Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) (35 page)

Ashe’s brow drew down. The guy was barely breathing. His hands were braced on the brick wall, and he suddenly wouldn’t look away from Elias, as though trying to convince the man by eye contact alone.

Suspicion crept up like rising floodwaters as the last few minutes played through her mind.

“Really.” Elias said flatly. “You have no–”

“They want to kill your council,” she interrupted. “Don’t they?”

Luke didn’t answer, but she could see him trembling harder.

Her stomach twisted into a cold knot at the knowledge she’d guessed his fear right.

“And they want to blame it on us,” she finished.

Nathaniel glanced back, and despite his lack of expression, she could see that the same thought was in his head as was in her own.

It’d be a slaughter. Even if the Taliesin council knew what it was up against, the fight and its fallout would still go badly. Horribly. She wasn’t sure there was strong enough a word. But the Blood would make it look like it’d been Merlin, same as they had with the bodies a few blocks away.

Her gaze dropped to the ground as implications spun through her head. The people of Taliesin would go mad for revenge. Her own people would retaliate to save themselves.

And the war would escalate till all the current bloodshed looked like nothing.

It was like a terrifying mirror of what happened eight years ago and the realization left her shaking. The story had always been that Taliesin’s king butchered her family one cold Christmas Eve. He’d tracked them down and murdered them as vengeance for centuries of his people’s magic being bound.

But the start of the war had been chaotic. Information was scarce and sketchy at best. No one had been entirely certain what’d happened.

And all signs had just pointed to Taliesin.

She wasn’t certain she remembered how to breathe.

“You have to help us stop them,” she said. “How do we find your council?”

“Like I’m going to–”

“How do we find them!” she shouted.

He stared at her like she was deranged, and the tinge of contempt in his eyes grew stronger by the second. Her fingernails dug into her palms with the effort of not throwing his magic back in his face, and she couldn’t stop herself from stalking toward him till Elias snagged her arm to hold her back.

With difficulty, she tore her gaze from him and looked to Nathaniel. “Your majesty?” she growled.

Nathaniel paused.

“Do you want the war to end?” he asked Luke.

The young man started to sneer.

“Before you open that mouth of yours,” Elias interjected. “Think.”

“If the Blood take out your council, what do you think will happen?” Nathaniel said. “And what happens if they find your king too? So now you have a choice. You can keep being a smartass and let countless people die. Or you can shut the hell up and help us stop this war from reaching a level neither of our sides have seen.”

Scornfully, Luke looked from one of them to the next, but as the seconds slid past, the derision cracked and began to fade.

“I don’t know how to find the council or the king,” he said. At Elias’ glare, his face took on an irritated cast. “I
don’t
, okay? I swear.”

Luke glanced between them again. “But,” he allowed grudgingly, “I know someone who does.”

*****

“I’m just saying, Chuck is
not
going to be happy to see you.” Luke stated as he opened the rusted alarm panel. Affixed to the alley-side wall of an aging brick building, the small box squealed at being disturbed.

Struggling to keep her hands from catching fire and her gaze from flicking yet again to the security camera above the door, Ashe said nothing. Though they’d only gone a few miles, it felt like they’d crossed half of Croftsburg with the idiotic young man, ducking through alleys and avoiding the endless streams of Taliesin suddenly hell-bent on killing each other. Behind her, the guards watched either end of the alley while a couple steps away, Nathaniel radiated enough impatient energy to power several city blocks.

Luke looked back and then grimaced when he saw his words had earned nothing but aggravated glares. Shaking his head, he returned to the number pad. Keys beeped discordantly beneath his fingers, and then a lock clunked within the metal door.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, pulling the door open.

Fighting to keep from scowling, Ashe followed Nathaniel into the building.

A narrow hallway stretched ahead of them, at the end of which was the wildest conglomeration of furniture she’d ever seen. Victorian sofas pressed up against garish plastic armchairs, and crystal chandeliers dangled in front of posters made from the covers of magazines. Vases crowded every tabletop, along with lamps ranging from the ornate to the kitsch, while across the dusty front window, Good Old Days Antiques, By Appointment Only was stenciled in chipped paint.

