Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (17 page)

‘
Because once I got jealous, and I
worried about what happened when he fed from girls. I wanted to
know if it turned to more. I haven’t fed from a human remember?’ I
said, almost adding ‘yet’ onto the end, but knowing he was mentally
adding it anyway.

‘
So you wanted to know if he was
shagging you and the girls he fed from at the same time?’ he
sneered.

‘
I haven’t had sex with him Luke,
but yes, I guess I was worried about that, not that it’s any of
your business,’ I said.

‘
You haven’t…? Wow! Uhh, I mean…I
thought…you
are
a vampire
aren’t you, Jess? Oh never mind, what does it matter… So he told
you not to worry, blah, blah, blah, and that he fed from different
people each time?’

‘
Yes, pretty much, and now it
turns out he did have a regular, probably gorgeous, nineteen year
old vampire fan. I guess she adored him. Oh, what am I turning
into? I hate this!’ I needed the kitchen table. My anger was
building. I could feel it simmering beneath the surface, and I
didn’t think Luke would be too impressed if I nuked something right
now.

‘
Jess, are you alright?’ Luke
asked, concern etching his features as he took my hand.

I snatched it back, afraid I’d burn him
or something, jumped up and began pacing. What I needed was a
girlfriend to mull this over with. An ex-boyfriend, who happened to
be a vampire-despising angel, was never going to give me a straight
answer. Eva was a good friend…and a girl, but she was also Daniel’s
maker and therefore biased. I needed Alex, now more than ever
before.

‘
I’m coming with you,’ I
said.

‘
What? Where? To court?’ Luke
asked.

‘
No, to London. I want to find
Alex. You’re going at dawn, aren’t you?’

‘
Well… I’m supposed to be back at
court in a couple of hours. This is a huge thing for the whole
supernatural community. We haven’t had serial drainings for
decades, since it was outlawed… with a death sentence,’ he added
quietly.

‘
Death sentence? They can’t kill
Daniel!’

‘
They can if he has been killing
humans, and they will,’ Luke replied.

‘
But he hasn’t. Shit! What am I
going to do? I can’t leave Daniel if they are going to kill him,
but I can’t leave Alex with Cole either…’

What I needed was Hermione’s time turner
from ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’, but I had a very strong feeling
that I wasn’t going to find a spell for one in my Book of Shadows.
I wondered how Susannah had opened up that vortex. If I could
travel in the ley lines I could get between London and Manchester
in record time…and maybe I could bring Alex with me.

‘
Luke, do you know how to use the
ley lines to travel?’ I asked.

‘
Sure. Angels can use them for
quick transportation across the globe. It was also how we
transported the dark witches to court the other week. Personally I
prefer to fly, after all that’s what God gave us wings for,’ he
said smiling.

‘
God…wow! So you mean… of course,
duh! How stupid of me. You are an angel after all…’

‘
Jessie, your waffling. I’m
concerned. What’s the matter?’ He said.

‘
I mean
God
and you’re an
angel
! So He does exist… I was never sure. Do you
see him?’

‘
Still pretty incoherent there
Jess, but no, I haven’t ever seen the ‘Him’ you mention.
We’re
fallen
angels Jessie.
There are a couple of the originals, so to speak, who remember the
ancient times, but the rest of us have been born here on earth. We
have no contact with that realm, so I couldn’t tell you whether he
still exists or not. Sorry,’ he said, with a shrug.

‘
Oh!’ There wasn’t much else I
could say, at least for the couple of minutes it took for the
endless stream of questions to start pouring out of my
mouth.

‘
But you must surely believe in
Him? You can’t just shrug Him off?’

‘
Of course we believe in him
Jessie, we’re angels! But as I have no proof of him existing, and
I’ve never spoken to or seen him, I wouldn’t try and enforce my
view on others. And after all,
you
are a vampire, so I don’t think it would do you much good
believing in him anyway…’ he said trailing off quietly.

