I flicked a glance at Todd, who seemed relaxed and totally at ease. He grinned at me. Not sure this was a grinning situation, but I’d take it as a good sign.
“I need your help,” I said to her.
Miranda’s brows went up. “My help? With what?”
I wrung my hands. “I’m in trouble. It’s Raina.”
“What has she done now?”
I hesitated only a moment. “She wants to kill me.”
Her eyes widened. “Kill you? But why?”
“I stole her grimoire. And I . . . well, I’ve found out some disturbing things about her.”
She didn’t speak for a moment. “Like . . . what kinds of things?”
Todd didn’t give me any indication that I should hold my tongue, so I didn’t. “Do you know how old she is?”
Miranda’s brows drew together. “She’s forty, isn’t she? She says she’s thirty, but I just know she’s had work done.”
This chick was as clueless about the real Raina as I thought. “Try more like three hundred and forty and you might be in the right ballpark.”
She stared at me. “What?”
“She’s an alpha witch. She uses vampire blood to stay young, stay immortal. I think she’s behind the recent disappearances of three master vampires here in Salem.”
Todd let out a low croak.
“Frog caught in your throat?” I asked him. “Or is it a toad?”
He just kept smiling at me. But there was something in his eyes . . .
They weren’t smiling.
“Tell me more about Raina,” Miranda insisted. “And these vampires. Are you seriously saying that vampire blood has some sort of magical power?”
What was that old saying? Out of the basement dungeon and into the boiling cauldron?
Damn it. I knew that escape had been far too easy.
Miranda was no ignorant coven member. Her green eyes glittered with knowledge, with pointed curiosity. But they weren’t filled with innocence and shock.
Crystal balls that revealed the hidden truth, eyes were. Had to remember my own metaphor. It would help a lot.
I swallowed hard. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just a theory—a silly theory. I’m sure Raina isn’t killing vampires and draining their blood. Wacky, right?”
“Killing them? That’s does sound extremely wacky.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Come to think of it, I’m probably completely wrong. Witches aren’t immortal. And that hocus-pocus stuff that could help someone become immortal—I know it’s not real.”
Miranda’s expression became grave. “I think I might be able to help you. You were right to come to me. Hang on a sec.”
She turned away toward her jewelry stall.
I looked at Todd and tried to communicate with him, searching his frozen face. What’s wrong with you? Are you okay?
His brows moved closer together, his eyes strained, a direct opposite of that happy perma-smile his mouth was in. No, he seemed to be trying to convey. I’m not okay in the slightest.
“Here it is,” Miranda said.
I turned to face her uneasily. “Here what is?”
“The best way to deal with a vampire.”
In her right hand she clutched a carved wooden stake with a razor-sharp point.
I only had enough time to register what it was. Before I could say anything, turn away, or run, she arched it toward my chest—
And sank it straight into my heart.
Chapter 16
So this was how it would end for me. Staked in the middle of a street festival by a crazy bimbo witch in a red dress.
Not too many of the wide variety of vampire myths were true, but three definitely were: (1) We needed to drink blood to survive, (2) we didn’t have a reflection in a regular mirror, and (3) getting a wooden stake plunged into our hearts meant certain death.
She hadn’t missed.
White-hot pain blinded me. I staggered back from her and looked down at the weapon sticking out of my chest. With a cry, I curled my hand around the base of the stake and tried to pull it out but failed.
I fell to my knees.
No one seemed to notice. The crowd of people milling around the festival walked past Miranda’s beaded jewelry stall as if we weren’t even there, which told me she’d cloaked it with magic. Only Todd stared at me with horror, while that eerie, bespelled smile remained frozen on his lips. It was the clarity of that expression—that sheer shock and panic in his eyes—that finally won me over to his side. He wasn’t just a creepy shape-shifter who’d been secretly stalking his ex-girlfriend as an innocent-looking toad. He was a good guy down deep. He cared whether I lived or died.
That made two of us.
“Should have minded your own business, vampire,” Miranda said, wiping her hands on the front of her dress. She moved toward me, pushed my hands out of the way, and yanked the stake back out, letting it clatter to the ground. I screamed and pressed my hands against the wound. The world around me began to grow dim and fuzzy at the edges as the remaining moments of my existence literally bled away.
My life flashed before my eyes—preschool, high school, a year of university, my failed attempt at becoming an actress, my working years, roommates from hell, dates from hell, waking up in a shallow grave with blood on my throat, being chased by vampire hunters, finding Thierry, falling headfirst in love and never looking back . . .
All of it gone like sand through my fingers.
I gasped. “Why?”
“Why?” Miranda glared at me. “Because you know too much. I saw what Raina did with other vampires. With Owen. She drains their blood and she recites a secret spell. I worked that spell for myself. I’ll be young and beautiful forever.”
A coldness swept over me. I thought it was coming from the inside, my body dying. But no. It came from the outside. My breath formed frozen clouds as if this were the dead of winter, not the middle of June.
An arctic wind swept through the street festival, but nobody else seemed to notice. It took me only a moment to see where it came from.
