Granted, she did have some. Enough that she rented quite the expensive space in a high-end storage facility in Portland. Okay… and more than one safety deposit box at several banks in cities across the nation.
Still, she kept her close and personal baggage to a minimum. At least, in so far as physical baggage was concerned. The emotional shit was another story.
This apartment was on the fourteenth floor of an upscale high-rise in San Francisco. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, video monitors, an in-building gym, pool an hot tub, and a parking space. It wasn’t exactly cheap. But money wasn’t something Evangeline had ever had to worry about. Being abducted, charmed, blackmailed, or murdered – those were the things she worried about. Being found out. It was a never-ending danger.
So she was, as usual, overly cautious as she made her way to the front door, making certain to check the video monitors before she opened it. A young black man stood on the front doorstep, and immediately, Evangeline could tell he was a mage.
“Miss… Evangeline?” he asked uncertainly.
“Warlock or otherwise?” she asked.
The man blinked, and his eyes grew wide. “Otherwise,” he told her frankly.
“Good or bad?” You didn’t have to be a warlock to be evil, and in fact, most warlocks Eva knew were just the opposite.
He seemed baffled, which was a good sign. He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Honestly, some days I wonder.”
Eva smiled. She could certainly empathize with that. “Good enough for me,” she said, and stepped to the side.
He moved slowly past her, his expression still openly confused, and stopped just a few feet inside to face her.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, shutting the door.
“My name is Rodney Stokes. I work for a woman by the name of Adelaide Lane.” He paused and said, “I think you may know of her?”
Oh yeah. She knew of her. Adelaide Lane was the Nightmare Queen – or would be very soon if her evil-as-fuck boss didn’t get to her first. But Eva didn’t say anything. Instead, she waited for him to go on.
He cleared his throat. “I’m here because, as hard as this may be to believe, I was sent by someone to ask for your help.”
Eva’s gaze narrowed. Mimi was with her in the apartment. If something went down here and now, the young dragon might get hurt. “Sent by who?” she asked as her magic awakened inside her.
“By an old man with blue eyes.”
Eva stared at him a moment. “How blue?”
He smiled a small smile and chuckled. “Very.”
Eva took a slow, deep breath. “What did this old man want?”
“He said that you are a healer.”
Well that cinched it. She had a pretty good idea who that “old man” with blue eyes was. Once again, she didn’t say anything. But he seemed to be expecting this, and went on without pause.
“Adelaide needs your help. In a few minutes, she’s going to get into some trouble that will leave her wounded. She will die if someone doesn’t heal her.”
Eva’s gaze once more narrowed. “You’re a seer.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But I didn’t see this happen. Monroe filled me in. He said you were the one to come to, that you could help.... He said you would understand.”
Eva licked her lips and ran a hand through her hair. It was silky soft, and once more its natural color – as white as cotton. Layers framed her face, touched her shoulders, and tumbled down her back in thick but fine white locks. Her eyes were notable enough, but her hair was so unusual and noticeable, she normally colored it before going out in public. With magic, of course. Human hair color smelled god-awful.
“Oh, I understand,” she said softly, her thoughts moving inward. “Funny how seers never seem to see disasters pertaining to those they love most, isn’t it?”
Rodney Stokes looked down at the floor, and his expression took on the appearance of distant thoughts. “Funny isn’t the word I would use,” he said, nodding. “But it certainly is strange. Adelaide Lane would know a thing or two about that.” He looked back up, and met her gaze. “She is a seer as well. Yet she failed to see her father die in a car accident. It pretty much cost her everything.”
Eva considered that. She happened to know that Adelaide Lane was a very wealthy young woman, and she’d already known she was a seer. But what she had not known was what Rodney just told her. So she understood more than a little bit what he meant when he said she’d lost everything. It had nothing to do with material wealth. And everything to do with family.
Eva would know a thing or two about that too.
“Where is this grizzly event supposed to occur?” she asked, glancing back at the hall, where Mimi waited in the back office at the computer.
“In a public high school in Seattle,” he said. “I can take you there. And we don’t have much time.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The school was deceptively peaceful from the outside. Teacher’s cars were parked in the front, a few parents waited to pick up students for this or that at the curb, and administrators had parked at the building’s side. There was no sound coming from the building; the students were in class.
“You sure this is the one?” asked Roman D’Angelo.
“I’d bet my life on it,” she said steadfastly. Her gaze was locked on the school’s crest, which was painted in blue and yellow above the building’s main doors.
Roman, several other vampires she didn’t know, someone by the name of Kristopher, another gorgeous man by the name of Thane, a warlock by the name of Jason Alberich, and Nicholas, Andros, and Minnaea stood around Adelaide like a protective sphere. Kristopher, Jason, and Damon were apparently other kings at what Nicholas had explained was the Table of the Thirteen – though he supposed it would soon hopefully just be called “the Table,” because “Table of the Twenty-Six” was a mouthful.
Thane’s queen went by the name Siobhan. Addie’d had to ask for the spelling on that one. Kristopher’s queen was Poppy. At least that one was easy. Addie had already met them both, and at the moment the women were on the other side of the building, casting some kind of joint-power spell. Both women were warlocks, workers of what some called “dark” magic.
