Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic Read online

  I stepped over the carved circle that encircled the table. Within it, I caught a glimpse of inactive runes.

  The vampire followed me over the ward line, but Drake didn’t. I guessed that this inactive ward snapped into place if anything went wrong when Blackwell was inspecting the pieces he laid out on the table. By ‘wrong,’ I was thinking magical backlash that could potentially harm the collection. Or interact with it badly.

  Again, I itched to touch it all, wondering what he did with the bits he deemed useless. In my hands, they could be made whole again. To him, they were probably garbage.

  A wooden box, eight inches square, sat before the single chair at the end of the table. Blackwell circled to stand before it. He opened the lid and looked up at me expectantly.

  I circled in the opposite direction until I stood by Blackwell, with Kett practically glued to my side.

  A silver circle some six-and-half-inches across was nestled in the chest. A different rune — or so I guessed, as it wasn’t a language I could read — was carved every two inches or so into the silver band. What looked like rough-cut diamonds were embedded into the metal between these runes.

  “Silver doesn’t hold magic well,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “It’s platinum,” Blackwell said.

  Ah, silly me.

  “The diamonds are huge.” The gemstones looked as if they’d been chiseled out of the earth and simply crammed into the platinum band by raw, brutal alchemy. I wasn’t the only one who made magical objects, but there wasn’t a long list of people who could do so. Actually, according to the dragons, I might be the only one currently living. Yeah, that wasn’t overwhelming at all.

  “It’s a collar?”

  “A circlet, I believe,” Blackwell answered. There was something lurking in the smoothness of his tone that I didn’t want to identify or even know about.

  The circlet or headband didn’t emit any obvious magic, but still I hesitated to touch it. It was almost as if it repelled me … or more like it was a small, malignant void just sitting pretty in its wooden box. A tiny black hole in the guise of a jeweled coronet.

  “Will it harm me?”

  “You tell me.”

  Asshole sorcerer.

  “Have you touched it?”

  Blackwell shuddered at this question. So that was a yes.

  “I don’t like it.” I directed this statement to Kett, who was standing so close to me I could see his magic dancing in his skin. This display always reminded me how far the vampire was from human. He was like animated magic … or maybe the corpse of his previous self reanimated by magic, with its memories and thoughts intact. But ‘reanimated’ wasn’t the perfect word …

  “Yes,” Kett answered. “I can see.”

  “Tell me what it is. What its function is, dowser,” Blackwell said. “And I will set you on your sister’s trail … if you’re up for it.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant identifying the object or hunting Sienna, but I really wasn’t up for either. Of course, I did a lot of things I didn’t want to do these days.

  I reached out and hovered my hands over the circlet. Nothing happened. Always a good start.

  I lowered my hand, but at the last second, I chose to avoid touching the circlet. I pressed my finger into the velvet cushion in the very center of the platinum circle. Blackwell really had an unhealthy thing for plush fabrics with heavy napes.

  I exhaled. Nothing happened.

  I inhaled, about to lift my finger and actually touch the band, when a pulse of multicolored magic spread from carved rune to gem to carved rune all around the circlet.

  Then the magic clamped down on my finger.

  I screeched and yanked my hand back. The feeling instantly dissipated. The glow faded from the runes.

  “What color was the magic?” Kett asked.

  “All colors. You couldn’t see?”

  Kett nodded. He was just questioning his senses, I guessed.

  “But I think the runes and gems color the spell,” I said. “Not the … alchemist who created this.”

  “Created what?” Blackwell asked, eagerness edging his tone.

  I was fairly certain Blackwell already had his suspicions. But instead of answering, I reached out and pressed my fingertips to the outside of the band, carefully not touching the runes, gems, or inside edge. I lifted the circlet from the box.

  I gazed through the circle as if it was a window. The magic didn’t try to grab me again. I hesitated to tell Blackwell any of what I was tasting, but I felt compelled by the bargain we’d struck in the courtyard.

