Blood Craft: The Shadow Sorceress Book Two (10 page)

M
y cell phone
began to buzz as soon as I stepped out into the mid-morning sun and I scooped it up out of my pocket, answering it without bothering to look at the screen.

“Yeah?”

“Amber?” Dex said, the familiar sound of his voice instantly causing my shoulders to relax a little.

Standing in the lab with all the bodies in their little metal drawers gave me the heebie-jeebies. It wasn’t a particularly cool thing to admit, especially considering the cases I investigated, but “cool” wasn’t exactly what I was aiming for. I’d settle for simply staying alive, and in my line of work, hanging around the dead was never a good idea.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I heard about what happened last night. How are you?” There was a concern to his voice that I wasn’t expecting and it knocked me completely off guard.

“I’m fine, how did you hear?”

“News of rogues has a way of spreading like wildfire down here at the precinct. Listen, they’re making us do a press conference and I saw your name on the list. I was just calling to warn you,” he said.

“Yeah, I’d heard,” I said, pausing awkwardly.

“Listen, can we talk? I feel responsible after what happened yesterday and I want to help. I want to try and make this right, Amber. I won’t ever be able to take back what happened with Graham, but….” He trailed off, but there was no mistaking the guilt in his voice.

I knew what it was like to feel like that. It sucked ass. At least in my situation the guilt I felt was justified. Dex had acted foolishly, allowing his ego to get in his way, but I also couldn’t blame him for it. It was a human reaction and one many of us had.

“You really don’t need to,” I started.

“No, I do, and don’t try and make me feel better, Amber, I know I screwed up. Please let me help. This is all new to me and I’m pretty certain I’ll keep screwing up if you don’t at least set me on the right path.”

“Fine, I’ll see you at the press conference. We can discuss it then,” I said, cutting the conversation short—the curious glances Victoria was giving me set me on edge. The last thing I wanted to do was give her any sort of ammunition against me, and knowing the details of yesterday’s debacle was something she was better off never finding out.

I hung up before Dex had the opportunity to say anything else.

“Who was that?”

“One of the cops who got the case initially,” I answered, keeping my tone as noncommittal as I could manage.

“Jon sent through the details of the conference; we won’t have time to speak to the families of the victims beforehand.”

I nodded. “Who’s leading it?”

“Jon, of course,” she said, shooting me a curious glance.

“Well, then let’s get it over with. All it’s doing is holding us up from doing our job.” She didn’t argue with me, but I could see the smirk hovering around the corners of her mouth as she turned and headed to get the car.

The thought of getting Dex involved any further in the case than he already was didn’t thrill me. He was a cop; his life was all about stopping the human and mundane. It was a necessary job and one that had its own risks. But the world of the Elite was different; the things we hunted were more than capable of turning the tables on us, and Dex was the type who still believed he could save everyone.

I’d given up on that belief a long time ago. Or, at least, that was what I told myself when things got tough.

C
limbing
out of the car across the road from the courthouse, I stared up at the building and tried to stop my heart from sinking into my boots. There were so many better things I could be out there doing. Trying to placate people by telling them that the shit hadn’t really hit the fan when it so obviously had wasn’t really my strong suit.

Neither was standing in front of the press while they snapped pictures and asked questions that they hoped would evoke the most emotion. If they continued to ask about Graham, then I was bound to slip up at some point. Control of my emotions wasn’t an area of expertise.

Power prickled along the back of my neck and across the place where I knew the demon mark sat, causing my heart to stutter in my chest.
Get a grip, Amber!
The voice in the back of my head piped up. It was right of course; if I lost control of my power in front of the cameras, then I was really in trouble.

Planting my hands against the metal hood of the car, I fought to push the magic back to where it had come from. It was a technique I’d watched my mother use on more than one occasion. Of course, I’d watched her bury her hands in the ground—she’d called it “earthing”. I didn’t have that luxury; if Victoria caught me trying to dig a hole in the sidewalk, she was going to have questions that I really didn’t want to answer.

“You okay?”

Speak of the Devil. Heat flooded into my face with the effort it took to get my power back to a manageable level.

“I’m fine, just a little dizzy. I haven’t eaten….” It wasn’t a lie. And then it clicked into place: I hadn’t eaten, and magic, like most things, was connected to the balance of the body. Throw one out of whack and the other ended up screw balled.