Addie really liked them. She’d never been one to care for labels, and had no idea what dark magic even was. As far as she was concerned, dark was better than light anyway. It was a hell of a lot less hot.
But normally when meeting women Addie sensed competition, jealousy, or outright meanness. That was just life. Women were made to compete with one another over men who didn’t even try to be worth it. However, with Poppy and Siobhan, she sensed confidence and power, and in that confidence and power, they had no reason to be jealous or petty toward anyone. She sensed happiness, deep and true. And she could tell that when they gathered their things and got ready to help her, they meant it. Balls in. They were going to come to her aid in any way they could.
So as she stood there staring up at the school and the lot of them prepared to go in, for the first time in Adelaide’s life, she felt… peace. Despite the horrors of what might go down at any minute, despite the things she’d witnessed in the vision, there was nevertheless an overriding sense of completion forming within Adelaide. There was a feeling of fitting in – of belonging.
She wondered about that. She’d only just met these people – even Nicholas. Yes, she’d had one hell of a roll in the sack with him. But they were strangers, really. Weren’t they?
She smiled, and almost shook her head at the thought. No. We’re not. Not at all.
And neither were these people around her. They were not strangers at all. That much, she knew in her heart.
“It’s done,” said Jason, breaking through her thoughts. She looked over at him, like everyone else did. His gaze was on the school, and it appeared as if he were seeing something they couldn’t. Maybe he was. Magic, possibly. Like the spell Siobhan and Poppy had cast.
“We’ll only have a few minutes,” h
e said, turning to Adelaide. “Can you find her in time?”
She nodded. She wasn’t going to leave the school today without Rachel. With Poppy and Siobhan’s spell forcing all of the teachers into a temporary but mildly sedated state, she would be able to run from classroom to classroom, searching for the girl in record time. No one was going to jump out of their teacher’s desks to confront her or sound any alarms. According to Alberich, they should cooperate with her fully.
She only hoped she wasn’t too late.
She was fairly sure that she wasn’t. The visions had always taken place during a passing period, if the crowded halls had been any indication, and they had yet to hear any bells go off.
She left her place beside the first of the parked cars in the front lot and headed to the main doors of the school building. They were locked, probably as a safety precaution. But without breaking stride, D’Angelo waved a hand, and the locks clicked open. She threw the doors open, and the others caught it behind her. As one, they moved into the school.
They made quick work of square footage, striding with purpose. But as she drew closer to the origin of her visions, Adelaide felt stranger and stranger. The reality of the world around her and the surreal environment of her visions were meshing, colliding in her mind in a kind of dizzy awareness.
By the time they had passed through the main gathering area, and turned left to enter the first of two parallel passing halls, she almost felt as if she were dreaming.
There were no teachers or administrators in the halls. Everyone was in classrooms or in their respective administrative offices. It was quiet but for the muffled voices lecturing about Cabeza de Vaca or Juan Ponce de Leon. Outside one door, Adelaide heard a woman talking about the area of a triangle. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
There were approximately twenty-five to thirty students in the room, and they all looked up at her as she entered. “I’m looking for Rachel,” she said, wishing she knew the girl’s last name. “Brown hair, brown eyes,” she continued.
But Rachel wasn’t there, and the students were either too stunned or just too teenager to be helpful in any way whatsoever. Instead, they just stared quietly at her, and then at each other. She left the room and hurried to the next. Over and over again, she did this, opening the door and asking for Rachel, and all without any success – until Alberich came up beside her and looked grim.
“We’re running out of time. Some of the teachers are coming out of it, and a few are talking about you.” He shook his head. “The principal has called the authorities.”
“Crap,” she hissed. Shit, she thought. No, no, no! The girl had to be here somewhere. She was depressed to the point of no return and she was planning on revenge, and she was packing heat… so where the hell was she?
The bell to signal the end of class buzzed loud and cacophonous through the school. A general milling sounded right after that from behind the closed doors, but it lasted only a split second before antsy students were crashing through them to pour out into the hallway.
Addie looked at the students’ faces as they passed by her, but they were strangers. None were the shooter from her visions; none were “Rachel.” They paid her and her companions no heed, thanks to yet another spell provided by Jason.
Panic struck her. Doom was looming.
And then it hit an all-time high when she suddenly sensed the cold, hard wrongness behind her. She turned, and the world slipped into slow motion. Faces and bodies blurred around her, time crawled, and her vision re-focused. The men behind her parted, like two sides of the Red Sea. Beyond them was a gradually filling hall with a women’s restroom sign on one end.
From the open space beneath the sign stepped a young woman with layered light brown hair. Athletic build. Familiar somewhat baggy clothing. Simple but expensive earrings that hinted they were heirlooms. Gun in her right hand.
Her boots made a hollow, echoing sound in Addie’s mind as they hit the tiles – one, two – and the girl was turning toward the more crowded end of the hall. She slowly, so very slowly, raised the gun, wrapping her other hand firmly over the first. She’d had practice. She knew what he was doing.
