by Iris Walker
“Oh, no. Calliope was on the outs with the elite casters for many years, but last month, she overstepped by attacking the vampires. It was a mess. Those casters were all rogues that she’d recruited.”
“Somebody has to tell the vampires,” Robin said. “They think it was the guild.”
“I’m sure the truth will come out eventually, but now, our concern is you. If the Legion is after Calliope, then our time has almost run out.”
“Darian won’t let us leave,” Robin said.
Charlemagne nodded, his brow pinching together. “I could get us away from here, but… we would be on our own.”
“The vampires can smell me,” Robin said. “They’d flock to us.”
“I can help with that. There’s a charm that will conceal magical influence but allow you to use your abilities all the same. I have a place where we can go.”
She nodded, a sinking, restless feeling growing inside of her. “If the Legion is after Calliope… wouldn’t they be after me, as well?”
Charlemagne stared at her, eyes intense and determined. “Yes, but if you and Calliope truly are linked, the second they find her will be the nail in your coffin, as well.”
Robin swallowed hard and set her mug down with trembling fingers. “What do we need to do?”
Reykon
“You’re sure you can hold both of those?” Reykon asked, eyeing the shimmery field around them.
“It’s just an extra precaution,” Noomi said, eyes closed in concentration.
“What does it do?”
“It’s a mirror shield,” she murmured. “It keeps us just visible enough not to get run off the road, but not so visible that anybody can really see the car.”
“Nifty,” Reykon muttered. He moved his shoulder, rolling it around. They’d been on the road for about ten hours now, cutting across Montana in the pitch black. “Where’d you learn this stuff? I’ve been around a while and I haven’t heard of that.”
“I’m a bastard witch, remember? My mother was involved in all sorts of naughty things.”
Reykon raised an eyebrow. “How long were you with her?”
“Fifty years before they found us.”
“That must have been hard,” he said softly.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have much time to think about it.”
“What happened after that?”
“The Legion took me to an elite caster,” she said, her lips pressing into a thin line.
“And you were recruited to…”
“Spy on Calliope,” she said bitterly. “At first. But then I stopped giving as many tips. She’s like a mother to me, and mine was slaughtered by the Legion, so I’d like to not see her follow the same fate.”
“She’s not a good person,” Reykon said bleakly.
Noomi’s sharp gaze found him, even in the dark. “None of us are.”
“Fair enough.”
“Nobody knows the truth about it, either,” she muttered.
“The truth?”
Noomi’s leg was tapping against the carpet, visible with each passing streetlight. “Yeah. A lot of shit’s going to go down unless we make it to my people. My real people. The rogues.”
“More than what’s already gone down?” Reykon asked.
Noomi swallowed hard. “It’s not even a blip on the radar.”
“And how do you know all of this?”
“I was forced to play both sides of the war, that’s how. And that’s how I know Calliope isn’t the real enemy here. She was trying to do right by Robin. The guild told her that she would have full backing, and then they betrayed her, and left us all to die. We barely escaped with our lives.”
“Why would you attack House Demonte in the first place?” Reykon growled.
“Justice!” she snapped. “For all the casters that Magnus brutalized on All Hollow’s Eve.”
Reykon’s face screwed up in an angry scowl. “Sorry, what?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know. It was your House that did it.”
A burst of anger tore through him and he slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Listen, caster, I was part of Magnus Demonte’s closest security crew for about fifteen years. I remember the last All Hollow’s Eve, and I remember a cordon of casters arriving at our stronghold, staying for festivities, and leaving without a hair harmed on their creepy little heads.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “Magnus killed them, publicly executed them. There was a crowd cheering for their blood. We saw the whole thing.”
“You’ve got the wrong Demonte,” he insisted. “I don’t know anything about that, but Magnus was operating with Calliope under the laws of the treaty.”
She shook her head, dark brows pulling together in confusion. “The treaty has been broken for over a year. That’s why there are no casters being sent out to the vampire houses. They were all pulled back.”
“What?” Reykon asked sharply.
“We disbanded it…” she said. “How could you have not known?”
“We haven’t heard anything from the caster’s guild until they launched an attack on House Demonte, though apparently that was just Calliope acting on her own. To our knowledge we were still in a tenuous alliance.”
“But…” Noomi continued.
“I don’t know who told you that we offed those casters, but it never happened.”
“Something is wrong with this. That was the whole push for Project Robin to engage. We thought we needed to start amassing weapons against vampires, but vitalurgical magic that extreme had been banned since the Grundin Accords. It was against the ethical code to mess with lifeforms like that, until we thought we were gearing up for a fight. It was commissioned under extreme controversy and kept entirely quiet.”
“Someone didn’t want anybody to know about it until it was too late,” Reykon murmured, trying to piece together the crazy jigsaw in his mind. “What the hell is happening? House Prior seceded and is trying to mesh with the human world, the caster-vampire treaty was secretly annulled because of some act of war that didn’t even happen, and Robin is set on one of the biggest vampire houses only to fail an attack? It’s like the world is falling apart.”
“I don’t understand it either…” she muttered.