“Here, have this,” Victoria said, reaching around me to drop an energy bar on the hood of the car. “I’ve got a blood sugar thing, too; if I don’t eat every few hours to keep it steady, I’m prone to passing out. You have no idea how much grief that caused me when I first started working for the Elite.”

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing the bar and ripping the wrapper off it. The first bite of the chocolate and caramel covered oats melted across my tongue, bringing me far more pleasure than it had any right to do.

I focussed in on the action of simply chewing, each bite I took making it easier for me to push my power back where it belonged, until I finally started to feel human once more.

Turning away from the car, I smiled at Victoria, and she shot me a curious look as she stepped towards me.

“It’s so weird, your eyes are….” She trailed off, her curiosity fading away as she shrugged. “It must have been the light.”

“What?”

“Your eyes, they were weird—like, really blue, unnaturally blue.”

Her words sent a bolt of fear straight through my core and I crushed the wrapper in my grip. How was I supposed to keep my power a secret if I couldn’t even control my physical reaction with it?

“People say that a lot,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could. I crossed the street under the pretence of dumping the wrapper, but it was really to ensure my power was once more controlled.

Why hadn’t it caused me this many problems before? Surely if I was a shadow sorceress, no amount of trying to hide it would keep it suppressed. It just didn’t make any sense, why it was choosing now to spin so utterly out of control.

“You ready to go in?” Victoria asked, making me jump as I turned and practically slammed into her. She was standing close enough that I could make out the flecks of hazel in her brown eyes.

“As I’ll ever be,” I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, which, if I was honest with myself, wasn’t a whole lot.

S
tanding
in the court house’s foyer, Victoria nudged me. “I think someone is trying to get your attention,” she said, inclining her head towards the opposite side of the room.

I peered across the space and spotted Dex with his arm raised in the air as he crossed through the crowds of people milling around in the space.

Reaching our side of the room, he moved faster, pushing past the people paused in conversation. “Do you know where this is happening?” he asked, reaching our location.

I kept my expression neutral as I caught him eyeing Victoria carefully, his stare a cross between curiosity and wariness.

“There’s a conference room down the hall. I’m guessing it’ll go down in there but I’m really in no hurry to find out…. In fact, if I accidentally missed it, well, I wouldn’t exactly lose any sleep over that,” I said with a grimace.

“I take it you’re not a fan of these things?” he said with a wide smile.

“Whatever gave you that impression?” I replied, softening my words with a wide smile. “Dex, this is Victoria Tellon; she just transferred in from the New York Elite office.”

Dex’s eyebrows lifted in surprise and I could tell he was impressed. Hell, if I cared to admit it to myself, I was impressed, too. Working in King City was proving complicated enough—I couldn’t imagine how much harder it would be working in a city as expansive as New York.

“Victoria, this is….”

“Dexter Grey,” Victoria said, finishing my sentence before I even had the opportunity to get it started.

Glancing over at her in surprise, she shrugged, and her expression was predatory as she took Dex in, her eyes raking over him as though she was undressing him then and there in the middle of the crowded hall.

“I know who he is. Word tends to spread about talented detectives,” she said, but I had a feeling there was something she was leaving out of that sentence.

Shifting uncomfortably, I watched them eye each other and I fought the urge to grab the fire extinguisher and use it on them both. If they weren’t careful, the smouldering glances they were sharing were going to create another case for me to investigate, and spontaneous human combustion really wasn’t as much fun as most people thought it might be.

“I didn’t know I was on anyone’s radar,” Dex said, holding his hand out towards her.

Victoria took it, and I half expected her to jerk him in towards her. From what I could see, she was a man-eater, and if Dex wasn’t careful, he was next on her menu.

“Most people don’t know until it’s too late,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper.

Rolling my eyes, I stalked down the hall towards the conference room. There was no way I was going to hang around watching them making moon eyes at each other.

Crossing the hall, something caught my eye and I paused. The man standing next to the wall near the exit looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

From the state of his ripped and dirty clothes, he had to be involved in one of the court cases, but that didn’t make sense. The people passing in and out through the halls and rooms were all well dressed and presented. It was sort of the unwritten rule of court. No matter how crazy or murderous you might be, you didn’t turn up to face the judge and jury in the bloodstained clothes of whatever poor soul you’d ripped apart. In fact, it was always the crazy murderous ones that dressed the best; you could practically pick them out as they pranced through the halls like they owned the joint.

He stood watched the people who passed, his grey eyes taking in everything and nothing at the same time.

