Grim Rites (9 page)

I
was a coward
. Darting between the desks, magic continued to claw its way up my throat. I could feel it dancing in my veins, called by a song only it could hear.

The sound of wood splintering tore at my ears and I tried to pick up my pace, but my body was sluggish in its movements as though whatever Jason was doing to me had already wounded me. I limped towards the door, coughing and hacking, blue sparking magic spluttering from my mouth.

Christ, he was actually drawing my power out. Was this what they could do?

I glanced back over my shoulder as the sound of screaming erupted in the office. The sound of twisted metal and shattering glass drew my attention and I watched Victoria draw herself back up out of the tangle of twisted filing cabinets.

Jason strode down the floor after me, his white-eyed gaze locked on mine. Magic pulsed in the air and I could taste it on my tongue. I felt it bleed through my eyes and I knew without needing to see them that they were filled with the true colour of my magic. I clamped my eyes shut; I had to hide what I was.

Pain burned in my shoulder, an irritation at first. But the irritation quickly spread down my arm. Darkness quenched my magic; everywhere the power of the demon mark flowed, I felt my own magic disappear beneath it.

I screamed, pain lancing through my shoulder as my knees buckled beneath me, driving me to the floor. I scrabbled at my clothes and stared down at the place where the mark sat, the dark symbol twisting and swirling as the spidery black veins poured out from its centre.

My insides felt as though they were being slowly ripped apart. I could feel whatever Jason was calling to my magic, but the demon mark was so much more powerful and it crushed my true self back down into my core.

Jason’s hand wrapped around my throat and he lifted me from the floor. My fingers tore at his hold as he tightened his grip on me, slowly cutting off my oxygen.

“I know what you are,” he said, his voice ringing hollow with a power that threatened to scald me.

“You’re reading this all wrong,” Victoria said, moving up behind him.

“I don’t think so, Changeling. I cannot kill you, but I can report you,” Jason sneered, his gaze never leaving mine.

“She’s not a witch, she has been marked by a demon….”

I groaned and fought Jason’s grip harder. As much as I appreciated Victoria trying to help me, I couldn’t imagine that Jason really cared what I was. Demon was just as bad as witch, he’d kill me either way….

Jason cocked his head to one side and studied me carefully before his other hand whipped out and he ripped my T-shirt. The fabric burned against my skin with the force and if I’d had any air in my lungs I might have protested, but with his grip wrapped firmly around my airway, I was in no position to complain.

His eyes widened a little as he caught sight of the mark, but I didn’t know him well enough to tell if that was a good thing or not….

“How?” he asked, shaking me a little as though that would entice me to answer him faster.

I slapped at his grip and his fingers relaxed almost imperceptibly, but it was enough to draw a breath.

“My first case, hunting vampires, and I got caught out…” I lied. I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth. I’d summoned the demon, something no human could do, and he needed to believe I was human.

“She was hunting a witch,” Victoria said, cutting me off.

“A witch?” Jason asked, suddenly sounding more interested.

The look Victoria gave me over his shoulder told me I needed to tell him about Lily.

“What witch?” he asked, shaking me again hard enough to cause my teeth to rattle.

“Not any witch, a Shadow Sorceress,” I said, a bolt of guilt ripping through my core.

I wanted to catch her myself and she definitely needed to be stopped, but she was still my sister. It was my fault she was as warped as she’d become. I’d basically created the monster she’d become and so serving her up on a platter to the
Saga Venatione
just didn’t sit right with me. It was a primal instinct more than a truly rational thought.

Jason released me and I plummeted to the earth like a rock. Instincts kicked in and I broke my fall, rolling up onto my feet the way I imagined a cat might. It was the first time I’d successfully managed to get the move right—every time I’d practiced it in training, I’d ended up on my knees.

The white in his eyes fled, leaving his very normal and human gaze behind. But it was something that would haunt my nightmares. I’d heard stories of the witch hunters, but I’d always believed them to be fairy-tales told to small children to ensure their compliance and good behaviour. The last thing I’d imagined was that a true witch hunter could be worse than the stories of old.

“Where is she now?” he asked. His voice had lost the hollow sound to it. Jason crossed his arms and stared down at me with the look of a man who hadn’t decided if he planned on killing me yet or not.

