Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (17 page)

“I feel like I am.”

“This is a human weakness you feel. Misplaced guilt. Do you not think she deserves to die?”

“Is this a conversation you’re morally qualified to have, vampire?” I opened my eyes to meet his once again. “How many people have you killed just to live?”

Kett smiled. The gesture was tight on his face. “The difference is, I have not broken any laws … not since I was the one enforcing them. Sienna has, on multiple counts. And the number of deaths on my hands is not so large as you make it out to be.”

“One is already too many.”

Kett nodded and stepped back from our intimate huddle. I instantly felt bad. He was a vampire. I was pretty much condemning him for something utterly beyond his control. I knew that was naive.

“I will do it,” I said. “I should be the one to see this through. But if I’m struck down or incapacitated —”

“I will step in and add to my tally. Which is already too long for your youthful morality, dowser.”

“At least you won’t be breaking the law.” Sienna had been tried and convicted. Her life was forfeit, and had been even before she’d learned to keep the powers that she stole from those she murdered. She already had five bodies on her tally, as the vampire called it — including Hudson, Rusty, Jeremy, and two other werewolves — and those were only the ones I knew about.

“But I would for you, Jade.” With a terrible sadness, Kett brushed his fingers across my cheek and then stepped into the suite so quickly I almost didn’t see him go.

Something was really up with the vampire. He wouldn’t tell me what it was until it was past necessary for me to know. I just hoped we got out of London before whatever he was worried about also became an issue for the rest of us.

CHAPTER NINE

Kandy hadn’t returned to the hotel by the time we were ready to go. We texted the werewolf our destination, and then set out on foot. The balmy night had cleared enough I could see a few stars, despite the reflected lights of the city. It was a lovely evening for a walk, except for the hunting and potentially slaughtering my sister part.

As we neared our destination, we circled the two outer blocks twice to dowse for magical activity. There wasn’t any. So, it was just after midnight on November 9th when Kett, Drake, and I turned onto Duval Street, aka the former Dorset Street.

“Millar’s Court was entered through a passageway between numbers twenty-six and twenty-seven, before it was demolished in 1920 to make way for a new fruit market,” Kett said.

I glanced over at the vampire — making sure to constantly keep the overly excited Drake in my peripheral vision — to note that his magic was actually glowing within his skin. It should have been dimmed by the fact that the street was well lit.

“Did you read the wiki page, or is that a first hand accounting?” I teased.

Kett gifted my brilliant repartee with a quirk of his lips.

Drake stepped out from my field of vision and I snagged him back by his hoodie. The hood pulled back from his dark-haired head and exposed the hilt of his sword, which he wore underneath. The gold of the hilt caught and refracted the overhead street light back at me. Drake grinned over his shoulder and dutifully fell into step beside me.

“I don’t see a fruit market,” I said. The north side of the street was dominated by what looked like offices over warehouse storage. A five-story open-air parking lot occupied the south side. Each level of the structure looked like a long stretch of balcony, with white aluminum railings and everything. That was odd. Maybe the parked cars liked to have a view?

I paused midway down the block. Kett slipped into the shadows to my left and dampened his cool peppermint magic further. Drake, all honey and almond magic, placed his back to mine, as we’d practiced in training so many times now. Behind me, his magic was muted from my dowser senses … well, as muted as dragon magic could ever be. But this placement, along with how familiar I was to the taste of his magic, helped me focus ahead and around me.

I used my eyes first, noting the small brass plaque on the door to my left. “Importing/Exporting. Now who do I know who supposedly makes a living doing that?” I asked rhetorically.

“Sayers,” Kett replied. His voice was just a breath of wind, but Drake and I could hear him perfectly well.

“Yep. You’d think one of the other sorcerers might have mentioned he keeps offices near the site of the Dorset Summoning.” I turned to look up at the parking lot across from me. I couldn’t taste any other magic nearby. I would have thought London would be full of magic. Glimmers, at least, or people who maybe didn’t even know they were a quarter or an eighth magical. But it wasn’t. Centuries of humanity dominated here, perhaps whitewashing all the natural magic in its wake.