Raina was swiftly walking toward us, her eyes red. Her long dark hair swept back from her face and the black cloak she now wore swirled around her calves from this strange, unnatural wind. Magic crackled through the air and skittered up my arms.
She thrust her hand out toward me, and that icy sensation wrapped itself tighter around my chest in a viselike grip. I couldn’t breathe.
She was helping Miranda kill me so no one would learn their dark secrets.
And yet, I wasn’t dead yet. And with a deep stake wound through my heart, I knew I should have been.
My heart had stopped beating completely, but I was still conscious. Raina had frozen me in this state, in the exact moment before death would have snatched me away. But why?
“Raina.” Miranda cleared her throat nervously. “What are you doing here?”
“Why don’t I ask you the same question?” Raina’s words were cool and crisp. “What are you doing, Miranda?”
“Taking care of a problem.”
“In public?”
“No one can see.”
“I thought we discussed this before. We don’t perform magic out in the open. Period.”
“Yeah, well.” Miranda gulped. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“No, I don’t think it is.” Raina captured Miranda’s gaze in hers. “Tell me the truth—why have you killed this vampire?”
Killed. Not “tried to kill.” Killed. Past tense.
Raina might have pressed the pause button, but it was all over for me.
“She knows.” Miranda’s voice sounded strangled, as if she was fighting the truth-telling spell with every ounce of strength she had. “About the vampires you bled. That I bled.”
“You’ve been bleeding vampires, Miranda? Why?”
“I saw you do the spell. Every six months you find a vampire, you take their blood, you work your spell. You even did it with Owen—and you slept with him, too.”<
br />
This took Raina by surprise; I could see it on her face. “Jealous, Miranda? I know you thought he was yours for a brief time. Owen wasn’t anyone’s.”
“I don’t want Owen anymore. He’s nothing to me. But I want so much more. I want what you have. Your power.”
Raina laughed at this coldly. “So you watched me do my spell. And you tried to emulate it.”
“I did better than try. It worked. I’m immortal, just like you.”
Raina swept her gaze over the woman. “You fool with power much stronger than you can handle.”
“I can handle it fine.”
“What about the vampires you bled? What did you do with them when you were done?”
Miranda pressed her lips together, her body visibly shaking with the effort she expended trying to fight the truth-telling spell.
My eyes widened. “You killed them, didn’t you?” My words came out quiet and raspy but audible. “You bled them and then you killed them when you were done.”
Miranda flicked a glance at me. “I dated a vampire hunter once. He explained to me why a vampire’s life is worthless. I needed a lot of blood. It took me forever to get the wording right from the notes I made. But the trial and error was all worth it.”
Raina’s face was strained. “You would kill to remain young?”
The other witch gave her a withering look. “You bleed vampires to stay alive, stay young. Why can’t I be as vain as you are?”
Raina’s eyes flashed. “What I do has nothing to do with vanity, you pathetic fool. And to think, I believed you were a friend.”
“We were never friends. You only want obedient minions, like Casey, who hang on your every word and follow after you like trained puppies. She’s weak and pathetic, can’t do any magic at all. I had to get everything I have the hard way. Nobody’s ever helped me!”
Then Miranda wrenched her gaze away from the other witch, gasping in pain as if it caused her agony to break the spell. Raina came toward her and gripped her throat. Her lips curled back from her clenched teeth.
“You would sacrifice your soul for beauty and the love of worthless men who will still throw you away like garbage, you ignorant, vain child.”
Miranda couldn’t break away from Raina’s grip on her. The crackle of magic only increased. Her eyes also shifted to red, and she grabbed hold of Raina’s cloak.
“I only do what I have to do. And I only kill who I have to kill. It’ll be better when you’re gone, Raina. Not everyone should get the chance to live forever.”
She reached a hand toward the bloody wooden stake she’d used on me, and it flew from the ground into her grip. Without hesitation, she stabbed it upward into Raina’s stomach.
There was a boom of thunder in an otherwise cloudless evening sky. Dozens of festival attendees in my peripheral vision jolted in surprise at the sound and looked up as if expecting to see a storm had suddenly gathered.
My attention returned to the witches as Miranda slowly collapsed to the ground, her head lolling to the side, her eyes opened and glazed.
Raina’s eyes weren’t red anymore; they were black. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides; her breath came in short, frantic gasps. She wasn’t dead. Wasn’t stabbed.
I thought Miranda had her. But it was the other way around.
She’d killed Miranda with magic—black magic. Death magic.
It had turned Raina’s eyes as black as a hungry vampire’s. Slowly, they shifted back to red.
More eyeball truth to prove my theory.
Todd drew in a ragged breath as the spell that had held him in place finally broke. He was at my side an instant later. His hands trembled as he touched my arms. “Sarah! I’m sorry. I saw her and she saw me. It’s like she just knew. I couldn’t warn you to stay away.”
Still, no one paid any attention to us, their gazes moving over the witch’s stall as if they saw nothing out of the ordinary here. If the spells Miranda cast had disappeared when she died, then Raina must now be keeping us hidden from the crowd with her own magic.