Ignoring the mess, Luke stopped at a door to one side of the hall. The hinges squeaked as he yanked the tarnished knob, and a narrow staircase waited beyond, descending into pitch black darkness.

Reaching around the doorframe, he flipped a light switch and then cursed the cobwebs covering the surface. A dim bulb sputtered to life above the stairs as Luke headed down, and in plodding succession, other bulbs followed, lighting the basement hallway.

At the top of the steps, Nathaniel paused. Expressionless, he glanced back to Ashe and then farther to Elias.

“I’m coming with you,” Ashe stated, reading the look in his eyes.

Without a word, he turned and walked down the stairs.

The concrete hall was silent but for the faint buzz of the old lights overhead. Doors lined the corridor, though most hung half off their hinges with broken furniture lurking in the shadows beyond. Unerringly, Luke continued to a door at the end of the hall and then pounded on the cracked wooden surface before heading in.

Ashe’s brow furrowed. Resisting the urge to glance at the others, she followed the young man inside.

Leaning against the edge of a carved oak desk, an old man looked away from the headlines running across his flat panel television as Luke came into the room. On the green velvet desktop by his side, a bottle of brandy and a glass waited, their cut crystal edges catching the light of the candles burning atop the broad fireplace mantel on the opposite side of the room.

Above his sharp features and closely shaved goatee, the man’s gray eyebrow twitched upward, though he gave no other sign of surprise. “You didn’t expect me to be alarmed by over half a dozen Merlin, Lucas?”

“I typed the right code,” Luke replied, a touch defensively.

The man ignored the response. As his unreadable gaze swept over them, he thumbed the mute button and then set down the remote control.

“So,” he continued in the same dry tone as he stepped away from the desk. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

Ashe glanced to Nathaniel. The large wizard’s eyes narrowed as he weighed the situation.

“It’s the king of Merlin and his bodyguards,” Luke said into the pause, and she couldn’t tell if his annoyance was intended for them or the old man. “I mean, I don’t know who the kids are. That one tried to pretend she was their leader, and the others are cripples so…”

Ashe’s face darkened at his tone, but she forced herself to keep silent as the old man’s gaze flicked over her and then away. His lip twitched almost imperceptibly.

“The king of Merlin,” he repeated to Nathaniel.

“And you are?” Nathaniel replied shortly.

The old man’s lip twitched again. Turning, he crossed to an oak cabinet and pulled open the etched glass doors. Faint clinking sounded as he withdrew several crystal snifters.

“Charles Brentworth,” he answered as he returned. “Formerly first in the line of authority on the Taliesin council and… well, we never had regions quite like you.” He gave Nathaniel an inscrutable smile. “A pleasure.”

“We’re looking for your council.”

The old man’s expression took on a wry tinge as he poured brandy into the glasses. “I was going to ask the reason for your visit. I assumed, had you wished to kill me, you would have done so already.”

Seething with impatience, Ashe glanced to Nathaniel, but he never took his eyes from the old man. “Where are they?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Brentworth replied calmly.

Nathaniel’s gaze slid to Luke.

“What?” Luke protested. “Don’t look at me.”

“May I ask why you’re searching for them? Beyond the obvious, that is.”

Nathaniel returned his attention to Brentworth. “Blood wizards are hunting them.”

Almost undetectably, the old man paused, and then his eyebrow lifted. “Who?”

Luke blanched as Nathaniel looked back to him.

“Listen… Uncle Charles…” the young man started, still watching Nathaniel.

“I apologize if Lucas wasted your time,” Brentworth said. “But I simply don’t think there’s anything I can do to–”

“Oh, drop the act,” Elias interrupted. “You’ve seen the news. All hell’s breaking loose out there.”

Brentworth regarded the television briefly. Homemade videos from amateur reporters played between bars of news station branding, showing scenes of police cordoning off another suicide.

“Well, we are in a war, my good fellow,” the old man said with a hint of humored indulgence. “It does tend to ebb and flow.”

