“It’s a spirit link, in fact,” Simon spoke up. “It’s really quite rare. I’ve never heard of it being cast on one who wasn’t a necromancer.”
“And I’m seriously not a necromancer.”
Harrison stirred, groaning as he slowly got to his feet. “You could be. You’d be powerful. It’s in your blood.”
“No. It’s not,” I said, shaking my head. “Okay, we’re going to leave now.”
“I can’t allow that,” Zach repeated.
“I’m takin’ her home,” Lex replied. “Just ’cause I can’t kill you doesn’t mean I won’t handcuff you to a sculpture so we can leave.”
“Try it,” Zach suggested. He grinned, flashing bright white fangs, and I shuddered. We were at a standoff-Lex couldn’t attack him, and he wouldn’t let us go.
There was a distinct sigh from the direction of our undead audience, and then a streak of motion darted from the shadows behind Harrison. He turned toward it, and a dull pain exploded in my head as Zach fell to the floor, unconscious. Lex held me tight, reacting to the sudden buckling of my knees. When I recovered I saw Mrs. Emily Black standing above Zach’s prone form. Emily wiped off the side of a leather handbag, appearing unaffected by her surroundings.
I blinked. “Did you just hit him in the head with your purse?”
“I thought it best. We’d better hurry before he wakes up.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. C’mon, sugar, let’s get out of here,” Lex said.
I hugged him, feeling a little steadier, and he brushed a kiss against my hair.
“Damn, broke another one,” Emily muttered. She upended the bag, and several broken pieces of brick tumbled out and fell to the floor. I peered incredulously at Emily-the woman was short and petite and certainly didn’t look like the sort to have a weapon in her evening bag, and definitely not a chunk of masonry. I turned toward Michael and Simon.
“Cracking your host in the head with a brick seems kinda like interfering in vamp politics to me. Isn’t that against your Order’s rules?”
“It is, but while Michael is in the Order, Emily isn’t. That is why she can aid in rescuing you while we are merely observing,” Simon explained. Dusting himself off, he attempted to put his black suit back into order. “We’ll have to use the stairs. The elevators are monitored and can be overridden by security.”
We ducked into an emergency stairwell and began making our way down to the parking structure. Thankfully the art gallery wasn’t as high up in the building as my suite was, and we didn’t have a ridiculously far distance to travel. Lex held my hand tightly as we walked, as though he worried I’d try to bolt and run back to Harrison. Or maybe he was just happy to see me. Either way, I knew we’d have an interesting conversation once we were rid of our vampire audience.
“So, if you’re not in the Order, aren’t you still going to get into trouble for assaulting Zach?” I asked Emily as we trudged down the stairs.
“Zach?” she said, an inquisitive note in her voice. “Hmm, just how familiar are you with young Mr. Harrison?”
“I tried to get familiar with him, but apparently I’m not his type,” Mac joked. My cheeks flushed and I whacked Mac in the ribs with my free hand. Lex made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a low growl, and I hoped he was just clearing his throat.
“You’re avoiding the question,” I said to Emily.
“So are you,” she replied, amused.
“You’ll have to forgive Emily, she’s an insufferable gossip.” Michael chuckled behind us. “The answer to your question is no, she won’t. Emily’s position is unique.”
“Unique?”
“Quite,” Simon chimed in. “I took Michael on as my student and inducted him into the Order. Since he and Emily are soul mates, we couldn’t separate them-it would be extremely cruel, so he turned her. She isn’t part of the Order, but she wasn’t a necromancer and therefore holds no allegiance to their society.”
“That’s why I volunteered when Alexander asked Simon for help sneaking him into the building,” Emily informed me. “I don’t often get to aid in the rescue of a damsel in distress.”
“My wife, the mighty heroine.” Michael affectionately mussed Emily’s hair.
Emily pushed open the door to their parking level, and we emerged from the stairwell. It wasn’t as pristine as the spot I’d arrived at in the limo, but I could still catch a faint smell of fresh, damp air through the exhaust and spilled oil-it was raining outside. The sound of shuffling feet and muffled conversation echoed through the concrete structure. We rounded a corner just in time to see a handful of security agents spill out of an elevator, and they didn’t look happy.
“Ah hell,” I sighed. “So much for avoiding the elevators.”
The men spotted us and ran in our direction, a few of them drawing guns. We dove behind the nearest cars for cover as shots exploded in a series of sharp pops.
“There’s only a few, we can take care of them,” Lex assured us, and I shook my head.
“‘We’? Some of us are a bit out of our league here,” Mac piped up, and I nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, and that’s a lot of bullets to dodge. I don’t suppose you had anything else besides a brick in your purse?” I asked Emily.
“Sorry, it was the only thing that got through the metal detectors.”
“Great. Ideas?”
“Hey, look up,” Mac said, pointing at the ceiling near our attackers. A bright red sprinkler head jutted from the bland concrete. Water. I could work with that.
Staring hard at the sprinkler, I reached out with my magic and yanked on the water in the pipes, which then erupted in a fine spray. I chanted the same spell that’d let me bean Laura with an iceball, and the water froze into sharp spikes, sending a hail of icicles in every direction.
“Nice.” Lex grinned, darting out from our cover.
Emily grabbed a hold of my hand and tugged me after her as she dashed back into the aisle. A few of the men were down, injured but alive, and the ones left standing looked bewildered by what attacked their friends. Lex engaged those closest to us, and drawing back her fist, Emily decked one and laid him out flat. Not bad for a little vamp in a cocktail dress.
Lex made quick work of the rest of them, but the last man standing turned toward us and aimed his gun at Emily. I stepped closer to her, and instead of throwing my shields out from within me I pictured a perfect sphere of water around us, drawing on energy from the gush spewing from the sprinkler. The energy pulsed bright blue around us a heartbeat before he pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit the barrier. For a moment it hung there, suspended in midair, and then slid slowly to the ground.
“Good work,” she said, impressed.
Before the gunman could fire again, a ball of ice the size of a grapefruit struck him in the side of the head and sent him sprawling. Emily and I turned to our vampire entourage, and Michael held out his hands, attempting to look innocent.
“Freak sprinkler accident,” he explained, pointing upwards.
“Of course it was, darling. Let’s hurry before it happens again, shall we?” Emily suggested.
Before I could manage to ask where exactly the car was, I felt a wave of white-hot anger thrum through me, and I collapsed in a pile of twitching, flailing limbs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emily bent over me as I thrashed and kicked, molten agony racing through my veins. A high-pitched scream tore from my throat, long and agonized. The vampire placed her hands on either side of my face, and she held me steady as she looked deeply into my eyes.
Lex knelt next to me, and then grabbed my hand and held it. Some of the heat subsided, enough to let me concentrate on Emily as she spoke.
“Catherine, how much did you drink?” she asked.
“What?” My breath was still too fast, too shallow-I felt like I was hyperventilating.