BROKEN BLADE Read online

  I was starting to feel the same way about myself. Rotating my head one direction, then the other, I thought about the rest of what she’d said. “And the unknown?” I squinted and rubbed at my neck—it didn’t help. The unknown…that didn’t add up. For her to be unknown, she’d have to be from outside the houses. “An independent.”

  “That’s the thought. Our magic can be traced. We know it. Feel it. Sense it. But Adjo wasn’t working alone—there were powerful magics involved and his skills were only average. An independent is the only answer that fits.”

  I nodded slowly. “Why a vampire? Any evidence?”

  “Just what was sensed at the place we hid her.”

  That wasn’t much help. At all. Rubbing the tip of my finger down my brow, I forced myself to ask the next question—the one that left my gut clenching and knotting. “You think she’s locked on the trail of one of…what, her descendants?”

  “Yes. And more…I believe she’s already found her. That’s why she is still here.” Another one of those eerie, intense looks. “You’ve met her.”

  Sucking in a breath, I spun away and shoved my hands through my hair, thinking of that young, innocent face. That poor, scared girl.

  “Clara,” I said softly.

  “Is that her name?” Es’s voice was sad. “I’ve always wondered what her name would be. I’d hoped I’d find out. Before…”

  “Before what? Shit, Es. What’s up with you?” I asked.

  “Many, many things.” She reached out and caught my hands. “Listen. There’s not much time left.”

  She spoke and it was like the words she had to say were pushed inside me, forced inside me—entire conversations crammed into my head in the span of seconds, all from a touch.

  The Blooding…remember.

  A power exchange…

  You can’t let it happen—

  And then, abruptly, the contact severed.

  Es’s hands fell away and I stumbled back, my head spinning, whirling from the knowledge she’d crammed inside it. “The Blooding?” What the hell? “Es, what does some ancient urban legend have to do with any of this?”

  “How many urban legends have their basis in truth, Kit?”

  Before I could figure that odd little phrase out, something attacked the wards.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Four of the warriors barred the way.

  One of them was Tate.

  Her hair had grown out since I’d seen her last. The strength of her magic burned hot as I moved into the hall.

  She shot me a look. “This isn’t a fight for half-human dollies.”

  We got along really well.

  “Not a fight for stupid witches who have their heads up their asses, either.” I gave her a sweet smile. “Hard to see that way.”

  I drew the gun from my hip and wondered if the ammo in it would do much good against whatever was tearing up the wards. They were shuddering from the impact and I could feel their distress.

  Whatever…why was I trying to fool myself? I already knew who was out there. I could feel the weight of her years, her magic crawling along my skin.

  Pandora had come to play.

  I had silver-wrapped ammo in the Eagle and the bullets were charged, but how did you take down a…what in the hell was she? Hell-spawn? Es had made the implication she was something far older than us. And something that could actually create other races was far stronger than any creature I’d ever come up against. Witches could do some mad powerful things and weres, vamps could make others of their own kind, but to actually create another race was a new power entirely.

  Hell-spawn seemed to cover it pretty damn well. Especially if what Es had said was true, and she was Lilith.

  The lights flickered over our heads as something slammed into the wards and the heat in the hall built as Tate’s power gathered around us.

  “Tone it down,” one of the witches said, her voice soft. “If you cook us before you blast her, it doesn’t matter if we fight or not

  “We don’t fight.”

  Es moved up at the hall and as she passed by, a wind kicked up, causing the heat to dissipate and a cool welcoming brush of air that left the sweat on my flesh drying. It wasn’t entirely comforting, though. The look in her eyes, on her face, was one I knew.

  Es stopped by Tate and rested a hand on her shoulder.

  The two shared a look and then Tate shook her head. “No. Es, no.”

  “Go on, now,” Es murmured. Then she turned and looked at the warriors gathered behind her, and the witches standing in a knot behind them. “Take them all to the healing hall. Tate, you stand guard. If you have to, take the whole building down before you lock yourself inside. But that’s all I want you to do. Your word on it.”

  “Fuck that,” Tate said, her voice breaking.

  “You do this, or they all die.” Es looked to the door. “You’ve been given orders, my dear ones. I’m still head of this house. You’ll obey that order…or I’ll force you to obey.”

  Silence fell, heavy and oppressive.

  One of the warriors flung herself at Es. I didn’t know her name. Unable to watch such a private moment, I looked away as the woman, nearly six feet tall, clung to Es and sobbed like a child. It lasted seconds and then, as abruptly as it had happened, the woman pulled away. In a voice that boomed loud as a cannon, she called out, “To the inner hall!”

  Listening to their feet, I shouldered through the moving flow of bodies. I brushed against Tate and felt the contact like a burn against my flesh.

  Another thunderous crack slammed against the wards. It echoed somewhere deep in my heart. It certainly felt like it; something had just claimed another massive chunk out of me, I knew it.

  Gripping the butt of my gun, I placed myself shoulder to shoulder with the witch. Her pale, silvery hair was drifting gently around her, moved by an unseen current and her eyes were glowing. She was throwing power off in waves, yet it never touched me. Gathering it, readying it.