‘
Why? Because all vampires are
damned?’ I said, heating up again.

‘
Pretty much, sorry.’

‘
Whatever! Anyway, if
you’re
fallen
you can’t be all
that godly yourself,’ I retorted, feeling more than a little smug
with myself.

‘
Look,
fallen
just means we’re earth-bound, that’s all.
We weren’t banished to Hell with Satan. We do his work here, that’s
all.’

‘
You tell yourself that, if it
makes you feel better, but I know that I have no intention of going
to Hell anytime soon, or for the next few hundred
years.’

‘
Look, this wasn’t a conversation
I wanted to have…’

‘
I know that. I mean, you much
prefer to pretend you’re a
human
boy, don’t you, then you don’t have to talk about who
you
really
are at all!’ I said
feeling my voice begin to raise a little.

‘
Jessie, can we just get back to
Alex? You were saying about ley lines?’

‘
Okay,’ I said begrudgingly, not
really wanting to drop the subject or stop bickering just yet. I
felt too hot, too frustrated. I had too many niggles and
questions…but they would have to wait. For now.

‘
So, I thought if you have to be
back in the morning at court, then maybe you could whizz me up to
London tonight via the ley lines and then use them to get back in
time? I haven’t had anyone teach me how to use them yet so I need
you to take me,’ I said.

‘
Well, I’m afraid I can’t teach
you, because witches use them differently to us, and I don’t want
to take you and leave you there. We’ll just have to wait a couple
of days,’ he said.

‘
Alex could be in danger, Luke. By
then she could be dead.’

‘
He won’t kill her, I’m sure. He
wouldn’t risk it, he has far too much to lose.’

‘
But if he has got her locked up
somewhere, it’s likely she’s being watched by someone other than
Cole, seeing as he is always visible in Mayfair, and that someone
may not be as careful as Cole.’

I decided to tell him about my brief
experience in Sebastian’s cell, the night his bodyguard tried to
bite and rape me. He was suitably shocked and went immediately into
‘defender’ mode.

‘
You should have told me sooner
Jess. We could have arrested them. Sebastian had no reason to lock
you up…’

‘
He did. I attacked the girl gang
who murdered me. I showed them my fangs and scared them halfway to
Hell and back,’ I interrupted with a grin, as I remembered their
white faces.

‘
Jessie! You can’t do that. You
put the whole supernatural community at risk. Why on
earth…’

‘
Calm down. will you. I know
that
now
, but then I just
wanted revenge. I still do actually, because Sebastian had all
their memories corrected, so they didn’t remember anything I did.
Then he put me in the cell, whilst he talked to Daniel about it. He
didn’t intend to harm me, but unfortunately his flunky guarding my
door had other ideas. If it hadn’t been for my powers enabling me
to protect myself, and my bond with Daniel which ensured he heard
my attack and could come running, it would have ended very
differently. Basically if I had been Alex, he would have raped me,
bitten me, fed from me and possibly killed me, before any help
arrived.’

I waited in silence whilst I let my
words sink in and do their job. I knew Luke cared about Alex, and
he wouldn’t want to risk putting her in jeopardy.

‘
Okay, I’ll take you to London,
but you have to promise me that all you’ll do is stay well in the
shadows, scout around and wait for me to come back. We’ll arrange a
meeting place and once I get out, around midday, I’ll come for you.
But you have to promise, Jessie,’ he said.

‘
I promise. I won’t find Cole, and
I’ll stay in the shadows…hell, I certainly won’t be seeking the
sun, will I?’ I said, grinning. ‘Let me just change and write a
note for Eva, so she knows where I’ve gone.’

‘
Were they going to let you come
with me? Or did you make a stand?’ he said.

‘
No, of course they weren’t,’ I
grinned, ‘but Daniel had actually agreed to take me tomorrow
evening instead, so I’d agreed to wait.’

‘
I thought Sebastian’s vampires
weren’t allowed in the Southern area without an invitation?’ Luke
asked.

