She tried to adjust the string, but it fell off her finger and snapped back. “Ow.”
She heard a cackle from inside the house.
“Shut it Sam!”
“Well maybe you should have bought bigger hats,” he mused. “I came over to update you on your stalkers.”
“You mean the secret society that doesn’t exist?” She rolled her eyes at his disapproving look. It was true, they didn’t technically exist, she had looked. “Can we not just celebrate your birthday without any drama?”
All she wanted was just one night without a problem. One night to wear a stupid hat and eat cake with no talk about training or work. One night where the end of the world wasn’t a shadow that stalked her every move.
“You know we can’t. It’s not like they’re going to have a day off. The Knights are professionals.”
“Professional?” she mused. “Professional what, exactly?”
Kyle gave her a morose smile. “Assassins.”
Ah, she thought. That made sense.
“Well, they’re doing a shit job, aren’t they.” Alice let out a long breath. “I haven’t noticed anyone, not in a while.” She had been careful since her not-so-friendly encounter with The Knights last psychopath, Chester. He had made her aware that they wanted her dead, just not yet.
Having an unknown deadline regarding your own demise wasn’t entirely helpful.
“Shit.” With an annoyed huff she moved to sit in a wooden chair, pulling her legs up to curl beneath her.
“I’ve tracked them and they seem centralised down south, but I have yet to find out where.”
“Then what?” she asked, turning to him. The moon bounced off his too-pale face, making him look ghostly with his dark hair and continuously changing eyes. “Ask them politely to stop?” She chuckled, putting on a high-pitched girly voice. “Oh please don’t kill me, I’m a good girl, I promise!”
Lines appeared around his mouth. “No, but I can’t just sit here and do nothing while they’re still a threat to you.”
Alice remained silent, unsure what to say. She could have had a normal life, but no, she had to be a fucking horseman of the apocalypse. That shit didn’t have a walkthrough.
“You found out any more about being War?” he asked, crouching beside her. Alice picked at the armrest. “I can barely find any information on it other than the poem.” She knew as much as she needed about being an Elemental, someone who was born with the power of her ancestors, the original Dracos, but knew little about being War.
“It’s not a widely known thing, maybe only those who have studied the history of witches would have even heard of it. It’s an ancient foretelling that’s been translated so many times I doubt it’s even the original poem. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
The conversation irritated her. “I’m working on it, okay?”
“Hmm.” Kyle moved to the seat opposite, resting his palms flat down on the table. “What about Riley?”
Alice slanted her eyes to him. “What about him?”
“Why isn’t he here?”
“You wanted me to invite my boy…” she caught herself with a frown. Boyfriend wasn’t the right word for him, their relationship was too intense for such a simple word.
Kyle tilted his head, deciding not to comment. “You have a bruise on your arm.”
Alice automatically looked down at the small mark on her skin. “I fell into a tree.” Which wasn’t a lie.
He narrowed his eyes. “Anything else?”
She straightened, her arms tightening on the chair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Who wants cake?” Sam shouted from the doorway, three plates balanced in his hands. “Now it has been scraped from the floor, and maybe half eaten by Alice’s pussy. But, it still tastes good.”
“Sam!” Alice smiled, but didn’t look away from Kyle. She wasn’t sure where he was going with that conversation, but it wasn’t good.
Sam broke into her eyeline, his amber eyes wide in warning. They said one word.
Don’t.
Clenching her jaw she accepted the plate he held out, turning her attention to the blue blob in the centre. She didn’t want to argue with her brother, especially not on his birthday. She knew Kyle was finding it difficult adjusting to his freedom, and she wasn’t sure how she could make it easier for him. She guessed allowing him to be an overprotective big brother was a start.
“Thanks,” Kyle mumbled with a frown as Sam placed his slice on the table in front of him. Careful not to accidentally touch him.
“Cheers!” Sam shouted, holding his spoon in the air. “To fucked up parties! Because nothing in this house is ever simple.”
Alice smiled once again, this time genuine. “To Kyle,” she said as she held up her own spoon in a salute.
Kyle shook his head, a smirk playing on his lips. “To fucked up birthdays.”
Chapter 4
“You’ve got to be shitting me!” Alice kicked at a stone, sending it across the driveway just as Danton pulled up. The stone hit the side of his expensive looking car, and from the narrowing of his eyes he thought it was on purpose. It wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to deny it. “What are you doing here D?”
Danton took his time to get out, his pale face even more ashen than usual.
“Tell me this isn’t some sick joke?” she continued when he just stood there. “Tell me you’re not the representative?”
“Ma petite…”
“No.” Wind whipped at her hair, obscuring her vision before she tugged it behind her ears.
“I’m sorry…”
“No!” she barked once again, the word loud and harsh enough to shock even her. Heat burned across her chest and up her throat, her anger almost physical enough to breathe fire. “Don’t you dare.”
“I will not stand here and defend my actions,” he quipped back, his accent clear. “Not to you. But I’m the only person who can accompany you into this house.”
