Sealed With a Curse (WG 1) (19 page)

Misha placed his hand over the hood of the largest vehicle while continuing to hold me with ease. The engine started with a hum and the locks disengaged.

Misha Aleksandr, key fob.
Must be nice to harness Tahoe’s magic
.

Tim slipped into the driver’s seat while my sisters piled into the back. Misha gently laid me across Emme’s
lap. Our bodies were caked with blood, ash, and monster juice, but I couldn’t help the soft sigh that parted my lips. Once again, we’d survived.

“I will not forget what you did for me,” Misha said before he shut the door.

I couldn’t tell for sure whether it was a good thing or bad, but resolved to think it couldn’t be that bad.

Tim nodded at Misha before rolling out of Zhahara’s compound.

Shayna wrinkled her nose. “Hey, Tim. Why did you guys all start glowing when Celia bit Misha?”

Tim glanced over his shoulder, fangs sparkling. “Simple. Celia just stimulated the return of the master’s soul.”

C
HAPTER 17

“What?”
I sat up, clutching Misha’s sweater against my bare skin. Funny how certain things, like passing a test you thought you’d fail, finding a twenty-dollar bill in your pocket, or learning you were capable of returning a vampire’s soul, could give a girl her second wind.

Tim drove along like I was Miss Daisy. “I said you stimulated the return of the master’s soul.”

Taran’s glare sparked her eyes with danger. “We heard you, dipshit. But what the hell does it mean?”

Tim’s voice turned hollow and distant, as if he were speaking from the end of a long, dark tunnel. “It means Celia and the master are forever linked—in spirit, in heart, in marriage—from this day forth until eternity.”

Audible clicks signaled our jaws dropping in unison. “Oh. No.
Hell. No
.” Taran faced me, fury angling her brows like an
American Idol
reject. She pointed a nasty finger at me. “You better get that shit back. I’m not having the Prince of Darkness for a brother-in-law—no matter how hot he is.”

I threw my hand out. “How can I get something back if I’m not sure how I gave it in the first place?”

Shayna gripped the edges of her seat. “Tim, Celia can’t marry Misha! She doesn’t love him or anything. And…and…and…stuff.”

Who needed a defense attorney with Shayna around? Emme blanched worse than when she’d sat on Zhahara’s insides. “There must be something we can do. Celia has a huge crush on Aric. And I’m sure he wouldn’t want—”

I cut her off with a “please don’t drag Aric into this crap storm” stare. I tried to keep my voice calm, but it cracked the minute I spoke. “I refuse to be Misha’s vampire soul mate. Now tell me what I have to do to stop, reverse, or terminate the process.”

Tim’s voice resonated in that same eerie tone. “There is no end. There is only eternity. A love for eternity.”

Taran swore when Emme fell against her. The events of the day hit me all at once. We hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours, and we’d just helped bring down a close-to-indestructible vampire chock-full of nastiness. Karma alone should have allowed me to swing by the nearest drugstore and buy the winning lottery ticket—as in the Powerball, not a master vampire for a lifelong snuggle bunny.

I buried my face in my hands. “This isn’t happening to me.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” Taran squirmed her irate butt across the length of the limo to the open chauffeur’s window. “Damn it, Tim. Unless you want to receive the deepest tan of your life via my sunshine borne of magic, you better tell us how Celia can get a quickie divorce.”

Divorce.
The word echoed in my head. I’d only ever
slept with one guy. How had I ended up married to a master vampire?

Tim’s demeanor turned deadly calm. “Do you realize what this means to the master? A chance to redeem his past sins and join his beloved family in heaven should he die. Until then, his beauty and youth remain. He has an opportunity none of us have. You cannot refuse him!”

Taran thought I could. “The hell she can’t. Let me spell this out for you. Celia is not birthin’ no babies with fangs.” She snapped her fingers to stimulate her fire. “I suggest you start talking, and start talking now.”

Tim pulled off to the side of the road as I hurried to yank Misha’s sweater over me. Loathing tightened his jaws when he faced me. “The only way to break the bond that
you
started is through death.”

Shayna jumped in her seat next to me. I couldn’t jump. I needed a pulse to jump, and my heart had stopped functioning. “Death? Did you say death? You mean one of us has to
die
? There’s no other way to reverse this?”

Tim turned away, took a breath, and faced me once more. “Perhaps…No, never mind, it is too dangerous.”

