Once I can breathe, I look up. See the guilt shining in eyes as dark as obsidian.
It straightens my spine, pulls me back from the edge in a way nothing else could have right now. “It’s okay,” I tell him, running a hand down his back.
Then I turn to my best friend. “Lily, are you okay?”
She stares at me with haunted, incredulous eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
“Take her into the hall,” Declan tells me. But even as he says it, we know it’s not going to happen. I won’t be able to move from this room until Councilor Alride has been cut down.
“I’m fine,” she tells us. “Just do whatever you have to do so we can get the hell out of here.”
I don’t bother to tell her that it doesn’t work like that. I’m too busy staring at the body at the front of the room again. Now that I have my feelings under control, my earlier impressions are all ricocheting back—one thought chief among them.
“Declan?” I ask, looking over the carnage with the most impersonal eyes I can manage.
“Yeah, baby?” I can feel his resistance in every breath he takes, every word he doesn’t say. He wants nothing more than to gather me up and take me as far away from this place as we can get. The fact that he can’t—that it simply is not possible—is ripping at him the same way the compulsion ripped at me earlier.
It’s another realization, another by-product of our relationship that I’ll have to think on later. Because right now, my mind is occupied by just one thing—the bold and terrifying truth staring back at me out of Councilor Alride’s unseeing eyes.
“There’s no blood.”
Twelve
“What?” Declan snaps out the single syllable, but I can tell he’s looking at the scene with new eyes.
“Oh God,” Lily moans as she comes to stand next to me. She wraps an arm around my waist—as much to comfort as to take comfort.
“He’s been cut open, his internal organs have literally fallen out of his abdominal cavity and he’s hanging from the ceiling.” The place should be drowning in blood, but it’s not. There’s almost nothing, just a scattering of drops on the desk. “So where’s the blood?”
It’s a rhetorical question. Whoever murdered Councilor Alride bled him dry first, and took the blood with him when he left. There’s only one reason for that, and it isn’t a good one. The darkest magic, the blackest form of Heka in existence, uses blood magic. The strength of the spells, of the power, depends partially on the practitioner and partially on the blood.
The blood of a Councilor would make some very, very powerful magic.
On the heels of that thought comes the realization that we need to start tracking his blood. I’m not sure that’s even possible, but if it is, someone needs to do it. The alternative—that all that blood, all that power, is just out there for someone to tap into—is terrifying.
Bleeding someone out—
How did you get here? You need to leave immediately. Councilor Alride’s voice booms through my head, blocking everything out but the deep tenor of his words. The fact that they echo Declan’s so closely has me blinking, confused, at the angry man looming over me. The very angry, very alive man.
When I don’t answer, he continues. What are you doing? Stay right there. Don’t come any closer. I’m calling security. He reaches for the phone. I’m—
The crack of a whip sounds over his angry posturing. Pain—sharp, focused, hot—rips through my hand. My arm.
That’s when I understand. He’s not talking to me. He’s talking to his killer. It’s never happened like this for me before. I’ve never been allowed to see or hear or feel anything before the attack and death occur.
Another crack rips through the air like a gunshot. More pain licks over my chest and side this time.
How dare you! Councilor Alride’s uninjured hand shoots into the air and I can feel the magic building inside him, feel him gathering it from the world around him.
There’s a flash of light, and then nothing. No pain. No sound. No fear. Just an utter blankness that doesn’t make sense. In the back of my head, there’s a voice calling to me, but I can’t reach it, can’t hear it. It’s distracting, annoying, so I shut it out. Then I turn into the black.
I push through the darkness, searching for Alride. Searching for anything that might tell me what happened to him. How a Councilor of his power was so completely overwhelmed. And by whom?
For a long time, there’s nothing. Just darkness. And then—shooting pain. In my ribs. Again and again and again.
I grab onto the sensory memory, hold it tight to my chest even as the pain spreads through me. I have to see, have to know. . . . It’s a new compulsion, one that grows stronger with each passing moment.
Metal. Sharp and cold and thin, so thin, as it presses against my jugular. A quick nick of pain, then blood—warm and liquid—welling above my collarbone. More warmth. A finger catching it, smearing it a little. The finger disappears. I hear the muted sounds of someone sucking.
My whole body tightens in revulsion, in rejection. I try to shove my attacker away, but my hands won’t work. No one licks my blood, takes my blood, without my permission.
Laughter—a little wicked, a little mocking—washes over me. How does it feel, Viktor? How do you like being on the other side of the game?
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Tsk. Tsk. I’ve never been very fond of lies.
Another cut. This one a little deeper. It stings more, bleeds more. I can feel the blood leaking slowly down my chest. The finger is back, playing in it. No, not a finger. A tongue. There’s a mouth on my chest—lips running over the bloody trail, tongue licking it up drop by drop by drop.
I yell for help. No sound assaults my ears, but I can feel the scream in the twinging of my vocal cords and the sudden hoarseness of my throat.
No need to panic. The voice is low, a whisper. I try to tell if it’s a man or a woman, try to see the face it belongs to, but there’s nothing there. Just the voice, just the tongue, just the pain.
More metal, more cold. Not a knife this time. Handcuffs around my wrists. No, not handcuffs. This is thicker, tighter. Two inches thick, it wraps around my wrist. Squeezes so tightly that it pinches the thin layer of flesh that rests right over my bones.
What are you doing? I ask again. My voice is no longer steady, my confidence—in myself and my abilities—shaken. No, not me. Viktor. This is all happening to Viktor, I remind myself.
It’s strange, muddled. Hard—so hard—to tell the difference now.
I’m moving, being pulled up, slowly, slowly. There’s grunting, a mocking laugh. A breathless admonition for me—for Viktor—to lose weight. A promise to help him with that.
And then I’m hanging, my arms stretched wide above my head. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?
No answer now. No sound at all but the harsh breathing of physical exertion. I reach for my magic. I mutter an incantation so old it has been forgotten by nearly everyone. I need my hands for it to work well, but I still have my fingers. Maybe that’s enough—
Pain. Overwhelming, this time. My entire system is overloaded with it until I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but endure. Endure. Endure.