The Sorceress Screams

by Anya Breton

I shot him a confused look. Then caught the dark shape out of the corner of my eye. A quick glance showed me Desmond glowered at us with narrowed eyes that were blacker than his usual aqua.

  Maximo made the situation worse by snatching me up into his arms and carrying me to the sofa. Smacking him would only prove Nadir’s assumption that I was manipulating Maximo. The foreign vampire would declare open season on me at the slightest provocation.

  Desmond had left the room by the time Maximo had finished arranging me beside him.

  What had that been about? Desmond’s glowering was completely unfounded. After all, he’d asked me to use my feminine wiles on Maximo in the first place.

  With nothing else to concentrate on but the vampires, I focused on the view. There wasn’t much of one given it was night and the moon had yet to rise. But the spotlights on the bubbling stream cutting through the yard were enough of a draw.

  “Rebecca.”

  I was too miffed by Maximo’s immature public displays of affection to react to his sensual greeting like usual. Instead, I slowly faced him.

  “How was your day?”

  Now was the worst time to ask me about my day. I pressed my lips together while I counted to ten. “I’ve had better days. I’ve had worse.”

  Like the day his girlfriend set me on fire. Twice. But today wasn’t over yet. It could still enter the running.

  “My day is much better now that you’re here,” he said, crooning low in his throat.

  Was he really using cheesy lines like that on me?

  I lifted an eyebrow. He laughed softly and then ran his finger over my lower lip.

  Desmond’s voice at the front door hinted Dea had arrived. My body stiffened with worry.

  It was the moment of truth.

  Desmond was in the lead, perhaps because it was his house and perhaps because he thought he could manipulate the situation if not the foreign vampire. Now was a good time to send out an empathic link. I willed it to join with Nadir softly. And then I noted a second signature already in place. Desmond sent a quick glance implying he’d noted me in return.

  Nadir’s attention was wholly and fanatically fixed on Dea. From the squeezing and wobbly sensations on my consciousness, I sensed he was trying to do something. And that it might not be working as he’d hoped. He was confused.

  I gave Dea a smile meant to be comforting but was probably wan instead. Rich stood to her right and partially in front. Both were dressed casually in jeans and light shirts. If eyes could kill, Nadir would be dead. Rich’s dark glare could have tunneled through stone.

  Desmond made the introductions, but I wasn’t listening to his lovely voice. My concentration was on Nadir. Frustration quickly replaced the vampire’s confusion.

  Desmond might be interfering with Nadir’s attempt. We needed the vampire to have complete control of himself in order to know for sure. I called on Air, sending Desmond a message using telepathy.

  Please, trust me. Release your hold on him. We need to know.

  Desmond’s darting eyes and crinkled brows were equal parts perplexed, frustrated, and concerned. The additional empathic link to Nadir withdrew. I didn’t dare breathe in relief.

  Nadir bolted upright. Everyone got to their feet with him.

  I drew on the available Water and pressed him magically. “Don’t hurt her, Khan. Don’t touch her.”

  His frustration and confusion transformed into fury—fury he turned on me. “What did you do?”

  “Don’t move.”

  “Come here.”

  Dea slumped against Rich.

  Had Nadir managed to hurt her despite my will? I hurried toward her.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered and held out a hand. “Relieved.”

  Nadir’s eyes bulged as they fixed on me. His nostrils flared with frightening intensity. The mask of animalistic rage I’d seen last night formed on his face complete with the red-rimmed eyes and wicked fangs.

  “What did you do? I’ll kill you!” His bellow shook the floor.

  Maximo and Desmond stepped in front of me. Neither knew what I’d done. I could understand Maximo protecting me. Desmond’s interest in my safety shouldn’t have been worth the risk to his person. Yet there he was, shielding me from an irate vampire.

  Maximo responded first with now familiar words. “She’s mine. I have claimed her. I am dating her. You cannot touch her.”