  For what?

  I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted that answer.

  “I’m not locking myself away and hiding,” I said sourly. Drawing the short sword from the sheath at my back, I stared at the door. Death in battle was one I could deal with. Death at the side of a friend, I’d almost welcome.

  “You can’t die today,” Es said softly. She turned her head and stared at me. “If you die, the girl doesn’t have a chance. Nobody else can stand against her.”

  I gaped at her. “I’ve met that foul bitch. She can squash me like a bug.”

  As if to reiterate that, that massive power outside slammed into the wards and one of them exploded, collapsing with a shriek around us. The lights flickered, and this time, they died. Gentle green lights rose to life around, powered by magic, hovering just a few inches from the ceiling. In that eerie light, I stared at Es, convinced she’d lost her mind.

  “It takes more than power to defeat certain things, child. Don’t you know that by now?” She lifted a hand and placed it square on my chest. I flinched at the contact, forcing myself not to jerk back. “Very often, it takes heart.”

  Swallowing the bile that crawled up my throat, I shook my head. “Pretty words. Empty ones. But pretty. She’ll toss me around like a rag doll when the time comes.”

  “In a fight, yes. But you don’t fight her.” She leaned in, grabbing my shoulders as she pressed her lips to my ear. Her voice was low, almost too low for me to make out. “You’re a trained killer…not a fighter. A born killer. She can die. Her body is mortal and right now, it’s the weakest it will ever be. Soon, she’ll be even weaker. What would kill that body? She doesn’t know this world…doesn’t understand it. And she doesn’t understand you or how you fight.”

  She leaned back and dropped a glance.

  My heart skittered to a stop as her gaze landed on my gun. “The vessel needs to be destroyed, but so must she.”

  Her hand touched my face and yet again, that roaring chaotic rush of knowledge came slamming into m
e.

  The words all blurred together, but then, abruptly, everything slowed. Es’s gaze locked and held with mine.

  “She has power over vamps and weres”, she murmured into my mind, her voice calm and steady.

  Power over them…even the thought of that turned my stomach and filled me with terror.

  “ The very controls that were bred into us make it difficult for us to strike out at her. You don’t have that problem. You’re the most capable for this, in more ways than one.”

  And then the connection ended and Es shoved me back, her voice filled with command and terror as she shouted, “Go!”

  There was another crash against the wards and I felt it echo in my gut as I stumbled into the wall. My ears rang at the intensity of it and something wet trickled down my neck.

  “Go!” Es shouted again. But apparently she didn’t trust me to move fast enough.

  Something slammed against my chest and I went flying down the hall.

  As I struggled to get up to my feet, arms came around me and lifted me. “Put me down,” I snarled, driving back with my elbow.

  “Leave her.”

  I sagged, recognizing the voice. It was the woman who’d sobbed as she hugged Es only moments ago.

  “She’s going to get herself killed.”

  “I know.” Her voice was a husky murmur and I thought she might be crying. “She’s known this was coming since she was a kid. She told me it would happen. We can’t stop it and if we try, just about everybody here will die. So what do we do? At least if Es makes her stand, she’ll weaken the bitch.”

  Her breath shuddered out of her. “She has to be weakened, otherwise none of us stand a chance against her.”

  * * * *

  Back when I ran away from home, I lived on the streets. When I first came to the States, I spent a summer in the Midwest and it’s an experience I don’t ever want to repeat. I’d been living in an old barn and had done just fine for a while. Food was easy to find and the weather didn’t suck.

  But then the storms started.

  A tornado almost a quarter-mile wide ripped through the area where I was staying, and I cowered against the ground while that twister pummeled everything around me. I’d been convinced that would be my last night on the earth—I didn’t want to die, huddling in the dirt.

  I hadn’t died.

  When I finally crawled out of the pile of timber, hay and debris, I’d never been so glad to see a night end and I left the Midwest that very day, stealing a car from a dealership that had somehow managed to go mostly untouched a few towns over.

  That was right before I landed in Orlando.

  For a while, that tornado had haunted my dreams.

  Wild, uncontrollable power that decimated everything around it.

  I had a feeling tonight would surpass that night—power for raw power.

  The witch who’d hauled me to the hall had disappeared inside to watch over the rest of her charges; her name was Serene. It didn’t seem to fit her, not at first glance. She was definitely a warrior through and through from the top of her violently red hair, cut in a short, spiked style, down to her battered leather boots. But her voice was low and soothing and her eyes were kind.

  When I’d said I’d stand watch at the door, she’d eyed me with a look that said she wanted to just club me over the head and be done with it. I’d been braced to take whatever she had to dish out. It would hurt but I could take it.

  It hadn’t been necessary. Tate had just sneered at the both of us. “Let the little dolly get her ass kicked if that’s what she wants.”

  Serene had just sighed and disappeared inside.

  Now the two of us stood and watched. Waited.

  The wards were all but gone.

  The roof was broken, bits and pieces of it missing. It might have given way altogether, but apparently Pandora had thought fire was the best way to do it and Tate thought otherwise. She could toss it around, and she could also kill it. Every time a fireball had exploded out of the night, Tate had lifted a hand; I could feel the heat coming off her as she sucked the magic inside her and the air around us was almost unbearably hot.