‘
They’re not, but I guess as Cole
had invited me and not explicitly banned them from coming, we were
banking on that. It was you guys he said not to involve,
remember?’

‘
So why do you want me to take
you, if Daniel was going to play super hero?’ Luke said, his tone
beginning to cool again.

‘
Daniel isn’t here now, is he? And
believe me, if I knew how to travel the ley lines by myself, I
would
so
be doing this on my
own. There is way too much competitive testosterone flying about
between you guys, but I need you, Luke. I need you now. I need you
to take me to London so we can find Alex.’

‘
Okay, sorry,’ he said, a guilty
smile playing across his lips.

‘
Good, give me ten,’ I said with a
quick smile, as I raced from the room.

Nine and a half minutes later I was in
the kitchen with Luke, wondering whether he was going to get his
wings out, or zap us into the ley lines some other way. To be fair
it hadn’t actually taken me ten minutes to get ready. I had changed
my jeans, thrown on a clean, warm hoody, pulled a brush through my
hair and yanked it back into a don’t mess with me ponytail…or
that’s what I had hoped to have pulled off, just in case I came
face to face with Cole’s henchmen. I’d spent another couple of
minutes writing a short and somewhat apologetic note to Eva. I was
sorry to be deserting her, and leaving Daniel in court, knowing
they would totally freak out about my disappearance, but also
knowing that I couldn’t chance leaving Alex any longer.

The last five minutes I had spent
sitting on my bed staring at the floor. I was still gutted that
Daniel hadn’t told me about Tillie, and for the entire last hour I
had studiously closed off any bond between us, knowing that he
would immediately send Eva back to the house, if he knew what I was
about to do. But for those last few minutes, I cautiously reached
out for him. I blocked out all my fears for the impending trip and
instead allowed him the frailest of connections.

‘
Jessie? Is that you? Are you
alright?’ His words formed in my head, and as I reached out to him,
I could almost picture him in my mind.

‘
Yes. Are you in a dark room? In
my head it looks like a dark room… I thought it would be a cell,
like a jail?’ I asked.

‘
They hold us in rooms, but their
opulence belies their impassable walls. I’m fine, Jessie. Eva has
gone with Sebastian, to work on my defence. Come to me,
please.’

I could feel his pain. He was as
confused as I, about why both dead girls were linked to him. As he
allowed me deeper access to his thoughts than I let him have over
mine, I knew instinctively that he was innocent. Either that or he
was exceptionally skilled at deception.

‘
I’m sorry Daniel, I can’t come
just yet. I need a little time…’ My thoughts drifted and I shut him
out quickly, before he understood why I needed that time. For now
he would have to believe me to be upset over his relationship with
Tillie, but by tomorrow Eva would have found my letter and he would
know the truth. Just before I pulled away, I saw the flash of a
memory, a memory of his last meeting with Tillie, several hours
earlier.

Tillie was a normal girl, she wasn’t
Hollywood gorgeous. She’d had average, mousy brown hair, like mine
had been before my change. As it was his memory, I felt the emotion
that went with it…it was brotherly. He cared about this girl, but
it wasn’t anything more. What’s more she knew about me, and was
asking if he had told me about her yet. I didn’t catch his reply,
or anything more, before I was pulling away, feeling uncomfortable
for spying on his memories…this was exactly the reason why I hadn’t
liked the bond relationship. It was too intense.

I was left feeling guilty. Daniel needed
me and not only was I deserting him, but I would be adding to his
stress and worry the moment he knew me to be gone. I could only
hope that Luke and I could find out where Alex was being kept, then
Luke could get the angel army in to rescue her and I could wing it
back to Daniel, before they cast any sentence that would terminate
our relationship forever.

‘
Okay, so how do you do it then? I
take it you don’t conjure a swirling vortex like Susannah did?’ I
asked Luke, back in the kitchen.

‘
Nope, we fly up and jump aboard
mid-stream,’ he said with a grin.