by Melody Raven
There was a knock on the door and Claire jumped. Was Dante back? Had he changed his mind? Even as she was utterly conflicted about what she wanted, she pulled the door open, only to realize her mistake. Because it wasn’t Dante at the door.
Phillip Carpenter looked down at her and smiled. “Soul sucker. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Claire tried to slam the door in Phillip’s face, but he held out a hand to stop her. And he didn’t just catch the door, but the wood exploded in her face. She closed her eyes as the wood shards bounced off her face. She fell back and could feel the magic race to her fingertips as she stared him down.
His eyes were dispassionate. Not filled with hate or anger. Rather, empty. As if she were just a job. A bug he had to crush. Something on his to-do list.
She felt confident enough in her powers that she could’ve probably taken on Phillip on his own, but he wasn’t alone. He stepped inside the apartment and five guys in suits followed. Sentries. Everyone wore gloves and long-sleeved suit jackets. The only open skin was on their neck and face, giving her almost no room to use her biggest asset.
She was outnumbered and outgunned, but she couldn’t let this scare her. She needed to be smarter. She might not be able to fight them off, but she could still fight.
And as soon as it became apparent that she wasn’t going to be able to magic her way out of this, she went a different route. Grabbing the first thing she saw, a toaster, she threw it up with all the force she could muster, slamming it into the ceiling. Because she wasn’t completely alone. With her magic giving the toaster an extra boost, it made it through the ceiling and flooring until there was a hole bursting right through to Derek’s apartment.
Before she could even see whether Derek was home to find her SOS, Phillip took out a gun and aimed it right at her. Claire barely had time to leap out of the way when he fired, the gunshot echoing off the walls.
Claire fell to the ground and tried to push herself up as the sentries closed in on her. It was only then that she felt the burning in her shoulder. Burning was an understatement. It was an aching, searing pain that seemed to radiate out to every part of her body.
Shot. She’d been shot. The sentries started to bend over her, and she used her fear and pain to make her magic stronger as she twisted around and shot out her arm, using everything in her to send the sentries flying away from her. It worked, but she could feel the weakness seeping through her veins.
If she wasn’t able to get power from someone soon, as in the next few minutes, she might not have many options left.
She inched backward as Phillip aimed the gun at her once more. Holding one hand to her shoulder, trying to stop the blood flowing from the wound, she looked around for anything she could use. She tried shooting out one more weak burst of magic, but even before she saw that he didn’t budge, she knew it wasn’t enough.
“For someone with such a fearsome reputation, you look a little pathetic to me.” Phillip stood over her.
She thought about trying to give some witty retort but decided against it. If she was going to go out fighting, it was going to be in a very literal sense. She kicked out, and her bare foot slammed into his knee and had him stumbling to the ground.
This time when he aimed the gun at her, she knew he wasn’t going to hesitate. Even though she wanted to be a badass as she met death, she found herself squeezing her eyes shut and waiting for the bullet to hit.
But when the gun was fired, she didn’t feel anything. Is this what death felt like? Nothing? She cracked open an eye, expecting to see Phillip standing over her victoriously, but instead it was Derek she saw. Phillip was on the kitchen tile face down and not moving at all.
A second later, Derek was running to her side and he pulled her hand aside to look at her wound. “Fuck. We need to—” He didn’t finish as he started to choke and gag.
Suddenly it switched to her comforting him. She grabbed his shoulder as he collapsed to the ground. “Derek? Derek, talk to me. What’s going on?”
She held him closer as he stopped gagging and went into convulsions as a seizure ripped through him. Her heart pounded in her chest even more so than when she thought Phillip was going to kill her. It was one thing for her to die. On some level, she felt as if she’d been past her time to go on. But Derek couldn’t. They just got him back. Sam needed him. She needed him.
Footsteps sounded as sentries approached and Claire stared up at them. “Get back!” she ordered, magic thundering behind her words. Magic....
She’d been tapped just a minute ago. She reached out for one of the sentries and with a blast sent him flying across the room. She stared at her hand in confusion. What was....
Realization hit her and she jumped back from Derek, slamming into the counter farthest from her and sending aches through her bullet wound. Almost as soon as she let go of Derek, he started to cough and gasp for air. The sentries started to aim their own guns, and Claire had enough. These guys were going to go through the damn window if they thought—
“Put your weapons down,” said Sam.
Claire looked to where her best friend stood in the doorway and tried to tamp down the guilt that shot through her. Because of what she’d done to Derek. Because of who she was....
The sentries didn’t move and Sam walked farther in the room. “I’m sorry, did I stutter? Or are you waiting for an order from Phillip over there? Because I don’t think your old boss is going to give you any more orders. I think he trusted the wrong people and you trusted him. Now, are you going to follow the orders of a dead man, or Samantha Harris, daughter of Abigail and granddaughter of Claudia? Heiress to the power of the families and your rightful boss? Because I’m telling you right now that if you do not follow me, you are declaring yourself an enemy, and I don’t take kindly to enemies.”
Claire stared in shock at the intensity of her friend. “I, um, I have to go,” she stuttered out as she stumbled around the sentries and past Sam.
