What is wrong with her? I thought. Fucking Icarus, what the hell is she doing?
I heard footsteps, and a horde of gunmen ran past her, trolls and ogres, along with a hodge-podge of other unsavory creatures armed to the teeth. Several nodded their deference to her as they bounded past, saluting or stopping to bow, while some even shouted, “For Dulcie!” before they unloaded their steel magazines into the empty air. My heart fell into my heels as Dulcie beckoned them on, watching passively while they ignited what remained of the offices and storage rooms into a blazing fire.
One of them stopped. He was bigger and taller than the rest, with a single red stripe sewn into his bulletproof vest, maybe a sign of his station. He said something to Dulcie that I couldn’t hear, and she gave him a broad smile.
“Make it hurt,” she said, and the man ran off.
I must have gasped, or tripped, or maybe she could hear my pounding heart, but whatever happened, Dulcie turned her head to the right and found me. Her eyes, green as summer meadows and glowing with excitement, narrowed. I didn’t have time to move.
The way she looked at me seemed like she couldn’t see me. Of course she could, but she couldn’t see me. She couldn’t see who I was, what I meant to her, or how much we’d been through together. She was looking at me like I was no different than any other unfortunate asshole who happened across her path.
The wall burst apart and I was flung forward with Blue, my gun flying out of my hand. We landed hard on the cracked, stony ground and rolled before slamming to a halt on a mound of broken bricks and floor tiles. I pushed myself up on all fours, swallowing hard against a stabbing pain in my side. My hands were covered in soot and deeply scratched, already starting to sting.
Dulcie laughed behind me. I turned my head and watched her through bleary eyes as she strode forward, elegant and terrible, her dress sweeping through the ash that was still settling onto the floor. The fire that wreathed her was silver now, throwing embers white as stars into the sky. She blinked slowly at me, totally without recognition.
“Dulcie?” I started, hoping she would recognize me, and in doing so, snap out of whatever the hell was holding her mind and memory captive.
She flicked her wrist, and I went flying. When I hit the ground, a searing pain ripped through my side—breaking a rib. It punctured something, maybe a lung—yes, definitely a lung. I inhaled and coughed, tasting salt and iron. The pain was unbearably hot and almost indescribable, but my difficulty breathing was what concerned me the most.
“Did you think we’d forgotten you?” she said as her eyes narrowed on mine. Her voice sounded wrong; it was much deeper and broader than it should have been. “Did you think we would forgive you?”
Forgive me? We? What the hell was she talking about? “Dulcie,” I croaked, but it wasn’t much of a word—more like a strangled squeak. “Please … it’s me …”
Then Dulcie approached me, the heat of her silver fire beating down on me. She touched my sleeve and it instantly caught fire. Her expression turned dark, more vicious. Vengeful. I fumbled for my gun and saw it across the room, stuck under a slab of rubble from the foundation wreckage. Shit.
In the lot, where the wormhole crater was, came a wave of gunfire, a scream, and then silence. Someone laughed with a deep, bellowing sound. My blood turned to ice.
Dulcie leaned down and grabbed my face as she turned me back toward her, and hatred swam in her eyes. I glimpsed a hatred I had no clue she could have possessed.
“This is for my mother,” she whispered. “This is for the old way.”
Dulcie’s mother is dead, I thought, but I dared not say it aloud. Her fingers wrapped around my throat and squeezed, burning my skin like branding irons. I pulled at her hand, trying to scream, but her grip was an iron vise. Her teeth shone against her fire, glittering like jagged gemstones. There was blood in them, dried between her gums, but it wasn’t hers; it couldn’t have been. This blood was red, and fairies bleed gold.
“Dul … cie … it’s … Sam …” I grabbed her wrist and thought of arctic winds and glaciers, as well as every other cold thing in the world before a frozen wind began to sweep through me. Dulcie’s white skin turned blue around my fingers, cracking and splintering, but she didn’t flinch. A black fog crept into the edges of my vision, and my lungs screamed for air.
She was just so strong. So damned strong.