A sinking sensation crept into Reykon’s mind. “Noomi?”
“Yeah?”
“How many other people know about Calliope’s lab and her orders for the attack?”
“They’re all dead,” she whispered. “Except me and the coward who betrayed us.”
Reykon’s hand tightened across the wheel. “We have to get somewhere safe, ASAP. You need to spread the word about this before…” Before it’s too late.
“I know,” she said quickly, understanding the gravity of the situation. Reykon pressed on the gas, racing east under the cover of night.
Robin
It had been hours since she’d spoken with Charlemagne. He’d gone off to God knew where to prepare for their departure. Since then, Robin had locked herself in her room, trying to conceal her thudding heartbeat from the two other vampires in the house. Every time she sat down, the urge to get up and look out the window or pace back and forth overtook her. It was late afternoon, and she decided to shower, scrubbing everything three times.
The water washed over her, and she forced herself to stand under it, to calm her mind. It reminded her of the shower she’d had in the first hotel room that Reykon had brought them to, in Boise. She clung to the memory, to his smell, to the time when he was so close to her that she could reach out and touch him (though, at that point in time, she would have rather had her hand chopped off).
Now, he was a world away.
She tried to picture him, to imagine what he was doing, but she had no clue. He could be racing around, trying to find her, or he could be locked up in chains. Or, he could be hiding. She didn’t know what had happened to House Demonte after Magnus turned human, but after their people were slaughtered, she knew that Reykon woul
dn’t be on the world’s most-popular list.
She couldn’t help but feel guilty.
Robin scrubbed, running over the mosquito bite with a washcloth, trying to get it to stop burning.
“Agh,” she winced, stinging pain burrowing into her arm.
Robin inspected the red bump in the steamy shower.
Except that it was no longer a small red bump.
The skin around it was red, angry, and blistering.
“What the hell?” she whispered, running her finger next to the wound. She turned the shower off and wrapped a towel around herself, scowling at the sore on her arm as she dried her hair and walked out into the main area of her room. She got dressed quickly, ignoring the burning pain that her mind now centered on, and surveyed the space. The long sleeves would hide it for now, but it only reinforced the need to find Calliope and get out of here, as soon as possible. Robin ventured out of her room, coming to the main sitting area and finding it empty, save for Harley and Ezra, standing by one of the smooth columns, discussing something in hushed tones. “Hey there,” Robin said, trying to act as casually as possible. Ezra and Harley stopped talking and nodded her way.
“Everything alright?”
“Yes, Lady Robin,” Ezra said, walking over to the sitting area and perching on the leather chair. Harley followed, her expression set in stone.
“Where’s Darian?”
“Master Darian has gone to the mainland to determine the safety of our position.”
“Position in the war?” she asked.
Harley nodded.
“How bad is it?”
Something crossed over Ezra’s face, but he quickly stowed it. “This is one of the more extreme conflicts of the recent past.”
So, bad. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Robin said softly.
“Thank you, Lady Robin.”
The silence thickened, and Robin’s foot began tapping, a nervous twitch as the burning in her arm fanned out in a wave of heat. “Where’s Charlemagne?” Robin asked after a few moments.
Ezra frowned. “I’m not sure.”
“He probably went with Darian,” Harley said. “Ezra, will you do a perimeter check?”
The vampire smiled, then blurred out of the room with a whoosh of air. Harley stood abruptly. “Meet me in the kitchen?”
“Okay…” Robin said, following her. A wave of fear set in. Does she know?
When she got into the kitchen, Harley had a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “Want some?”
“No, thank you.”
Harley shrugged and poured two glasses, downing them both and refilling them with a sour expression on her face. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” she muttered after a moment.
Robin’s eyebrows pulled together, and her heart did a kickflip inside of her chest. “I don’t know what you mean…”
A bitter smile spread on Harley’s lips. “I just found out that my people are being picked off by a psycho vampire bitch and we can’t do anything about it. Don’t test me, Robin. Something has you freaked out and I want to know what the hell it is right now because if this day gets any worse I swear I’m going to blow a gasket.”
“Harley, I-”
Harley walked with angry strides over to her. Before Robin had a chance to move, the strongblood had her by both shoulders, shoving her up against the fridge. Bottles clanked as Robin’s back thudded against the metal.
“Hey!” Robin yelled.
Harley moved her forearm, pressing it up against Robin’s neck, her emerald eyes piercing Robin’s crystal blue ones.
“What are you hiding?” she hissed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Robin cried, trying to throw Harley off.
“Listen up, Barbie. You’re growing on me, you really are, but you were made to hurt my people, and when I see you getting antsy, it makes me think you’re going to do something stupid. Out there? You’re dangerous. Anybody could snatch you up and wield you against us. Here, you’re safe. It’s my job to keep you alive, and it’s hard enough without you doing something to sabotage that.”
“I know,” Robin seethed through clenched teeth.
Harley narrowed her eyes. “Do you?”
Robin let out a cry of frustration and brought her hands up, trying to shove Harley back.
Harley easily caught Robin’s arm as it went to push her away, and the strongblood’s fingers gripped her like stone.