I was about to take a step towards him when Dex’s hand closed around my arm.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Oh, so you decided to drag yourself away from Victoria, did you?” I asked teasingly.

“You’re not jealous, are you?”

I stared at him. There was something so honest and curious about his question that it took me by surprise and I opened my mouth, a nervous laugh bubbling forth.

“Why would I be?”

Dex flinched as though I’d actually slapped him, and I instantly regretted my reaction. But his face became cold and closed, the hold he had on my arm releasing as though I’d burned him.

“Right … can we talk?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to open my mouth once more. Every time I did, all it seemed to do was get me into trouble. Following him into one of the small interview rooms off the main hall, I watched him pace back and forth.

“My captain is looking for someone to blame for this entire mess,” Dex said, finally coming to a halt in front of me.

“Well, I know one person he can blame…” I said beneath my breath as I thought of Jon.

“He says I have to hang it on the Elite; if I don’t, that’s the end of my career….”

My mouth dropped open and I stared at him. Was my brain being deliberately slow or had I just misheard him? If I hadn’t, then I really didn’t want to hear the rest of what he had to say.

“I love being a cop, Amber. I can’t lose it….” He trailed off, watching my face—for what, I wasn’t sure.

All I knew for certain was that I wouldn’t make this easy for him; whatever he had to say, he could say it.

“He wanted names and—” He cut off again and dropped his gaze to the floor.

“So, what, you gave him mine?” I said, anger causing me to ball my hands into fists.

“Well, you’re the rookie in the Elite, and I could hardly put this on Graham with him in hospital and everything….”

“What has me being a new Elite member got to do with any of this? You and I both know who screwed everything up. I tried to help you, I tried to stop all of this, and now you want to hang me out to dry in front of the press?”

“They like you, it won’t be that bad. If the cops take responsibility, then it’s just another nail in our coffin. The public don’t like us; we’re not super heroes the way you guys are. Amber, you know this.”

“I don’t care what I know, Dex, I’m not taking the fall for your mistakes. If you’d just listened in the first place….”

“And that’s something I’ll just have to live with,” he said, pushing his hand back through his hair. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he said, his petulant tone surprising me.

“I’m making it harder? I really don’t think so. I think what’s eating you up is knowing that you’re planning on selling me down the river for something I didn’t do.”

“And I didn’t do it, either! What did you expect me to do, Amber? Just hand the case back over after everything my captain told me? I told you this job means the world to me, and I’m going to do whatever I need to do in order to keep it,” he said, crossing towards the door. “I just thought I’d tell you out of professional courtesy.”

“Gee, thanks,” I answered, not bothering to keep the heavy sarcasm out of my own voice.

I let him go out ahead of me. If I followed him too closely and caught up to him, then I wasn’t going to be held responsible for my own actions. How could he be such a complete jerk?

Of course, I understood how he could. From everything I’d heard from Graham, the police captain wasn’t particularly forgiving over situations that cast him and the precinct in a poor light. The screw-up had certainly been one of epic proportions, and it wasn’t entirely Dex’s fault, but to think he could simply pass the book off and blame me so easily….

Why not? It wasn’t as though we were friends; I hardly knew him. Why shouldn’t he blame me?

It seemed like such a simple thing and yet I couldn’t help but feel betrayed by the entire situation. I might not know him, but I sure as heck wouldn’t do to him what he was about to do to me. He was worried about his career and the possibility of screwing it all up, but I knew for a fact that this was just the type of thing Jon was waiting for in order to cut me down to size once more.

He’d get rid of me if he could….

The thought of him succeeding and getting exactly what he wanted filled me with an anger I hadn’t thought I was capable of. It spread through my veins like fire, burning through my body, and I have expected steam to pour out through my nose and ears.

If Dex thought he was going to get away with blaming me, then he was in for a nasty surprise. This wasn’t the type of thing I would take lying down. Not for anyone.

S
lamming open the door
, I let it ricochet and crash into the wall. The sound of splintering wood was lost in the general hubbub of the courthouse, and I stood watching the crowds of people hurrying back and forth across the marble floor.

I scanned the hall, searching for any sign of the man I’d seen before Dex had asked to speak to me, but he was gone. A knot I hadn’t even realised had tightened up inside released, and I let out a long breath as I headed for the conference room.

By the time I pushed inside, the press conference had already started, and I sheepishly inched my way through the gathered reporters as Jon droned on about the safety of the city and the great job the Elite were doing to keep everyone protected.