Addie couldn’t move. But she could speak. “Rachel!” she yelled, placing all of her breath behind the name. It sounded low and hollow in her ears, like a record that was dragging, forced to go slower than it was meant to. Everything was still moving in slow motion.
She noticed this – the decelerated raise of Roman D’Angelo’s arm, wristwatch gleaming in the overhead fluorescent lights, the light green glow to the tips of Jason Alberich’s firing-up fingers, the angle of Nick’s body as his black leather jacket-clad form drove forward to move in front of her.
But Adelaide seemed to be moving just a touch faster than everyone else. The second or two it took her to regain control of her body was half that in her companions’ time, and it was nothing in the real world. She was unaccountably grateful for this strange slip in time as she lunged forward. One booted foot in front of the other – and the students around her began to notice the girl with the gun.
Like individual grains of sand through an hourglass, they dropped their books, dove for cover suspended in mid-air, or turned to run. Papers scattered, backpacks hit the ground with silent thuds, and the air filled with the charged electricity of fear.
Rachel leveled the gun and took careful aim. Her eyes were cold, dead, and determined. She lowered her head slightly, her gaze narrowed, and Addie saw her finger gently squeeze the trigger.
Chapter Forty
A bell signaled the end of class, and doors began to open, and Nicholas turned in place, trying to make heads or tails of the souls around him. He could see them all, some brighter and more beautiful than others. Some black as hell. But that was adolescence for you.
He knew what to look for, based on what Adelaide had told him about her visions. A bright, beautiful soul in vast amounts of pain had a certain appearance to it. It was like a candle in a dark room. It was the only light in anything around it, but with the windows and doors shut, it was suffocating and small. Whoever and wherever “Rachel” was, this is what she would look like. She would be that brilliant flame in an unseen draft, struggling desperately to hold on.
He detected her presence a split second after Adelaide apparently did, because he felt Addie break away from him, lunging into an all-out run. He turned in place as time seemed to slow around him, and the young woman stepped out of the ladies restroom down the hall. On either side, the men around him began to turn as well, their bodies moving in an orchestra of gradual awareness.
Rachel’s stride was steady and purposeful, and down at her side, in a practiced and easy grip, was the infamous gun. She moved into the hall and turned, and Nicholas heard her boots stamp out a death knoll on the school tiles. It was strange how time seemed to be changing around him, sound was hollowing out, movement was braking, traveling at half the speed it was meant to. He seemed to be capable of advancing faster than the others.
But Adelaide was faster still. How it was possible, he wasn’t certain. But he had a feeling. He had a feeling it was that she was changing. Turning. Becoming. And the queen was always more powerful than the king.
It was a horrific realization, because it meant she was faster than him – and Adelaide Lane was an impulsively good soul, and that soul drove her forward now, straight for the girl she had come here to help.
A thousand lifetimes of nightmares passed before the Nightmare King’s eyes as Rachel Reyes raised the gun from her side and took careful, precise aim. Addie’s form moved too fast; he couldn’t reach her. He knew what was about to happen, could see the hellish pattern, but for all of his otherworldly power, he was helpless to stop it.
The bullet was faster than everything else. They always were, and now was no exception. Rachel’s scream of understanding filled the hallway, lasting far longer than the bullet’s flight. Nicholas felt the impact in Adelaide’s chest as if it had hit him instead. It dug deep, nicked
his heart, and lodged somewhere in the spine behind it.
*****
All of the spells they’d cast, all of the planning they’d managed in the span of time between her last vision and now, all of the powerful people accompanying her – in the end, they didn’t matter. In the end, it was Adelaide who was able to do something. In the end, she was the only one who could stop the disaster her premonitions had warned her about.
She felt each of her footfalls like the chiming of a bell tower. Pound, pound, and closer she came. Again, she called Rachel’s name. The girl’s eyes moved, and the bullet left the barrel.
Confusion passed between them, between the two girls who had at separate points in time each been pushed to a breaking point. Understanding. Empathy. A shared pain.
But the slug of metal was released, the beast was un-caged, and the rest of the world was frozen. And suddenly, there was nothing else Adelaide could do but move.
So she moved in front of the bullet.
Rachel Reyes – now Addie knew her name, knew her soul – went very still. She went still but for the shape she made with her mouth and the sound that escaped her lungs and the horror that flashed before her eyes. “Nooo!” she screamed. An echo that reached into Adelaide’s soul.
The word, like the rest of the world, was sucked into that slow-motion grind that displayed the scene with grizzly accuracy. But Addie understood because she felt it deep inside. That bullet hadn’t been meant for her. It had not been meant for a fellow sufferer.
That hot, fast metal had been meant for one who sliced souls with words and fists and secret glances. It had been meant for someone else. Not Adelaide.
Even so, Addie felt the bullet impact with slow motion, too. She was punched in the chest. It stole her breath, and all of it happened in a dream. She felt the air move past her and closed her eyes. She was flying, ever so slowly, floating in the mass of terrified students that had all gone quiet. Everything had gone so quiet.