“This was a stupid guess,” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, even though the other two could hear me just fine. “This is too complicated for Sienna. If it’s even possible. She’s probably in Barbados. We always wanted to go there ...”

It was anger, not pain that stopped me up. So much anger it squeezed the air out of my lungs. Sienna and I had plans. We’d loved life … together. At least that was what I thought. How had it gotten so far astray? With me in London, vampire and dragon in tow, hunting my sister? My best friend?

Magic — bitter dark chocolate and something smoother, closer to semisweet chocolate but not so bland — came from the parallel street, opposite the direction of the hotel.

“Kandy and her Nordic werewolf, Jorgen,” I murmured, right before they jogged into view.

Kandy tucked her chin — she’d previously been sniffing the air — and glared in our direction. Jorgen was grinning, maybe a little manically.

“Well, the good guys are all here,” Drake said. “Time for the bad guys to show and try to out number us.”

“This isn’t a movie, Drake,” I said.

“We doubled back. Didn’t smell anything,” Kandy said as she and Jorgen jaywalked across the street.

“Us as well,” I said. “There’s nothing here. Just go back to your —”

Then I tasted it … just a hint of magic … dark, oily, blood-soaked earth magic.

“Sienna,” I breathed. “There.” I slowly lifted my hand to point across the street.

“The car park?” Kett asked.

Jorgen flinched. He hadn’t known a vampire was hiding in the shadows.

“Odd,” Kett murmured. “I would have thought that the warehouse was closer to the historic location.”

“Which floor?” Kandy asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “Why can’t I taste her more clearly?”

“She’s in a protection circle as before?” Kett asked, stepping out of the shadows and startling Jorgen even more. His wolf momentarily rippled across his face and hands, teeth and claws appearing and disappearing in the same breath. Well, that was cool in a completely amped-up freaky way.

“No,” I said in response to Kett. “Wouldn’t I taste the magic of the circle?” I wrapped the fingers of my left hand through the wedding rings on my necklace, and set my right hand at the hilt of my invisible jade knife. This often helped focus my dowsing magic, but I didn’t need it this time. The hint I’d caught before bloomed on its own.

“She’s here,” I said. I darted across the street, and then realizing the magic was continuing to build, I cried out.
 

“Down!”

We all flattened ourselves as magic exploded out of the parking lot.

“What is it?” Drake asked. “Has she summoned the demons?”

“No,” I answered, peering around the garbage can I’d crouched behind and feeling rather stupid. “Just … um … fog.”

“What?” Kandy snapped. We all straightened to stare at the fog that now filled the balconies of the parking garage.

“Sorcerer,” Kett spat. Yeah, that was a big reaction from the vampire, but I’m guessing Blackwell’s fog spell was an unpleasant memory.

“Not that kind of fog,” I said.

With the other four at my heels, I crossed to the entrance of the lot to get a closer look.

“I think I left my oven on,” Jorgen blurted, and then spun away.

“What?” Kandy asked, grabbing his arm.

“My oven,” the blond werewolf repeated. He tugged his arm against Kandy’s grip.

“Perimeter spell,” Kett said. “To keep the magically lacking away.”

Kandy slapped Jorgen across the face.

The werewolf shook his head, and then grinned. “Thanks.”

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to a line drawn perpendicular to my feet. “Sand?” The fog was neatly contained on the other side of the line.

Jorgen hunkered down to sniff at the sand. “Not beach,” he said.

“Break the line, break the spell?” I asked Kett hopefully.

He shook his head, but didn’t share his thoughts.

“I can’t see through the fog,” I said. “Kandy?”

“Me neither.”

“Kett?”

“No,” the vampire answered reluctantly.

I reached up, palm forward, and extended my hand beyond the sand line and into the fog without resistance. “Not a ward, but …”

“But?” Drake prompted.

“I can’t taste anything beyond the fog. Like all the magic I felt before is diffused now. Evenly distributed through every molecule of fog or something.”

“Distributed?” Kett asked.

“Yeah, I can taste magic all around. But I can’t distinguish the tastes or pinpoint where the magic is emanating from. Nor can I grab or hold it, which means I can’t channel it into the sword.”

I turned to look at Kett with an irritated smile.

