The Wicked Within

SIXTEEN

SEBASTIAN REJOINED ME SECONDS LATER. He was breathing hard, his expression dazed as though he was struggling to stay conscious. “Are you okay?”

“Okay.” He glanced up and down the alley. “We have to get to my grandmother’s house and look around before anyone else does.”

He took my hand and we raced down St. Ann. He hadn’t traced us there, which I guessed meant the tracing had taken a huge toll on his power.

We hurried through the gate to Arnaud House and down the alley to the courtyard. Two bodies, servants, lay contorted on the patio, blood pooled around them. His hand gripped mine tighter as we hurried into the house.

We were too late.

Inside, the scent of blood was so strong I could taste its tang in the back of my throat. It mingled with the faint smells of roses and furniture polish. My stomach shrank into a sour knot.

The house had been ripped apart. The broken bodies of servants, vampires, and human companions fell where they’d been slain. Not drained of blood, but struck down by brute force. Necks had been broken and spines snapped in half. In a blur of speed, one or two Bloodborn vamps or shifters could have taken out the staff in minutes. A sheen of sweat covered my skin. So much violence. Merciless violence. Whoever had done this deserved a slow, very painful kind of justice.

Sebastian and I didn’t speak, not wanting to disturb the dead as we searched Josephine’s destroyed office, then her private rooms, the bedroom, sitting room, and massive closet. Clothing lay strewn and ripped. Furniture busted. The pillows, bedspread, and mattress were torn apart, the foam and fillings in them all over the room like mounds of snow.

Josephine’s safe had been broken into. Sebastian walked inside it, stepping over trays of jewels, old manuscripts, scrolls, and other priceless objects his grandmother had collected during her three hundred years. They’d all been left behind. Sebastian picked up a stack of three thin leather-bound journals.

“Might be something in here,” he said quietly. My heart went out to him. I could tell he was saddened and conflicted about Josephine’s death. “I don’t think she hid the Hands here. There’s a reason she’s lying dead in Jackson Square.”

Because she wouldn’t share the location of the Hands, and if she had, she hadn’t given that info lightly.

“Who do you think did this?” I asked.

He swallowed, and I could tell he was just as shaken as I was. “Looks like a vampire or shifter kill. They both can be savage. But . . . there’s no scent of them unless they had a witch with them to cover the smell. Could be all three working together. I don’t know.”

We searched the rest of the house. I kept hoping we’d find someone left alive, but everyone was dead. They never even had a fighting chance. Many had been struck down in obvious surprise—in the middle of cooking, cleaning the floors, reading the paper. . . .

There was no one to ask about Josephine, if she’d left the house, or if anyone had come to call. So how had Josephine gotten to the square? From the amount of blood at the scene, my guess was she’d been beheaded there. I wished I had a way to communicate with Mel. She might be able to help us piece together the last moments of all these lost lives.

An hour had passed since we’d arrived at the house. And we pretty much came up empty-handed. We were just leaving when a thundering knock echoed through the front of the house. I froze, exchanging a startled glance with Sebastian.

Slowly we eased down the steps and into the foyer. The doorknob rattled.

Sebastian peered through the peephole, and then said over his shoulder, “Simon Baptiste.”

“Open the door,” Simon commanded. “I can smell you in there.”

We should have fled right then and kept our focus on the Hands, but Sebastian’s jaw went tight and his eyes went angry, the gray turning to silver. He wanted a confrontation, revenge for all this carnage, and I knew this would not end well.

Sebastian handed me the journals, then opened the door. His shoulders filled the doorway, his posture confident and pissed off.

Standing with Simon were two other Novem heads, Soren Mandeville and Katherine Sinclair, and a large gathering of their families. Simon gave me the creeps; his bearing pompous and malevolent. Brutality clung to him; it was in the cunning and anticipation lurking behind a classically handsome face. The arrogance in his eyes reminded me of Gabriel, and I knew one day Gabriel would be just like his father, bloated on his power and sure in his right to lord it over others.

“Your being here is . . . suspect,” Simon said.

“Why should it be?” Sebastian fired back. “We found the house destroyed and everyone in it dead. But then”—his gaze went to each of the Novem leaders—“I’m guessing at least one of you, or all three, already knows that.”

Simon’s eyes narrowed, and he stood straighter. “You dare accuse us?”

Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest. “Seeing as the three of you are here, probably wanting to find the Hands yourselves, yeah, I am.”

“We’re here to investigate her murder,” Katherine Sinclair chimed in.

“Sure you are. Who nominated you head of security? Bran should be here.”

“Bran is here,” a deep voice said in the hallway behind us.

Relief rushed over me as I turned to see my father, Bran, Michel, and Rowen, followed by several members of their families. They must have come through the back like Sebastian and I had.

