Blood Prophecy (21 page)

Logan.

Magda called him something rude under her breath before yanking the back door open. Charlemagne leaped in after her.
“Suivez,”
I ordered the other dogs who had stopped running and were barking from the shadows.

Logan reached over to push my door open and I climbed in. His hair falling over his pale forehead and the lace at his cuffs did nothing to detract from his grim expression. His smile though, when he saw me, was gentle. I didn’t have time to smile back; he’d already slammed his foot on the pedal. I held tightly onto the door handle as the vehicle sped down the road. I knew it was faster than running, and more efficient than the carriages I remembered,
but I still preferred the carriages. They didn’t make me feel trapped.

I held on tighter, my fangs poking out from under my top lip. Hounds didn’t generally bother retracting their fangs since we lived in secrecy and had no need or desire to blend into society, even vampire society. They feared our extra set of teeth. I’d caught more than one vampire sniffing me back at the camp, to make sure I wasn’t
Hel-Blar.

Logan glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. They were grass green even in the dim glow from the lights on the dash. I still wasn’t sure how he could read me so well but he didn’t say anything, only pushed a button and the window slid open. Cold cedar-and-snow-scented air made the bone beads in my hair clatter. I could see the shadows of the dogs chasing us on either side. Charlemagne pushed his head out my window from the backseat.

“Are you sure about this?” Magda asked, as she’d asked me on the hour every hour since I’d made my offer. It didn’t matter that Logan was sitting right next to me.

“Oui,”
I replied.
“Bien sur.”
I wasn’t acting as the handmaiden to Kala, the Hounds’ Shamanka in this; just as Magda wasn’t acting as my guard or ritual sister, but as my friend.

“Thank you,” Logan murmured. “We have to try.”

I reached out, interlacing my fingers through his. “There was too much magic unleashed the day Solange took the crown, and that is no coincidence. Else it would have happened when your mother was crowned too.”

We crested a hill and at the bottom another car was set off the
road, the front dented around a fence post. The lights were still on and beyond them, Solange lay on the ground tied up with rope. Around her stood Kieran, Lucy, Quinn, and Connor. A tall man with black hair and a vicious smile broke out of the trees, flinging stakes. One of them narrowly avoided Lucy’s cheek, and only because Quinn kicked her feet out from under her, dropping her like a stone. She pushed to her hands and knees, scrambling to grab a crossbow before it was crushed under various boots.

“Constantine,” Logan spat, slamming on the brakes and screeching to a halt. I could hear the approach of the dogs on the other side of the hill.

“And
Hel-Blar,”
Magda added. “On your left.”

On the other side of the street,
Hel-Blar
shuffled in our direction, reeking of mushrooms and mildew. Charlemagne growled, despite his training. He knew danger and it made his hackles rise.
“Non,”
I told him sharply. It was too risky for any of the dogs to attack the
Hel-Blar
and they were all carefully trained to avoid them, by their smell and the sound of their clacking jaws. I whistled to forbid them from attacking. They were on the other side of the hill, but they’d still be able to hear me.

“Shit,” Logan swore. “Incoming!” he yelled to the others.

“Not again,” Lucy said, whirling to face them. Her first crossbow bolt caught the closest one in the chest, right through the heart. He crumbled into pieces and disintegrated. His companions scuttled through his ashes, snarling and undaunted. They smelled blood and battle and Solange’s pheromones. They’d never stop coming.

“I need to dreamwalk,” I said, despite the danger all around us.

“What, here?” Magda asked. “Now?” She whipped out one of her daggers. “Little busy.”

“I still need to get into Solange’s mind. And for that, I need to be touching her and she won’t let me do that until we get the collar on her. But I never got Lucy’s blood for immunity.” I withdrew the copper collar Logan’s brothers and Christabel had stolen from the
Hel-Blar.