“We don’t know,” I said honestly. There was no point in lying to him. Not now that he knew Lily existed—he’d only find out about her anyway.

He narrowed his eyes in my direction and I felt heat creeping up into my cheeks. “Why do I get the impression there’s something you’re not telling me?” he said.

Dropping my gaze back to the floor, I stared down at my booted feet and sighed.

“There’s something else,” I said, raising my gaze back to his face. I fought the urge to look at him with defiance. If I could make myself seem as insignificant as possible, then he was more likely to forget about me and move on.

“Go on,” he said.

“She wants me to give her Zeck’s Bone Blade,” I said, simply keeping my voice devoid of all emotion.

“And why would she think you would?”

“Because we made a deal,” I said.

Jason started, his expression shifting to one of surprise and then glee. He honestly thought he had me, that I was guilty of something he could have me locked away for.

“You made a deal with a Shadow Sorceress? What did she give you?”

“She saved Graham, she said she could bring him back if I gave her the Bone Blade, so I agreed.”

Jason’s gleeful expression faded around the edges, the light dimming in his eyes as it dawned on him that I wasn’t the evil bitch he’d decided I was. He didn’t know the truth, but the more I could make him believe that he was wrong about everything he knew about me, the better it would be for me.

“And Graham is?”

“My partner. He and I were working on the Zeck case when he was hurt, hurt really bad. They didn’t think he’d make it, so I made the deal with the witch.”

I purposefully kept her name out of it. I didn’t need to give him any power over her. If he was going to hunt Lily down, then he would do it without the ability to cripple her before she even had the chance to see him coming. It was stupid; I should have been helping him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just betrayed her by giving him the knowledge that she even existed.

Why I felt like this, well, I had no idea. I shouldn’t have. She was bad news, and given the opportunity, she would kill me. But there was still a small part of me that couldn’t overlook the fact that she was part of my father.

It didn’t make any sense and I wasn’t in any mood to try and wrap my mind around it now. At least not with a real life witch hunter standing across from me.

Jason nodded and I let my shoulders drop. He believed me, or at least he was giving all the appearances of someone who believed me. What that man really thought, well, it would take someone a lot stronger than I was to crack that thick nut of his.

“Can I go now? The last few hours haven’t exactly been peachy and I need a shower…” I said, gesturing to my ruined clothes.

“Have you given her the knife yet?” he asked.

“No, she said she’d contact me and tell me where,” I said, suspicion rising the hairs across the back of my neck.

“Well, when she does, I want you to tell me. She thinks she has an in with you and we’re going to use that. If she wants the blade, we’ll give it to her, but I’ll be waiting, and she won’t escape me….” There was something in his tone of voice that curdled my stomach. Bile crept up the back of my throat and it was an effort to keep my expression as neutral as possible.

He spoke about her as though she wasn’t human at all, and part of me couldn’t help but wonder: if he was given the opportunity, would he kill her or bring her in for trial? Jason had a sort of a greyness about him, and I wasn’t honestly sure what he’d prefer to do.

“Fine, I’ll tell you, but you won’t just kill her, you’ll bring her in for a fair trial?” I said.

He cocked an eyebrow in my direction and a slow smile crept across his face. “Are you feeling an attachment to her? Maybe feeling bad for what might occur after everything you saw here this morning?”

“You mean the part where you went nuts and tried to kill me? You could say I might have some reservations about your abilities to do your job without bias.”

He stiffened and stared at me; the smile remained on his face and I couldn’t help but wonder how he did it. Whatever I felt was usually reflected on my face. I was working hard to perfect my blank cop face but I still hadn’t fully mastered it yet. Jason, on the other hand, had it nailed down flat.

“If she cooperates, she’ll be brought in for trial. If not, then….” He shrugged, the smile never leaving his lips.

I could tell simply to look at him which scenario he’d prefer to have happen, and it wasn’t the one where he brought Lily in for questioning.

“We still need your statement, Amber, over what happened with the demon,” Victoria cut in, the look in her dark eyes telling me she wanted to do more than talk demons.

“Not right now, and anyway, Captain Cardboard here saw everything I did. He can fill you in just as well as I ever could,” I said, spinning on my heel and stalking out towards the main doors.

Nobody followed me, and for that I was grateful. I’d had enough, and the last thing I needed was someone asking me questions. Reaching the foyer, I paused and stared at Nic. He sat waiting for me, his arms folded across his chest, his legs stretched out in front of him.

