by Lolita Lopez
As she spoke, she used her thumb and forefinger to unscrew the black cap on a tiny brown vial holding a dram’s worth of her strongest sleeping potion. “If it’s a trap, I have to take my chances. I’ve managed to escape worse scrapes.”
Evi’s hand clamped on her shoulder. It was a protective, desperate hold. He didn’t want her to leave. Maybe he couldn’t let her leave. He wanted to mate her and breed her and keep her, not let her run off to face certain death. “I’m not letting you leave this house alone.”
Very slowly, she rotated to face him. With all the bravery she could muster, she said, “That’s fine. I’ll let myself out.”
With lightning speed, she tossed the contents of the potion into his face. Startled, he blinked and recoiled but it was too late. The concoction of valerian, passionflower, skullcap and a few more prohibited ingredients that had been steeped in chamomile tea was immediately absorbed by his skin.
Like a drunken bear, he wobbled on his feet and Celia lunged to catch him, bearing his full weight as she lowered him to the ground and placed him on his left side. Her arms burned from the exertion, but she couldn’t risk him hitting his head. He had been a miserable bastard to her a few times tonight, but he’d given her something she would never forget. This night, this strangely beautiful and perfect night with Evi, would be one she remembered until her dying day.
A day that she suspected was upon her now.
“I’m sorry, Evi,” she murmured as he gazed up at her, glassy eyed and drowsy. “There was no other way. It’ll wear off soon and you’ll be fine.”
A deep rumbling growl vibrated out of his chest and filled the room. He was furious but so sleepy. He wouldn’t wake for hours yet.
“I’ll bring back the blade. I promise.” She hesitated. “But if I die, please, take care of Bianca for me.”
Unable to touch his face for fear of transfer, she offered an apologetic smile before slipping out of the office and sprinting from the estate. She had twenty-one minutes until her deadline. She had to hurry.
Chapter Ten
Celia appeared behind one of the many trees lining Avenue Foch, the grandest street in Paris. The cold, damp weather was accompanied by a light morning fog that coated the area, reducing the visibility to a dozen feet. It was a positive portent, this lovely fog that hid her sudden apparition. Regardless, she peered left and right, ensuring that she had not been seen appearing out of nowhere.
Those few Parisians strolling or jogging down the avenue were apparently too absorbed with their own thoughts to have noticed her. Still, it was only a matter of time until her strange outfit drew unnecessary attention. Placing her flattened palm before her face, Celia imagined that she was in a fashionable pencil skirt, blouse, jacket and knee-high boots. She pressed her intention into the thought and immediately the glamour formed.
Satisfied that she was safe from the prying eyes of passersby, Celia concentrated on the imposing stone townhouse across the street. It looked innocuous enough, but she knew better than to judge the security of buildings according to their outward appearances. She’d made that mistake once and only once and still bore the scars.
Celia tried employing her infrared radar but there was some kind of shield around the row of townhouses. Although annoyed, she was also impressed. She could only imagine the kind of wards that would have been required to create a defensive shield as wide as a few city blocks. No doubt the sacrifice of innocents had been involved.
Wishing she had more time to scout the house, Celia realized that she would have to go in blind. It was already fourteen ’til seven. There was no more time to waste.
Needing complete control of her faculties, Celia retrieved the final tube of glucose gel from her pocket and emptied it into her mouth. Although she didn’t feel any of the symptoms of low blood sugar, she didn’t dare take a chance on experiencing a low once inside the house.
In the back of her mind, she began to wonder if she hadn’t siphoned some of Evi’s energy during their devilishly wicked night together. Orgasms were powerful magic—very old magic—and the energy they produced was incredible. She prayed that energy would give her the boost she needed to rescue her sister.
She peered right and left again down the largely abandoned avenue before scurrying across. After bounding up a short flight of stone steps, she slammed the ancient brass knocker against the heavily carved door. Powerful protective magic vibrated from the walls, pressing against Celia’s own protective aura and creating a magnetic repulsion.