Bran and Michel moved past me to stand behind Sebastian.

“So it comes to this,” Simon intoned.

“No one has to draw lines in the sand,” Bran said. “We all know discord is what Athena’s after. You’re playing right into the goddess’s hands. You know better.”

“Or maybe this has been a long time coming.” Simon’s gaze flicked to Sebastian. “We have every right to make sure Josephine did not take the Hands from the library. Her behavior and actions have been in question since the battle in the ruins.”

“And it’s my job to deal with it,” Bran fired back. “You don’t see me coming to your office and sticking my nose in tourism, electricity, banking. This is my territory.”

“There is too much at stake,” Soren said, “to leave the inquiry into Josephine’s death to one person.”

“The only thing at stake is us splintering,” Michel stressed. “And if that happens, it’s all on you three. Will you ruin everything we have worked for and put this city in turmoil to have a chance at the Hands and immortality? The three of you will turn against each other as you turn against us now.”

A small flutter caught my attention. A faint electrical zing and high-pitched squeals, so tiny and faint, yet somehow . . . familiar. I scanned the crowd gathered behind the Novem heads, seeing traces of small light trails dart from person to person. What the hell?

The crowd stirred.

Names and accusations flew. Magic built and teeth elongated. The time for talking was over. My father pulled me away from the door and shoved me down as the front windows exploded, raining shards of glass on our heads. The journals spilled from my hands.

I withdrew my firearm as Sebastian and the others surged out the front door and into the street. Blood and grunts and screams filled the air. I crept to the busted-out window. There was another group of shifters and witches closing in on Simon and his entourage from the side street. Ramseys and Deschanels. Hawthornes and Lamarlieres. They were on our side, the Cromleys apparently staying out of the fight.

Flashes of magic lit the night. Bran wielded his huge broadsword. Michel drew energy into his hands and let it loose at a vicious-looking vampire. I took shots through the window. My father, with a borrowed blade, sliced through any and all comers near my position.

I searched for Sebastian but couldn’t find him in the melee. I jumped through the window, meeting my first attacker and emptying the last of my bullets into him. I switched to my blade, my adrenaline pumping like crazy as a large mangy bear slid to a stop in front of me. It rose up on its hind legs and let out a roar that blew the hair back from my face. My blade seemed woefully inadequate, and the bad thing about my power? I had to get close to use it.

The bear lunged. I feigned right, but wasn’t quick enough. Its shoulder bumped mine and sent me flying, the blade knocked from my hand. The bear whirled around as I got to my feet, already calling my power, waking the serpent. The bear charged again, and this time I stayed still. I couldn’t jump over it, and if I waited too long, those claws would dig deep.

It was closing in fast. I ran toward it, arms pumping. Almost there. I executed a slide, gliding on the shards of glass littering the street, and went through its front legs. It came over me. I grabbed the bear under the jaw. As soon as my hand touched fur, the fur went hard, the change spreading over it, turning fur, skin, flesh, and bone into stone. I rolled before it dropped and crushed me.

As I got to my feet, I was hit immediately in the gut by a shoulder. The force sent me airborne. I landed hard, the back of my head cracking on pavement. Hot pain arced over my skull. Stars danced in my vision. Jesus. I pushed up, dazed. Focus, damn it!

The vamp stalked me slowly as though he had all the time in the world. He wanted me to know who he was. Gabriel. He’d been waiting for this a long time, and his sadistic smile told me he was going to enjoy taking me apart. Same here, I thought.

Slowly I got up. Pain thumped through my head in time with my pulse. Gabriel stopped in front of me, a thin smile on his lips and a fanatical spark in his eyes. Yeah. Like father, like son.

“What’s wrong, Gabriel,” I managed, “too chickenshit to take me?”

We circled each other. I kept a firm block on my mind to keep him from glamouring me. I focused on the gruesome images of what had been done to Josephine and her staff. Someone like Gabriel could’ve done that without breaking a sweat.

“I’ll enjoy draining you, freak.”

“To do that you’ll have to get close, Gabriel. Real close. Stone-cold close.” I put my hands under my armpits and squawked at him, knowing Crank would be proud, knowing it would drive Gabriel over the edge. He lunged.

The moment he touched me, the serpent in me struck, leaping to life with such ferocity that it left me momentarily stunned. He thought he was quicker, thought he could sink his fangs into my flesh before my power could stop him. He was wrong.

My fingers clutched his wrists as his hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing and trying to bend my head sideways to snap my neck. But they were already cold and hard. He stared at me in shock, frozen, our faces so close. So intimate. He began to choke. The skin at his throat went white, like a million microscopic marble bugs scrambling upward and leaving stone in their wake. The choking stopped as his vocal cords hardened.