Elias’ eyebrows rose, and it was all Ashe could do to keep from exploding.

“Tell him,” Nathaniel growled at Luke.

The young man faltered. “T-there really are these freaks, uncle. The bastard – sorry – I mean, the guy broke into my apartment. He looked human. But he nearly blew the whole place up.”

Brentworth said nothing.

“He chased me down. Some Taliesin were working with him and they caught me. They wanted to know where the council was, where you were, all of it. The guy was about to kill me, and then these Merlin showed up. The king here stole his magic, wiped them all out and then took mine too. But… the guy was real. I swear. He knew about you and the council, and was damn, err, really determined to find you.”

“So you led a collection of Merlin and a pair of young cripples to me instead?”

Luke shifted uncomfortably. “It wasn’t like that…”

“And he took your magic?” Brentworth continued, glancing to Nathaniel.

“He still has it! Can’t you tell?”

Pensively, Brentworth shook his head, and then looked away. His gaze drifted to the television.

Ashe felt like she was going to scream.

“Come on, councilor,” Elias urged, careful control in his tone. “They’re murdering your people. They’re blaming it on us, and your leaders are next. You do the math.”

Silent, the old man watched as reporters cut to a press conference with the police chief. Even muted, the chief’s emphatic denial of the fact he felt out of his depth was easy to read.

Brentworth sighed. “My apologies. My nephew is rather like a human, in his way. Only seeing what he expects to see.”

His gaze flicked to her. “Your majesty.”

Ashe froze.

“You have the look of your father about you,” the old man explained.

Politely, he extended a snifter to Nathaniel, who regarded him and the glass with the impassivity of a wall. Unperturbed, Brentworth proffered additional glasses to Elias and the guards, and then nodded acquiescingly when they refused.

Ashe exhaled, regrouping. “Okay, so… where’s your council?”

“Safe,” Brentworth replied, leaning against his desk again. “At least, one would hope they remain so. They’ve become rather adept at hiding, given that they’ve known the ‘Blood’ have been after them for quite some time.”

“And?” she asked into the pause.

“And quite frankly, your highness, I’m not about to tell you more than that. You are, after all, our enemy.”

He gave her a polite, but slightly condescending smile, and returned his attention to the news.

She stared, her self-control running a hard race with her temper and losing. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Raising an eyebrow, he glanced back at her. “Why is that, exactly?”

“Because I’m trying to save your council members’ lives!”

“So you say,” he said, his tone making clear his limited allowance for the possibility.

“And I’m trying to do that even if,
quite frankly
, they’re not really my concern! I want the Blood dead, preferably before they make this damn war worse. That’s it. So we can either do this now and stop them from murdering your council and possibly your king, or we can wait and your leaders will die. Which would you prefer?”

He regarded her for a moment, and then his gaze flicked across Nathaniel and the others.

“But you see, your majesty,” he told her quietly. “There really is no reason I should trust you. After all, you
are
Merlin.”

“And you’re Taliesin,” she retorted. “And I really don’t care.”

The old man said nothing.

“Clock’s ticking here, councilor,” Elias murmured.

Brentworth regarded him dryly and then looked away. His gaze landed on the television. An apartment burned on the screen.

The wryness melted slowly. He glanced back at Ashe, the barest hint of a considering look touching his face.

Her brow drew down warily.

“The council is in Chaunessy Tower,” Brentworth admitted. “Near the center of downtown. But,” he added as Ashe looked to Nathaniel and Elias. “They will not take kindly to your showing up there. Not without an escort.”

At her expression, he gave her a small smile. “So we can take a few of my cars.”

“Cole?”

The little girl’s brow furrowed unhappily as the plane’s landing jostled her. Eyes squeezed shut, she moved her arm as though it weighed a hundred pounds and tried to put her hand to her head.

“Shh,” he said, watching her between glances to the wizards. By the cockpit, Vivian and Quinton were speaking in low voices to the pilots.

“What…” Lily started, but the question seemed to come with difficulty and she ran out of energy before the remainder could emerge.

“Everything’s fine,” he said quietly. “Just take it easy.”