough shadows for you to hide once you’re in the building. And it’s an apartment. Not like you can peek into their windows from inside.”
“So I’ll turn into a bat and fly up there to peek inside.”
I gave him the stink eye.
He snickered. “What? That was funny. Could you imagine?” He flapped his elbows like a pair of wings and made an eek-eek sound. “Sucks that isn’t one of the perks. Real vampires are so lame.”
I couldn’t help notice the sag in his tone at the word vampires. He still didn’t like referring to himself like that. Actually, it had gotten worse after he lost Toft. Without an undead mentor, the kid must have felt isolated, a stranger to himself. He thought if he could make jokes about his condition, he could deny its reality somehow. But I knew he wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all himself.
We settled into silence for another twenty minutes. I had grabbed a Vanilla Bean Latte from Biggby on the way over and had since drained all twenty-four ounces. My bladder finally decided it had had enough abuse and demanded relief. I squirmed for a little while, but facts were facts…I had to pee.
I looked at the empty Biggby cup in my cup holder.
“Don’t even think about it,” Odi said.
“What?”
“I can see you doing the potty dance. And I saw the way you looked at that cup.”
“I don’t think the person without a working bladder deserves an opinion in the matter. I can’t hold it anymore.”
“And this stakeout is a waste of time. You need to find yourself a toilet, do your business, then pull up your britches and knock on those witches’ door.” He chortled against his fist. “Britches and witches. Totally a poet today.”
I smacked him on the arm, hard.
He pretended it hurt.
Then I gave in, used the bathroom of a nearby fast food joint, and drove back to the apartment. I saw Odi get out while I did, but by the time I slammed my door shut, he was already out of sight. I hadn’t even heard him close his door.
Past eleven, there wasn’t much going on. None of the usual bustle around the University. No pedestrians that I could see
around this block. Time to tuck in for the night before hitting the books and taking exams the next day.
For the few eyes that might have watched me, I played it casual, strolling up to the building as if I belonged. I don’t know why I felt the need. It wasn’t like I was sneaking up on the Maidens. I had little doubt they had cast magical wards around the building and the stairs up to their apartment. Sure enough, when I entered the lobby I could feel the tingle of magic all around me. I no sooner noticed it when I heard something snap like a blown circuit.
I had already tripped a ward.
“Aw, crap,” I heard Odi say behind me.
For a second I thought he had sensed the ward go off, too. A good sign, because he hadn’t yet shown an aptitude for sensing outside magic. But when I turned around, I realized he was upset that the light in the lobby took away any shadows large enough to hide in.
He patted himself down as if looking for a lost piece of shadow he might have misplaced in one of his pockets.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “They already know we’re here.”
“We sure do.”
Angelica, with her night black hair and milk pale skin, stood on the landing of the stairs leading up to the next floor. She frowned, a comma-shaped dimple forming between her eyebrows.
“And we’re not happy about it.”
Chapter Nine
“Give me half a reason I shouldn’t hex you where you stand.”
I put up my hands like I was in a stickup. I tried not to notice she wasn’t wearing any pants, just a long, baggy t-shirt with wizard Mickey from Fantasia on it. “Whoa. I didn’t think we’d ended things that badly.”
Her lip curled, showing a glimpse of her perfect, white teeth. A little too perfect. Maybe she was wearing a glamour after all. I’d been too wrapped up in saving Mom to notice before. “Wendy died because of you,” she said, voice low and a little sweet.
“The way I remember it, a vampire killed Wendy.”
“And so you bring one here with you.” She inclined her head toward Odi. “Do you care so little about your own life to insult us like this?”
I hooked a thumb toward Odi. “Him? Oh, he’s not a real vampire. He’s just a baby.”
“I know what he is.” She glared at Odi for a couple seconds, then returned her attention to me. “Leave.”
“I need to talk to you.”
She shot her hand out, two fingers curled into a fork. Her lips started to form a word—probably from one ancient language or another.
“Whoa,” I shouted and waved my arms over my head. “Whoa, just whoa. Do you really think I’d come here if I didn’t have a good reason?”
She didn’t unfork her fingers, but she didn’t call out a hex either. “I’m sure you have a wonderful reason. Just not one I care about.”
“It’s Sly,” I said, hands still in the air—which was silly, because I didn’t need to reach for anything to pull up a ball of fire and fling it at her face. But I wanted to look as non-threatening as possible.
She hesitated. “What about him?”
“He’s sick. Very sick. Like, might die sick.”
For a second, I thought I saw something in her eyes. Recognition? Guilt? Plain worry?
She covered it quickly, though, and I wondered if I’d seen it only because I had wanted to.
“Do you even care?” I asked.
“We’re not healers,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“He’s already seen a healer. She said she can’t help because it’s a sickness of the soul.”
When I emphasized the last word, she flinched. But barely.
“Still can’t help him.” She pivoted on the landing and started up the stairs. The soles of her fuzzy pink slippers made a plastic tick with each step.
“You know you can help him. You just don’t want to.”
