Witch Heart

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"CLAIRE?"

Adam pounded open each of the bathroom stall doors with rising fear. The back of his throat tasted bitter and his stomach was in a hot, tight knot. Adrenaline-fueled rage rushed through his veins. She'd been too long in the bathroom and he knew with an eerie psychic certainty that something had happened to her.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

The store clerk had seen her go in but not come out and every one of the bathroom stalls were empty. His throat constricted.

Claire was gone.

"Calm down, Adam."

Adam rounded on Thomas. "Calm down? I'm not fucking going to calm down anytime soon. Did you not hear me, Thomas? Tevan and Kai have Claire."

"I am aware."

Adam stood in the middle of Thomas's half-destroyed Coven library office trying to get a handle on his emotions.

The demons had hacked away at the Coven, destroying what they could and starting fires in some of the wings. The Coven witches had waged a war against the Atrika between these walls and had managed to drive the demons from the building.

Score point one for the witches; they'd been able to drive them back without any fatalities and they'd not needed the elium or Claire's odd elemental magick to do it. That was a win in a situation in which the Coven was always one step behind demon-kind.

But the cost had still been high.

Theo was in the infirmary, being treated by Doc Oliver. He'd live, but he had even more scars now than before. He'd caught some bad burns in the battle at the cabin along with the broken bones.

Thomas pressed his lips into a straight line. "You need to calm down so we can think clearly. Think clearly and act accordingly."

Adam pushed a hand through his hair. "Wouldn't it be great if we could act?" He snorted. "They could be anywhere in the world right now. We have no way to track them."

Thomas had no reply. He knew Adam was right.

Wild grief and fear rose up within Adam, making him feel half-crazy. He couldn't lose Claire. Not now. Not after he'd realized just how much she meant to him. Fuck.

And they'd fought. He'd been so stupid. Claire was alive and breathing — warm, sweet, and loving. How could he let his time with Claire be diminished by the memory of a woman long dead, cold, and in her grave?

"Fuck!" he yelled.

If he didn't act soon, there might be two ghosts to haunt him instead of one.

Adam shook his head. "I'm not giving her up." He turned and bellowed, "I won't let them have her!"

Thomas held out a hand like-Adam was a rabid dog he intended to stave off. "None of us intend to allow the demons to kill Claire."

Adam turned and paced across the room. "We need Micah. He's got to be able to do something, figure out the most likely place they'd take her to try and remove the elium or something. There's got to be something we can do."

"I've already got him on it."

"Can I help? I can't stay idle on this one, Thomas. I need to be doing something… anything."

Thomas nodded. "Yeah, you can help Micah by telling him all there is to know about the demons and Claire. Any bit of information that you haven't told him would help, even if it seems totally mundane."

Adam nodded, glancing away and rubbing a hand over his chin. He really did feel half-crazed. Uncontrolled fire jumped from finger to finger. He tamped it down and took a deep breath. "Okay. I can do that."

"Adam?"

He looked at Thomas, tried to focus. "Yeah?"

"You really care about Claire, don't you? This isn't just about losing your charge to the demons, is it?"

He rubbed his chin again, looked down at the ground. "I think I fell in love with her."

Thomas went silent.

"I've only done that one other time in my life, Thomas, and you know how that turned out."

"Yes." He paused. "I remember that night."

Adam raised his gaze to Thomas's face. "I can't let it happen again. Claire can't be harmed. It's just… not in the realm of possibility."

"I understand how you feel, Adam."

Adam nodded, going to the door. "I'm going to find Micah."

Claire moved an inch and felt her stomach heave again. She allowed her cheek to descend back onto the cold floor of the building they'd jumped her into. The mode of transport had made her horribly ill, but at least her sickness was keeping the demons at bay — for now.

The walls of the place they'd brought her to had some significant demon-made wards. Wards that prevented her from using her magick. She wondered if the elium was still accessible to her, being demon magick and not aeamon. Just as soon as her stomach stopped roiling and her head stopped beating out a symphony of pain, she was going to check that out. At the moment she could barely move.

Cruel hands grasped her upper arms and hefted her. Her head lolled and her stomach heaved. But she hadn't had anything in her stomach to bring up before and nothing had changed. That didn't make her body want to do it any less, however.

Kai lifted her in his arms and laid her on a tall table with a padded top. She blinked, seeing the room for the first time. The beige, tiled ceiling was decayed and deteriorating in places. A single light in the center of the ceiling dangled from frayed electrical cords. It cast a sickly pale yellow glow that left the room half in shadow.

She glanced around, seeing water trickling down one wall. Vaguely, she could tell it came from a broken pipe, her water magick flickering faintly in response under the heavy press of the wards. Smashed hospital equipment, chairs with mold on them and other refuse lay around her like abandoned skeletons from an earlier time. Graffiti painted the walls.

Where the Houses was she?

"If you try to fight us," said Kai in Aemni, "I will bite you. Do you understand? If you so much as brush the elium or attempt to use your magick, I will bite you."

"Wards," she croaked. She couldn't access her elemental magick anyway.

"Wards, yes. We prepared this area just for you," answered Tevan, stepping from the shadows at the far end of the room. Tevan, with his soap-star chiseled face, made her flesh want to get up and run away without her. He frightened her even more than Kai. "But you still have fight in you. Do not. You will only suffer if you try. You're alone here and under our control. You have no friends to aid you, no backup. You cannot expect to prevail against us."

Her jaw locked. Did they really think that would keep her from trying to get away from them? Maybe they didn't understand the strength of an aeamon's will to live. Especially now that she had something—someone—to live for.