I hurried to move closer to him. “How can it be more dangerous than dying? Tell me how to fix this!”

Tim’s face set like a frozen tundra. “There is only one way, but it involves the darkest of magic. Demonic possession and loss of limbs may occur.”

My tongue and throat dried and I lost the ability to blink. “Demonic po-possession?”

He frowned. “Do you want to end this or not?”

“Um, yes. Yes, I do. Tell me.”

“There are many steps, and it’s rather complicated.”

Emme took out her phone and hit the “Notes” icon. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”

Tim’s slow, drawn-out breath made me believe he was sharing something he shouldn’t—and in doing so would release a chain of events no one could stop. I listened like my future depended on it. Because, God knew, it did.

“The spell must be performed on a high peak at the rise of the next full moon.”

Which meant I’d be married to Misha for a freaking month. Still, it beat eternity.

Shayna gripped my arm. “That means either Mount Whitney or Mount Williamson. They’re the tallest around.”

Emme typed feverishly. Tim ignored Shayna and continued. “You will need to gather herbs: wolfsbane, belladonna, nightshade…”

Taran tapped her ruined nails on the leather seat. “There’s an organic vitamin shop in South Tahoe that sells herbs. I bet we can find that garbage there.”

Tim’s scowl deepened. “There’s more. You need a piece of alabaster, the whitest you can find.”

Alabaster?
I gave my sisters a blank stare.

Shayna pointed an excited finger at me. “Ooh—eBay. You can get anything on eBay!”

Shayna’s logic kick-started my heart. “Right, eBay. Of course. Okay, what else, Tim?”

“Last—and most important—you will need two virgins and a goat.”

My head slowly turned to meet Tim. He burst out laughing. His whole body shook with hysteria, and tears streaked down his face. I crossed my arms and glared. “You
asshole
!”

Emme stopped typing and exchanged confused glances with Shayna. Taran launched herself onto Tim, smacking the back of his shaved head like a set of bongo
drums. Tim cackled, failing to notice. “You girls are so gullible. I was ready to sell you swampland in Jersey.”

Shayna wrinkled her brow. “So Celia’s not engaged?”

Tim continued to laugh. “Of course not, the master wants a bang, not a bride.”

I debated whether I should feel deeply disturbed that a master vampire wanted to sleep with me or deeply relieved that I didn’t have to decide on a ring bearer. Knowing Misha and I weren’t going to be picking out china made me lean toward deeply relieved. Though that didn’t stop me from punching Tim in the back of the head.

“Ouch!”

“Quit whining and drive,” I snapped.

Tim pulled back onto the road, muttering how I couldn’t take a joke.

“Excuse me, Tim—”

“Emme, tell me you’re not being polite to this prick!” Taran shook out her hands, which were bright red from beating on Tim.

Emme blushed. “Um…I just want to know what the glowing was all about.”

Tim rolled his eyes in the mirror, but then caught the aroma of Taran’s anger and rising magic and decided against further pissing her off. “All master vampires are soul takers—
susceptor animae
. They possess the power to take one’s soul in order to
turn
them vampire. Celia is the rare
dantem animam
—a soul giver. We felt the master’s aura return when she bit him; that’s when we recognized her power.”

Shayna thought about it. “But that seems like some pretty powerful magic. How does it not link them?”

Tim spoke like it was obvious. “Because Celia is not
giving him a piece of her soul, just returning his own back to him.”

Shock spread across Taran’s lovely yet bloodlust-caked features. “Damn, Ceel. You sent a lot of vamps to hell today.”

I shuddered. Vampires were notoriously egocentric, but that shouldn’t have given them an all-access pass to hell—especially when their actions were a result of an infection beyond their control.

Tim groaned when he caught a whiff of my sadness. “For a tigress, you’re a real puss—” My growl cut him off. He cleared his throat. “The return of a soul is something only a master is capable of receiving.”

Shayna leaned toward Tim’s window. “So then she did return Zhahara’s?” She smiled weakly in my direction. “I’m not trying to upset you, Celia. But you did bite her.”

Tim shook his head. “No. Bloodlust is too powerful and foul for the soul to penetrate. Which goes to show the master has no trace of it—even after the level of exposure he had today.”

I thought about what Tim said. “So if direct contact with those infected doesn’t cause the bloodlust, then what does?”

