Touched With Sight (19 page)

Her mother nodded, lips so tight that they were nearly white. Then she went still, and her eyes narrowed as gold bled into her irises before swallowing them whole. If she had been inhabiting the form of something with fur, it would have bristled. “What are you doing in my house?”

The witch was standing behind Catherine. Too close for comfort for any shape-shifter parent. Catherine hadn't even heard him enter the room and if the look on her face was any indication, neither had her mother. The belt of charms and vials was lashed around his waist, poking out through the bottom of his long-sleeved shirt. She saw the magic flicker around him and snapped, “Don't you dare!”

“
Forgive my trespass,” he said, and the magic surrounding him died.

“
Get
out
.” Her mother had recovered from her initial shock and was starting towards him purposefully. Then she stopped. Lifted her head and sniffed delicately at the air. Her eyes ignited with renewed fury that eclipsed all of the fear.

“
It was your scent on my daughter.”

“
Might I remind you that it is considered a crime of treason to assault a member of the Council?” He glided forward, draping an arm around Catherine's shoulder. Provoking Catherine's mother further.

Mrs. Pierce backed down a hair. Not a lot, but enough. Her eyes were still that harsh, golden color that meant business. She looked at him for a very long time, as if memorizing his features, and then lowered her eyes. A subtle display of submission. Catherine wasn't sure if the witch caught it; she certainly had.

“You're on the Council?”

“
I'm Royce's son,” he said. Meaningfully. As if it carried some sort of weight. The name meant nothing to Catherine. But her mother stiffened, dropping into an ungraceful bow as her merged features became human again. Catherine could only imagine her mother's fury behind that restrained facade.

“
Forgive me,” she said coldly, sounding anything but contrite.

He inclined his head; it wasn't clear whether he was accepting the apology or merely acknowledging it. From what she had gleaned of his personality, it could have easily been either. Or both. Who the hell was his father? She had never seen her mother bow to anyone.

Probably some Council bigwig
, she thought sourly.

A long pause stretched out between them. They looked so different, Catherine thought. Her mother: proud, defiant, and ready to attack to defend her home—her pride—if necessary. And the witch: cocky but restrained. He knew he had an advantage, but wasn't in any clear hurry to use it.

“Why are you with my daughter?” Mrs. Pierce asked at last, sounding exhausted.

“
She has been…assisting me.” He paused, glancing to Catherine, before continuing. “Slayers are coming. They are followers of Emilio Bordello—”

“
I thought he worked in Europe,” Mrs. Pierce cut in, sounding frightened.

“
As did I. Not anymore. They have infiltrated the schools under the guise of a youth group, targeting children and then working their way up to the elder members of the families. Today they discovered your daughter. It's only a matter of time before they come here. You and your kin need to evacuate immediately before this house is seized and destroyed, along with any who choose to remain inside.”

“
Relocation,” she whispered. Her eyes went to Catherine again, a question in their depths.

“
Are you prepared?”

“
Yes. I'd hoped—” She shook herself a little. “Catherine, come. Help me get our things to the car. Quickly, now. I can't do it alone—your father's asleep—and Lucas is too young.”

“
She won't be coming with you.”

Mrs. Pierce halted dead in her tracks. “Are you threatening me, Councilman?”

“She has unique abilities that are useful to me.”

Which wasn't exactly a no, and her mother knew it.

Mrs. Pierce's eyes went to her daughter; there was a lot in that look. “Find someone else.”

“
I know what she is,” he said, causing Mrs. Pierce to look away from Catherine. Catherine watched his eyes bore into her mother's, who flinched and went still. “I also know that you would rather she stay with me, in my care, rather than being prosecuted by the Council and sent to rot in the Keep or dissected by a group of curious Slayers in the name of science.”

He nearly spat the word.

“As you wish, your eminence,” she said at last, the words falling like lances from her lips.

Catherine had never seen her look so old.

She felt her heart break as she hugged her mother for what she suspected would be the last time, pressing her face into her shirt so neither she nor the witch could see the tears in her eyes. The soft material smelled like home. Catherine breathed in through her mouth until she couldn't stand it. She broke the embrace just as suddenly as she had initiated it and ran up the stairs. Leaving her mother and the witch to duke it out.

I'm not going to cry.
The scent of salt assailed her nostrils.
Dammit, I'm not going to cry—

Too late.

Her backpack was near the doorway, where she'd dumped it after school. She upended it, spilling pencils and papers all over the floor and began grabbing clothes at random. The midnight edge of the Grimmoire leered at her from beneath the pillow. The start of all her troubles. She was tempted to Change and tear the pages out one by one with her claws. She could almost taste the satisfaction.

And then what?
Prey asked, who had been silent all this time.
You'll release the black magic bound in its spine and kill everyone in the house. You'll be doing the Slayers a favor. You should pack, and run—run, run, run!

As she went down the stairs, she heard her brother's muffled voice (“Mom? What are you doing? What time is it?”) and her mother's urgent response.

Catherine's heart throbbed. She walked faster. She didn't look back. Prey was right. Sometimes you had to run. Sometimes it was the only way to stay alive.

Emilio Bordello would not let her get away twice.

Catherine's heart throbbed. She walked faster. She didn't look back. The witch was standing in the same spot she had left him in, unmoving. His familiar was at his feet and looked more like a statue of a cat than the actual living, breathing article.

Where had she even come from?

“Are you ready to go?” His voice was brusque.

“
I—”

The phone rang. The shrill sound spliced through the grim silence like a knife through warm butter.
Or a mountain lion's jaw through a human's carotid artery
.