How could he be so utterly different from his brother? They were like chalk and cheese. Nic knew what I was and, despite being a hunter, he hadn’t tried to turn me over to the authorities. Yet, anyway.

“We good to go?” he asked, pushing up onto his feet.

“Maybe I should go alone. I think your brother is going to want to have another chat with you,” I said, forcing my voice to remain light.

I couldn’t blame Nic for his brother’s bad attitude.

“I have nothing to say to him,” Nic said curtly.

He was hurting. I could see it in his gaze. And what was worse, he clearly didn’t understand the full implications of what his brother truly was. Hell, I hadn’t understood it until I’d seen Jason flip out.

“And I think you do…” I started to say, when Nic shook his head.

“Look, I know you mean well, but don’t try and tell me what I do or don’t feel or need where my asshole of a brother is concerned. I have nothing to say and there’s nothing he can say to make things all right between us….”

I bit my lip and nodded. There was nothing I could say, he was right. But if he allowed it to go on as it was between them, it would simply fester. What Jason had done was really and truly unforgivable, and yet there was a part of me that could understand it. He’d only done what he thought was best, what he thought would protect his family, and I really couldn’t blame him for that.

Jason appeared in the door and Nic strode straight out past me to the door. I let him go without trying to stop him. This wasn’t my fight and it certainly wasn’t my place to try and fix whatever had gone wrong between them. If I interfered, all I’d really achieve was driving a wedge between Nic and I.

Jason’s gaze flipped to me and it was more than a little hostile, but I shrugged it off. If he wanted to blame me for the way he’d screwed up his family, then he could; I didn’t care anymore. I had more than enough on my plate, and my desire for a shower far outweighed any other concern I might have had.

Pushing open the door, I turned my back on Jason and the Elite, the afternoon sunshine beating down on my face. If only life was made up of moments like this, part of me couldn’t help but believe it wouldn’t be half as complicated as usual.

P
ushing
open the front door of my apartment I sucked in a deep breath and let the tension slowly melt from my shoulders. It felt like an age since I’d been inside my own home; in reality it was only twenty-four hours, but it had been a tough day, and all I really wanted to do was wash the grime from my body beneath the spray of my own water.

The smell was the first thing to hit me and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. Nic followed me inside and cringed.

“Did you unplug your fridge?” he asked, covering his nose and mouth with his arm.

I shook my head. It wasn’t a habit of mine, and yet there was no denying the smell of rot. Fear prickled along my scalp and I took a tentative step forward.

The smell wasn’t coming from the kitchen, so it couldn’t be the fridge. Moving along the hall, I let my magic roam without needing to think about it. It was becoming instinctual, to simply use my magic, and while I was happy, there was a small part of me that couldn’t help but worry that perhaps I was getting a little too comfortable with relying on my magic all the time.

“What do you think it is?” Nic asked, moving up along ide me. He already had his gun out.

“I have no idea, but I know yesterday the place didn’t smell like death….”

Creeping down the hall, I paused outside my bedroom door and toed it open carefully, peering inside as it swung wide. The body lay spread-eagled across the bed and my stomach revolted instantly. I raced down the hall to the bathroom and barely made it in time to vomit into the toilet bowl. Bile raced up the back of my throat, my nose, and eyes, stinging as my stomach continued to rebel over and over.

“Amber,” Nic called to me and I crawled to the edge of the bathroom door and flopped back against the wall.

“What?” My voice sounded strange even to my own ears.

“I think you need to get back here…” he said, and there was something about the way he said it that had me push onto my feet once more.

The last thing I wanted to do was step back into the room. Steve’s body still lay across the bed, the smell sending trickles of bile racing back up my throat once more. What was wrong with me? I dealt with death nearly every day and this shouldn’t have caused me to react so violently. But then there was a huge difference between preparing yourself to go to a crime scene and coming home to find the remains of one spread across your duvet.

“Look,” Nic said, pointing to something just out of sight behind the corner of the bed.

I took another step into the room and my knees threatened to buckle beneath me. Sonia sat with her knees tucked up under her chin, rocking her body back and forth against the wall. I could tell from the blood smeared across her clothes that she had obviously been the one to move Steve. How had she even gotten his body up here without someone stopping her?