“Impressive spell,” he acknowledged.

“Yep, made specifically for me. And Sienna wouldn’t bother cloaking her activities, so I tipped our hand somehow. I’m sorry.” This fog spell was obviously the work of a sorcerer who knew my powers, and I’d rather flagrantly displayed my dowsing ability to three sorcerers today. If one of them hadn’t been in league with Sienna then, they were now.

“We saw a similar type of magic this evening,” Kett said.

“Sayers’ diffusing spell, or magical object, or whatever.”

“We shouldn’t have bothered warning anyone,” Kandy spat. “Then they wouldn’t have known we were coming.”

“I didn’t know you were coming at all,” I said.

“I said I was.” Kandy turned her glare from the fog to me.

I looked over her shoulder at Jorgen. “This isn’t a great idea for a first date. What’s in this fog could get you killed.”

“In the fog itself?” the Nordic werewolf asked.

“No, it seems harmless enough.” I swirled my hand within the entrance. I knew there should be a ticket booth and a gate about a car length ahead, but I couldn’t see it. “But the black witch has only one reason to be here. She’s going to try to raise three demons.”

Jorgen smiled manically. “Sounds like fun.”

Kandy laughed.

“You talk too much, warrior’s daughter,” Drake said. Then he stepped into the fog.

“Damn it, Drake,” I cried after him. “We need some sort of plan.”

“Kandy and Jorgen,” Kett said. “First floor, west to east. I’ll take the second. Drake and Jade start at the third. We meet together at the fourth and continue together to the top, unless one of us finds something before that.” Kett followed Drake into the fog.

“No, splitting up is a bad idea,” I said. Kett didn’t respond. “And that’s only half a plan! What happens if we do run into something and we’ve split up?”

“Looks like the fog was going to separate us anyway,” Kandy said. “This way we won’t be worried we’ve lost each other. See you at the top.” She and Jorgen were swallowed by the fog as soon as they moved beyond the sand barrier line. And I was alone for the third time since stepping out of the portal.

I waited for screams, but none came. I waited to see if I could feel the magic of my friends moving through the fog. If I could feel Sienna’s magic again … but it had been such a brief taste. What if I was wrong?

“Well, Jade,” I said out loud. “Something magical is happening here either way. Why not wade in … it’s what you do best anyway.” Great … now I was talking to myself.

Drake reached out of the fog, grabbed my left wrist, and pulled me over the sand barrier.

Well, that was one way to make a decision.

∞

I could barely see anything within the fog, nor could I taste any magic other than the diluted strains that floated all around me. It was as if the fog spell took all the Adepts within its borders, mixed their magic together, and then diffused it throughout the parking lot structure.

“I don’t even like breathing in here,” I muttered.

“So don’t breathe,” Drake said.

Helpful, wasn’t he?

“The stairs are over here.” The fledgling guardian tugged me farther through the fog to the right. He opened the door to the stairs so swiftly that it crashed into my shoulder.

“Ouch! Watch it, Drake!”

“Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

“You’re holding my hand!”

“Yeah, not your shoulder, though.”

I sighed, realizing as I did so that in that frustrated expulsion of air, I sounded exactly like my Gran. Damn it.

I pushed past Drake and headed up the stairs.

The fog was thinner in the stairwell, as if it had only gotten in because we’d opened the door. “The fog must have spread out from one place,” I said.

“Can you track that?”

“Probably not.”

We rounded the stairwell to see a giant number one painted on a blue door.

“The door on the ground floor was green,” Drake said.

“Great. Now you won’t forget where we parked our car.”

“At the hotel. And the valet parked it, not —”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s all right.”

The third floor was indicated by a giant number two on a red door. Yeah, the Brits were weird when it came to counting floors.

“Ah, I see. The red line on the floor stops here. As the blue line did at the second floor.”

“Yep,” I said as I placed my hands on the door and tried to sense any magic from the other side of it. “I’ve got nothing.” Damn, this was frustrating. I didn’t realize how much I’d started to rely on my dowsing senses until they were gone. “It would be nice to have a witch around,” I said.

“To counter the fog spell?”

“Yeah.”