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Authors: Kelley Armstrong

Spellbound (19 page)

BOOK: Spellbound
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And we'll be bestest friends forever, Savannah. I just know it.
I'd met girls like Roni in school. They thought I was cool. The rebellious, misunderstood outsider. I must need friends. So they'd applied for the job.
Problem was, I already had friends. Not close ones—not in school anyway—but I didn't want more, and even if I did, I wouldn't want them. Those girls didn't think I'd be fun to hang out with. They just wanted to siphon off some of my cool factor . . . and have a guard dog who'd attack every stuck-up bitch who'd ever made them cry.
Roni looked at me and saw everything she wanted to be. Tough, yes. Confident, definitely. But most of all, what Roni wanted to be was a supernatural. She wanted power, and I had it in spades. Or so she thought.
My instinct was to treat her the same way I'd treated those girls in high school. Slap her down fast and hard, before the rejection hurt too much. Only in this case, that would be a really, really stupid thing to do.
“So,” I said. “Giles and Althea—”
“Oh, aren't they amazing? Althea has taught me so much, and she's been so nice. And Giles. When they tell you who he is, you're going to flip.”
“Who he is?”
“Who he really is.” Her eyes glittered. “And how old he really is. I can't talk about that, so don't ask me, but it will make all the difference. It did with me.” She inhaled. “It's beyond anything you could imagine.”
Oh, I had a good imagination. I suspected Giles and Althea did too, spinning tales of glory for their acolytes.
“What I don't get is why they need me,” I said. “Giles said I already gave them the information they wanted, though I can't remember saying . . .” I trailed off and faked a look of dawning realization. “Did you tell them I said something? If you lied to them—”
“I wouldn't do that. You did tell me something.” A shimmer of cunning lit her eyes. “You just didn't know it. Not that it was your fault, and don't worry, nobody's going to get hurt. They just wanted to know where—”
She stopped.
Wanted to know where what? I racked my brain to remember all the conversations we'd had. She'd never taken an interest in anything—
No, she had taken an interest. In one person.
I remembered her fan-girl moment when she'd overheard me mention Hope. Asking me if she was in Miami. If she could meet her.
Roni was a member of some unknown supernatural sect that wanted to know the whereabouts of Lucifer's daughter. And we were investigating a group that wanted to summon Lucifer.
Oh, shit.
“This group,” I said. “They're—”
The door squeaked open and Althea's quiet voice cut through the room.
“I think that's enough, Veronica.”
Roni leapt to her feet. “I was just—”
“Keeping Savannah company. I appreciate that. Right now, though, there are folks waiting to meet her.”
Two people followed Althea in. A guy and a girl, not much older than me. Both brown haired. Both average height. There was nothing to make them stand out—not a scar, not a tattoo, not a piercing. Even their clothing was standard college wear. But I'd seen them before. Starring in the video shot at Walter Alston's estate.
“This is Severin,” Althea said. “And his twin sister, Sierra.”
My gorge rose, remembering what they'd done to Alston. I looked away.
Sierra laughed. “You didn't tell us she was shy.”
She slid forward and brushed her fingers across my cheek. I snapped and managed to catch the tip of one in my teeth before she yanked back with a gasp.
Severin laughed. “Not so shy after all, sis. That'll teach you to keep your hands where they belong.”
“Oh, I'll teach her where my hands belong. No witch brat—”
“Enough,” Althea said. “Your job is to escort her to the meeting hall. Now untie her.”
eighteen
I
knew better than to fight back—I'd only establish myself as a difficult prisoner needing more guards. Instead, just look and learn. Take note of the players. Study their personalities and weaknesses.
As I was being led from my room, my job was to pay attention. Learn the layout. Form an escape route. A worthy plan, one that would have been a lot easier to put into motion had I not been blindfolded the whole fucking time.
Still, I paid attention. How far did we walk? How many turns did we make? What did the floor feel like under my sneakers? Was it concrete? Wood? Carpet? What did I smell? What did I hear?