Of course, Sam wasn’t about to just let her go and followed her retreat with her eyes. “Where are you going?”
“Derek!” she called without looking back. “Derek needs you!”
As soon as she was out in the hall and down at least a flight of stairs, she gave herself a chance to catch her breath while still holding her injured shoulder. Her shot shoulder. She should probably see someone about that. Sam could just heal it with magic, but she didn’t want to see Sam right now. Not after what happened with Derek.
And it wasn’t the first time. She thought back to his strange behavior ever since he’d come back to life. The headaches. The exhaustion. Except Sam had said he was mostly fine. It was only around her that he got sick again. And then she touched him back in the ghost town and he’d reacted as though he’d been shocked. Now when he touched her... he’d almost died.
Derek was one of her best friends, and now she was killing him just by being around him. Suddenly the bullet wound was the least of her problems.
Sam held the cold cloth over Derek’s forehead as someone knocked on the door. She went to stand, but Derek reached for her and grabbed her wrist in his hand. “Don’t,” he breathed. “It’s just going to be more trouble.”
Very probably so, but right now trouble was kind of their specialty. “It’s probably Angela.”
He frowned and sat up, a sign that he was getting better. “Why did you call her?”
“I called her because you were half dead and Claire is MIA and I now have five sentries who are only partially loyal to me that I don’t know what to do with. I’m calling in all the help I can.”
“Please tell me the sentries aren’t still here.” Derek rolled his shoulders, seeming to get his equilibrium back.
“No. I sent them to the Connecticut house. Bastian is there. Since he was kind of a sentry, he can keep them busy for a little bit while I made sure you were okay.”
“They should be with you. It’s their job to keep you safe, isn’t it?”
“Well, I ag
ree, but they’re all pretty big guys, and as much as I love my old place, it isn’t exactly big and impressive. Abigail’s is more imposing. You should’ve seen me when I came up in here. I totally pulled a Claudia. It was impressive.”
He let out a little laugh, but Sam could tell that he was still in a fair amount of pain. She winced and ran some fingers along his forehead. “What happened? I kind of had to fill in all the pieces.”
“How did you get here so fast?”
Well, that was something else.... Derek had called her in a rush as he’d run downstairs to deal with whatever was happening with Claire. Sam had been in Connecticut with Bastian as she studied the diary they’d picked up from Benton. And when she’d heard the genuine worry in his voice, she’d started to run for her car before Bastian had stopped her and reminded her that she shouldn’t need the car to get around anymore. She had all the power she needed. All she needed to do was harness it....
When she’d heard the gunshot over the phone, it had provided the incentive she needed to reach deep down to the power inside her. A moment later, she’d been back at her old apartment. Well, outside on the street, but it had been a good start. She’d run upstairs just in time to see the aftermath of whatever had happened.
The knock on the door came again and Sam gave Derek’s shoulder a soft squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”
She could tell that he wanted to tell her not to leave, but he stayed quiet, using his eyes to tell her all the words he couldn’t say. She made her way to the door and looked through the peephole to confirm that it was Angela outside. Good. She pulled the door open and gave the woman a forced smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course. How is Derek?”
“I’m fine.”
She turned around to see Derek leaning against the doorframe. He acted as if it were no big deal, but the beads of sweat along his forehead told a different story. “Would you go lay down? I get it, you’re a badass. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“I’m not proving anything. I’m fine.” A moment later, Zeus padded out from the bedroom to sit loyally at his master’s side. Sam had pretty much officially become used to the hellhounds, which was strange on a level she wasn’t quite comfortable with yet.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said to the hound, who had a stupid expression on his face that she knew wasn’t quite true. Those hounds always seemed too aware of the goings-on around them, evidenced by the fact that they’d brought them the diary. “Where the hell were you when this was happening?”
“Don’t blame him,” said Derek, defending the hounds as much as they defended him. “Everything happened so fast.”
“All right.” Sam narrowed her eyes at him. “Care to tell me what exactly that was? Now that you’re standing, you have no excuse to not admit what you’re trying to hide.”
“I was unconscious. How can you accuse me of hiding anything?”
“I know you better than anyone, Derek. I know when you’re hiding things. What really happened to you?”
He sighed and ran a hand over his forehead before he rubbed his eyes. “It wasn’t Phillip or the sentries who did it. I think it was Claire.”
Sam pursed her lips and tried to figure out whether Derek was playing some horrible joke on her. “Claire?”
“I touched her and.... And everything went bad. I would think it was just a coincidence, but the same thing happened back at Benton, just on a smaller scale.”
“You think her powers are getting out of control?” asked Angela.
Sam shook her head. That wasn’t it. “No, her powers don’t work on humans.”
“Unless I’m not human anymore,” said Derek softly.
“Don’t be stupid. Of course you’re human,” she said. The words came out with more conviction than she truly felt.
“Am I? I just came back from the dead. I have two hellhounds as pets. You know more than anyone how much things have changed for me.”
