Первородные: Восхождение

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE HOUSE WAS huddled so low to the ground that its silhouette barely made an impression against the night sky. Elijah knew that Rebekah would be livid and Klaus would be petulant, but at least they would be safe. Once the protection spell was cast, they would be able to weather any storm within its walls. Surely that was the only thing that really mattered.

Ysabelle’s face looked tense and drawn. She must be nervous, he knew. The first spell had worked, and now she had a taste of what the grimoire’s power could do for her. She needed this spell to go just as smoothly, though, or else she would be no better off than she had been before. The anxiety crackled around her like static, and he hoped it would motivate her to do her very best work for him tonight.

“We need to establish a perimeter around the land,” she told him, and he could hear a little quavering in her voice. “With fire.”

Working in opposite directions, they spread peat from the bayou in a thin line along the chalky ground. It was harder than he had thought it would be to keep it flowing steadily and evenly while trying to keep his footing in the dark, and he lost track of Ysabelle’s progress before he had finished one full side of the large, uneven quadrangle of the land’s border.

He could not help but smile, though, as he passed a large stump near the back edge of the land. He suspected it was the one Hugo had mentioned during their séance, the one that was rotting and would need to come out. Supervising repairs and improvements would be one way to keep his siblings busy, he decided, and Rebekah especially would have some choice things to say about the furnishings. There would be plenty for them all to do to make the place more comfortable.

Plenty to keep them out of trouble, and safe in the fortress. No one would be able to set foot on this little patch of ground unannounced. No witch or werewolf could enter without an invitation, and no weapon could touch the house or those sheltered within it. No matter what happened this would always be a safe haven.

Ysabelle strode toward him, pouring out the last of her peat as she went. The perimeter was complete, and the two of them stepped inside. Ysabelle muttered a few words under her voice and a small flame licked up from the place where their two lines had joined. It took hold, and then it began to spread hungrily in both directions.

“Now the work begins in earnest.” Ysabelle delicately touched the worn leather cover of Esther’s grimoire. Elijah knew she had studied the spell and almost certainly memorized it, but they could not be too prepared.

She had mixed most of the required potion beforehand, but some elements had to be added at the last possible moment. Ysabelle rehearsed the incantation as she ground up some kind of dried insects with a pestle, then poured the resulting powder into the mix. She produced a small gemstone from a pocket of her gown and dropped it in whole, swirling the potion in its iron bowl and inhaling deeply through her mouth as if she was preparing for intense physical exertion.

“Ready,” she announced tersely, and Elijah felt every muscle in his body tense.

Ysabelle began the incantation in earnest, and poured a thin trickle of the potion over the flames that danced up out of the line of peat. She took a moment to observe the result, then set off at a brisk but steady walk, pouring as she went. The fire spat and sputtered where she passed, although she was careful not to pour so quickly that she doused any part of it. He lost sight of her when she passed to the opposite side of the low house, and Elijah found himself counting off his heartbeats as if they matched her unseen paces.

It felt like forever before he spotted her again on the other side of the border. As she approached him, Elijah worried that she would make a mistake and they’d have to start over. Surely she would trip over a root or run out of her potion too soon or her hand would grow tired and shake...but the closer he came to fear, the more perfect her performance became.

She finished in the same spot where she had begun, and cut off her chanting. There was a stillness in the air—an oppressive, heavy presence. The silence grew louder until its pressure was so great that Elijah raised his hands to cover his ears...

. . . And then the spell itself exploded. In the force of the invisible blast, every single pane of glass in every single window of Hugo Rey’s house blew outward.

Instinctively, Elijah threw himself in front of Ysabelle, shielding her from the shrapnel. He felt a sharp edge slice into his raised forearm, and a nasty puncture just below his ribs, along the sting of dozens of tinier cuts. But they would heal on him, and he needed his witch alive.

She had a great deal to answer for.