Dex caught my eye and then looked away, the guilt on his face bringing me a sense of satisfaction. I wanted him to feel guilty; he deserved it if he did what he had planned.

“We have some of our best Officers on the case: Amber Morgan and a new Officer, Victoria Tellon, brought in from the New York office. I expect great things from this dynamic team and I have faith that they’ll keep King City’s faith and bring the killer to justice,” Jon said, his words making me cringe.

“Miss Morgan, how is your old partner, Officer Graham Lance, doing?” One of the reporters from the front row had interrupted Jon the second her gaze singled me out in the crowd.

“He’s currently stable, but we’re respecting the family’s wishes and giving them the quiet time they need with him,” Jon continued smoothly, not even giving me the chance to open my mouth.

I shot him a surprised look and then quickly covered it with a polite smile. Had he heard news on Graham? Guilt gnawed at my stomach and I kept my polite smile plastered in place. I wasn’t going to give them any kind of ammunition against me or the Elite. If Dex kept his word, he would do enough damage all by himself.

“Everyone here at the Elite wish him the—” Jon’s words were cut short with a loud crash that rocked the back of the conference hall.

Pushing up onto my toes, I tried to peer out over the heads of the reporters gathered, but there was far too much movement and commotion, making it impossible to tell what was going on. The first scream that ripped the air sent my heart slamming against my ribcage. There was no mistaking that sound, the true sound of terror, and it sent a bolt of adrenaline racing through my body.

The reporters who had, just seconds before, been blocking my view now surged towards the top of the conference hall, forcing me to fall back with Victoria, Jon, and Dex.

“What’s going on?” Jon demanded, the fear laced through his words unmistakable. How was it that a coward like him had succeeded, climbing through the ranks of the Elite and gaining such a position of power?

“I can’t see anything,” Dex said, pushing against the frightened reporters.

I followed him, elbowing my way through the panic stricken group. That was the problem with large gatherings—humans, when frightened, seemed to lose all sense of awareness, their survival instincts going out the window.

The screaming continued, but I couldn’t tell anymore if it was caused by whatever was going on at the end of the hall, or if it was just the overwhelming terror and panic spreading like wildfire through the room. A particularly burly reporter appeared in front of me—the grip he wrapped around the tops of my arms was punishing and I pushed back against him.

“You need to do something.” His eyes were too wide, and his rapid breathing told me he was going to pass out at any moment.

What the hell had happened to frighten so many people?

“Save us!” he shouted, shaking me as though I was nothing more than a rag doll.

Breaking free of his grip, I tried to push past him to keep up with Dex and Victoria; they’d broken out ahead of me and I’d already lost them in the press of bodies. He grabbed my hair, jerking my head back forcing me to stumble back against his broad chest or risk having my neck snapped.

“No, you have to protect me, don’t let it touch me!” He was well and truly lost to the panic and the hold he had on me was an awkward one.

Twisting back around in his grip, I brought my fist up, driving it into the side of his face. Better he be unconscious now than continue his panicked rampage through the room. If people didn’t start to calm the heck down, this was going to spiral out of control rapidly.

He went down, the grip he had on my hair disappearing as he hit his knees, a surprised look on his face.

“Dex!” The sound of Victoria calling Dex in a panic had me moving once more, and as I broke out through the crowd, someone else grabbed me.

With a frustrated growl, I spun in their grip and lifted my fists. My gaze settled on their face and I faltered, taking an unsteady step backwards as I caught sight of their eyes.

I could only assume the eyes had been blue because now they were grey, covered in a thick white film. The muscles on one side of the face sagged, causing his mouth, his cheek, even his eyelids, to droop, gravity drawing them towards the floor.

He latched onto me once more before I had the chance to deliver the punch I’d been gearing up for. His fingers—if I could even call it a him anymore—dug into the flesh of my shoulders, drawing a pained groan from me.

There was nothing familiar about the man, but he was wearing a cop’s uniform and my heart sank. The rest of the grey smoke had disappeared out beneath the edge of the forensic tent. This was clearly the outcome of its escape.

The forensic guy hadn’t looked like this, but I remembered his eyes; the expression in them, or lack thereof, as he’d been taken over. And whatever had a hold of me now had the same desperate look in its eyes.

Drawing back my arm, I punched it square in the face as hard as my body would allow. It reeled backwards, but the grip it had on me remained unchanged, and as it went down, I went with it.