Made of beaten copper and glimmering like trapped firelight, it was smooth and simple and curved like a half-moon. The collar was powerful, and even after Kala and I had both examined it thoroughly, we still weren’t entirely sure how it worked. I was taking a risk by using a magical item that might not be dependable, and judging by the foul look Magda shot me, she realized it too.

“You don’t need my blood,” Lucy piped up. “You’ve got me.”

I grabbed her wrist. “Then let’s go.”

Magda gave a twisted, screeching kind of laugh and leaped at the
Hel-Blar.
Logan followed, distinctly less enthusiastic, but then I’d seen rabid dogs with less enthusiasm for violence than Magda. “Guys!” he shouted at his brothers. “A little help here?”

But they couldn’t help him. They couldn’t even help themselves.

Because Solange was awake now.

She lifted her head, pupils flaring, the whites of her eyes bleeding out in red rivers. The twins stumbled, cursing. “Let me go,” she said softly.

“Don’t!” Lucy shouted.

But it was too late for warnings and they wouldn’t have done any good regardless.

“Let me go,” Solange demanded again. “
Now
.”

Logan was safe from Solange’s pheromones but he was also too busy fighting off
Hel-Blar.
I felt the pull of her power as well. Charlemagne moved across me, leaning his considerable weight across my knees to stop me from getting closer. Luckily, I was still far enough away to retain some sovereignty over myself.

“Take my nose plugs—” Lucy stopped. “Damn it, I gave them to Christabel.”

They might have helped but they weren’t a perfect shield. I swayed toward Solange but at least my feet stayed rooted. Between Charlemagne and my own magic, I could buy myself a few more moments. The twins weren’t so lucky. Quinn was already slicing through the thick ropes that bound her. Sweat dampened his hair as he struggled uselessly to fight the compulsion. Connor kneeled next to him and snapped the handcuffs apart. Constantine was trying to get to her and Kieran was just as determined to stop him. The twins stood, hovering beside their sister, straining on invisible leashes.

The
Hel-Blar
continued to advance.

Solange rose to her feet, like something out of the fairy stories my nursemaid told me when I was a child. Her hair was black as coal, her lips red as blood. Even her dress floated around her as if compelled.

Constantine backhanded Kieran and sent him sailing over our heads. I ducked before his boot could graze my temple but kept running, dragging Lucy behind me. She made a small strangled sound of surprise. Quinn and Connor moved to block Solange. I’d have to get through them to get to her.

“Can you take them?” Lucy asked. “Without killing them?”

“Oui.”

“Without them killing you?”

“I am not so easy to kill.” I handed her the copper collar, which she looped over her wrist like a large bracelet so that she could keep a grip on her crossbow. Her eyes widened suddenly and I knew Constantine must be behind me. Charlemagne was already leaping at him. Constantine dodged, but only barely. He had vampire speed, the kind that comes from being ancient. If he reached Solange before we did, we wouldn’t be able to start the ritual. And Logan’s brothers might die.

I spun on my heel to face him. My dogs raced down the street toward us, leaping the fences and skirting around trees. Constantine went low and I leaped high, avoiding his strike. I landed with a stake in each hand, braids and beads rattling like bones.

“We just want safe passage,” Constantine said. His accent was vaguely British, clipped but charming.

Charming didn’t work on me.

I didn’t waste time with idle talk, only threw one of my stakes. He danced out of the way but not quickly enough to avoid it entirely. It sliced through his side, under his arm, as he turned. His blood stung the air, hot and metallic.

Solange shrieked at the twins.

“Kill the witch!”

Chapter 19

Lucy

Things weren’t exactly going according to plan.

Big surprise.

Logan and Magda started to sprint toward Isabeau,
Hel-Blar
at their heels.
“Non!”
she told them even as Quinn and Connor did the same thing. Her tattoos looked very blue against the moonlight and snow.
“Dans un cercle!”
she ordered the dozen or so dogs milling through the snow. She pointed at Solange and they lunged for her. Quinn went down under the weight of a Rottweiler, knocking Connor down with him as he fell. The dogs paced a circle around Solange. Logan and Magda went back to fighting
Hel-Blar.