  “You imbecile!” Nadir roared, lunging in what seemed to be more theatrics than a legitimate threat. But his ability to move even that much beneath my Water magic hold was disturbing—especially considering how much power I’d had over him in Vegas. What had changed?

  “You bloody moron! Do you know what she’s done?”

  The company waited for Nadir’s explanation.

  Nadir snarled and clawed in my direction. “Your girlfriend is about to have a price set on her head so high even the Pope will accept the challenge!”

  Dea’s hand slipped around my forearm. She gave me a reassuring squeeze that was only a smidgeon comforting. I feared Nadir was right.

  “What has she done?” Desmond asked what none of the others had been brave enough to form into words.

  Nadir’s body trembled with rage that didn’t look healthy even for a dead guy. He unclenched his teeth enough to give a melodramatic reply. “She’s broken a blood bond. Without killing the master. And for it, I’m going to kill her.”

  Maximo’s attention whipped toward me. His dark eyes were wide. His attention shifted to Dea’s grip on my arm. And then his jaw dropped open clear to his chest.

  Nadir’s lips spread into a wicked sneer. His back and legs straightened from his lunged pose. He rolled onto his heels arrogantly. My stomach plummeted. Nadir looked positive Maximo would flip out and kill me himself.

  My breath came in a quick gasp. I couldn’t use an empathic link on Maximo. If Wipuk’s First wanted to kill me, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  Desmond made a move that managed to capture my attention away from the vampires. He gestured to the door with his head—a barely perceptible nod. But it was a foolish suggestion. They’d only follow if I ran.

  Maximo gained control over his jaw. Likewise his eyes slipped back into their deep-set, thinner shape. It would happen now. He’d disappear in a blur and then snap my neck.

  He stared at me. I tried to hold his gaze without flinching, pleading, or otherwise swaying him. Maximo must have seen something in me that prompted him to turn away. Nadir’s mouth went slack long before Maximo began speaking.

  “She’s mine. I have claimed her. I am dating her. You cannot touch her.”

  My body wavered on suddenly weak legs.

  He wasn’t killing me. Why wasn’t he killing me? What horrible deal would I have to make with him in exchange for this?

  “Imbecile!” Nadir’s body quaked in his impotent stance. “You’ll pay for this betrayal of your race! I’ll destroy you and your entire pathetic colony!”

  “No,” I said with a heady push of power. “You’ll leave Wipuk. You won’t return here ever again. And you’ll forget what you’ve learned here. You won’t seek vengeance on any of us. Leave now, Nadir Khan.”

  Every eye in the room was fixed on me as Nadir trod stiffly around us. I ignored them, keeping an eye on the raging vampire. My Water manipulation wouldn’t last forever despite pouring all of the energy I could grab at him.

  He’d leave Wipuk. But one day he’d be back. One day he’d remember what he’d learned. And one day he would seek vengeance on us all.

  Until then, I had to deal with those in my immediate vicinity.

  Chapter Sixteen

  No one moved a muscle until the front door slammed shut. Desmond and Maximo faced me with nearly identical graceful twirls. Dea remained close to my back with Rich beside her. He was protecting her. What she was doing was anybody’s guess.

  Maximo had the first question. “What language was that?”

  “What?”

  “What you said to him…”r />
  Desmond entered the conversation. “You spoke several phrases in a foreign language, Ms. Walsh.”

  “Oh.” I concentrated on the past two minutes. “Oh.” My shoulders slumped. “It was Fārsi.”

  “You know Fārsi,” Desmond said in monotone.

  I slipped out of the aggressive box we’d placed ourselves in and dropped onto the sofa so I could set my head in my hands. A long breath did little to slow my pulse.

  “What did you tell him?”

  The question had come from Maximo, spoken in a wary tone. Though he’d stood up for me, he no longer trusted me, if he ever had.

  I explained what the vampire had said and how I’d responded. Maximo must have realized Nadir’s threat had been leveled on him. His hard expression softened into one that looked a lot like concern.