Catherine started, her body shifting to a stance that was immediately defensive—and then she felt foolish. The witch watched her, cool as water, although there was an urgency in his eyes that hadn't been there before. “Don't answer that,” he said of the phone.

She snatched the receiver anyway. “Hello?”

Catherine could hear breathing on the other end, loud and nearly frantic. It sounded vaguely obscene.

“Hello?”

More silence. And then, “I know what you are.”

“What?” She clung to the phone like it was a life raft. “What did you say?”

There was no response, only the static of the poor connection and that strange, oddly heavy breathing. If it hadn't been for her hammering heart, she could have easily convinced herself that she had imagined the whole thing. Gritting her teeth and steeling herself, she said, “I think you have the wrong the number. Fucking freak,” she added, for good measure, although her heart was afraid.

Oh gods, could he hear the fear in her voice? she caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, already half-transformed. A repulsed expression flickered across the witch's patrician features, which he was quick to replace with another expressionless mask. “I warned you,” he said.

The line went dead. The dial tone rang in her ears like a death knell.

“They're toying with you,” he said, shifting his weight towards the door, “Using scare tactics to set you off-guard. It's quite juvenile, really.”

“
Well, it's working.” She made no move to follow him. “How can you be so calm?”

“
If they were truly ready to take you and your family down, they would have come through the windows,” he said, with annoying certainty. “Since they haven't, I assume that they are either unprepared, or waiting for some kind of signal. In either case, we shouldn't wait around to find out.”

Catherine hugged her bundle of things tighter. She wanted to believe him, she really did. But leaving her family and everything she'd ever known? She was only seventeen. She hadn't even gotten her college acceptance letters yet. Suddenly, the backpack seemed impossibly light as she thought of all the things that she'd be leaving behind.

“
I don't want to leave. I can't.”

The witch made a scoffing sound, undoing the chain and deadbolt on their door.

“
I mean it.” She walked towards him, speaking to his sweater, since he hadn't turned around. “I don't want to run away. You talked about cowardice earlier. Well, they're just humans—even if they do have silver”—she managed to say the word without shuddering—“I'm faster and strong than they are. I know I could defeat them.”

“
Fool.” His voice was pitched low, and laced with scorn. “You know nothing.”

“
I'm not as weak as you seem to think I am,” she snapped. “Don't underestimate me just because I inhabit the body of an animal sometimes—I have human intelligence and superhuman senses.”

“
But are severely lacking in common sense, it appears,” he said, halting in the doorway so suddenly, she narrowly missed colliding with his back. When he turned around, there were mere inches separating them. The power coming off his skin crackled and she shivered. The urge to take a step back was strong, but she didn't. “They aren't ordinary humans, shifter mine. Don't ever forget that.”

Before she could respond, he'd rolled up his sleeve. The pinkish scars looked pearly in the dim light of the hall. He brandished his wrists. Veins coursed through the pale skin like the striations in marble. “Do you know what these are?”

“
Bleeders' marks,” she said, matching his tone. “Sometimes called the Bracelet of Misfortune. You've shown them to me before.”

His eyes were dark. “Do you know what they use our blood for?”

He'd told her that, too. “They sell it.”

“Yes, but why?”

The smell of ozone stung her nose and made her eyes water. She shook her head.

“To poison vampires is one reason, but I had the pleasure of finding out yet another personally. They bend our natural magic, turning it into something dark and twisted to suit their own evil purposes. Something they use to spell the tips of their arrows and bullets. Magic attracts magic, like reverse poles on a magnet—so tell me, what happens when they fire those weapons at an Other?”

She stared at him, suddenly dry-mouthed. “They'd never miss,” she whispered.

He had told her this before, too.

“Black magic is very powerful—ten times more powerful than the source they obtained it from. When they drained my blood, they were kind enough to give me a field demonstration. They wanted me to appreciate how useful I was.” His lips thinned. “Of course, finding an appropriate target to use wasn't easy. Using a witch would be a waste when their blood is so valuable, and humans have no magic in their worthless bodies. The arrow would only hit something with magic in its veins.”

Suddenly, she knew where this was going and she didn't want to listen anymore. But she couldn't help herself.

“
They brought in a young shifter, who'd been hauled in the same day as me.” His voice dropped. “She was only a child. She hadn't even settled yet.”

She could feel her breaths coming in shorter and shorter spurts. Was that what the Grimmoire was for? Did it contain spells like that? Spells that would teach the Slayers to use the witches' magic against all of the Otherkind?

Oh, gods, Lucas.

  “
Stop it!” she shouted, covering my ears with her hands. Upstairs, she heard the muted voices of her mother and brother fall silent. “Stop it,” she whispered. “That's enough.”

He regarded her a moment longer. She saw the muscles in his throat pulse, as if he was going to say something else. She braced herself for something—a touch, a cruel word. The witch must have changed his mind because she found herself facing his back again.

“
We don't have much time,” he said. “Come along.”

So she did the only thing she could do. She left with the witch.

Ack!(knowledgements)

Writing a book is a task that sometimes feels as insurmountable as one of those impossible errands from a fairytale. And, like those fairytales, the support I get from my friends often feels just as magical.

Extra special thank yous to my fairy godmothers:

• The bloggers who act as my “sidewalk team”, and support me and spread the word of my endeavors in a positive and prosocial way.
  
• Louisa, who designed this cover. Each of her creations is more brilliant than the last.
  
• Wart, who beta-read for this book. He does an amazing job, and I am so grateful to him.
  
• My amazing, supportive friends who hug me when I am sad, and ply me with coffee & sushi.
  
• You, for buying this book. (Obviously.)