Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) (23 page)

“You… you stupid, fire-flinging
bitch
!” Sebastian cried, struggling to break the guards’ hold. “How
dare
you hurt me! You think you’re anything? You pathetic little
infant
, you get someone over here to fix this! Do you hear me? Get that healer over here!”

Ashe looked back expressionlessly.

Fury and impotence twisted his face as he read her response. Quivering with rage, he looked down, his gaze searching the ground and then catching on the blood staining his shirt. The shaking strengthened. His lips twitched into a snarl.

“No one hurts me,” Sebastian whispered. “
No one
, do you understand?”

His gaze rose to meet hers. In spite of herself, Ashe tensed at the look in his eyes.

He chuckled. “Some of the cripples tried to hurt me too, you know? Those tough guys and that blonde bitch.” He smiled. “You really liked them, didn’t you? The ‘Hunters’. Carter’s little crew of misfits. Were you friends? Did they trust you?” His smile deepened. “Want to know what it felt like to crush them? To see the agony in their eyes before they died? To watch the horrible, gut-wrenching realization that their precious Ashe had–”

She didn’t even feel the fire as it left her body and set him aflame. With a shout, the guards stumbled back, unburned and staring.

The charred corpse fell to the floor.

Choking, Ashe spun away, suffocating the fire inside. Hot tears ran down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to keep from screaming.

And then the world exploded.

*****

Harris crept toward the storage building, careful to stay out of the light spilling from the doorway. Unintelligible voices muttered inside, rising and falling in the rhythm of an argument.

Dryly, he swallowed and shifted his grip on the gun. If they were arguing, the hostage could still be alive. Taking a breath, he inched to the door and leaned his head around the frame.

Rigid control kept him from cursing, aided by a fair measure of shock.

A heavy stench hung in the air. Bodies lay on the floor. And Ashley was standing beside them all.

She looked back to the captive, who seemed to be cursing her roundly. Over the distance the angry words were indecipherable, though the cold expression with which she met them was clear. On either side of the kneeling prisoner, two men stood, while at their backs, several others were surveying the room.

He ducked out of sight as a few of her accomplices glanced toward the door, and waited a cluster of heartbeats before edging his gaze around the frame again.

The captive fell silent for a moment. He muttered something to Ashley.

And without a trace of expression on her face, she burned him alive.

Harris gasped. Her accomplices stumbled backward. Swiftly, Ashley turned to the rest of the dead sprawled across the floor while behind her, the blackened corpse lay smoking.

Choking down a breath, Harris raised his gun.

He didn’t miss this time.

*****

The concrete hit her and everything was wrong. The world was a series of shuddering images, interspersed with a crushing weight on her chest that kept her from drawing air. The lights overhead burned like tiny suns in her eyes, blurring in and out of focus as the ocean raged in her ears.

And then the pain came.

She choked wetly and tasted blood as it filled her throat. Her hands slipped in pools of liquid, and Katherine appeared, blocking the lights and shouting without sound.

Magic enveloped her.

Uncomprehending, she stared at the woman as waves of energy coursed through her in rapid succession. Blazing heat raced over her chest, into her lungs, searing her flesh as it passed.

And she couldn’t breathe.

She just couldn’t breathe.

Everything was wrong.

The magic was tearing her apart.

And then the world went black.

*****

Ashe gasped as she opened her eyes. White lights glared overhead and the ground felt strange beneath her back.

The room was cold. Concrete. Windowless.

Panic hit her and frantically, she tried to rise. Pain lanced through her chest and then someone was beside her.

“No, your majesty,” Nathaniel said, his hands pushing her gently back down. “Please, don’t try to move.”

Ragged breaths escaped her as she fought to make her mouth form the words she needed, but nothing was responding correctly and every choked sound was an agony.

He seemed to read the question in her eyes.

“You were shot,” he told her, his matter-of-fact tone failing to fully disguise his tension. “But you are safe now.”

Fear filtered into her gaze and desperately, she tried to force herself to speak.

“Please, your highness,” he urged. “Don’t. You’ll be healed up soon. Katherine is coming back. She just couldn’t do it all at once. Your…” he hesitated. “Your body couldn’t handle it.”