  “How much of that can you take in before you have to let it out?”

  Tate’s gaze slid my way. Her gaze burned like molten copper and a mean smile curved her lips even as she gave me an appraising look. Yeah, witch. I know how you work. The little dolly isn’t stupid.

  Tate looked like she wanted to laugh. Or fry my ass. But she only shrugged. “Plenty more. Of course, something is going to melt when I finally let all of this out.”

  Witches couldn’t suck in that kind of magic indefinitely. Sooner or later, it had to come out or it would kill her. And probably anybody within a thirty foot radius of her when she went supernova.

  “You want to take off running now?” Her eyes laughed at me.

  “Nah. I figure Es wouldn’t have put you on guard if she didn’t trust you.” I crossed my arms over my chest, gripping the Eagle and staring up at the ruins of the roof for a long moment. My ears popped as the atmosphere did a weird little pitch and shift. Here we go again.

  The ground rumbled under our feet. Bracing a hand against the wall, I squinted through the remnant magic, trying to see—

  Something exploded through the night.

  A hand closed around my arm. I swallowed back a gasp. Tate’s touch was hot as a brand. “You need to get ready to go through,” she said, all laughter gone from her voice. “That was the final ward. Whoever is at the door is coming in.”

  I heard a low, soft laugh.

  It drifted through the night. Wrapped around me.

  Music and bells…

  “Why are you doing this, witch?”

  Pandora.

  “Little fool.”

  I tensed as her voice sounded in the back of my mind.

  I tried to close my head against her, but it wasn’t as easy as it should be. Closing her out shouldn’t be that hard, but I felt like I was trying to slam a door against a coming flood—impossible.

  “There was no reason for this. All you had to do was find my vase. Just do your job…no questions asked.” Pain, hot and burning, sliced through me, like it was trying to split me in two. But not physically; I felt like she was trying separate me, body and soul.

  The agony ripped through me and I slammed the butt of my gun against my temple. Flesh ripped and blood dripped down my skin.

  I heard a rush of voice. Felt that scorching touch that was Tate’s hands on me. She was grabbing my face, shouting at me.

  Stupid little dolly—

  Yeah. Stupid—

  “Get out of my head…”

  “You’ll do your job,” Pandora whispered. I felt another one of those jabs and something inside me splintered. Sensory memory, sharp and clear, exploded and I felt her laugh as a ghostly touch feathered over the skin of my neck, tracing the lines of my tattoos. “I’d wondered about these. Do you know what I do to those who disobey me, Kit? I’ll take you into the dark. And you’ll relive all your worst fears…”

  Panic crowded inside my chest and blackness whirled around me. It threatened to drag me under as she poked, prodded at another memory. Whether it was desperation or terror, I don’t know, but this time, when she tried to slide past the barrier of my memories, I shoved back, and I shoved hard.

  I felt her surprise as I managed to take my mind back and before she could push her way inside again, I bolstered my shields, terror and adrenaline lending me much needed strength.

  I didn’t have time for anything else before hands closed over my arms.

  “Now.” The voice, the command, didn’t register. “Tate, do it.”

  The heat did.

  Heat, magic, the very world seemed to explode as I fell backward. Pandora struck out at me again, trying to shove inside my mind, but I managed to keep her out once more.

  Over the explosion of power, I heard her scream.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was nothing left
.

  And even though I couldn’t see any sign of the battle that had waged over the past hour, I knew Es was gone.

  Near where the door had once stood, there was a small crater maybe six feet across and I crouched there, smoothed my hand across it. Why, Es?

  But there weren’t any answers. Looking around, I blinked back the tears rising inside and stared at the witches milling around like lost children. They’d just now come out of the healing hall. In a few minutes, they’d find their center and focus, but just then, I imagined they were even more shell-shocked than I was.

  Es had been their everything.

  And she was dead because of a monster I’d led to their door.

  Standing in the remains of what had been the door, I stared at the lone room that had survived the destruction. The healing hall. The outer walls probably looked like a bunker would, had it come through a battle. Fire-scorched, battered. But whole. The spells Es had laid on it all those years ago had protected it, just as she’d said they would. Everybody inside that hall had survived. Had she been readying for just this moment? Had she spent her entire life preparing for just this?

  I swallowed the ache in my throat and looked away from the healing hall, staring at the devastation outside.

  Beyond the hall, nothing, and nobody, had made it. The home itself was charred bits of wood and melted metal. Colorful bits of glass, also melted, broke under my boots as I moved through the destruction.

  Tate stood at the far edge, staring over it all with an unreadable look on her face.

  “She’s gone.”

  I stopped and looked over at Serene.

  There was no point in asking who she was talking about. Averting my gaze, I stared out at my car, felt the urge to run to it, take off…disappear. If I ran, maybe Pandora would follow me.

  If I ran, maybe I could escape all of this.

  I never should have stayed here.

  If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had that first run-in with Jude.

  I wouldn’t have met Es, so I couldn’t have endangered her.

  Pandora would have never been able to seek me out.