The door swung inward and she was greeted by the impassive face of a hulking henchman dressed in the requisite black suit. He gave her a once-over before moving aside and allowing her to enter the grand foyer.
Stepping through the threshold, Celia felt her glamour dissolve. Oppressive waves of black magic pressed down on her, making her throat tighten. She wondered how Bianca had fared under such an atmosphere.
She heard numerous footfalls on the exquisite parquet floors, the tapping sound echoing beneath the cathedral ceiling. Her spine bristled when she was suddenly surrounded by eight additional men, all of them with itchy hands resting above badly concealed gun holsters.
But there was something strange about them. None of these henchman pulsed with the auras common to those magically inclined. She realized they were ungifted, a factor that could work out in her best interest.
“Weapons?” the main henchman questioned, warily gazing at the gun strapped to her thigh.
Wordlessly, Celia unlatched the holster and handed it over. Keeping the Blade of Amrita in her right hand, she unzipped and slipped out of the vest before tossing it to him. Steeling her expression, she acted as if she were finished—though her fighting knife rested carefully in her left boot.
Seemingly convinced, the henchman nodded and motioned for her to follow him. She fell in step behind him and the others closed in around her, forming a wall of bodies. They progressed down the first hall to the left and had circumstances been different, Celia would have been awed by the exquisite décor.
But today she didn’t give a shit about the Ming vases and intricately carved burl wood tables. She just wanted to make the trade, get Bianca to a safe place and then figure out a way to steal back the blade. To do that, she needed to memorize every detail about the townhouse that she could. Hallways, doors, unsteadily placed items that could break and signal her intrusion, locations of sentry posts and any visible means of protection spells that would need to be deactivated.
“Wait here,” the henchman ordered.
Celia watched as he disappeared through an arched doorway. Although she could barely make out the murmuring voices within, she thought that she recognized Didier’s. Using her time wisely, she consciously switched her vision field from normal to thermographic and realized that the wards protecting the outside of the house didn’t interfere with her ability to scan the house from the inside. Except for the nine cronies and Didier, the house was empty. Ten against one wasn’t great odds, but they were better than she had expected. She might make it out of here in one piece after all.
But where was Bianca’s imprint?
When the henchman reappeared, he motioned for Celia to follow him and for the other cronies to remain outside. Her feet fell in sync with his as they entered the roomy den, its interior dim and exhibiting a heavy Japanese influence. The wide expanse of the henchman’s back blocked most of her view, but Celia suddenly sensed Bianca’s presence like a weak beacon of light against a dense blanket of darkness.
As the henchman halted, Celia stopped a few paces behind him, and when he stepped aside and took his place next to the bookcase to her left, she got her first real look at Didier.
No longer was the Frenchman that urbane, vain patrician who had been a prominent figure in her childhood. Instead of looking expertly coiffed and primped, he was scrawny, bald and wrapped in a wrinkled dressing robe. For a man who had always been fond of yachting in St. Tropez and St. Bart’s, he exhibited a ghastly pallor, his skin te
xtured like paper, brittle and thin. White wisps of incense curled around him. Her nose identified it as one of the Tibetan healing formulas touted as paramount in holistic healing circles.
Swallowed by the wingback chair, Didier wheezed and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief. “You’re cutting it quite close, Celia,” he rasped in amusement. “I suppose this means Evgeni was less than receptive of your plans to steal from him.”
“Where is Bianca?” Celia skipped the pleasantries, her stomach already knotting with fear. She nervously searched the room for her sister, sensing her but unable to see her.
“You always were an impatient little chit,” Didier retorted unhappily. His face suddenly contorted and his body contracted, his knobby knees outlined in their black silk pajama bottoms as they rose to meet his chest. Frantic and clumsy, Didier grappled for something on the short table next to his chair. Finally his fingers found a slender beige tube and he pressed the blue button at the top. A piercing beep sounded from behind his chair, but he continued pressing the button.