There was a dampness to the air I associated with basements. Underground then? The hard floor—likely concrete—suggested I was right. That made it tough. When I'd been held captive before, it'd been underground, and I remembered the hellish time Elena had getting out. It had been so difficult that she'd had to return for me later, with Paige and the others.
I shoved down the flare of panic. This wasn't the same situation. There were no “cells” here. Probably no other captives. Just me. Special. As always.
When they took off the blindfold, I was in a room with ten people, including Roni, Althea, Giles, and the Torture Twins. I filed away the names of the newcomers, storing them until they did something to prove they might be dangerous or useful. For now, they were five more bodies to get past on my way to the exit.
Ten people in the group. That wasn't bad. Other than Althea and Giles, they were all young—twenties and early thirties. The idealism of youth. Seemed to have skipped me, but I blame that on growing up with Paige and Lucas, whose idealism shines like the noonday sun. I'd learned to start pulling the shades before I went blind.
“Okay, look,” I said when they'd finished introductions. “I'd say I'm pleased to meet all of you, but you know that's bullshit. I'm your prisoner. I don't know where I am. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want from me.”
“So now you're ready to start asking questions?” Althea said.
“If you think holding me in a room for a day or two will make me break down and tell you everything, don't bother. If you've done your research, you'll know I've been kidnapped before. I spent weeks in a cell. I'm not going to snap and betray my friends for warm blankets and a feather pillow.”
“Guess we'll have to do this another way then.” Sierra smiled. “Shall I get my tools, Giles?”
Roni flinched. I was pretty sure Althea did, too. The others shifted, uncomfortable. Giles only gave her a look of stern disapproval.
“There will be none of that,” he said. “Savannah is angry, and rightfully so. I can assure her, though, that we weren't deliberately withholding answers. We were simply waiting until everyone was here to participate in this meeting.”
“So, can we get to it now?”
He smiled. “Yes, I won't keep you waiting any longer. Right this way, please.”
He walked to a door and held it open. Inside it was dark. I stopped, ready to dig in my heels, then he pulled back a curtain, and I saw light beyond.
Roni hurried ahead to hold back the curtain for me. Giles had already disappeared. The others were behind me. Sierra jostled past, her brother following. The others circled wider, passing, until it was only Althea, Roni, and me.
I glanced back. I could take them. Even without spells, I was sure I could. It was the other eight people, only a few yards away, that posed a problem.
I continued into the meeting room. Ahead, Giles was blathering on in his outdoor voice, and it bounced off the walls, so loudly I couldn't make out the words until I walked through the curtain. We were stopped there, in an alcove, the rest of the group hidden from view as Giles paced the front of the room and talked.
“We have promised you many things,” he was saying. “And while we continue to work together to bring our dreams to fruition, I have now delivered on one of my promises.”
He turned and motioned me forward. I stepped past the end of the curtain, and a gasp went up. Then a cheer.
“May I present a young lady who needs no introduction. Miss Savannah Levine.”
I turned and looked out, and found myself on a stage overlooking an auditorium. An auditorium filled with people, all looking up at me and cheering.
Oh, shit.
 
 
At first, all I could hear was the cheering, and when that stopped, the thundering of my own blood filled my ears. I stared out at the sea of faces. I tried to count them. My brain stuttered and I had to start over, and finally gave up and counted rows, estimating instead.
Close to two hundred people filled that room. Two hundred supernaturals, aligned to expose the supernatural world—
No, maybe I was wrong. I'd guessed these were the people behind the uprising, but my only proof was Sierra and Severin. No way could there be this many supernaturals already aligned in a plan that everyone with a brain knew was madness. It'd be a damned suicide cult.
Giles was still emoting as he paced the stage. “—long have supernaturals waited for this day. We have waited patiently because we knew it would come. The signs would appear. The signs foretold in the Phalegian Prophecy.”