Up over his chin, his open mouth, his wide, shocked eyes and finally his head and then . . . nothing.

My pulse thundered in my ears. I was trapped in the grip of a several-hundred-pound statue. I pulled at Gabriel’s hands. I’d had no other choice but to turn him. Too bad he’d been at my throat when that happened. A glance over my shoulder showed me another vampire was incoming.

And it was Simon, his eyes blazing with murderous intent. Oh God. I’d just killed his son.

I struggled, the statue’s hold so tight I was unable to get out more than a few faint screams. But it was enough. Michel and Bran tackled Simon from behind, and the fight was brutal. Simon cared for nothing except getting them off him so he could kill me. He was a maniac in his grief, managing to send Bran flying through a second-floor window, then dragging Michel behind him, refusing to stop, refusing to break his stride as he came for me.

If I could topple the statue, maybe the arms would break and I could run. I rocked to my left and right. Simon shouted in horror, seeing what I was doing, knowing that if I succeeded, Gabriel was gone for good. He shoved Michel off and rushed me in a blur of supernatural speed.

But I was already falling. Gabriel and I crashed to the ground to the sound of his father’s roar. One stone arm broke at the elbow, the other at the wrist. I scrambled back, the hands still attached around my neck as Simon plowed into me. We rolled. One marble hand was wrenched free in the roll. Simon ended up on top of me. He wrenched the other marble hand free, raising it high over my head. He was going to bludgeon me to death.

For a second, shock got the best of me.

Then a hand grabbed on to the stone arm and held it still.

A Son of Perseus was a terrifying thing if you were in his sights. My father’s face was hard and grim as he pitted his strength against Simon’s. His other hand went to shove his knife into Simon’s throat when Mandeville appeared at my father’s side, a blade pressed between his ribs. My father was still going to do it, to save me, but I shook my head. Mandeville would shove that blade straight through his ribs and into his heart, and I had no idea if that blade had the power to end my father’s life or not.

Simon’s eyes burned with hatred. “You took someone I love,” he sneered at me, voice trembling. “I will do the same. Go to her house,” he told Mandeville. “Search it for any sign of the Hands. Kill anyone inside.”

“No!” I struggled, but he pinned me with the stone arm as Mandeville released my father and disappeared in a haze of speed.

My father made a move to slice Simon’s throat, but Simon dropped the marble arm and caught my father’s hand in the blink of an eye, stilling the blade before it could sink deep enough to kill. Simon hissed at me, “This isn’t over. Say good-bye to your friends.”

In a blur, he was gone. My father collapsed over me, his hands hitting the pavement. He pushed himself back up as Sebastian appeared like a demon from hell, taking out a shifter lunging in midair right for us.

Jesus.

I scrambled up, shaking, as the shifter went flying into the building across the street. “The kids,” I told him, the terror sinking in. “Simon and Mandeville, they’ve gone to the GD.”

Sebastian grabbed me and we traced, landing in a tumble in the middle of First Street as his power gave out. His head hung low and he was shaking, but he pushed to his feet. I caught his hand and together we ran the rest of the way, hoping like hell Simon and Soren Mandeville hadn’t beaten us to the house. Hoping like hell the kids weren’t home.

Please, don’t let them be home.

My lungs burned. My muscles hurt so bad I wasn’t sure how I stayed on my feet. An orange glow bled through the trees. It grew the closer we came, and I heard the distinct crackle of fire.

Oh God. The house was burning.

I drew up short in the street out front. The sound of things being smashed inside echoed over the inferno. Heart lodged in my throat, I ran for the house, but Sebastian held me back. “No.”

A figure burst through the front door, engulfed in flames. Not one of the kids. A vampire.

“And stay out!” Dub stepped through the flames, following. The burning vampire staggered across the pavement and collapsed in the middle of the road.

A faint moan from across the street drew my attention. No. Crank’s truck lay upside down in a dented heap, against the neighboring fence. I raced over, shouting her name, dimly aware of Sebastian beside me, of Dub calling her name, and the intense heat he brought with him.

I dropped to my knees at the driver’s-side door, which was now only a few inches off the ground. It was enough for me to see the seat was empty. She hadn’t been wearing her belt. “Crank! Jenna!” Movement caught my eye. Her foot was stuck in the passenger-seat crease. She was sandwiched somewhere between the fronts seats.

“Crank! Hold on, we’re coming!”

Metal creaked and moaned as Dub crawled into the passenger side and eased down into the mangled mess. He braced his feet on the dash and front seat, bending down to search for Crank.

“Is she okay?” He didn’t answer. “Damn it, Dub,” I choked out, my voice shaking, “is she okay?”

She had to be okay.