Declan forced a tight smile and shook his head. "We"ve got a bond. He needs it from us, but you will be helping. The wolves will have to do most of the guarding until that s.l.u.t is caught. The vampires can not risk it. This would certainly kill them." Then his eyes drifted to the little girl Jonathan still held. "You do have to let the girl go, though, Jonathan."
The were smiled, stroking the tiny blonde head. It was an amazing thing to have a child throw her arms around your neck and cling. "If it will kill them..." His large, luminous eyes drifted to Tori, unable to hide the wors.h.i.+p there. His canines lengthened in rage and Declan felt the power ripple through the air as the werewolf fought the animal inside and contained it.
Amazing, that he could. So few of the weres could control such rage, with the full moon so close. The young man would be a Master Hunter in time.
"Tori isn"t susceptible," Declan said, watching his wife"s face. She was focusing on the task at hand, concentrating and trying to force the life that was slipping away from Eli back inside his dying body.
Her blood wasn"t just intoxicating. Over the years they had discovered it was d.a.m.n near miraculous and could heal almost anything. They had learned this after a silver bullet had torn through them both. Declan had lain nearly dead from blood loss, while Tori wept and cried over him, her own blood seeping from the ever- shrinking hole in her belly.
As her blood flowed onto him, his own bullet wound started to heal. It finally closed nearly an hour later, after expelling the bullet that had lodged inside his gut.
A wound that should have killed Declan instead laid him up in bed for a week while he recovered from the blood loss.
Whether or not it would work on Eli they didn"t know.
The young witch looked like Pippy Longstocking, with two long fat braids that lay over her gently rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s, freckles splattered across her nose and her big brown eyes hidden by tortoisesh.e.l.l frames and thick lenses. A kid...she looked like a mere kid. But her eyes, her eyes looked world weary, and as old as the ages.
A nubby brown sweater hung to her hips and she wore clunky hiking boots on her feet. Tori stared at her with suspicion while thinking, this is the best the council has?
The witch, Kelsey, smiled at Tori and said, "Not the best, no. But the closest. I"ll do what I can, and if what I do isn"t enough, then I can buy him time until another more powerful witch arrives." She turned her large eyes to the blood stained clothes and the wooden arrow, the end decorated with beads, feathers, and magic.
Tori watched as Kelsey trailed her fingers lightly, almost timidly, down the shaft of the overlarge arrow, a hiss coming from her parted lips. "Hatred. So much hatred. Need for justice. Grief. And power."
When the girl lifted her eyes, Tori saw that they glowed hot, the brown gleaming and glowing nearly red with her power. "Blood-spell. She forged this herself, cut it, shaped it, breathed her hate into it. Only her blood will completely save him."
Kelsey"s skin was glowing like a pearl in the sunlight as she held one hand above the arrow and uttered a few words in some unrecognizable language. An orb floated from her hand, forming out of thin air, to hover over the shaft making it whirl, and then it stilled, pointing east. Another guttural word from Kelsey and the orb drifted down until it encased the arrow and she whispered, "Got you."
Moments later she stood over Eli"s still body and said quietly, "Your blood has bought him time. But it won"t heal him. It can"t, Tori. She"s cursed him."
Tori rubbed her wrist where the deep cut healed slowly. In a few days, it would be gone. She was weaker from the loss of so much blood. Thank G.o.d Kelsey had arrived before Declan had tried to feed Eli.
He was in fighting form and not weak from blood loss.
He"d be able to hunt the a.s.sa.s.sin. "Cursed him," Tori repeated, staring at Eli"s still face.
"Curses are real?"
"As real as we are," Kelsey murmured, staring at Eli with pity. "So handsome. He"s something of a wonder, Eli is. He"s what many of the Hunters aspire to be."
"You?"
Kelsey laughed. "No. Not me. I"m a healer, a witch. A d.a.m.n good witch, if I may say so. But I"m no warrior. I serve the council in my own way."
"How can we break the curse?"
Kelsey shrugged. "If it wasn"t a blood-spell, I could probably do it myself. Most curses are fairly simple.
But...but a blood spell can only be broken by the one who did it."
Declan had entered in silence and now he stood behind Tori, a hot, angry presence at her back, while he listened to the witch. "So I just find this woman and ...
convince her to break the spell and he will be fine?"
Declan asked. His voice was a low pitched growl in his anger, as it had been for the past day.
"Don"t you mean coerce?" Kelsey asked with a tiny smile, and then she shook her head. "Not that simple.
