The Fiery Heart (29 page)

Regardless, it was a problem for later. For now, my focus was on being an amateur tattooist—which I actually pulled off pretty well. I reinforced the sun design and didn't stray from the lines too badly. Trey wanted to check it in a mirror, but before he could, I had to finish the spell. Earth compulsion charms could be time delayed, triggered by a certain event. Abe had put an urge to obey in the blood, but it didn't have a specific focus. That was where I came in. Once the blood was delivered into the subject, the magic was unlocked and ready to be directed. Trey sat up, and I leaned forward, looking him in the eye.

In the Alchemist ritual, after the blood was delivered, a hierophant would give the new recruit a standard set of instructions: “Our words are your words, our goals are your goals, our beliefs are your beliefs.” I'd never thought much about those words. They had a ritualistic feel, and until recently, I hadn't realized how literally the charm worked them into the person. After that, the hierophant would add, “Never shall you speak of the supernatural to those who aren't part of it. You will guard its secrets.” That was about all the charm could handle. You couldn't give infinite commands. The Moroi had enough hang-ups about compulsion that they'd give the blood only a low level of magic. Or, well, at least most Moroi would. Apparently, since some Alchemists were being programmed with stronger commands, there were Moroi willing to bend the rules and power up the blood.

I didn't bother with any of that with Trey. All I needed to do was give him a command while the charm was active in the blood and ready to receive.

“You will not speak of your feelings for Angeline to anyone,” I told him sternly.

Trey met my gaze, and I saw his dark eyes start to glaze over in obeisance. My heart sank. I'd seen this in other Alchemists being tattooed. I'd experienced it myself. It was the compulsion taking hold. We'd failed. The magic was still able to work and—

He suddenly blinked rapidly, as though he were shaking off a dream. “Why not?” he asked.

“Why not what?”

“Why can't I talk about Angeline?”

“Do you want to?”

“I don't know. Sometimes.”

“You know, the other day at lunch, we were all talking about spring break plans, and she suddenly started going off about how meerkats aren't cats at all and how zoologists should really rename them because it could cause a lot of trouble if someone took one home as a pet.” I eyed Trey carefully. “What do you think of that?”

His expression softened as a smile filled his face. “It cracks me up. No, I love it. I know this stuff sounds so crazy, but it's just because everything is so new to her, you know? We take everything for granted, but when I'm with her, I see the world through new eyes. She makes my world better. It's why she's so great.” He suddenly snapped to attention. “Why do you have such a big grin on your face?”

“Because you're talking about how you feel about Angeline.”

“So?” he asked suspiciously.

“I asked you not to.”

“You did?”

The door to the garage opened, and Adrian appeared. He'd had to stay on campus late and was only just now able to join us. “You still giving out tattoos, Sage? You up for my skeleton pirate?” He glanced between our faces. “What's going on?”

I laughed and clasped my hands together in front of my chest. “It worked. The salt ink negated the other ink. It undid the compulsion! The human magic triumphed.”

Trey arched an eyebrow. “Do I really want to know the details here?”

I surprised him with a quick hug. “The details are that you just helped prove a major discovery. One that's going to help a lot of people.”

He still looked understandably puzzled. “Just as long as you didn't do any lasting damage.”

“You're free and clear to go to the movie with us,” I said.

“We're all friends, though,” said Trey quickly.

“Absolutely,” I said.

He had a shift soon and was able to talk to us only a little while longer. Once he was gone, I threw myself into Adrian's arms and he spun me around.

“My brilliant girl,” he said. “You did it.”

I brushed my lips against his cheek. “I couldn't have done it without you.”

“Me? I'm not the one who conned her way into getting illicit ingredients, scored a test subject, and learned to use a tattoo machine in a week.”

“You were moral support,” I said. “The most important job of all. And now that I know it works, I've got to go make more ink for when Marcus shows up. Keep me company.”