“Sonia?” I said, keeping my voice low as I called out to her.

Her head snapped up and she stared at me with the blank expression of someone who had well and truly slipped into shock.

How long had she been sitting here?

“You can fix him, Amber, you can bring him back. I know you can fix him, I….” She trailed off, confusion washing over her expression once more.

“I can’t remember why I know you can bring him back…” she said, peering up at me. She looked more like a small child than a grown woman, and my heart clenched as though someone had wrapped their fist around it.

I’d wiped her memory. I’d cleared the memory of Steve’s death from her head by accident, and now this was the outcome….

Shame welled within me and I dropped to my knees on the floor next to her. Her hand reached out, closing around mine, and I let her. The very least I owed her was a little human comfort.

She’d figured out what I was and she would have used it against me, I was certain of it. But that didn’t change the fact that what I’d done was wrong, unforgivable even. I’d taken my own selfish needs and placed them above the rights of another human being. How was I ever supposed to atone for something like that?

Sonia clung to me, her nails digging into my arm as her wide and frantic eyes stared up into mine.

“You can bring him back, Amber, I know you can….”

I glanced back at the bed and my stomach once more threatened to revolt. She wasn’t wrong; some Shadow Sorcerers had been known to raise others from the dead. Usually the one they were raising had to have some sort of magic to begin with. But that level of magic had disappeared from the world long before the Shadow Sorcerers had been wiped out. Even among their own, it was a power considered too dangerous because of the effect it had on the balance.

And to a witch, there was nothing more important than the preservation of the balance.

“Sonia, I can’t…” I said, but she didn’t hear me.

Dragging herself up onto her knees, her grip on my arm tightened to the point where it was becoming uncomfortable. But I’d caused this and if the worst I had to endure was a little discomfort, then I’d be lucky. For what I’d done to her, I deserved everything I got.

“No, I know you can, I know it…. He’s not dead, Amber, I can still feel him!”

“Sonia, he’s gone. I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing I or anyone else can do. Nobody has that kind of power….” The words were a mistake the second they left my mouth, and regret welled within me.

“You do, you’re a witch!” she said, clapping her hands wildly before grabbing my face.

She smelled of rot and decay and her hands were coated with dry blood. I didn’t want to think about the things she’d needed to do in order to get Steve’s body here, but he wasn’t capable of bleeding anymore, so where had the dried blood on her hands come from?

“I can’t,” I said.

Her face twisted into an expression I’d never thought another human capable of. She lashed out at me, her fist connecting with the side of my face before I had the chance to react.

I fell back awkwardly but she was already crawling over the top of me, slicing at my face and arms with her nails. Grabbing her arms, I tried to force them down at her sides, but she was stronger than me, her grief giving her a strength I wasn’t expecting.

Nic appeared, wrapping his arms around her waist as he lifted her from me, and I rolled onto my feet. She fought his grip, her screams enough to raise the dead from their slumber.

“Silence,” I muttered the word beneath my breath and my magic rolled out to coat the apartment.

The last thing I needed was for the neighbours to hear the commotion and call the cops. How was I going to explain the rotting corpse and his inconsolable, pregnant girlfriend who believed I could bring him back from the dead?

My ears popped as the spell settled around us. I had no idea how long it would last, but I was hoping it would be enough time to get Sonia to calm down and see sense.

“Are you going to help me?” Nic asked, as Sonia wriggled around in his grip and caught the side of his neck, her fingers leaving little bloody trails down over his skin.

“Sonia, stop, we can talk about this…” I said.

What the hell was I supposed to do? Talking her down didn’t really seem like an option, but I wasn’t sure what other choice I had. An uneasy sensation in the pit of my stomach told me that perhaps bringing Steve back wasn’t outside my abilities, but I couldn’t take that chance. An inexperienced witch was a dangerous one and I was definitely inexperienced. The fact that I didn’t have full control over my powers frightened me, and I wasn’t about to start testing the bounds of my abilities with something as dangerous as necromancy.

She shot me a look over her shoulder and spat in my general direction; the expression in her eyes was wild and a thread of fear raced through me. What I was looking at wasn’t just grief, it was something so much more than that.

What had I done to her?

“You bring him back or I will kill you!” she said, managing to bring her elbow back into Nic’s ribcage enough to make him cringe.