She has to give back what she tried to steal. Her life essence to replace his."
"An eye for an eye," Tori murmured.
"Not exactly. She doesn"t have to die. Actually, the way magic works, it"s better if she doesn"t. What she h as to do is feed him."
"And if we don"t find her?"
"He"ll probably die," Kelsey said baldly, lifting her slight shoulders. "She"s placed-well, think of it as a drain that only she can plug. She"s torn something open inside him that will drain his life-force away. She opened it with her blood. Only her blood can close it."
Sarel stared out into the night at the brightly lit house, a fierce joy surging through her. It wouldn"t be long now.
As her blood had caused the wound that would eventually kill the vampire, her blood was linked to him. She could feel his suffering, feel his agony. But there was something missing. Sarel wanted him to curse and rage and fight his coming death.
But Elijah Crawford had accepted it.
Something was keeping him alive longer than she had expected.
The blood-spell should have killed him that day, by noon at the latest, but he still lay, lingering through the beautiful sunrise, and the gloriously bright morning when he received a sudden blast of energy. No d.a.m.n reason, none, for him to have survived more than a few scant hours. She was glad she had conjured the blood spell instead of just poisoning the arrow. If it had just been the poison, what-or whoever-had just fed the creature would have allowed him to throw off the poison.
Something odd was going on inside those walls.
Even though he was dying, that surge of power made her wonder. She dropped from the tree and stood, her long wiry body arching and tensing, forcing stiff muscles to relax as she paced back and forth, nervous as a cat, just as curious, just as mad, her eyes narrowed, hands fisted as she pondered her options.
Not that there were many.
Sarel was going to the house.
She didn"t want to use big magic and warn whoever was inside the house, which meant she had to move closer.
An odd tingle slithered down her spine as she crossed the tree line. In her hurry to check out the house, she shoved it aside. The house...she could see the people inside, and distantly hear them. But she couldn"t see them, with the sight that made her witch. If she trusted just the witch-sight, she would have said the house was void of life. But her eyes and ears told her otherwise.
People were there.
Sarel should have been able to reach out with her magic and coax the elements into aiding her. The wind would have carried their voices and the animals would have whispered their fears.
She should have been able to look through the windows and see not just the people, but what lay inside them. Evil people were always a swirling ma.s.s of gray and sickly putrid yellow. Warriors and soldiers were a strong, solid blue. She saw it almost every time she had evaded a cop after she had run away from home. The warriors, while good men, wouldn"t hesitate to detain a young teenager wandering the streets.
Teachers were white, not just the school teachers, but the ones who taught, like mothers and writers, and painters.
Children were the pale sweet green of spring, innocent and young and easily broken.
Other witches, like Sarel, tended to glow a soft, mellow gold. At least, she had once gleamed golden.
Sarel knew her aura was no longer gold.
Red was now the color of her aura.
Red for rage, red for vengeance, red for anger.
And black for death. Her aura colored everything she looked at-or maybe discolored. Explaining why the few times she caught a glimpse of Elijah Crawford, murderer, child killer, he gleamed that strong, bold blue to her witch"s sight. Her hatred had blinded her, fooled her, made her see things that weren"t there, or believe things that weren"t real. So, of course, she stopped using that sight around him. When she looked through the windows she should have seen a mora.s.s of colors, mostly likely green and sickly grays and blacks.
But she saw nothing. It didn"t dawn on her until too late that one of those people was like her, only stronger. And that witch was blocking her.
From the window she saw a woman, long black hair in tight spiral curls. Had to be a perm. Big blue eyes.
Contacts, definitely. A bandaged wrist. Some s.l.u.t feeding her vampire lover. That one was the witch, Sarel figured, narrowing her eyes and trying to figure out a way past her.
Another woman. Woman, h.e.l.l. A freaking teenager with two red br aids and a conc erned look on her young face. Another child. Like Lori had been. Others moved throughout the room, bringing water and food to the women. One tapped his wrist and gestured to the dying vampire, obviously offering to feed him.
Sarel smiled. "Feed him all you want. Only one thing will break the curse. And he can"t have it."
"Wanna bet?"
Chapter Three.
Kelsey"s back stiffened. "She"s coming," she whispered, her eyes starting to glow with that eerie red-brown fire.
In an odd, slow motion, much like a bird of prey turning to stare at a snake, she said to Declan, "Bring her here."
"She"s a witch," Tori said softly. "She can-"
"No. I"m stronger," Kelsey said with certainty. "I can hold her. She may, and probably will, fight physically.