"And if you don't obey us in this," drawled Kai, "remember that we know where your fire witch is. The man, Adam, we could easily bring him here, easily dismember him in front of you, limb by limb. Don't tell us that he means nothing to you. You have traveled with him for many days and have undoubtedly formed a bond with him. Your kind is annoyingly prone to that."

Yes, well, she could hardly deny it. Especially since her mouth and throat had gone dry from Adam's name merely passing Kai's lips. They wouldn't hesitate to make good on their threat. Murders like that were entertainment to the Atrika—sustenance for their violent souls.

She turned her gaze from him and stared up at the half-destroyed light. "If you leave Adam alone, I won't fight you."

"That's good." Kai nodded. "Don't expect any rescue, either. You are in a place where no one will find you. Hope is lost for you."

"Rue is dead," Tevan added.

The words held such a finality, sure a surety, that her chest clenched painfully. The notion that Rue could be dead clawed at her rib cage from the inside, making her realize that deep down she'd been hoping he might show up looking for her. If anyone could take back the elium without killing her, it was Rue.

"You couldn't know that for certain," she snarled at Tevan, who stood like a statue from hell at her feet. "You left Eudae at the same time I did, and when we left, Rue was still living."

Tevan shook his head and laughed softly. "Stop your fantasies, Claire. When the Atrika attacked Yrystrayi, we brought so much magick and so many demons to bear that no one survived."

"That's just your ego, Tevan." She spat the words at him. "You have no idea what happened at Yrystrayi after you went through the doorway. Anyway, if you thought the Atrika had managed to kill Rue and take over Yrystrayi, you wouldn't be here trying to get the elium from me. In fact, if you'd been so sure of defeating the other demon breeds, you never would have dove through the doorway after me in the first place."

The demons said nothing. Water plink, plink, plinked to the floor in the corner.

Time to further undermine their confidence — if the confidence of an Atrika could be undermined. "How do you intend to get back to Eudae anyway?" She laughed. "Idiots! You followed me here and now you have me, sure. Maybe you'll even succeed in taking the elium from me. But what if you do? What then? You have no way home. You're trapped here just like I am."

She was bluffing a little. They did have a way home. They could use the same method that Erasmus Boyle had used. It required blood magick and the sacrifice of many aeamon, but they wouldn't have a problem with that.

However, opening a doorway via that method was tricky. The demons would have to wait for certain astronomical influences to be present, they would have to have the right witches with the perfect balance of magicks, and, lastly, they would have to perform the blood rites at certain times and in certain locations.

The spell was complicated and limited, but it could be done.

"Don't worry about us, sweet Claire," Tevan purred. "We'll find our way back, even should it take decades. And when we return, it will be with the elium in my seat."

Kai stiffened a little at the words my seat and Claire tucked that interesting reaction away for later. Tevan planned to control the elium and Kai didn't like it.

"We fully expect that our people will have overthrown the Ytrayi and the other demon breeds by now," Kai interjected, his hand tightening painfully on her upper arm, making her wince. "But there are other uses for the elium." His gaze flicked at Tevan.

She frowned. Other uses for the elium beyond wielding it as the ultimate weapon against the ruling Ytrayi? What did they mean?

Could Kai and Tevan intend to overthrow the Atrika themselves and take rule into their own hands? If that was their plan, there had to be friction between them. No two demons could ever share power. If that was the case, maybe she could use that friction to her advantage. Surely, they were both already considering betraying each other.

Or did they plan to use the elium here on Earth?

Claire shivered.

"What other plans for the elium do you have?" she asked.

"Time for discussion is over," answered Tevan, moving to her head. "We will take the elium from you now."

Bitterness coated the back of her throat. "At least tell me where you've taken me."

"This is not a relevant piece of information for you. Soon you will be dead."

Houses, oh, please. She didn't want to die.

Claire struggled to sit up. They allowed her to move, probably because she had nowhere to go. She swallowed hard at the sudden wave of nausea. "You don't want to give me information, but I have some for you that might be useful."

Tevan tipped his big blond head to one side. "How so?"

"We've established that you can't be sure your people destroyed the Yrtayi. No matter what you say, I know that you aren't certain."

Kai and Tevan exchanged a glance that let her know she was correct.

Encouraged, she continued. "Keep me alive and I'll tell you everything I know of the Ytrayi and of Yrystrayi. If the Atrika haven't defeated the Ytrayi, the information could be essential to you. After all I've lived at Yrystrayi my entire life as handmaiden to Rue himself. I slept in his quarters. I ate with him, studied with him. There is no one who knows him better than I do."

Tevan pursed his lips. "Information from Rue's pet. It's an interesting notion."

"I know all of Yrystrayi's inner workings." It was true, but, of course, she had no intention of giving them the correct information. There was no place in the entire universe, not any of them, where the Atrika could be allowed to rule.

Tevan pressed a huge hand on her chest and forced her back down. "You are at our mercy, Claire, and not in a position to negotiate. We will torture this information from you, should you live through the extraction of the elium. The elium is more valuable than your knowledge of Yrystrayi. Do you understand?"

Yes, she understood.

"Now lie back and be still and, for the sake of all the Houses, keep your mouth shut."

Did they expect her to be passive in this?

She reached for the elium, barely touched it, and found hard fingers in her hair, head yanked to the side, throat exposed.

Fangs sunk deep.

Pain flared along her nerve endings and venom rushed through her veins. Hot. Metallic. The taste of it sat behind her teeth, made her gag.