“Good. Go take care of it.”
The necromancer moved with purpose, showing little sign that he’d suffered from shock and severe blood loss only a few minutes ago. He reached Sara’s side in moments, pressing a hand lightly on her back. She didn’t look up, still holding Devon as he shook in silent grief over Tiny’s body.
Though she refused to be budged, it didn’t appear to bother or slow Gideon down. He flicked his wrist, dislodging a small, slender blade. I stiffened , but Fabian hushed me and held me tighter, keeping me from rushing over to stop him.
Gideon put the blade between his teeth, using long, slender fingers to roll up the sleeve of her free arm, holding her forearm out in front of him. She watched him from behind a curtain of blond tendrils, clinging to Devon a bit tighter.
Gideon said a few words, the sounds foreign and strange to my ears. Guttural, almost. Something Slavic, maybe. It didn’t sound like any language I was familiar with. Having heard Arnold cast spells before, this felt . . . different. Darker. More ominous.
Sara jerked her arm, but his grip was too tight. She couldn’t pull away.
The fae glow in his eyes grew brighter—and the runes on her arm began to glow, too.
Devon tilted his head up, red-rimmed eyes staring dully at what was going on. Then widening. His fingers tightened around Sara’s, but there was nothing he could have done. Interrupting the spell could have disastrous consequences, not the least of which being a backlash of whatever energies Gideon was summoning right now. From the look and sound of it, they weren’t beneficial, either.
The bluish-white light slowly faded, the color draining away until the symbols were left in stark relief, black against her white skin. Sara made a sound of pain, soft in her throat, that grew into an agonized scream as Gideon whipped the blade out of his mouth and slashed the tip down her wrist—a line directly over the runes, cutting each of them in half.
She never stopped screaming as he held her, keeping her still, the words flowing like the black and yellow pus that seeped from the wound. Devon must have known the consequences of letting the spell be interrupted, because he helped hold her still, even though his eyes were wide and it was clear he was just as afraid for Sara as I was.
She writhed and twisted, kicking at Gideon, but he didn’t stop until every last rune had been cut in half.
The fluid corruption flowing from the wounds became clear, the stink of death and rot that I had thought must have been zombie leftovers abruptly clearing out, leaving something that seemed almost sweet in its place. Gideon slowly ran the flat of the blade over her arm, and the stuff began to sizzle and pop, but left her previously scarred skin unblemished.
He had done it. The runes were gone!
I could have kissed the crazy bastard. Now Sara wouldn’t be in danger from every passing mage. It felt like a hundred pounds of worry were lifted from my shoulders in that moment, knowing that she was no longer going to suffer for my mistakes.
I had finally made something right.
Sara slumped against Devon once Gideon let her go, her eyes wild with pain and terror, but she had clearly been too weakened to do anything to fight him off. The necromancer tucked his dagger away, flicking some of that clear goop from his fingertips, before turning an expectant look back to Fabian. A dog looking to its master for a treat after performing a neat trick.
The vampire finally loosened his grip on me, and I immediately ran to Sara’s side, wrapping my arms around her and Devon both.
I would never forgive Fabian for Tiny’s death, but knowing that he had a hand in making sure Gideon kept his word and healed Sara went a long way toward keeping me from feeling a need to exact revenge on him.
Which reminded me—I wasn’t sure what time it was, but if Gideon, Fabian, and Clyde remained here, they’d no doubt be killed by rampaging Goliath werewolves. The pack was supposed to show up at midnight. We had arrived not too long after sunset, and the battle had not taken terribly long. They still had a couple of hours to get a head start and find a safe way out of town.
I looked up from Sara’s bowed head, my fingers running through her hair, trying to console her as best I could. Gideon had returned to Fabian’s side, folded into his arms like a child seeking reassurance from his parent. Fabian watched us over Gideon’s shoulder, a sly smile I didn’t like hinting that he still had something up his sleeve. But whatever he hadn’t put on the table yet wasn’t going to stop me from doing the right thing.
“You should get out of here while you can. There are werewolves coming to kill him,” I said, tilting my chin in Gideon’s direction.
“We weren’t planning on staying much longer.”
Gideon glanced up at Fabian, then nodded as if he had been given some instruction. He turned back in our direction, flicking his fingers in a “come on” gesture at Clyde. The prone vampire finally opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times before rising slowly to his feet. He moved like he was buzzed—not quite sure on his feet, hands out to catch himself in case he bumped into something or fell—coming to an unsteady, swaying halt at Fabian’s side.
“Come on.”
The command was directed at Devon, Sara, and me. She wasn’t in any kind of shape to be on her feet, still shaking from aftershocks of pain or fear or who knew what, probably caused by Gideon’s spell. Between the two of us, we were able to get her up, though Devon wasn’t too happy and was having difficulty keeping pressure on his wound with the hand not being used to steady Sara.
“I can’t just leave him here. Not like this.”
Fabian was unmoved by Devon’s unspoken plea. “We’ll make arrangements. If it is as you say, and werewolves are going to be coming along anytime now, we need to be gone before they arrive. Let’s go.”
We didn’t argue, following the three Others out. The acrid stink of smoke was still drifting from somewhere deeper in the house, mixed with the smell of zombies. There might have been a fire on a lower floor; I wasn’t sure, but I was beginning to wonder why Fabian had already planned to leave, even before we mentioned the Goliaths. Now that he had control over the vampire in charge of this city, why wouldn’t he take over his seat of power?
The trio of Others stepped aside for us once we reached the front doors, letting us go out first.
I figured they were just being polite. Though once I saw what was waiting for us out there, my heart clawed its way from my chest to lodge high in my throat, choking off thought, reason, and air in one fell swoop. That moment of shock and panic was all Fabian, Clyde, and Gideon needed to swoop in from behind to grab us, keeping the three of us from running off or escaping back into the house.
We were so fucked.
Chapter 30
Max Carlyle grinned, spreading his arms as he approached the steps. “Hello, kids. Daddy’s home.”
In a surge of panic, I tugged at the arms holding me captive.
Half a dozen other vampires were leaning against the outside of the cars, all radiating power and danger the way that Fabian and Clyde did. Not as old and powerful as Max, but close enough to it so as to make no difference to the three of us, even if we hadn’t been confined.
Max looked just as dapper and handsome as I remembered. The suave, fashionable businessman look did a great job of slapping a passable veneer of polite professionalism over the crazy underneath. Was I the only one who could see the madness roiling in those cold, gray eyes?
“Sire,” Fabian said from behind me, his voice the warmest and most sincere I had ever heard from him. “I do hope you’ll accept my first tribute as master of Los Angeles.”
Oh, God, no.
That smile could have charmed the angels from the heavens. It wasn’t my imagination. He looked right at me as he nodded. “Yes. Tribute accepted. Very nicely done.”