“Nothing has changed. Whatever this is, it’s a trick. Phillip or Abigail is messing with us. Once we beat the darkness, we’ll deal with this.” She turned to Angela. “Do you think you can find Claire? She hasn’t been answering my calls and I can’t go running around the city looking for her.”
Angela’s eyes widened. “Me? I don’t know anything about her.”
“You know more than a lot of people. We haven’t heard from Abigail in a while, and now that we’ve been to Benton, I’m expecting her to pop up sooner rather than later. We need Claire close by. Remind her that we need her, please. Remind her that I need her.”
Angela was quiet for a moment before she finally nodded. “I’ll find her. What are you two going to do?”
“Try to figure out what was so important in this damn diary that Jackson went through the trouble of hiding it. So far I’ve gotten nothing and I’m starting to think Jackson was messing with us.”
“What are you going to do if Abigail comes for you before you decipher the diary?”
Derek stepped next to Sam. “Claudia brought me back to be a weapon. So I’ll do whatever we need to do.”
Zeus moved as well, and right on cue, Hera came out to sit behind Sam and Derek, the hounds offering their silent support.
Angela cocked her head as she looked at the dogs. “Those guys really like you, don’t they?”
Derek glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, they have their moments.”
Angela didn’t normally like busywork, but she had to admit that running around the city in a crazy goose chase was preferable to sitting around and waiting with Sam and Derek right now. Knowing that Abigail could come for them any minute and they were still woefully unprepared was a kind of stress she didn’t need in her life right now.
Though there was another kind of stress she didn’t need that she was about to drag back into her life. She hit the intercom button and kind of hoped that no one answered. But no luck. A moment later, the light came on as Dante responded to the call button. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
She frowned and looked around, trying to see where the camera was that was allowing him to see her. But after she didn’t see anything, she tried to stay cool. “I’m looking for Claire. Is she here?”
A bitter laugh came through the intercom. “Why would she be here?”
“Umm.... Because she’s your girlfriend?”
“Eeeh! Wrong. Try again.”
It was then that she realized his words were just slurred enough to signal that he was under the influence of something. She knew witches couldn’t get drunk, and she didn’t want to think about what kind of drugs he’d gotten his hands on. “If she’s not here, do you know where she’d be?”
“I’m not the boss of her.”
Well, this wasn’t going to get her anywhere. “She was injured. Where would an injured witch go?”
There was a pause and she wasn’t sure whether Dante had decided to not talk to her anymore. She was about to give up and leave when the front door opened and Dante stumbled out. He was in his normal fitted jeans and green flannel shirt, but it was half tucked in and half hanging out, giving him an extra disheveled look.
She rolled her eyes and stepped back. “You didn’t have to come down.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I know.” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “But you need me. You asked if there was any witchy place Claire would go.”
“Yes. An answer that could be given without coming down here.”
“Except Claire wouldn’t go anywhere witchy. She’s a soul sucker who lived as a human most of her life. If she’s injured, she’d go somewhere human.”
She let out a breath as she got it. “Human.... She’s at a hospital.”
“Yep. Let’s go.”
“There has to be something.” Derek flipped through the pages of the diary.
“I’ve read the stupid thing twice. There’s nothing.” Sam let her head fall onto her folded arms on the table. “Nothing
that makes sense anyway.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“Magic. Magic doesn’t make sense.”
Amen to that. Hera set her head on Derek’s thigh and he gave a quick pat as he tried to read the messy handwriting. A lot of it was the gibberish of a twenty-something woman who was trying to succeed in a magical world during a crisis. Interesting in its own right, but not exactly a how-to manual in defeating the darkness. “Why don’t you explain it to me and I’ll see if I can help.”
“Have you noticed anything strange about the last pages?”
He turned to the end of the diary and looked at the worn, blank pages. He ran his finger over the paper at the lines etched in. “Writing....”
“Yes. There’s writing in some sort of invisible, magical ink. Since there’s nothing else in here that can help us, the answer, if there is one, has to be in those few pages. But to decipher it, I’d have to know the spell that was used to code it and that could take weeks—if not months—to figure out. Time we don’t have.”
“Normal invisible ink is heat activated.”
“Tried that.” He glanced over to her and she shrugged. “I was getting desperate. Worth a try, right?”
“I guess so.” He lifted the diary up and studied the paper as light streamed through, trying to decipher any of the hidden words. “What kind of spell would hide the words? Like, ink only? That probably wasn’t easy.”
“Not easy, but not impossible. This was Claudia’s assistant, after all.”
“How many spells do you think she knew? If they were so desperate to hide this, there had to be a reason.”
“The darkness was so widespread, they didn’t know who to trust anymore. The diary was always around Mary so it became a hidden way of communication.”
“So it had to be easy to read. There wouldn’t have been some overly complex ritual, right?”
“Theoretically. Really, who knows?”
“Hold on.” Derek stood up and worked his way through the halls of the Connecticut house. He passed some of the sentries in the front room. They had lost the suit jackets and a few had their sleeves rolled up and wiped away sweat. Bastian had been keeping them busy, it looked like, which was good. They would need to be ready at a moment’s notice.