The flames around them were gone, and so was even the faintest tingle of magic in the air. The spell had ended, and there was no question that it had failed. Elijah rounded on Ysabelle, feeling his fangs extend. “Tell me what just happened,” he ordered, “and I would advise you not to try to lay the blame on the spell.”

“It should have worked,” Ysabelle answered uneasily, but rather than his menacing face she was staring at the windowless house. Perversely, it seemed larger than when they had begun, nearly towering over them now like a face missing its eyes and teeth.

“It should have,” he agreed furiously. “Unless you have the kind of death wish that leads a person to try to deceive an Original.” He could not imagine what she thought she stood to gain from stringing him along with this charade, but he would make sure it cost her.

“Deceive—” She frowned, taking in the extent of his rage. “No, of course not.” She crouched and picked up the grimoire from where it had fallen during the blast. She flipped through its pages, moving her lips as she skimmed and nodded, checking off directions. “It’s not the spell,” she muttered, but still her eyes roamed the pages, hunting for clues. “And it isn’t the way we worked it, either.” Then she snapped the book shut and looked at Elijah. “It can only be the land.”

“The land?” he rocked back in surprise. “There can be no question of my claim to it.”

Ysabelle nodded, her brown eyes far away. “It was transferred to you properly, and Hugo held the deed. But...” She pressed her lips together and crouched to touch the chalky soil at their feet.

“But?” he prompted impatiently. She almost seemed to have forgotten that he was there.

Ysabelle’s long fingers dug into the dirt. She cocked her head as if she was listening to it. “This here,” she murmured, her singsong voice far away, “this was once pack land. Werewolf land.”

“It was Hugo’s,” Elijah countered, nearly growling in his frustration. “He had the deed.” If the land had never been Hugo’s, then it couldn’t be Elijah’s, and that was unthinkable. He would kill the entire werewolf pack before he would concede that his new home really belonged to the Navarros.

Ysabelle’s hand was buried up to her bony wrist, and he wondered what strength she had found to force it down so far. “Legally the land was his, and now it is yours,” she agreed absently. “There is no question of that. But magic and the law do not always agree. The spell does not recognize your claim to ownership because by natural law, this is still pack land. I think that the reason Hugo Rey’s name stood out to me earlier is because I vaguely recall that he was a werewolf by blood...but chose not to change. So the Navarros may have given him this land when they exiled him, but as far as the magic is concerned, it still belongs to the werewolves.”

Elijah started to argue, but there was no point. The spell had failed, and Ysabelle certainly had no control over the finer points of supernatural land ownership. His wounds itched as they healed, and it only added to his annoyance.

“We cannot change what was done or not done,” Ysabelle went on. “Now that I understand the problem, I can see what ingredient we were missing. It will not be simple to get, but it will make the protection spell work for you.”

Elijah raised his head, intrigued. “Out with it,” he snapped. It would serve her well to remember that she had just failed him, even if it wasn’t entirely her fault. A little fear was a powerful motivator, and an angry vampire was a frightening sight.

Ysabelle licked her lips nervously, but her voice did not falter. “You need the blood of a pack member,” she explained. “A Navarro werewolf.” Elijah didn’t think his problems could get worse, but suddenly they had. How the hell was he going to pull that off?

Her words hung in the air as she slid her hand out of the dry earth, brushing it off against her dress. It left a dark, dusty mark on the creamy fabric that stood out as starkly as blood. “More than a drop, although not enough to kill. But I suspect killing may yet be the only way to obtain it, and that will put you in a very precarious position before we can get the protection spell in place.”

Elijah frowned. He was so close, and there had to be a way to overcome this setback. This one last obstacle could also be the easiest if Elijah kept an eye out for the right opportunity. Werewolves hunted, after all, and accidents happened in the woods. The moon was only a day away from full, so he could not hesitate. “Leave it to me,” he told her, and saw Ysabelle’s square shoulders slump in relief. “I will get the blood tomorrow night. Be ready to perform the spell again by the time the sun rises in two days, and wait for me here.”

After he took blood from a werewolf, every second would count to get the spell in place.