Celia didn’t need to see anything else to understand what was happening. Having practically lived in pediatric ICU wards for the past ten years, Celia recognized that beeping alarm as belonging to an infusion pump that was either empty or had reached the maximum allotted dose for a specific amount of time. Normally the machines chirped when they delivered their measured doses of pain relief, but this one was making a terrible racket.
“Gerard!” Didier screamed hysterically and beckoned for the henchman. “More morphine! I need more! The pain!”
Gerard rushed behind the chair and began fiddling with the machine. A mercenary version of Nurse Ratched, Gerard refilled the machine with morphine and adjusted the dosage rates and limits.
As Celia watched the bizarre scene unfolding before her, she began to understand why Didier had become so obsessed with obtaining artifacts rumored to possess healing properties or grant immortality.
“You’re dying,” Celia stated, completely emotionless.
“Pancreatic cancer,” Didier confirmed with a rueful nod. “Completely ravaged me, it seems. No medicine, magical or conventional, can help me.”
“But you think this can?” She lifted the sheathed Blade of Amrita, and Didier greedily gazed upon it.
“Yes.”
“Well I think you’re a fool, Didier Savard,” Celia replied unflinchingly. “If this blade really possessed the ability to grant immortality, there would be a hundred Leshnikovs swarming their estate.”
“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they haven’t the slightest clue how to invoke its healing properties and immortalizing powers?”
“Or maybe you’re just deluded,” Celia scoffed.
“For someone hoping to trade that dagger for her sister’s life, you’re terribly impertinent,” Didier chided. His unhappy expression slowly morphed into a smug smirk. “I suppose that I should show you your sister.”
“If you want this blade, then yes, I think you should.”
At Didier’s signal, Gerard approached a tri-fold Shoji screen and slid it behind the desk sitting just to its left. Heart stuttering, Celia finally saw Bianca.
Jaundiced and laboring to breathe, her sister rested on a black leather chaise. Sweat-soaked pajamas clung to her skin and she looked almost comatose. An IV pole stood beside the chaise, and an IV line was attached to the vein inside her left elbow. The larger bag dangling from the pole was saline, but a smaller second bag that had been piggybacked onto the main IV line contained a medication Celia had never seen.
“Cupric sulfate,” Didier said, noticing her intent stare.
Vomit rushed to Celia’s throat but she held it at bay. Cupric sulfate was a copper supplement. Since Bianca was physically incapable of filtering copper, the element would soon reach toxic levels. The therapeutic drugs still circling in her system would also react violently with the copper, killing her long before the toxicity did.
Celia’s initial urge was to race to Bianca’s side and rip out the IV, but when she saw the containment spell drawn onto the floor surrounding her sister, Celia thought better of it. A mixture of brick dust and blood—she assumed Didier’s—had been poured into a large circle with a diameter of at least a dozen feet, and five smoky quartz points had been placed at specific positions around the circle, grounding the spell and maintaining the buzzing energy field. White chalk symbols created an inner ring, each one forming a magical link with the next, strengthening the containment spell.
If Celia so much as touched the outer edge of the circle, it could implode and kill Bianca.
Grinning diabolically, Didier explained how they had managed to subdue Bianca. “She fought us quite a bit, but it’s amazing what a lorazepam injection can accomplish. You know I never considered that I would ever put Gerard’s nursing background to use,” he mused. “He’s been quite helpful of late.”
“You’re killing her!”
“Of course I am,” Didier said, looking at her as though she were daft. “It’s only fair, Celia. You stole something from me, and after that impressive little binding spell of yours, there’s no way that I’ll ever be able to retrieve those paintings. Besides, I can’t allow others to believe that they can take liberties with me without punishment, now can I?”
Rendered speechless by his cruelty, Celia watched as he struggled from his chair, dragging the portable infusion pump along with him. Huffing in exertion, he stopped in front of her and extended his hand.
“Give me the blade and I’ll let you walk out of here with your sister. With the right treatment, she might survive another day. Consider it a gift.”
