“Go now.” Adessa flexed her hand. “And don’t come back until you’re sorry for what you did.” The flame woman dissipated and Adessa turned, smiling. I was pretty sure my jaw was hanging to the floor.
“Now that that’s taken care of.” She shut the lid of the apothecary table. “I think I can make this work. But I’m going to need your help with something first something that’s very dangerous, but very important to me.”
“Okay,” I said, not surprised, because danger seemed to be my middle name. “Tell me what it is.”
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Chapter 19
(Alex)
Iwas going to kill him, strangle him until he died. At least I wanted to. But I wouldn’t or couldn’t. Killing Laylen would nearly kill Gemma and she’d hate me for it. Besides, that’d be stooping to my father’s level. No matter how hard he tried to turn me into one of his murderous soldiers, I refused to give in. I had to be stronger than he was. If anything, to save Gemma from dying.
So I held back on the strangling, instead knocking him in the side of the head with a snow shovel I stole off someone’s back porch. Once he fell unconscious, I tucked his body under a tarp, beside a pile of firewood. Then I stood there in the darkness, trying to come up with some kind of plan that would salvage this mess. I had an unconscious, killer vampire in front of me and the two people who could take me away were missing.
There was only one thing to do. Go back to the Banshee and find out what happened. Then maybe I could figure out my next move.
She was wailing when I arrived, a cry of death, perhaps for me. I barged in, not bothering to knock and the pleased look on her face was enough that I saw red. I shoved her back and she tripped twisting her ankle as she fell to the floor.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
She smirked despite the pain. “Don’t you think I should be asking you the same thing?”
“You don’t get to ask the questions here.” I squatted down beside her, pointing my knife at her throat. “Now who are you?”
Her eyes widened, the color shifting from green to blue and her hair from brown to blond.
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“You’re the Banshee from the alley,” I said. “Why are you here?”
“You didn’t think Draven would just hand you the information, did you? Who are you really?
And why do you want the help of a Banshee?”
“He didn’t just give it to me.” My jaw tightened at the idea that this was just a set up a very long, waste of time, set up. “I have to pay him back later.”
“And you will,” she said. “But we needed to see why you seek her. Why do you need a Banshee?”
“I m not telling you anything, until you tell me why you brought me out here.”
“Because this is the entrance to the Afterlife,” she gesture at the blackened walls. “This is where you cross over.”
“I m not going anywhere.” I had an idea. “Where’s my mom? I know you know.” Her breath was venomous. “We don’t just give away information about our kind.” My knife was at her. “Where is she? Tell me where she is!”
“In hiding.” She sneered. “In a place where no one wants to hide.” I grabbed the Banshee by the collar of her shirt and yanked her toward me. “Where? Tell me.”
“I will.” She grinned slyly. “But it’ll cost you.”
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Chapter 20
(Gemma)
“Tesha’s a friend of mine,” Adessa clarified, but I still wasn’t thrilled about the idea. “If we can just get back to the house, I can take the mark off her.”
“But what if it doesn’t work.” My eyes were fixed on the bright neon lights of the building.
Standing in front of the glass doors, was a short woman with choppy hair, pointy ears, and turquoise eyes Tesha. At first I thought she was a pixie or something, but I wasn’t even sure if pixies existed.
Adessa explained that Tesha was a vampire friend of hers and that she’d somehow gotten branded with the Mark of Malefiscus. I tried to tell her a million times that it was a bad idea, because the last thing I wanted to do was take down a vampire when Aislin and Laylen were running around, doing who knows what. But when I saw the way Adessa looked at Tesha, I wondered if she might have been more than a friend.
“Alright, do you have a game plan?” I asked, peeking over the hood of the truck we were hiding behind.
Tesha was chatting with a man twice her size. I wasn’t sure what breed he was, but from the blue glow in his eyes made me guess he wasn’t human.
“I was hoping you had one,” Adessa said with a sigh. “I’ve been trying to get to her for weeks, but it s useless.”
I frowned. I had a plan, but I wasn’t very fond of it. “Okay, I m going to foresee my way over there, grab her, and blink us back here you better be ready to work the spell.” Adessa nodded, opening up the baggy. “I will, but be careful.” 87
“Give me the knife.” I shoved my hand at her.
Adessa shook her head, pulling the knife closer. “You can’t hurt her.”
“I’m not,” I said. “But I’m not going in unarmed either.”
Reluctantly, she handed over the gold-bladed knife. “Please, don’t hurt her.”
“I won’t.” Unless I have to.
“You’ll have to be the one to puncture her mark.” She tapped her left arm. “It’s on her left wrist.”
I put on my game face, even though I was scared out of my mind. “Be right back.” I shut my eyes and pictured the front door of the casino where Tesha stood. In a heartbeat, I had foreseen my way over, but managed to land myself between the tall man with glowing eyes and Tesha.
Their eyes darkened and the blue-eyed man reached for me.
“Sorry, not going to happen,” I said and forced him back. He barely stumbled, but I grabbed Tesha’s arm and whisked us away to Adessa.
As soon as we hit the asphalt, I shoved Tesha to the asphalt. Her fangs snapped out, sharp and long, and she nicked my arm. I snatched her wrist, fighting her as I made the incision on her left wrist where the triangle traced her skin. She snarled her fangs at me and then, as if she couldn’t resist herself, bit into her own arm where blood was starting to pool.
“Adessa!” I shouted and Adessa knelt beside us, her hands trembling as she opened the bag of Vitis vinifera. She crumbled it into the open wound and it mixed with the blood. Again, Tesha nicked my skin with her fangs and I slapped her. She blinked, stunned, and Adessa looked like she was going to cry.