But no magic, I promise."
As Declan left, his mouth curved in a violent smile, Tori said, "If he is hurt, so are you."
Kelsey laughed, he r face ligh tening. "He won"t be. I"m not much of a warrior, but I"m a h.e.l.l of a witch. I"ve got more ages of practice behind me. And I know my magic."
"Ages?" The lingering doubt in Tori"s eyes and voice was clear for all to see and hear and Kelsey laughed.
Winking at Tori, the witch said, "Vamps don"t have the strong hold on the fountain of youth, Tori."
"Wanna bet?"
Sarel whirled and tried to grab her gun, but the harshly whispered words were the only warning she had before something sprung out of the shadows and took her to the ground. Landing on something both hard and soft as she went down, she was rolled to her belly and pinned, two large furred hands gripping her wrists. Feeling the power ripple through the air and roll like water over her skin, the furred hands became smooth and human and male.
Gathering her focus, Sarel struck out, intending to knock the man flat on his a.s.s, render him unconscious and do what she came for.
Instead the invisible lance of pure power was flung back at her and she writhed, shrieking in agony, certain she was going to die.
Oh, baby, I couldn"t protect you. Couldn"t avenge you either, she thought before she gave in to the pain.
Declan jerked the young woman up and flung her unconscious form over his shoulder. The little witch had come through, he thought with satisfaction. He had felt something like a thunderstorm ready to hit with violent force, and then it died.
No.
Not died.
It had been redirected. Back into the woman who had sent it.
This woman"s magic was rough, much rougher than anybody"s he had ever seen. Powerful, though, and quite deadly, like the power of a tornado. Or maybe like the wild forest fires that sprang up out west and destroyed homes, trees, land, lives.
Generally witches had a power that was more like a laser-refined, true, powerful, and under control.
Declan strode naked into the house with the little b.i.t.c.h"s backside in the air. He stalked up the stairs and carried her into Eli"s room, where his best friend lay dying. With a snarl, he threw her unconscious body down onto the floor and lifted his glowing eyes to stare at Kelsey.
"Now. What." He had to force the words out, his throat was so constricted with rage and anger and he knew his control was near shot. Declan had never fed on human flesh before, but this night it had been tempting.
He had wanted, desperately, to rip her throat out and feed for what she had done. Not even in the hunt had he fed on a human before. It was a line he feared crossing. When the hunger ran too high he hunted the forest for wild game and satisfied his hunger that way.
Or he would s.h.i.+ft to his half wolf form and f.u.c.k Tori until she pleaded for mercy-another way to sate the animal.
Right now, he wanted so badly to feed that his jaws ached with it. Tori stroked his shoulders with soft, soothing hands, pressing a kiss there before wrapping her arms around his waist.
Kelsey moved closer and knelt beside the limp body, staring at the sun kissed flesh of the red-headed woman. Her skin was an odd mellow gold, almost like that of a mixed race child. And her coppery-red hair was escaping from its restraining braid to curl around her face. To Kelsey, there was something unnervingly familiar about her. A familiar look about her, like she had seen her before, maybe regularly. To Declan, she looked hardly more than a child, as he stared down at her, bemused.
The witch had seemed much older before he had taken her down and she had unwittingly knocked herself silly with her own magic. Now, she barely looked to be in her twenties.
Kelsey continued to crouch by the woman"s head, one hand held out, hovering merely centimeters from her still body. A gasp left her throat and her body spasmed once. Declan moved closer, ready to knock her aside and defend her, but Kelsey"s eyes opened, once more glowing. "She"s no threat to me now," she said quietly.
"Let me work."
Sliding deeper into the woman"s sub-consciousness Kelsey absorbed the information she needed simply by sifting through the woman"s memories. Her name was Sarel. Just Sarel. No last name that Kelsey could find.
There had been a young child, four, maybe five. Beaten and battered. The child slowly s.h.i.+fted to a young woman, just a teenager when she had fled a broken down ramshackle house, leaving behind a woman and a crying baby. She had always meant to go back and rescue the child. Had visited, late at night, early in the morning before the father woke. Gave the woman what money or stolen goods she could, urged her to come away with her.
When she had gone back the final time, maybe five years ago, the woman was dead. The man was dead. A house torn apart, trashed and smeared with blood and gore, and the scent that Kelsey knew as vampire, a scent that Sarel had caught, but not known.
The baby, then a young girl, was gone.