I held my hand tight against the mortal wound in my chest. The coldness drew back and then numbness began to creep over me. I’d rather feel pain, since I knew what the numbness meant. My heart remained silent, unbeating.
My mouth was dry. “Please, Todd . . . tell Thierry that I’m sorry.” Thierry was going to be so mad at me that I’d let this happen, that I’d leave him after I’d only just promised to be with him forever. “Tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t stay out of trouble and . . . and that I love him so much, more than anything else in the whole world. That I’ll always love him.”
He nodded, his eyes glossy. “I’ll tell him. I promise.”
Raina sighed. “How sweet. Her last words are that of love for her darling husband.”
I had just enough life left in me to shoot her a dirty look. “Go to hell, you evil witch.”
“Not today, vampire.” She sank down to her knees so she faced me and pushed Todd out of the way. “I don’t do much magic these days—beyond the immortality spell—because it makes me want to do more. It’s like a drug addiction, the worst kind you could possibly imagine. And yet, here we are.”
Raina bled vampires, killed vampires, all so she could stay young. Miranda had learned everything from her. Just because she’d eliminated the competition didn’t mean anything had changed.
She swept her gaze over me. “Hold still, vampire.”
“Don’t touch me.”
But she didn’t listen. Raina pressed her palms against my chest and began to whisper words under her breath, words I didn’t understand, in some language that felt more ancient than Latin. What was she doing? Punishing me for escaping from her dungeon? Prolonging my death so she could toy with me, taunt me, tell me how amazingly I’d failed?
The crackle of energy charged the air again, this time entering me. It tingled as it slid up my limbs, joining together in the core of my chest—my heart.
Slowly, very slowly, the pain faded. The scary, creeping numbness withdrew like movie vampires seeking shadowy safety as the morning sun rose.
The evil alpha witch wasn’t trying to hurt me. She was healing me.
Finally, it was done. She pulled her hands away. Todd had been trying to wrench the witch away from me but wasn’t having very much luck, even though he outweighed her by at least sixty pounds.
Raina sent a glare in his direction. “I wasn’t harming her.”
He looked confused. “Sarah?”
I touched my chest, then looked under the edge of my now bloody T-shirt, which had a stake-sized hole in it. My skin had healed. It was as if I’d never been staked.
I’d been milliseconds away from death. I’d been staked through the heart, but I was still alive. And other than the destroyed shirt, there was no evidence that anything bad had happened to me.
But Raina was an evil witch who killed vampires, had helped Malik kill her own kind in the past. Why would she do this?
I stared at her with wide eyes. “You saved my life.”
She shrugged.
“I didn’t know witches could heal.”
“It drains our own life energy and can potentially kill the witch herself. Luckily for both of us, I have plenty of life to go around.”
“So the vampires you’ve killed in the past to do your immortality spell have contributed to my continued breathing.” The words felt bitter leaving my mouth.
She sighed. “You believe that, don’t you? That I killed vampires, just as Miranda has done.”
“Do you really care what I believe?” I looked away, toward the happy crowd of ice-cream-eating, hotdog- munching, oblivious humans who didn’t see the dead body and the literally bloody vampire only a few yards away from the festivities.
“Not particularly. However, you should know that I am a much more accomplished witch than Miranda ever could have dreamed of being. Yes, I bleed master vampires to use their blood in my magic; I won’t deny it. But then I usually make them
forget it ever happened. Miranda couldn’t do that, so she had to kill them.”
My gaze snapped to hers for a split second before I shifted my eyes away. I didn’t trust her enough to let her have the chance to enchant me again. “How can I possibly know if that’s the truth?”
“You can’t. But it is. These vampires you’ve been searching for here in Salem—they’re gone. Miranda killed them. Master vampires don’t leave evidence behind that can’t be mopped up. So there’s no proof either way, only my word. I know you won’t believe it, but remember, I just saved your life. I didn’t have to do that, did I?”
Todd nodded. “She does have a point.”
He offered me a hand and helped me up from the ground. I rubbed my chest. I’d been literally a moment from death, and I couldn’t just snap back from that like it was nothing and start making amusing, sarcastic comments.
But I was alive. And I had an alpha witch to thank for it.
My legs were as shaky as my thoughts. It all didn’t click for me, not yet. But I desperately wanted it to.
“I saw you with Malik. I know you loved him. Enough that you helped him hunt and kill witches during the trials.”
Her brows drew together. “You saw—” Then clarity and an edge of anger entered her gaze. “My grimoire. You did a spell from it to see into the past. Do you know how dangerous that was? You could have been trapped there forever.”
“But I wasn’t.” She could kill both me and Todd with one of those well-placed thunderbolts. I had to be very careful if I still wanted us to leave this festival intact.
“Trapped where?” Todd frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“A spell, one passed down to me through generations.” She hissed out a breath. “I hid that grimoire to keep its dangers out of the hands of those too foolish to understand its power. Nobody knew where it was. Nobody except Malik.” Her words cut off and her jaw tensed. “And he showed you where to find it.”
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