  “Hold it like this and it won’t affect you,” I said, turning to pass the circlet to the sorcerer.

  He carefully placed his fingers next to mine until he held the full weight of the platinum band.

  “It’s deceptively light for something so terrible,” I said.

  “Yes?” Blackwell lifted the circlet and looked through it as I had. For a moment, the inner edge caught the reflection of the sorcerer’s eyes, and I had to look away from the yawning chasm of greed I saw there.

  “Do you have others?”

  Blackwell hesitated, but then said, “No.”

  I looked at Kett, who always seemed to know when people spoke the truth — maybe he noted their heart rates — and the vampire nodded.

  “What is it?” Blackwell actually seemed to have an excess of spit in his mouth.

  I turned away, sweeping my gaze across the parts of the gallery I hadn’t walked through. Drake was leaning against the stand of a smiling Buddha. I almost cautioned him from doing so, but then stopped myself. Obviously, the micro wards didn’t bother the fledgling guardian. His deceptively casual stance was probably for Blackwell’s benefit, because the fledgling was as unsettled as I was. Now that I was looking for it, I noted that a number of the alcoves had their curtains drawn, and a few pedestals were draped with red velvet. It bothered me that Blackwell didn’t have his entire collection on display. I was going to have to walk away, to hand him more power, and take his clue in order to save Mory and stop Sienna.

  And that was my ultimate responsibility.

  I offered Drake a sad smile. He shrugged in response, bowed his head, and turned to walk back to Kandy at the front entrance.

  “You understand that such a thing as this would not hold me, Drake, or Kett for very long. But we would be terribly angered by its use.”

  Blackwell nodded. I was fairly certain he was barely listening to me. He was just waiting for the punch line.

  “It’s a dampener,” I finally said, not looking at Blackwell as I spoke. Kett stiffened — though I wouldn’t have thought that possible — beside me. “A magical suppressor, as far as I can tell.”

  Blackwell expelled a breath. Then, smiling to himself, he carefully placed the circlet back in the chest.

  “It drains magic?” Kett asked.

  “No. Is that even possible? I think it just holds it in place.”

  “Rendering the Adept human,” Blackwell said. I really didn’t like the barely contained glee evident in his tone.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it simply stops them from using their magic, which is why it wouldn’t hold a vampire for long.” Vampires were made of magic, or at least Kett was to my eyes. The dampener — placed on a vampire — would have nothing specific to grab a hold of and then restrict.

  Blackwell turned to look at me. His hand was placed possessively on the lid of the wooden box. “And why is that, dowser?” the sorcerer asked.

  I smiled. “That information isn’t part of our deal, sorcerer.”

  Blackwell inclined his head.

  “Now for your part,” Kett said.

  Blackwell nodded. “We’ll need to go to the library.”

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  Blackwell tucked the wooden box underneath his arm and headed back the way we came.

  I tried to not worry about the information I’d just
traded. I tried to not worry about what was behind all the curtained alcoves. The treasures contained in this room no longer dazzled me. I just hoped that Blackwell was so careful and jealous that those treasures never left the confines of their wards and these stone walls.

  Though, honestly, for a moment, I did think about pulling out my sword and destroying everything in my path. It was a silly but compelling thought.

  Instead, I laced my fingers through Kett’s cool ones and stared at the midpoint of Blackwell’s back. The familiar peppermint taste of the vampire’s magic filled my senses, clearing my sinuses of all the other magic in the gallery.

  This wasn’t the worst thing I was going to have to do to get through this Sienna debacle. But it saddened me to think about how Blackwell might use that circlet.

  I freed myself from Kett’s fingers and stepped from the gallery. Drake, Kandy, and Blackwell had already exited before Kett and me. Blackwell raised the ward over the door as I passed. Stupid sorcerer. I’d already tasted this magic, and it wouldn’t hold me at bay anymore if I wanted in.

  I’d be back, I promised myself. When and why and how, I didn’t know. Except that the circlet didn’t belong in Blackwell’s collection.