“Where?” she whispered, her voice raw.

“You’re in the basement of one of Elias’ safe houses. We brought you here once Katherine stabilized you enough to move.”

Her eyes closed with relief.

On the far side of the room, the door swung open, admitting Katherine. At the sight of the woman, Nathaniel stepped back.

“How are you feeling, your highness?” Katherine asked.

Ashe struggled to find an answer, uncertain what to say. She glanced to Nathaniel.

“She is having trouble speaking,” he said quietly.

The woman nodded, her lips tightening. “I’m going to try a bit more healing,” she told Ashe. “It may hurt. Just try to keep breathing.”

Katherine studied her a heartbeat longer, and then carefully rested a hand on Ashe’s chest.

Heat spread beneath her touch. Ashe’s hands clenched the edges of the bed as the fire built higher. She gasped and then choked on the air, her body jerking as Katherine sent surge after surge of magic rushing through her. Nathaniel appeared, holding her down as tears leaked from her eyes.

And then the pain faded. The searing heat became warmth, became a breeze, became nothing. She squeezed her eyes shut as residual trembling shook her.

Katherine exhaled, the magic around her vanishing. Gently, Nathaniel released Ashe’s shoulders.

“Water,” Katherine ordered. He nodded, and strode for the door.

The woman watched him go, and then looked down at her. “If you will permit me, your highness.”

Taking Ashe’s silence as a response, she carefully pulled up the t-shirt and placed her fingertips on Ashe’s chest, delicately examining the skin. A thread of magic shivered beneath her touch, disappearing almost instantly. The woman nodded to herself.

“Come on,” she said, pulling the shirt back down.

Putting an arm around Ashe’s shoulders, she helped her sit up. A dull ache throbbed in Ashe’s chest as she moved, and she winced.

“Take it slow,” Katherine admonished.

Jerkily, Ashe nodded. Bracing herself on her outstretched arms, she looked around.

She was on a table, its metal surface covered by layers of what appeared to be quilted mover’s blankets. Beside her, a bank of gleaming steel refrigerators lined the wall, while a few cardboard boxes marked with food service labels were stacked in a corner.

Memories filtered in as she caught sight of her blurred reflection on the glistening refrigerator. Pain. Lights and no sound. People running.

She trembled.

Fire. Sebastian’s words. Carter’s crew. Her hands tightened again around the table’s edge. The memories hurt. She could still see their faces. And because of her – because she’d trusted wizards when they’d taught her so much better – all of them were dead.

Anguish welled up, and brutally, she crushed it down. She wanted to believe Sebastian had been lying. That he hadn’t killed Spider and the rest. But she’d heard the truth in his voice.

She’d seen it in his eyes.

Nathaniel returned with a glass of water. Right behind him followed Elias, whose face flickered with relief at the sight of her sitting up. He clasped a hand on his wife’s shoulder, giving Katherine a grateful look.

Expressionlessly, Ashe took the water, drinking it slowly. As she lowered the glass, she could feel the others watching her.

“What happened?” she asked, forcing her voice to sound neutral. “Nathaniel said I was shot?”

Elias glanced to Katherine. “A human,” he said. Ashe’s brow furrowed at the words. “Somehow, he followed us and…”

Ashe set the glass on the table, studying the water.

“The bullet missed your heart,” Katherine said when Elias fell silent. “For which you were extremely lucky. The man attempted to take additional shots, but by that point the guards had shielded the area.”

Nathaniel didn’t move, his gaze on the ground, but Ashe could see his jaw muscles jumping.

“He is not dead,” Katherine continued, her tone making it clear the status was temporary. “As we concluded bringing him in for questioning would be a better option. The man was… deranged. Raging when the guards intercepted him. He had no difficulty seeing us, and appeared to be specifically targeting you.” She paused. “If someone has enlisted humans as assassins in this war, we want to know.”

Ashe didn’t respond for a moment. “Has he shown any sign of magic?”

Elias made an awkward sound. “Your highness…”

She looked up at him.

“No,” he amended. “So far, he just appears to be human.”