“Ah!” Robin cried, shrinking back. The pain in her forearm where Harley had grabbed her soared, angry and red and flaming with heat.
“Jesus, what?”
She clutched her arm, trying to turn away from Harley. “Nothing,” she pushed out. “Let me go.”
Harley yanked the sleeve up and gripped Robin’s wrist, looking at the burning wound. “What is this?” she snapped.
“I don’t know,” Robin threw back, in full panic, wrenching her arm away. The anger and tension soared, Robin’s heart hammering in her chest. There was nowhere to run, nothing to do, and there was no way she’d stand a chance against the strongblood.
“Harley!” Charlemagne called sharply.
The strongblood whipped around, releasing Robin’s arm.
A moment later, yellow magic crackled through the air, racing over Harley’s skin and sending her crashing to the floor, muscles taut with convulsions.
Charlemagne extended a hand to her, his eyes wide with panic. “Come on. We need to go.”
Lucidia
Lucidia sat rigid in the seat, staring ahead, the image of Fausta with Clay and Megan burned into her mind.
She’d gone back in a frenzied panic, searching for the exact moment where the two had shown up on the screen. Fausta’s cutthroats had dragged them both, kicking and screaming, from prison cells 12 days ago.
Twelve days, Lucidia thought, her imagination running rampant with all the ways Fausta could have tortured them. She’d seen the wicked vampire in action, during a diplomatic trial that involved both Xander and Ambrose agents.
She couldn’t help but wonder what Clay and Megan’s minds had to have been going through, hearing the castle overtaken and sitting, locked in a prison cell. Because of you. Her scowl deepened, and she controlled her breathing with militaristic precision.
Maxine had gotten up a little bit ago, and was chugging a red bull, glued to the computer, about thirteen different webcam windows open. Pax hunched over the computer with her, helping verify identities. Lucidia had been happy to know that the pilot was a strongblood she’d vaguely heard of, and a blood slave that had taken flight classes before he’d gotten caught up with the vampires. For the moment, they were safe.
But Clay and Megan certainly weren’t.
And neither was Robin.
Nor the rest of House Xander, whatever personal hells they were being put through at that very moment.
All of it was swirling in her head, all of the questions and concerns, when she heard Max gasp.
“Holy shit,” Max muttered.
“What?” Lucidia asked, coming over to them with rigid steps.
Maxine tapped on the security camera video, showing the grand hall of House Xander. “That’s Magnus Demonte.”
Lucidia’s eyebrows pulled together, her chest tightening as she leaned forward.
Jesus, the dude looked bad. He’d lost nearly all his muscle, and his beard had grown out in a bad way, but sure enough, it was him.
“How did they find him?” Lucidia asked, her thoughts flying back to Ivan and Robin, so many weeks ago. It might as well have been a lifetime.
Maxine shook her head. “But they have… hang on, what is that?”
She took a screen clip of the camera and pulled it up in another program, zooming in on the shot. “That’s one of our satellite flags.”
“I’ve seen that before,” Lucidia said, inspecting the sigil. It was the traditional purple, black, and silver Xander flag with the scrolling X, but each satellite house flag added symbols to the fringes of the letter to
make it personal. Her eyes ran over the ragged fabric, trying to make out the pictures.
“That’s the flag for Darian’s winter retreat,” Lucidia whispered. “How did they know about it?”
“I don’t know,” Max said. “Where was it?”
“It’s hidden in the Yukon territory, in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. There are only a couple of ways to get there. Darian had to go there one time during a wolf threat, and they brought me along with Adonis for training. I was young.” A pang of guilt and sorrow constricted her throat as Adonis’s name hung in the air.
Max turned to her, eyes widening slightly. “You’re sure that’s the flag?”
“Positive. But the whole castle was nearly taken down during a rockslide, and nobody ever went up there, so it was supposed to be torn down or something. At the very least, the place was abandoned.”
“It was abandoned,” Max whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“When it became clear that we were going to be attacked, I was in the server room. Darian had already evacuated, weeks ago, but I… well, I do a lot of things I shouldn’t really do just for the hell of it. I was secretly monitoring certain messages, and I knew that Darian had a repository of records that was ‘off the record’. In the event that something happened, those records were to be passed to somebody important. But they included the most protected details about House Xander affairs, and I couldn’t let the House be ransacked when they were still sitting in his office.”
“We thought we would be able to hold our own, but Fausta’s goons obliterated our forces. People were being sent through the tunnels, but I was still destroying the servers. Just before I was supposed to leave, I remembered the box. I ran over to Darian’s office – which was a hell of a trek – and I grabbed it. I was about to put it in the fire when I saw a new note, one that I hadn’t tracked.”
“And you opened it,” Lucidia guessed.
She nodded. “It was a copy of one sent to Mortdecai and two other trustees. It detailed that Darian Xander had retreated to a fortress with coordinates that led to somewhere in Northern Canada. He was there with about fifty other subjects, including a caster from the guild. I knew this but I didn’t want to act on it, or send any signals, in case we were being tracked.”