  ∞

  Blackwell led us diagonally across the main entrance and then up a twist of circular stone stairs that were way too narrow and confining for my taste. McGrowly would have had to walk at an angle to get his shoulders through. Coming down was totally going to be worse.

  As immediately as he sprung to mind, I determinedly avoided thinking about Desmond Charles Llewelyn, Lord and Alpha of the West Coast North American Pack. I hadn’t even heard his voice in the last three and a half months, because I hadn’t called him. I didn’t like the way the life debt bond I owed him compelled our so-called relationship. And magic or no magic, I didn’t need any of it interfering with finding Mory and stopping Sienna.

  Instead of thinking of my would-be shapeshifter lover, I imagined how Kett would be full of information about the narrow stairs making it easier to defend the castle. Forcing intruders into single file would mean that a single sorcerer on the top landing could pick them off one by one. But would Adepts who could scale walls or tear down doors ever be stupid enough to get trapped like this? Castle living was so not for me.

  Neither was the library. It smelled musty and dusty and like moldy leaves. By the gasp that emanated from the vampire, I gathered that Kett felt the complete opposite.

  I scanned the bookshelves that stood double my height around the edges of the walls and within curtained alcoves. Replace the pedestals with shoulder-height lengths of shelving and the red velvet curtains with royal blue, and this room was a duplicate of the gallery below. Except for the fireplace and seating area on the far curved wall. And the obviously magical picture-framed window overlooking the wide, moonlit river below.

  Blackwell’s reading nook … how cute. The fireplace didn’t seem to have a proper chimney or vent — more magical showing off. I was beginning to understand Gran’s conservatism when it came to magic. Throwing it around was flashy and wasteful.

  “Your sister Sienna took — stole — two items when we parted ways in the caves,” Blackwell said as he made a beeline for the reading area. “I would like them back.”

  “What, pray tell?” Yeah, I got he was Scottish, not English, but I wasn’t above mocking him.

  Blackwell continued forward without answering, which was okay. I was accustomed to being ignored by my elders when I was being mouthy.

  The stone floor was covered by a thick Persian rug in front of the fireplace, which blazed to life as Blackwell passed by it. The rug was incongruent with the Victorian-looking love seat and chair, and I avoided stepping on it.

  Kett began listing toward the bookshelves as we passed by. I kicked him in the calf with a back flick of my foot and he righted himself.

  Blackwell stepped into the alcove positioned to the right of the magical window, and I turned to look at the room I’d just passed through.

  Kandy, once again, stayed by the door. Her arms were crossed and her face grim. Unhappy wolf. Yeah, me too.

  Drake peered at the fire for a moment — dragon’s loved watching magic in action — but he quickly grew bored and paced around looking at the books.

  Blackwell stepped back out from the alcove with a leather-bound book in hand. He passed it to me, and then waited expectantly.

  Great. Another test, was it?

  I sighed. The book’s black leather binding looked new. The title was embossed in gold along the spine but not on the front cover. The Book of Demon History on Earth.

  “Catchy title,” I said.

  I flipped the book open. It was filled with pages and pages of cramped, black-inked handwriting that — by firelight, anyway — was incomprehensible. I flipped a few more pages. The author had also included sketches of demons, symbols — runes, I guessed — and weapons. The chapters were chronological by date and seemed to begin in the fourteenth century.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Its magic is dim. This isn’t a book of power.”

  “The book is not the original, of course,” Blackwell said. He was back to watching me intently. Normally that would bother me — I wasn’t some science experiment — except this time I knew he was waiting for me to piece something together.

  “Sienna stole the original? Why would —”

  I stopped flipping. I recognized the wickedly curved knife depicted on the page I now held open. It was the blade that Sienna had used to murder Jeremy.

  “You hire a duplicator?” Kett asked. Blackwell intrigued Kett far more than I liked. But then, I wasn’t the vampire’s keeper. In fact, I really hoped to never meet his keeper.