She paused between steps, one foot on the stair in front of her. She waited there a second, back to me, head tilted to one side as if she were listening for something. Then she said, “What’s begun cannot be undone.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
She started up the stairs again.
“Then I’m right,” I shouted after her. “This has to do with the piece of soul he gave you.”
She didn’t answer.
I growled, an angry vibration going through me. I charged up the stairs after her, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her around to face me.
She’d been ready, though. When she came around, she had her forked fingers up. She whispered something, and in the next instant I found myself flying through the air, down the stairs, and onto my back on the lobby floor. The impact knocked the wind out of my lungs.
But my wits stayed sharp. I drew on my power and commanded the air. I spun a small cyclone around Angelica, and she whirled around with it. The force of the wind reached me, ruffling my hair and turning the air in the lobby frigid. I threw my hand up as if lifted her myself. The wind obeyed and lifted her off her feet. Then I clenched my fist and wrenched it toward me.
Angelica came sailing down and hit the floor beside me with a soft oof.
I changed from air to fire, setting my right hand ablaze with undulating orange. I had a more powerful blue flame I had recently learned, but I wasn’t trying to disintegrate her.
I thrust my fiery hand out till it came inches from her face.
Her eyes went wide. The flame’s glow rippled and flashed in her dark irises.
“Unless you want me to singe your eyebrows off—”
“What?” she asked with venom in her voice. “What do you think I can do? Stop a week long ritual? Convince my sisters and our mothers to waste all we have put forth because of one sick little man?”
My flaming fist tightened. A current of anger ran through me, tainting my magic. My orange flame turned blue. “Sly is not a little man. He’s bigger than your sick little coven combined. He has a big heart. A loyal soul. And if he dies because of some wicked magic you think is more important than a human life, I will bring Hellfire down on your whole coven.”
She laughed, rolling onto her side and arching her back like a giggling little girl in the midst of a tickle fight. I tried not to notice her big t-shirt rise above her waist, or the yellow lace boy shorts underneath.
That just made me even more pissed. At myself for noticing. At her for laughing and rolling around as if this were all a joke to her.
“Did you hear me?” she asked. “Our mothers are with us. Even if you could harm my sisters, and that’s a big if, you would die before you took another breath.”
Their mothers.
I had heard her, but in the heat of the moment hadn’t registered what it meant. The girls I had met were the Maidens of Shadow’s youth group. I should have suspected as much. But I’d not had a reason to wonder much about it.
Angelica’s laughter petered out. She gripped my wrist below the flame around my fist and drew it closer to her face. The flesh of one cheek began to bubble and crisp. Then melt away to reveal muscle and skull.
The smell of it was horribly sweet, like a honey baked ham.
I tried to pull back, but her grip was stronger than it should have been.
“Sebastian Light,” she said. Her voice had taken an ugly turn. She sounded like an animal. Like a demon. Like a woman with a mouth full of hell. “Your fire means nothing.”
Then she shoved my hand away, rolled onto her hands and knees, and shot to her feet. She looked down at me with a smile warped by the hole burned into her cheek. I could see the sides of some of her teeth. And the edges around the hole were as black as her hair.
“Don’t come here again.”
She turned on her heel and sauntered up the stairs.
I stayed on the floor, propped up on my elbows, until she climbed out of sight.
“Dude,” Odi said and offered me his hand to pull me up. I grabbed his hand and he easily lifted me. “That was insanely gross. Why would she do that to her face?”
“What point?”
“That my power means nothing.”
Chapter Ten
Back at the house, I filled Mom in on how the meeting with Angelica went. I hated doing it because the lines in her face deepened, especially around the eyes, and her pallor drained to near vampire levels by the time I finished.
We were in the living room. Mom was still in her spot on the couch. At some point, she had turned on the TV. She had one of those 24-hour news channels on with the volume down. I had no idea why. Mom had little patience for the behavior of average mortals. She always said the paranormal community had enough drama. She didn’t need to hear about shootings, lying politicians, and war.
She must have been desperate for distraction in order for her to tune into that channel.
At that moment, a car chase was going on somewhere in Los Angeles, the news chopper following the action.
I sat next to Mom. Odi chose to stand over by the TV. He usually preferred to stay on his feet, explaining that his daily coffin time made him feel cramped and restless. I’d never heard a vampire make that complaint. I chalked it up to Odi’s undead youth. I know it would take me a long time to get used to sleeping in a box, no matter how fancy the box looked from the outside.
Mom took my hand. Her skin felt especially soft and fragile. Though I think I was projecting, because I felt soft and fragile myself. Too soft to stand against a black coven. Too fragile to survive if I tried.
“What are you going to do?” Mom asked.
I bit down on my lip, my wheels spinning but only making smoke. What was I going to do? Angelica had referred to their elder witches as their mothers. Was that literal? If so, how many moms were we talking? Most of the girls didn’t look related except for the freckled twins. So…four mothers? Four elder, experienced black witches who exceeded the power of their daughters, which was already a metric ton of power.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t let Sly just…” I pulled my hand free from Mom’s and clenched my fist. I imagined blue flame around that fist, and me finishing the job to Angelica’s face. Melt that bitch right down to the bones.