  He crossed the space, taking the seat beside me on Desmond’s sofa. “He’s going to come back eventually, won’t he?”

  I nodded.

  “How long do we have?” Desmond asked.

  I couldn’t look anyone in the eye because I was too worried. “I’ve never tried to do anything that serious before. It could be a couple hours. It could be weeks. I don’t know.”

  Silence followed my words.

  Maximo interrupted it. “Did you break the blood bond?”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said with a touch of defensiveness in my croaked voice. “I persuaded a doctor to try something that should have been attempted decades ago. It worked.” I made myself look at him. “It was a standard medical treatment.”

  There was no change to his expression. He wasn’t happy. But he didn’t look like he wanted to murder me. How could one vampire scream about Pope assassins and another be calm in the face of something this momentous?

  Desmond jumped in with another question. “Do you think you could do it again?”

  “I didn’t do anything. But yes. Now that we know it worked for Priestess Woods, the other six need to be offered the treatment.”

  “The other six?” Rich said, reminding me he was still with us. “What about every enthralled person on the planet?”

  “The undead community will resort to violence if the treatment is publicized,” Maximo said.

  Every eye switched to him.

  “They’ll destroy the equipment used for the treatment and the people who know how to use it,” he said, seemingly heedless of the sour expressions. “They’ll track down anyone who has knowledge of it and kill them as well as anyone who could have learned from them. And then they’ll target the factories that manufacture the equipment and their employees. They’ll do this quietly, without mercy until the treatments are ceased or until there are no tools left with which to complete it. Exactly as they’re trying to do with the Cured.” He lowered his head until we were eye-to-eye. “Your only chance for success is to carry it word of mouth and to keep the details secure.”

  Rich waved aggressively toward us. “That’s bullshit.”

  “No,” Desmond said. “He might be correct. Vampires use the blood bond to control local government all across the world. Without their thralls, they would be required to use legitimate methods of getting what they want. They won’t want to do that.” He faced me and squared his shoulders—the sign he was going to make one of his proclamations. “Tell Viho Hiamovi the details. His Healers can carry the news word of mouth and keep the treatment as secret as any of their other methods of Healing.”

  “Viho will find out,” I said. “It was one of his Healers who helped.”

  I glanced at Dea and found her face creased with concern. Her worry made me worry. I evaluated what had been suggested through another lens. Faster than should have been possible given my frazzled state, I honed in on another large problem.

  “But following your suggestion will paint a target on the Healers,” I told Desmond. “Their faction is already limited in number. We can’t risk the vampires using this as an excuse to hunt yet another group to extinction.”

  “So what are our options?” Rich asked in a sharp tone that was on the edge of being reasonable—an improvement over his previous statements. “We have the vampires target the Healers or we have them target doctors, hospitals, clinics, and medical supply factories?”

  I lifted my hands in a sign of surrender. “This isn’t a decision for us to make. Viho needs to be told. He needs to discuss the situation with his leadership. They should make the ultimate call because it’s their risk to take.” I got to my feet with the intention of ending the debate by going home.

  Desmond blocked my path to the door. “In the meantime you are the target.” Whatever meaning was in his eyes was lost on me. “An entire race, hundreds of thousands strong will want you dead. Nadir was right. The price on your head will be immense.”

  My heart skipped wildly, but I forced a twisted smile. “Nadir has to remember what he learned before that will happen.”

  Desmond grabbed my arm. “You’re powerful. But you’re not that powerful.”

  I pushed every ounce of Water magic I had left in me into him. “Let go of my arm, Marino.”

  His hand fell away. He blinked back surprise. Then his eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

  I could have hurried to the door, but I’d manipulated him to prove a point. Desmond would want to have his say. I stood still while he worked through his anger.

  “I quickly broke free from your will,” he said.

  “You’re the high priest of Neptune’s Fellowship. If you’d been anyone else, you would have taken me home that day.”