And then Dulcie was gone. Her nails raked against my throat before she was torn away by a tall, black shadow, plunging its hands through the fire and grabbing her by the shoulders. It flung her away with all its strength, and I couldn’t see the rest. I was on my side, coughing up blood and gasping for air, my broken body doing what it could to survive. My head was throbbing, and every time I moved, it got harder to breathe.
A wet, black nose pushed itself into my face, and Blue started licking my cheek, whining softly. Walls of fire exploded around me, and I saw Dulcie on the ground, hoisting herself onto her feet with a murderous look in her eyes. The shadow that tore her away was running toward me, shouting something I couldn’t hear.
Then he got closer, and his words took a shape. “Let’s go!” he yelled, grabbing me by my arm and heaving me up. I screamed as my ribs rubbed together, the searing pain completely engulfing me.
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t sound very sincere. He lifted me in his arms like a small child and turned away from the flaming Dulcie, running headlong through a gap in the fiery, white walls. Blue followed at his heels, barking like mad.
I looked over the man’s shoulders. Dulcie was on her feet now, lifting her hand and muttering under her breath—a spoken spell. Whatever it was would be a hundred times more powerful than the explosions she’d been conjuring on a whim. There was anger behind her intentions now, and her rage would only make her that much more powerful.
I muttered an incantation, forcing myself to concentrate, trying to ignore the thrumming pain emanating from my broken rib and pierced lung. I imagined shadows and water, wind whistling through cracks in stone walls, rivers unimpeded by rock. The man and Blue and I felt it all at once: a vibration that started in our feet and went all the way to our throats when the magic took hold. Dematerialization was a touchy spell, and ideally, not one to use in a pinch, but I was out of options. Shadows swam in from nowhere, glittering like black ribbons full of stars, wrapping themselves around us and turning us into ethereal darkness.
In the last second before we disappeared, the spell died in Dulcie’s hands, and I swear she mouthed, “Sam?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Knight
I woke up. That alone was weird, because the last thing I remembered was getting shot in the heart. I tried to sit up, which, predictably, was a mistake. Bolts of pain jolted through me, hot as branding irons, a violent sting I could feel all the way down in my bones. I opened my mouth to scream, only managing to whimper a faint whine. I closed my eyes in exhaustion as I attempted to drum up any residual strength I could muster. Which wasn’t much.
I spent a moment breathing, letting the pain fade into a dull throb. When I opened my eyes this time, I looked around before I tried to speak again.
I was lying on the cold, hard floor inside a room that was small, quaint, cozy, even. Striped, beige wallpaper, plain molding, a full bed, a chair, and a table by a window. It was crosshatched with fire wards that would vaporize me if I got too close. I could smell it from here, a vague, burning haze hanging around the edges of the room, imbued into the walls, the floor, and even the fucking ceiling—as though I intended to punch my way out of here! Or try to shimmy my very large self through the heating vents.
Here, I thought. It took me a second to remember where that was.
The pain returned with shallow waves as I strove to remember everything in frustratingly blurry detail. I’d found Bram, prostrate and dying … Together, we located Dulcie in the Netherworld, secreted inside a mansion in the middle of who-the-fuck-knows-where? Someone was with her … I shut my eyes, twisting sidewa
ys, and a boiling shock ran the length of my body, my mind rejecting the memory with everything it had.
The Darkness, I thought, Dulcie was taken by the Darkness. By Jax …
Then it all came back. The memories the witch in Brokenview had filched from Dulcie’s mind suddenly replayed for me. The blood and bruises, Jax’s fists hammering into her skull, his eyes on her bare body, stripping her down to her soul. Bram, blood-starved, catatonic, drinking from her until everything went black.
Rage began to instantly overtake me, and with it came resolve, as well as strength. I had to get the hell out of here so I could get Dulcie and steal her away from the Darkness. More memories suddenly invaded my already overrun mind.
A mansion. Bram’s mansion. The silhouette of a massive house, wreathed in trees and darkness. A broken window and stairs. It had been way too easy to break in; something was wrong …
Dulcie, I thought, digging my nails into my arms, I saw Dulcie. I felt like I was going to be sick. Dulcie in a black dress … Dulcie with a gun.