Tim shrugged. “Who cares? The master is safe and it’s no longer our problem.”

“Way to be selfless, Tim.” My mind mulled over my strange newfound power until unease twisted my small intestine into a Christmas bow. I pictured master vampires from all over the world lining up in front of some whacked-out, supernatural kissing booth advertising soul returns for a buck…and me chained on the other side. “Tim, I want Misha’s word that no one else will find out about my
dantem animam
thingy.”

Tim chuckled. “Relax, Celia. Trust me when I say most masters would prefer not to account for their sins.” He turned onto the main road. “Besides, I suspect the master would prefer to keep the return of his essence to himself. A vampire with a soul juggles both life and death at once. Constant touch with such powerful forces grants him greater strength.” Tim fell into a more serious demeanor. “Thereby making him a greater threat to those who oppose him.”

Silence fell among us, yet the events of the day prevented it from lasting. Shayna flashed Emme a grin. “You were quite the hero, Miss Watch Me Lift a Bus. Thanks for coming back to save the day.”

“My power seemed to refresh the closer we got to the lake. Tim was scared to go back—”

“I wasn’t scared!” Tim insisted.

Yes, he was,
Emme mouthed. “But I convinced him it’s what Misha would want. The bus was parked along the front driveway. Tim scaled the wall and looked inside. When he told me you’d trapped Zhahara in the floor, hitting her with something big was the only thing I could think of.”

I laughed. “Well, it worked. I’m so proud of you, Emme.”

Taran smirked. “You did good, baby girl.”

I hugged Emme close just as the phone inside the limo rang. Tim picked it up without hesitation. “Hey, Ana Clara. You still at Z’s?” She whispered something too low for me to hear. “What? Oh, hell, hold on.” He talked over his shoulder. “They found another cluster of infected vampires in the dungeon. They killed most of them, but two escaped.” He ignored our groans and returned to his conversation with Ana Clara. “Look, urge the master out
before anything else happens. Tahoe’s magic will leave him soon. I’ll be back as soon as I drop them off. Later—Oh, yeah. I’ll take a brunette and a redhead. Make sure the master eats well before he falls into the sleep. Yeah, yeah, I know they’re pains in the ass, but the master will be pissed if I leave them on the side of the road.”

Taran narrowed her eyes. “And we shouldn’t kill this prick why…?”

Emme placed her hand over Taran’s. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. It’s probably just a front.”

Tim flashed more fang Emme’s way. It told me two things: No, it wasn’t a front. And, yes, he was a prick.

C
HAPTER 18

I smiled at the sign announcing only three miles remained until we reached Dollar Point. A shower. All I longed for was a nice long, hot shower. It was so close, I could almost smell the olive-oil-and-juniper shampoo.

I made the mistake of examining my hands. There had been times in my life when I’d felt disgusting—after one of my more grueling runs in the sun or a particularly nasty delivery involving body fluids from every human orifice. Those moments paled in comparison to the putrid carnal waste dump my skin and hair had become. An irate woman beating me with her placenta would have been more welcome than the copious amount of Zhahara snot gluing my fingers together.

Taran grimaced when I tried to pry them apart. “Celia, you’re flaking that shit all over the place. Just stop already.”

I ceased my efforts and sighed softly. Nitpicking over grime that would eventually scrub off seemed like a waste of energy. We’d survived, after all—thank God we’d survived. But the danger threatening Tahoe remained.

“There’s still so much we don’t know,” I said aloud.

Tim shrugged. “Yeah. But like I said, what’s important is that the master is safe.”

“I don’t get how he’s safe. We didn’t exactly figure out how the bloodlust spread.” Shayna fished around in her bra. She paused when she gripped something in one of the cups, and paled to the color of chalk when she pulled out some poor sap’s finger. She rolled down the window, tossed the digit, tossed some cookies, and slumped back into her seat. A flock of crows wasted no time fighting over their incredible find.

I rubbed her shoulder and set my frown on Tim. “What’s the next step?”

Tim smiled in the rearview mirror. “One of the family will notify the master’s superiors. Ash from an infected vampire coats the surrounding air with an aroma of boiled anise. With the high levels of bloodlust infection and the number of kills we made, the scent should linger for the next month. That alone will trace the start of the infestation back to Zhahara. And once the human remains are discovered, my master will be perceived as not only a hero, but as the one who avenged their deaths and saw that justice was served.”