“You’re too kind,” Celia sarcastically ground out, her blood furiously boiling in her veins. Her hands trembled so violently that the Blade of Amrita slipped from her fingers. Didier clicked his teeth and motioned for her to pick it up. As she bent to retrieve it, Celia thought about Didier’s earlier statement. If he really believed this blade could grant immortality, then didn’t she owe it to Bianca to find a way to use its power?
Consumed by the thought of her sister dying in such a barbaric and untimely manner, Celia decided that Bianca deserved the chance for life.
Without wasting another second, Celia snatched the dagger from her boot and shot to her feet, plunging the thin blade between Didier’s ribs.
Shocked by her unexpected attack, Didier gasped and blinked. Celia roughly shoved Didier and sent him flying toward Gerard—but not before yanking her Fairbairn-Sykes dagger from Didier’s side, slitting him wide open as she darted away. She saw Gerard reach for his gun and kicked the low table at him, hitting his arm and knocking the gun from his hands.
The bloody dagger held out in front of her, Celia dove toward the containment circle and slammed the crimson-coated blade onto the brick dust. As soon as Didier’s blood made contact with the dust, it released the energy field with a pop that shattered glass all around the room.
Like dissolving like. It was a spell-casting lesson Celia had learned at an early age. To really imbue a circle with one’s intentions, blood was always necessary. That same blood would harmlessly dissolve the power.
Grabbing Bianca, Celia dragged her off the chaise and behind the desk, using the sturdy wood as a shield. She propped Bianca into a sitting position against the desk but because the IV line was too short, it tugged on Bianca’s skin. Celia removed it as carefully as possible. There was nothing sterile to press against it, and she reluctantly resigned to let it bleed. Wrapping her arms around her sister’s fragile body, she tried to teleport them out of the room but it was no use. They were grounded.
Bullets hissed and snapped as Gerard squeezed off a few rounds in their general direction. Throwing energy balls would have been her usual reply, but she needed to conserve her strength. Spotting the smoky quartz points that had tumbled behind the desk during the mini-explosion, Celia picked one up. It was heavy and would do enough damage.
During a lull in gunshots, she peeked around the
side of the desk, took note of Gerard’s position and hurled a stone at him. Her aim was right on. Beaned in the temple by the stone, he flopped to his knees and passed out cold. Unfortunately, his gun fell out of her reach.
By now the other cronies had rushed into the room and were randomly firing in her direction. Carefully timing her stone-throwing attacks, Celia managed to take out four of the shooters, busting noses and lips and breaking a couple fingers. When there were no more quartz points, she improvised by zipping books, paperweights and anything else substantial at the shooters.
Soon, she was out of heavy objects and found herself throwing low-voltage energy balls just to buy a little time. She was outnumbered, without a weapon and had an incapacitated sister. The odds were definitely stacked against her.
Bianca began to cough and gurgle, her body rippling as black, bloody liquid gushed from her lips.
“Oh god, Bianca!” Celia braced her sister’s body and wiped the stinking fluid from her mouth. “Bianca, please! Open your eyes! Bianca, don’t die on me, not now, not after all we’ve—”
A crash accompanied by a thunderous tiger’s roar interrupted Celia’s pleading.
Startled shouts and frenzied gunshots resounded as the cronies attempted to fend off Evi’s surprise attack. Amid the cacophony of battle, Celia cradled Bianca’s near-lifeless form and sobbed as she helplessly felt her sister’s life force slipping away. Unbearable guilt crushed Celia’s soul as she realized that while she had been in the throes of passion, Bianca had been poisoned.
Celia understood now that she had made the wrong decision. It would have been better to storm the townhouse, guns blazing and without a plan, than to trade away precious hours of Bianca’s life in exchange for the blade.
Massive hands clamped onto Celia’s shoulders and ripped her away from Bianca. In the next instant, Celia was flying through the air. There was so much force behind her attacker’s toss that she collided with the ceiling and ricocheted into the adjacent wall before slamming facedown onto the chaise.