Sweat beaded on my forehead. I opened my eyes, not even realizing I’d closed them. Now I was panting. “Oh, what the fuck?” I muttered, reaching up to move the matted hair from my eyes. My chest rose and fell with deep, heaving breaths. Dulcie shot me, I thought. She shot me, and she was even smiling when she did it.
But, no, I shook my head. That makes no damned sense! Dulcie wouldn’t shoot me! Dulcie …
But I knew the truth in my own words. She had shot me, and she’d intended to kill me.
I rolled to one side, pushing myself up with one arm. The pain was nothing less than excruciating. It might have been a better idea to just lie down and stay there until my body stopped telling me to go fuck myself. At this point, I was just being spiteful. I pushed myself up with a roar—more of a girlish squeal, actually—and felt something in my chest tear open. A half-open wound appeared like a seam that was ripping itself apart. Something warm and wet flowed down my chest: blood. Lots of it.
Well, fuck, I thought as I looked down.
I discovered two things at that moment. First, I was shirtless, and, as I mentioned before, glistening with sweat. The room was ripe with a smell like sickness, rotting flesh, and bile, which I realized was me. Sweat, sure, but the smell was coming from my blood—which, for whatever reason, wasn’t red. That was the second thing. It was orange, almost yellow, and flowing too thick, almost like syrup. The smell took a seat on the back of my tongue and I feared I would vomit. I collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily, but couldn’t get any air.
Whatever was in that bullet, I wasn’t handling it well.
Then another thought altogether. I actually felt the dragon’s blood entering me, the thickness of a poison your body knows shouldn’t be inside your veins. I shouldn’t have felt sick if it were draconic, I shouldn’t have felt anything. Dragon’s blood is toxic in the extreme to any Netherworldian creature it comes in contact with, but not humans. Any creatures with touches of magic were especially susceptible to it. Creatures like me, a hellfire-forged guardian from the realms of Hades. But for all my abilities, I was still susceptible to dragon’s blood, so it naturally followed that since I’d been shot with a bullet soaked in dragon’s blood, I should have been dead right now.
Maybe … my head throbbed as I groped for the memory. A white-hot stab of pain in my chest, darkness, fire … a silhouette standing over me. The taste of something hot and sour in my mouth, flooding me with all the wrong kinds of energy.
Blood. Vampire blood. Bram’s, probably, but even that seemed a bit farfetched. Bram’s blood could bring someone back from the brink of a lot of things, but firenza draconia poisoning wasn’t one of them. Maybe Dulcie had a change of heart in the aftermath and used her almighty fairy dust to fix me. If she had, however, I wouldn’t still have a wound to bleed from. Even Dulcie couldn’t fix everything, despite whatever she might tell you. Assuming she tried at all …
Then I saw her standing before me, smiling pleasantly, a gun in her hand, her wings dutifully pinned at her back. I didn’t understand because I hadn’t heard or seen her come in. It was as if the air just spat her out.
Dulcie, what the hell happened to you? I thought because I still couldn’t speak. My stomach roiled and I curled up like an embryo, feeling lost and small.
“What have you done to yourself now?”
I blinked, failing to recognize her voice. When I looked up, Dulcie was gone. Standing in her place was a woman with her arms crossed. Tall, lithe, extremely pale. Eyes red as roses and hair black as pitch, framing a face that might have been smiling.
I’m not doing well, I thought to myself as I shook my head. How could I have thought this awful woman was Dulcie? Clearly, I was hallucinating and confused.
“You,” I said as I glanced up at her again, just to make sure she was really there. Unfortunately, she was. I recognized her now. I knew who she was. Meg, Bram’s maker and Dulcie’s captor. And now, apparently, she was my captor too, or so I guessed.
“Me,” she said, closing the door. She waved her hand and the wards clicked into place around the locks; the liquid latticework threading itself through the wood and metal, ready to incinerate anyone if they tried to leave.
“What do you want?” I asked, practically growling. I had to clench my eyes shut against the pain caused by speaking. I wasn’t sure how my voice was even coming out, but it was, all the same.
Meg raised her brow. She lifted her wrist to her mouth and bit down, hard. “Drink,” she said, holding the open wound out to me.