Phalegian Prophecy? I searched for a memory of such a thing. Sure, supernaturals had prophecies, like any other group. Predictions of the future written by some nut-job, then warped and stretched to fit a current situation. Proof the world was going to end.
Proof that it was time to reveal ourselves, though? I'd never heard of that one.
“The signs have been clear,” he continued. “Signs that our day of revelation is coming.” He paused for a cheer. “Signs that our day of dominance is coming.” A bigger cheer now, so loud it made my ears ring.
Dominance? Seriously? What? Supernaturals are going to take over the world? Were these people idiots? I'd barely passed high school math, and I could do the calculations. Humans outnumbered us by tens of thousands to one.
“Now we prepare to put our plan in motion . . .”
What plan? Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?
“First, though, we must complete the gathering of the signs. Once we have them all, others will come. They will join our cause and unite to make this the kind of world supernaturals deserve. A world where we don't need to hide. Don't need to cower. Don't need to fear persecution. And why should we fear persecution? We are supernaturals. We are superior. This is our birthright and we will seize it now!”
As the crowd roared, the sarcasm bled from my thoughts. I stared out at that room and I saw the exhilaration and the anger, the pride and the resentment. I looked out there and I saw myself.
This was a force that could grow into something beyond our worst nightmares because it didn't matter how illogical the plan was. What these people felt was not logical. It was a hunger and hatred that boiled in their veins. I'd grown up with that hunger and that hatred—that desire to make my power felt—and even now, I felt the pull of it.
I heard that voice inside me that said I
was
special. I
was
superior. That voice that had screamed every time a teacher tried to tell me what to do. Every time any human tried to tell me what to do. A voice that had begged me strike them down, blast them with a spell, and show them exactly who they were dealing with.
Growing up meant coming to terms with that voice. Recognizing it for what it really was. Misplaced pride. I'd done nothing to earn my magic. I was born to it, like a princess is born to her crown. In a land without princesses, that didn't earn me jack-shit. I could rail against my fate or I could say that it was only right, that deed, not birth, should earn privilege.
That egalitarian view didn't come from inside me. It was learned from the examples of those I saw around me, mainly from Paige and Lucas. Had I continued to grow up in my mother's world of dark magic, I could be sitting in that audience, believing that humans were weaklings to be manipulated, conned, fleeced, then mocked over rounds at the pub.
Yet my mother's crowd wouldn't join this movement. These were the next generation, the ones still naïve enough to think they could expose their secrets without consequence, fight humans without selfannihilation. All it might take was some mystical crap about the planets being aligned or signs coming to pass.
Speaking of signs, that's what Giles was emoting about now.
“—born of two werewolves, male and female. Not just any two werewolves, but bitten wolves. One infected as a mere child and somehow surviving where adults could not. Then he bites his lover, and she survives. The strength of these two individuals alone must be incredible, but to come together, their blood already joined, and bear children? Twins, a boy and a girl. As it is written in our prophecy.”
Prophecy? Like hell. If this guy was telling these kids that Elena and Clay's twins fulfilled some kind of fucking
prophecy
—
“Those children are the genesis of a new breed of werewolves. Part of the next step in our evolution. But they are only one part of that step. We have seen more. One stands before you now. A hybrid of the two spellcasting races, equally adept at both kinds of magic. And she is not the last. There is another, born of witch and sorcerer, a child just coming into her powers now.”
Another witch-sorcerer? No way. I would have heard of it. Just like I would have heard of this goddamned prophecy.
Rage boiled up in me as I looked out over those stupid, gullible faces. I wanted to scream at them, knock some sense into their empty heads.
I shifted and glowered, and fought to keep my mouth shut. Faces turned toward me. Only they didn't look up with the dawning realization that they were falling for the blather of a crazy man. When they saw my anger, they saw proof that Giles was right. I was furious because he'd discovered the truth.
BOOK: Spellbound
8.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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