The Bitter Seed of Magic

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘The door, I can open her.’ Francine stared at me, her odd reflective eyes transparent like glass. ‘I make the illusion stay for the escape of the Moth. But Darius, he has the blood-lust, he cannot escape the room. I cannot control him, and I do not like to bring the final death to him.’

Okay, good to know she didn’t want to kill him, for all her flat statements. But then, if he wasn’t rabid with bloodlust, she wouldn’t have to. So she was asking me to feed him—my blood would sate his bloodlust—but getting it into him without ending up as dinner was the problem. Unless …

He was young enough that I could catch him in my Glamour—I’d done it before, after all. Once, muttered my cautionary voice, and the vamp was already restrained. I ignored it and asked, ‘Will you take his Oath, if the Moths survive?’

‘Darius …’ This time some emotion flickered in her gaze, then was gone. ‘I will accept his Oath, but only if he chooses. The force, she is not right.’

I blinked: a democratic vampire?

‘Okay, leave Darius to me,’ I said with more confidence than I was feeling.

‘Good. Also, I ask the permission for the blood. For the power.’

Of course she needed blood. Well, I was going to be opening a vein anyway, and it was all in a good cause—

I grabbed my backpack and opened it. Miraculously, one of the three bags of blood I’d stuffed in it was still intact and I held it out to her as blood from the other bags dripped onto the carpet.

Her nostrils flared, her eyes closing briefly, then she shook her head reluctantly. ‘Darius, he will need your blood.’ She pointed down at Mad Max. ‘His blood, I can take. With the permission of my liege.’

Her liege was Malik, but he wasn’t here. The worry came back, and I didn’t know when—or if—he would arrive. ‘He’s not here?’ I made it a question.

‘We are to give you the help if you are in need.’ She smiled down at Mad Max, her long canines curving past her bottom lip, her strange, transparent eyes lighting with expectant predatory pleasure.

‘Ri-ight. I’m in need then.’ I waved at Mad Max. ‘You’ve got your liege’s permission.’

In a blur almost too fast to see, she whirled into a crouch and fell upon his throat. He roared, his legs jerking uncontrollably, then the sound cut out and harsh slurping noises took its place. Old, dark blood sprayed over the lower walls of the corridor. Judging by her enthusiastic reaction, there was more to her snacking on Mad Max than just getting power.

I shrugged out of my jacket, dropping it next to my backpack, and looked through the window at the Moths dancing round Darius, wondering how long it would take Francine to get her power up to speed—and also wondering how I was going to get close enough to Darius to touch him, let alone Glamour him, without getting my own throat ripped out first.

Long minutes later, and I was still staring anxiously through the diamond-shaped window in the door. I tensed as Darius snagged Rissa’s wrist, jerking her out of the weaving dance, but then Viola swiped her own bloody wrist close to his mouth and Rissa slipped from his grasp.

‘C’mon, Francine,’ I muttered. She’d been slurping on Mad Max for a good five minutes now. Surely that was enough to get a power hit. ‘Hurry it up; he nearly caught her that time.’

A soft hand brushed the hair back from my face, and I turned to find her standing next to me. Her pupils had vanished, leaving her eyes clear as glass and reflecting the overhead lights.

‘I am here,’ she murmured. Her tongue swiped out like a cat’s, catching a drop of blood at the corner of her mouth. She stepped closer, and wobbled on her heels. I grabbed for her, catching her arm and holding her steady. She laughed low and touched her forefinger to the pulse in my throat, sending a shiver of need into my body as the sensation of wings fluttered soft along my skin.

Mesma. Damn vamp was using vamp mind-tricks on me! I knocked her hand away, angry. ‘You’re drunk,’ I said accusingly.

‘But yes, of course.’ She laughed again, pressed her finger to my chest this time and pushed. I staggered back. She turned to face the door, took a wide-legged stance, then punched her hand straight through the diamond-shaped window. Gripping the edges of the opening with both hands, she braced one boot against the door and pulled downwards. At first nothing happened, then the door groaned, the metal buckled and it fractured from the bottom V of the window opening. She yelled, a deep, guttural sound, and the muscles in her arms and back stood out in relief as she ripped the steel door down and pulled it apart like it was made of cardboard.

‘Fuck!’ I muttered, impressed.

‘The door, she is open.’ She doubled over, giggling, then as she tried to straighten, she tottered back and fell on her butt against the corridor wall. I rushed to help her, but she waved me away with both her hands. ‘The Moths,’ she whispered, then in a louder, crooning voice, she called, ‘Come, my pretties, fly to me. Fly, fly, flyyyy!’

They came in a blur of grey silk and satin, ducking and spilling through the ripped steel door, breaking right and rushing past me along the corridor towards the door at the far end, trailing the scent of blood and liquorice and greasepaint behind them.

I quickly crouched and peered into the room. Lucy’s ghost was huddled by her limp body while Darius still stumbled around, his hands grasping at the illusions of Moths floating past him. Apprehension prickled down my spine as I gripped the bag of blood in my hand. All I had to do was rush him, shove the bag in his face as a distraction, hopefully piercing it on his fangs, then thrust my magic into him.

My turn to dance.

I bent to duck through the torn door and a sharp pain sliced across my wrist. Flinching, I looked down to see blood welling and dripping from a three-inch cut along my inner arm, right along the vein. Francine swayed on all fours near me, a thin bronze dagger in her hand.

‘What the fuck was that for?’ I demanded.

‘The arm, hold her up in front.’ She showed me, clumsily tucking her own arm under her chin, almost toppling over as she did. ‘She will keep Darius from the throat.’

I stifled my anger; she was trying to be helpful, even if it was the sort of help I could really do without. I swapped the bag of blood to my bleeding hand. Holding the bag and my blood-dripping wrist as a shield across my throat, I ducked into the room before she could think of anything else to help me with.

Darius stopped, nostrils flaring, and fixed his gaze eerily on me, no longer interested in the illusionary Moths. Blood flushed the whites of his eyes; his irises and pupils were clouded, like cataracts. He was blinded by bloodlust, all his senses narrowed down to scent alone as he searched for the fresh blood he craved. I felt a tug on my consciousness as he automatically tried to mind-lock me and swatted it aside.

One touch was all I needed to Glamour him. Skin to skin. Lucky he was naked; it gave me a lot of skin to choose from.

I flipped the metaphysical switch inside me and let my magic flood out. A golden glow lit the room as if the sun was shining and small tendrils of power sprang like eager vines from my body, questing for someone to latch onto. Still holding the bag up in front of me, I aimed for his ankles—as far away from his fangs as I could get—and lunged towards him—

He snarled and leapt at the same time, smashing me down onto the ground and knocking the air out of my lungs. My head banged off the floor as he pinned me, and pain sliced upwards through my left kidney. I seemed to have all the time in the world to look down and see the broken end of something black and metallic poking out of my diaphragm: a piece of the metal bed. And all the time to look up at Darius as he straddled my hips, to feel the panicked thud of my heart, to smell the honey-scent of my own blood, to see his skeletal face blurring as he yanked my head back and exposed my throat—

But no time to raise my arm and the distracting bag of blood before he struck, his fangs piercing through skin, muscle and the arterial wall of my carotid—

And the world exploded into a pain-filled haze of red and gold.