“I can’t bring him back, somewhere deep down inside you have to know this.”

“Why?” she asked, slowing down a little to glare at me.

“It’s too dangerous…” I started to say and then paused. It wasn’t just dangerous, it was downright illegal, immoral, and a whole host of other equally nasty things.

“I don’t believe you,” she screamed, and resumed her attempt at tearing Nic apart. She brought her head back, catching him in the face with enough force to cause my eyes to water.

Breaking away from his grip, she ran at me, wrapping her hand around my throat as she rammed my back into the wall. A picture hanging next to my head crashed to the floor, the glass spraying everywhere.

Staring into her face was like staring into the face of insanity itself, and my stomach clenched painfully. I’d brought her to this. Her fingers tightened and I choked.

Magic swirled in my veins near the surface; it was simply waiting for me to give the word, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Magic had gotten me into this predicament. Whatever I’d done to Sonia had been a step too far.

“Bring him back,” she snarled.

Closing my eyes, I shook my head. She didn’t know what she was asking of me. The balance couldn’t be disturbed.

“You did this, why won’t you bring him back?” she asked, her voice suddenly dropping, and I felt her grip on my throat lighten.

“There’s a balance, Sonia, to bring him back would require an exchange….” I swallowed hard. I didn’t know exactly what it would take to bring him back, but I had a pretty good idea and the thought left me feeling cold.

“You mean a sacrifice?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing past the bile in my throat.

“Then what are you waiting for?” she said, her smile lighting up her tear-stained face.

“I can’t sacrifice someone to bring Steve back,” I said, but I could tell from the look on her face that there was more than she was telling me.

“If you don’t, I’ll release your statement to the world, Amber; everyone will know what you are, what you’ve done….” As she spoke, she tugged her cellphone from her pocket and I could see the little red light on the screen that indicated she’d recorded everything we’d said.

Anger flared through and, without thinking, I crashed into her, my momentum taking us both to the floor as I snatched the cellphone away from her. My heart sank lower as I stared down at the screen. She hadn’t just recorded everything—Jon’s home number flashed on the screen indicating the call was still live.

I smashed my thumb against the screen, ending the call as panic ran riot in my head.

“You called, Jon? Did you expect me to bring Steve back while I awaited execution? Or did you hope I’d feel bad enough for you that I’d do it before Jon could arrest me?”

“Relax, it’s his answering machine. You’ve got time to do as I ask and then I’ll go and erase the message….”

“You’re crazy,” I said, smashing her phone against the floor.

Rage welled in my core and the urge to rip and tear the nearest living thing to me surged inside me.

“What’s wrong with you?” she said, scuttling backwards across the floor.

Nic crossed the room and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me until I was forced to blink up at him.

“Amber, get a grip…” he said. The trace of fear lurking at the back of his voice was unmistakable, and it washed over me like a bucket of ice water, quenching my rage as though it had never been there.

“I’m fine,” I said, shrugging out of his hold, my heart sinking in my chest as I realised there was nothing I could do.

“Your eyes went dark, that’s not exactly what I would call fine….”

I shook my head, ignoring him. I could only afford to deal with one issue at a time and the threat of immediate exposure was a pretty good one to focus on.

“Can you bring him back?” Nic asked suddenly, and I jerked my head up to look at him. He couldn’t be serious. Even if he was, he had to know just how dangerous something like that was.

“No,” I said, but I couldn’t stop the slight hitch in my voice, and I knew from the way Nic was looking at me that he’d noticed it too.

Dragging my gaze away from him, I stared at Sonia, who’d taken up her position next to the bed. I watched as she lovingly stroked the side of Steve’s bloated and discoloured face. If I didn’t do something soon, things were going to get a hell of a lot more awkward when Steve’s body started to break down.

Of course, I wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore if Jon went home and found the message on his answering machine first….

“I need to talk to you privately,” I said, keeping my voice low enough that Sonia wouldn’t hear me.

Nic didn’t need to be asked twice and simply followed me out into the hall. I had no choice, I would tell him the truth, and then perhaps he could decide for himself if he would help me or not. All I could hope was that he didn’t start to see me differently once he knew what I’d done to Sonia.

Karma’s a bitch. I just hadn’t expected her to start catching up to me so quickly.