  Maximo shifted in his position behind and to my left. I’d nearly forgotten he was here. I wouldn’t have thought it possible if it hadn’t just happened.

  Desmond had had his say. I started for the door once more.

  “You’re going to meet with the coalition,” he called after me.

  I waved a dismissive hand at him without slowing, knowing he was right.

  ****

  The emotions passing over Maximo’s face were fascinating. His brows were knit in high relief and both quivered every other second. The fine lines etched around his features likewise deepened and faded as his gaze darted around the driveway. His eyes pressed shut for a full second before opening for several rapid flutters of his lashes. Between all of this his lips worked open and closed, thinning and pursing in alternating pushes. A silent debate between frustration, anger, concern, and a dash of lust?

  He hadn’t touched me or looked as if he’d like to touch me since before Nadir’s revelation. Considering I’d thought Maximo would kill me when he’d heard, a lack of touch was probably a good thing. But a small part of me was hurt he’d gone from reducing me to a weak-kneed, stammering girl to stiffly keeping his distance.

  “I need to make certain he’s left Wipuk,” Maximo said at last. He walked for the Escalade. “I’ll call you.”

  I stared after the vehicle moving in reverse. Was that it?

  He hadn’t kissed me. He hadn’t killed me. He hadn’t even demanded anything in return for what Nadir had called a “betrayal of his race”.

  I’ll call you sounded like the kiss of death for any relationship. He’d said he’d give me back my ring if he decided he didn’t want to continue our relationship before the year was out. Would he keep his word if the cause were something this destructive?

  And why was I suddenly disappointed that he might?

  I still stood in the driveway watching the taillights on the Cadillac fade in the distance when Dea and Rich stepped onto the pavement. She hurried to me, giving an unexpected hug.

  “You did something, Kora,” she whispered in my ear. “You changed the world. Thank you so much.”

  I hadn’t changed the world. What I’d done had been to use the Internet to come up with a suggestion someone else should have thought of ages ago. And for it I was going to be in for a heap of trouble.

  Dea pulled away with one last squeeze. She gave me a closed-mouthed smile before following Rich to their Toyota hybrid.

>   Something brushed against my consciousness. Desmond called out. “Come back inside.”

  My legs carried me toward the house quite literally with a mind of their own. It was a startling sensation I didn’t like at all. I glowered at Desmond all the way into his foyer.

  He’d needed to flex his power in retaliation for what I’d done to him. It was really quite surprising he hadn’t done it in front of the others as I had. Was that because he didn’t want them to know he could?

  Desmond pushed himself between the door and me. He gestured for the living room.

  I didn’t move. “What do you want?”

  “To talk,” he said in his professional voice. “You nearly started a war in my house. You knew it was coming and failed to warn me. I think you can give me a few minutes of your time.”

  I inhaled a long breath for fortitude and then lifted my chin in a sharp nod. Boots clomping loudly on his floor, I walked back into the living room. The chair Nadir hadn’t used was my destination.

  Desmond didn’t sit, choosing to pace the room instead. “You figured out how to break the blood bond?”

  “No. I just told you. I only asked a doctor to try something that should have been tried a long time ago.”

  He stopped his pacing, leveling a sharp eye on me. “But you asked the doctor.” Desmond ran a hand over his cropped hair. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve just changed the world?”

  My head felt heavy from the weight of the situation. I dropped it into my hands with a sigh.

  I was no stranger to saving humans from the Underground, but it had always been in small numbers, in narrow areas. This was big. This was a global change. And Rich was right. We couldn’t keep this to ourselves.

  But Maximo was also correct. The undead community wouldn’t take this sitting down. The fact that he hadn’t killed me was worrying. Was he biding his time until he could find out who else knew the answers so he could take them out first?

  “You need to go to a safe house,” Desmond said in his commanding way.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to run from the situation I caused.”

  The Water witch made a high-pitched sound of frustration. He dropped into a crouch in front of me. “They are going to destroy you!”