Constantine snarled, wiping blood from his side. His violet eyes locked on me, snapping to the copper collar swinging around my arm. I stumbled back a step, trying to figure out how to reach
Solange without turning my back on him. I wanted to make a run for it but I knew I’d never make it.

“You,” he said darkly, stalking toward me so quickly his hair flattened back away from his face. He was gorgeous, plain and simple. He downright smoldered. But that wasn’t enough for Solange. There was something else going on here. “You get away from her.” He seethed. Solange hissed behind me. The dogs barked and snapped at her knees.

I had nowhere to go. I was about to be skewered inside an undead vampire sandwich with a side of dog teeth. Karma for hitting Solange with a car. Not to mention Tasering her just last month.

The twins were currently trapped under dogs. Logan and Magda were trying not to get mushroom stench all over them, and Kieran was still on the ground, a hand pressed to a bloody gash on his head. Isabeau tossed handfuls of herbs on the ground, a dog-bone rattle in her other hand. She was chanting something under her breath.

Constantine reached for me. I tossed the collar toward Isabeau. Constantine veered toward it. Isabeau didn’t even look up from her ritual preparations. She just swung around, slamming her boot into his chest. He grunted in pain, and I heard ribs crack as he flew away from me. Isabeau caught the collar, returning to her chanting before he’d landed. He crashed, skidding through the snow so deeply he left a groove in the grass underneath.

Constantine landed next to Kieran, who shot his arm out, releasing the Hypnos strapped under his cuff. “Stay down, you son of a bitch.”

The white powder drifted over Constantine, and he stayed
sprawled on the ground, gnashing his teeth with fury. Isabeau snapped her fingers, and several dogs paced around him, snarling. Charlemagne’s giant paws pressed into his wounded side. Constantine wheezed, blood staining the corner of his mouth.

I spun back to face Solange. Her face contorted, glaring at me, at the dogs, at Isabeau, who was burning some kind of incense in a long dish that looked like a hollowed-out dog femur. “Solange, if you can hear me, we’re trying to help you.”

Her lips lifted off her teeth. “I don’t need help from a human.”

“Get out of her, you bitch!” My dad would have said name-calling was a refuge for the weak and ignorant. I didn’t care. I was about to do a lot worse.

“No.” She smirked, even though her dress was stained with blood where the dogs were nipping at her legs. I couldn’t quite reach her. Even with the dogs, she’d be able to knock the collar out of my hand before I got it around her neck. She might even bite my fingers right off my hand.

“Okay, next plan,” I muttered. I tried not to give myself away with a wince before I aimed the crossbow at her and released the trigger. Constantine yelled but he seemed very far away. The world narrowed down to the arrow, to the stiff black fletchings, and the pointed arrowhead. My breath stuck in my throat. I could only hope my aim was as good as everyone claimed, including me.

Because I was taking a hell of a risk. Even if I hadn’t aimed for her heart . . .

An inch too low or too high or too far to the left, and I’d turn my best friend into ashes.

The moment stretched and stretched, unbearable in its jagged
tension. It finally shattered when the arrow slammed into Solange, throwing her back and pinning her to a tree with a violent bloody jolt. She hissed with pain. She jerked and flailed but wasn’t able to get free. Blood bloomed along her collar and dripped down her useless arm. She was hurting, she was furious, and she hated me.

But at least she wasn’t a pile of ash.

“Collar!” I stuck my arm out without looking, knowing Isabeau would kick it to me. I caught it, the cold copper edges digging into my palm. I darted forward, the dogs scattering. “I’m sorry, Sol. God, I’m so sorry,” I babbled.

“Kill her,” she shrieked, pheromones shooting off her like darts. They didn’t affect me like the others but even I felt a little fuzzy. And I could smell dead roses and chocolate. Quinn was the first to get free and stagger to his feet. He ran at me, blurring, fangs elongating, hiss snaking out into the cold air.