  “Seems prudent,” Blackwell answered.

  As I understood it, Kett was turned, not born, which meant that some other vampire’s blood had animated his corpse. And blood heeded blood. Yep, Kett’s master would be a terrifying being, who the vampire would have to obey in all things. At least that was what the limited number of books on vampires that I could find in the dragon nexus said.

  “Duplication,” I said. “A duplicator.” Yeah, I was a bit behind.

  “Yes,” Blackwell said.

  “But he or she cannot duplicate the magic within the pages.”

  “No.”

  “Because magic can’t be created or destroyed,” I said. “So the duplicator borrows from the original?”

  “A small amount,” Blackwell answered. “Not enough to diminish the original —”

  Kett snorted. I’d never heard him make such an indelicate noise.

  Blackwell shut his mouth and grimaced.

  “What was the second item?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Actually, it was the first.” Blackwell tapped the sketch I’d recognized.

  The knife. But did Sienna still have it? It had been in Mory’s hands the last I saw it — covered in Jeremy’s blood. But Sienna had Mory.

  Kandy had managed to save my mother, who’d been magically depleted from holding the demon at bay, but not Mory. The werewolf had protected the more vulnerable, as she should have, but lost the necromancer and the knife. I’d have to call Scarlett to confirm that Mory hadn’t dropped the knife after I dragged the demon through the portal. It wasn’t something I had reason to ask before. Unless Kandy knew.

  “How is any of this supposed to help me find Sienna? Why would she want this book in the first place? She’s not a sorcerer.”

  “It’s not that kind of a book. It’s merely information. Some would call these accounts fairy tales.”

  “Yeah, I know all about Adept bedtime stories coming true. I’m still waiting on the elves to show.”

  “Really?” Blackwell asked, very interested in this possibility.

  “No, sorcerer. That was sarcasm. So this helps me how?”

  “The book is a duplicate,” Kett prompted me, but not unkindly.

  �
��So what?” I asked. They gave me a minute. “You think I can track the original with this one. What are you smoking?” Blackwell furrowed his brow. He was as unhip as the vampire when it came to slang. “Fine. Even if I could do that, I’d have to be near the other book, and if I was that close, I’d taste Sienna’s magic first. You know, with all the blood magic and mayhem in her veins.”

  Blackwell shrugged. “I have no idea why your sister wanted the book or what she plans on doing with it. Other than the obvious.”

  “It’s a history of demons. It’s not like they’re walking the earth. They’ve been vanquished back to their own …” I looked to Kett, hit with a completely irrational and impossible realization. “Mory …” If Sienna had stolen Mory’s necromancy powers, would she think she was capable of raising vanquished demons?

  The vampire tilted his head thoughtfully. He liked to hedge his bets, which was fine by me. One of us had to be rational when it came to Sienna, and it wasn’t going to be me.

  My sister already had a taste for manipulating the dead. She used Hudson’s corpse — my would-be boyfriend and Kandy’s pack mate — to try to kill Kett six months ago. But demons, according to my father Yazi, came from another dimension and dissolved into ash when vanquished. Necromancers needed a dead body in order to reanimate it, didn’t they?

  I glanced back at the entry that accompanied the picture of the sacrificial knife. “Dorset Street. London. 1888.”

  “Three demons,” Blackwell said. “Summoned by an ancestor of mine. He died in the attempt. I believe the humans attributed his sacrifice to their Jack the Ripper myth.”

  ‘Sacrifice’ was the completely wrong word to use for murder. Why was I just standing here chatting with this asshole? Right, Mory.

  “She’s not that powerful,” I said to Kett. “She was only able to raise that demon in the Sea Lion Caves, because he —” I spat the word in Blackwell’s direction — “laid the spell. With this … she’d be combining completely different types of magic. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  Kett, who was reading the entry over my shoulder, didn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to try to focus on the cramped writing. My mind was reeling, actually attempting to not put the pieces of the Sienna puzzle together.