“Why only you?” She knew she was being unreasonable, blaming him for the actions of Dread. D hadn’t forced him to attack a Councilman. But she could never forget how D followed the execution without a second thought. Obeying his Mistress with zero hesitation on a man who had been his mentor, who had been his friend.
No, she couldn’t forgive him.
“Parce que ma puissante sorcière, without me you wouldn’t have access at all.” He looked at his heavy boots with a frown, his dark hair slicked back from his face so tight that it didn’t even budge at the movement. “Laisse moi faire ça. Let me do this for you.” He looked up, jaw clenched.
A sharp reply caught on her tongue, but instead she snapped her mouth shut. Eyes burning, she looked away to blink, concentrating on the beautiful wisteria that crept up the front of the townhouse. She knew exactly where the hidden cameras were, expertly entwined into the foliage. The place may look like an upscale townhouse in the expensive part of the human district, but in reality it had been home to a powerful vampire ever since it was first built. Dread had also bought the neighbouring property, allowing him complete privacy in the quiet street since the early twentieth century.
“I made a deal with the new owner so you could be here, but only once. Only for today.”
Alice sucked in a breath. “Why?”
“Because you deserve everything that was in his name. But, vampire laws are old, as are the Breed that created them. I may not agree with it, but it is what it is.”
“Did Dread’s assets go to his maker?” she asked.
Danton shook his head, his dark eyes trailing across her features. “Non.”
With that one reply she knew he wouldn’t answer anymore of her questions, and to be honest, she didn’t care who inherited it all. Not really. It was all just things. Inanimate objects to collect dust.
“What has Valentina got to say about this?”
D’s eyes hardened before he quickly looked away. “We should not speak of the Mistress, ma petite sorcière.”
/>
“Why?” she asked, pushing him. “Isn’t her hand up your arse?”
A growl escaped his throat. “You are too young to understand the decision I’ve made to be here. The loyalties earned. I choose to stand beside her.”
Alice laughed, the sound hollow. “Sure you do.”
“Putain d'enfer, be careful Alice. She’s still a councilman, one who has more power and influence than you know. She’s fascinated, sees a lot of herself in you.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
“I would stay away from her.”
Alice heard the warning. “She doesn’t know you’re doing this, does she?” His silence was deafening. “Fine, shall we get this started?”
With a shallow nod he followed her into the large, open planned space. The air was thick with dust, the place stale, vacant. Glass crunched beneath her boots as she made her way further inside, her eyes sweeping across the chaos that was left of the once pristine living room.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise,” D quietly murmured.
Reaching up Alice grabbed a broken frame from the wall, smiling at the photograph of herself and Dread in front of a large red door, a quiet smile on her young face and the usual scowl on his.
“It’s okay,” she replied, pulling the photograph out from beneath the broken shards and into in her satchel. She knew the Officers from the Department of Magic & Mystery had been inside, had assumed that it wasn’t a friendly visit.
“Is there something specific you’re after?” he asked a while later.
She had wandered through the first floor, almost in a daze as she took in the smashed TV, overturned sofa and cracked walls. Blood still splattered across the dark oak flooring, assumingly from the Officer that first confronted Dread. She had the biggest urge to put everything right, to clean up the mess. She had even caught herself fluffing pillows until D shot her a confused look.
“I want to know what Dread was up to… before.”
“Before?”
“He was searching for something, and I need to know what.”
Danton followed tightly behind as she brushed her fingers across the large floor to ceiling bookcase that took up the whole left side. It held thousands of books, mostly foreign. Alice paused, her finger touching the familiar groove three books from the wall. She glanced behind her shoulder, wondering if D would give her privacy. When he crossed his arms across his chest, face stoic she pressed the button, watching his expression turn to surprise as the bookcase moved with a exhale of air, revealing stairs leading down.
“This isn’t in the plans.”
Alice smiled at his raised eyebrow. “Dread liked to keep his office private.” So private that the builders who created the soundproof basement were paid generously for their secrecy.
The office below was essentially a soundproof metal box, around a third of the size of the floor above and looked basic in comparison. It compromised of yet more shelves, a desk with a computer and a wall of screens that displayed footage from the various security cameras that surrounded the property. She had never been allowed to play down there as a child, but sometimes when Dread worked late she would sit on a pillow in the corner, reading. Her books were still on the bottom shelf of his desk, dust and grime a thick layer on the once colourful covers.
She hadn’t been down there in years, not since she had moved out at eighteen. Various files piled high in the corner where she used to sit. One, placed at the top and written in perfect calligraphy stated ‘War.’
“What was the old man up to?” Danton murmured, studying the computer.
Alice ignored him, her attention on the thick plastic file that contained loose sheets of paper as well as a leather journal. She picked up the journal, opening to the first page to study Dread’s handwriting.
“Hey, look at this,” D said as he moved the mouse beside the computer. He clicked a button, rewinding the CCTV footage.
Alice dropped the journal back into the red file, bringing it with her to sit at the desk. Taking over from D she watched the screens flash through the past, slowing it down after Dread’s arrest, watching carefully for any change. Dread seemed to stay down in his office for the majority, the one room that wasn’t covered. Roughly a week before his death, a figure appeared on his drive.