I scoffed and looked away, shaking my head. There was no way in hell I would drink whatever flowed through her veins. I’d rather be dead. I briefly considered attacking her, but just the thought of moving sent a feverish shiver through me. I was way too weak. I could barely manage to flinch.
“Hard pass,” I said shakily.
Meg pulled up her spine, attaining her full, considerable height. Her eyes darkened. “I’m trying to help you!” she snapped as she glared at me. I tried to hoist my knees up so I could achieve more of a sitting position, but my legs wouldn’t comply.
“I don’t need your help,” I seethed, even though my body was screaming at me that I did.
Meg leaned down and ran her hand across my chest. I didn’t have the strength to move away. Her palm came away all orange and sticky. She tasted the corrupted blood and made a face.
“I beg to differ,” she said. When I didn’t move, she groaned and stood back, crossing her arms.
“You have questions,” she said. “Drink, and I’ll answer them.”
“My questions aren’t worth whatever filth you’re trying to feed me.”
She smirked, turning up her chin. “Allow me to remind you that all of this,” she waved at me and then to herself, “is merely an act. You are nowhere near as powerful as I am, therefore, if I want you to drink from me, you shall.”
I laughed. Loudly. The sound that came out of me was more of a snorting squawk that sent another burst of blood streaming from me. I kept laughing even though it hurt. It was my way of defying her despite her speaking the truth.
“I am a patient woman so we can continue with this back and forth,” Meg said as she smiled at me knowingly. “At least for a good while longer.”
I looked down at the wound—wider now, and spilling pus—and the laughter cut itself short.
“Are you finished with your silly games?” Meg asked as she dropped to her knees beside me, and I just faced her blankly.
I wasn’t going to win this one and I knew it. Truthfully, I wasn’t ready to die yet. Not when I still had Dulcie to save and Meg to destroy. I did the only thing that I could.
I drank. Albeit reluctantly, and with a lot of gagging. The taste was, as always, like stomach acid and freezer burn. I forced myself to swallow it and struggled hard not to immediately retch it back up again.
Meg’s blood started to work only seconds after passing my lips. My body began to knit itself together, o
pen muscle scabbing over and painting itself with new skin. A wash of cold air went through me, driving out what was left of the dragon’s blood, or whichever toxin remained in my system, and replacing it with the cold blood of a master vampire. I was swimming with an electricity I had no clue how to receive.
“Okay,” I said, sitting back, wiping the blood from my mouth. I felt stronger and much more like myself. I glanced up at Meg and leaned against the bed. I still wasn’t strong enough to get onto my feet. That would take a bit longer. “Where the fuck is Dulcie?”
Meg tutted. “So brusque. Try again, only nicely this time.”
“Where the fuck is Dulcie?” I repeated. My muscles pulsed, absorbing Meg’s blood, practically begging me to pounce on her and tear out her stationary heart. But even I could tell, although tired and borderline hysterical, that she was formidable. To say the very least. There was something in the way she stood, and the tilt of her head, and the casual slyness in her smile that reminded me of Bram; no, something worse than Bram, something much more powerful than Bram.
Meg was the fabric of nightmares. A creature that had walked the Earth for a very long time, and who was very accustomed to getting whatever she wanted. Attacking her would be ballsy at best, fatal at worst, but either way, stupid. And it probably wouldn’t go well—being Bram’s maker indicated she was many centuries old, an impossibly long time for something to be alive, even a vampire. Her age and race endowed her with a spectacular strength.
She inclined her head and offered me that shark-toothed smile, her fangs glinting in the dull light. “Dulcie is … shall we say … elsewhere?” she replied, and her response seemed to amuse her. Probably because it wasn’t technically a lie.
I scowled. “And where exactly is elsewhere?”
“Somewhere away from here,” Meg replied, looking like she was trying not to laugh. Her eyes flashed with a bad light, yellow and unseemly, the decaying remains of her humanity and her sense of humor.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, my temper flaring the second I found the energy for it. “If you’re not going to give me a straight fucking answer, why are you even here?” Most likely, to screw with me. Bram enjoyed his asinine little games, so it stood to reason his maker did as well.