She hesitated. “I want to see him.”

“My lady, I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Katherine said. “You have barely healed and any stress–”

“I want to see him,” Ashe repeated. She paused, resisting the urge to rub the aching space on her chest where the bullet had torn through. “If he’s one of the Blood, I’ll be ready this time.”

Protests marked the faces of the wizards around her, but finally Elias sighed. “As you wish, your highness.”

He motioned Nathaniel toward the door and then turned to help her off the makeshift bed.

“What is this place?” she asked as he eased her to the ground.

“It belongs to a friend of mine,” Elias said. He caught sight of her expression and continued. “But don’t worry, Darius won’t find us. Even on the council, we only trust each other so far – as I guess you figured out. Hideouts, escape plans and the like rarely get shared. And Joe’s a good guy; he won’t give us up to anyone who comes around – though there’s almost no chance they’ll ask him anyway.”

Her brow furrowed questioningly as she leaned her weight on him, but he didn’t say more. The hall outside was narrow, barely affording them space as he helped her along, and the fluorescent strip lights flickered rapidly, making it difficult to watch the cinder-block walls for long. At the end of the corridor, a metal staircase led to the floor above, and near the base, a door waited with a guard by its side.

“I’m alright,” Ashe said to Elias, trying to pull away as they reached the door.

“My lady, I–”

“Elias.”

He hesitated, and then reluctantly lowered her arm from his shoulders. She winced as he stepped away, and quickly braced herself on the wall while her legs debated whether to hold her. The shakiness passed and taking a breath, she straightened and then nodded to the guard.

He pushed open the door. Letting her magic rise around her, she walked into the room.

And froze.

“Detective Harris?”

Chained to a chair with a pair of guards beside him, the man looked up from his study of the floor. A livid bruise marred his face beneath his disheveled hair, grown longer since last she’d seen him, and every trace of the compassion she remembered in his eyes was gone.

Only hate remained.

At the sight of her, denial surged across his face, followed swiftly by rage. Gritting his teeth, he shook his head. “No…” he growled. “How can you
still
be alive?”

“Do you know this man?” Elias asked her, alarmed.

Floundering, she struggled to drag herself from her shock. “He… he’s a detective. From Utah. He…”

Tried to kill me.

She turned away. Hundreds of miles. Nearly half a year of running. And this man had found her. In the midst of all these guards, he’d almost taken her life.

“Is he human?” Elias asked her.

His voice pulled her from her thoughts, and she nodded jerkily. “I-I think so.”

She blinked, working to regain her bearings. It didn’t matter what he’d done. What could’ve happened. The bullet and the pain and the fact she could have died weren’t relevant right now.

Straightening, she drew a breath, forcing herself to focus. She needed information.

And she could handle the look in his eyes.

“How did you find me, Detective?” she asked, turning back to him.

“I followed the dead,” he answered coldly.

Nausea rippled through her core. She fought to keep her face expressionless.

“Her highness didn’t kill those people, human,” Elias said shortly. “Try again.”

Harris’ eyebrow twitched up and he scoffed. “
Highness
?” he repeated. His gaze flicked over Ashe, and then the dry humor melted back to loathing. “Figures.”

Shaking his head, he continued. “It doesn’t matter if you kill me too, you know. They’re still going to find you. And they
will
stop you.”

Her brow twitched down. She could feel the tension of the others in the room.

“Who?” she asked carefully.

He said nothing, dropping his gaze to the small drain set into the concrete floor. “What’s it going to be?” he asked after a moment, almost contemplatively. “Gang killing? Maybe a drug deal gone wrong? Or are you just going to burn me alive like you tried with Scott?”

She trembled.

At his own words, his pensive expression faded. Jaw clenching, he closed his eyes, frustration twisting his face. “I had you,” he whispered. “I…”

Breathing hard, he fell silent, and then visibly pushed the emotions aside. “Just get it over with.”

She stared at him. “I’m not going to kill you,” she said, her voice unsteady despite her efforts.

“So what? You hold me hostage? That’s not going to save you. Brogan and Jamison won’t negotiate with the likes of you. Not after everything you’ve done.”