“How did he get there?” she asked, trying to figure out how the man suddenly appeared. She clicked frame to frame.
“Putain d'anges déchus!”
“What?”
He shook his head, muttering to himself before he pressed his finger to the black shadow on the screen. “Fallen angel.”
“Fallen angel?” She had never heard of them.
“Watch,” Danton said, urging her to repeat the footage. “There.” Alice paused at his shout, confused even when he pointed at the shadow behind the man that was there in one frame, and gone the next. “Wings.”
Alice clicked through the frames once again, watching as the shadow behind the man disappeared into his back. They didn’t look like wings, but she didn’t have time to argue. The footage continued, Dread meeting the man at the front door, the first time he had left his office in days.
“Who are you?” she asked the man as he clasped Dread’s elbow in a familiar greeting. “What’s a fallen angel?”
“Exactly like it sounds.”
“I’ve never heard…”
“They would have been mentioned in training, but they’re not a registered Breed. They’re incredibly rare and keep to themselves which would be why you wouldn’t have come across any.” D frowned, tapping at the screen on the top right with a fingernail. “When was this?”
Alice looked up. “That’s the live feed.”
“Merde, that means we’re not alone.”
“Shit.” Alice clicked back all the live screens.
“Looks like there’s three,” he said with a tilt of his head.
“Friends of yours, or mine?” She didn’t recognise the two men and one woman who had broken through the front door, but that didn’t mean anything. They wore all black and were armed to the teeth, their weapons on clear display. “I don’t think they’re mine.” The Knights were usually more subtle.
“Non, they’re mine,” he growled, fist tightening. “We need to leave, now.”
Alice watched the invaders split up, heading in different directions in the house. “Who are they?”
“They’re a warning.”
“A warning? A warning for what?”
Danton ignored the question. “If I don’t deal with them, they could become a problem.”
Alice glanced back at the screen, noting how one man, which looked to be the leader, brandished a gun while the two others held large knives. “So they’re not a problem now?”
“Morceau de merde,” he muttered to the figure on the screen. “Can they get down here?”
Alice checked the switch. “Unlikely.” Not unless they knew how to open the door.
“They shouldn’t have known I was even in the city.”
Alice circled her arms around the file, holding it to her chest. “What you thinking?”
Danton’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, dark eyes widening when he turned. “Level red.”
“Great, just great.” Alice called her chi, feeling the power thrum through to her fingertips. The traffic light system was used to determine the danger of Paladin contracts. Green was classed as the simplest, amber was classed as a higher risk while red meant possible death. Danton was warning her that his visitors weren’t there for a friendly talk. “You ready?”
D tensed, his attention back on the screens. “You take the woman, I’ll take the other two.”
Alice hugged the file closer, her arms anchored. “Seems a bit sexist.”
“They’re all Vamps.”
“Oh, fucking hell.” She hated Vamps, they were a pain in the arse with their superior speed and strength. Even as a Paladin she wouldn’t be given a Vamp contract unless she was partnered with one.
&nb
sp; The door slipped open silently, allowing them to enter back into the living room without notice. Alice set down her file, pushing it with her foot into a safe corner. The plastic sliding across the wooden floor would have been loud enough to alert the waiting Vamps, their hearing the best of all Breed.
Danton pointed to the stairs while he turned towards the front reception room. There was no point in staying quiet, not when they could pinpoint her position with sound alone. So Alice rushed up the stairs, stopping at the top just as the female smirked from her old bedroom doorway.
“Ciao,” the woman greeted with a smile full of teeth. Her fangs elongated, making it hard for her to close her red-painted lips.
Alice knew very little Italian, but she knew ‘ciao’ meant both hello and goodbye, and she could guess which one the woman meant. A blade glittered in her hand.
“We can talk about this,” Alice said, hands held out in submission, her fingertips burning, ready.
A knife blurred, but Alice had been training with The Guardians. Able to feel the air shift, Alice moved to the side, the cold metal only just missing.
“Ventilabis!” A wall of flame pushed forward, throwing the woman with a bang against the banister. With one leg Alice kicked out, sending her down the stairs with a crash.
“Figlio di puttana!” The woman scrambled to her feet with a growl.
D appeared behind her, blood dried to his face. Without a word he grabbed her head, breaking her neck in one clean move. Alice sucked in a breath, even knowing a broken neck wouldn’t kill a vampire. But it would leave her incapacitated until she healed.
“Danton,” a deep voice sang, the Italian accent thick. The leader stepped into view, his gun trained towards D’s chest.
“Matteo,” D nodded. “It’s been a long time.”
Matteo’s smiled tightened when he looked at the women collapsed on the floor. “Luca?”
“Your other man is gone,” Danton answered, tone like steel. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You know this isn’t personal.”
“Seems pretty personal to me,” Alice muttered, taking her place beside Danton.
Knight's War: A Witch Detective Urban Fantasy (Alice Skye series Book 5) Page 3