Marcus had sent word to Adrian via Sabrina that he'd be in town next week. I'd been making extra ink whenever I could get a free moment and wasn't going to waste this one. I had to give Marcus his best fighting chance. Ms. Terwilliger was working in her kitchen when we came back into the house. She waved and assured me I could use her workroom. Although she didn't understand my project exactly, she had no problem sharing her space and letting me store things. Adrian had come by a number of times in the past, and like tonight, he sat near me and quietly did his own work while I did mine. It was warm and comfortable and
almost
normal.

“Isn't it weird?” he said, glancing up as I measured salt. “All the variety that life offers? Here we sit, me reading expressions of creativity.” He held up the poetry book, which to my dismay, was now worn and dog-eared. “And you doing scientific and magical calculations. We're thinking, cerebral beings one minute . . . and the next, completely given over to physical acts of passion. How do we do that? Back and forth, mind and body? How can creatures like us go from extreme to extreme?”

“Because that's what we do,” I said, smiling. I was really glad the pills hadn't muted philosopher Adrian. I loved listening to him go off on these flights of fancy. “And it's not necessarily extreme. I mean, what we did yesterday at your place . . . well, maybe it was a ‘physical act of passion,' but it was also
very
creative. Who says mind and body can't work together?”

He unfolded himself from his chair and walked over to me. “Fair point. And if memory serves, it was my genius that came up with that.”

I set down my materials. “It was not. That was all me.”

“There's only one way to settle this.” His arms encircled my waist, and he pressed me against the table. “We need to surpass that creativity. Are you thinking what I am?”

“That Ms. Terwilliger's in the next room?” But my pulse had quickened at the feel of him against me, and I was already figuring out how to clear the table.

He pulled away and shut the workroom's door. “She's discreet,” he said. “And smart. She'll knock first.”

I almost thought he was joking until he grabbed hold of me again and seated me on the table, wrapping my legs around him. Our lips met hungrily as his deft artist's fingers began working at the buttons on my shirt. A sudden buzz from my regular cell phone startled me from the kissing.

“Don't,” said Adrian, his eyes ablaze and breathing ragged.

“What if there's a crisis at school?” I asked. “What if Angeline ‘accidentally' stole one of the campus shuttle buses and drove it into the library?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Are you saying she wouldn't?”

He sighed. “Go check it.”

I hopped off the table, clothes askew, and found the message was actually from Neil, of all people.
We still need to talk. Can you meet tonight? Somewhere private? It's important.

“Huh,” I said. I showed Adrian the message.

He was equally puzzled. “Do you know what it's about?”

“No, he mentioned it when we first got back to town.” The heat between us was cooling, and I began buttoning my shirt back up. “What if it's about me using magic?”

Adrian had grown serious. “No, I don't think so. I could tell. He's not going to talk about it to anyone.”

“I should find out, though. If something's wrong . . . well, I'm the one who ultimately deals with it.” I knelt down to put my supplies away on the shelves Ms. Terwilliger had allotted to me. “This could be important. Besides, it
is
getting late.”

“You know what else is important? Your birthday in a few days. Are you going to get shore leave?”

I smiled as I straightened up. “I don't know. Zoe's going to want to do something with me. We might be able to manage a group outing you could go on.”

He put his arms around me. “Not good enough. I want you—just you—over at my place, where I'm going to cook you the most amazing dinner you've ever had by someone who can't really cook. And then . . . we're going to get in my car.”

I waited for him to elaborate on a destination. “And?”

He gently kissed the nape of my neck. “What do you think?”

I couldn't help a small gasp of delight. “Oh, wow.”

“I know, right? I was racking my brain for the best present ever, and then I realized that nothing was going to rock your world more than you and me in your favorite place in the entire world.”

I swallowed. “I'm kind of embarrassed at how excited I am about that.” Never had I guessed my love of cars would play a role in my sex life. Eddie was right. Something had happened to me.

“It's okay, Sage. We've all got our turn-ons.”

“You kind of ruined the surprise, though.”

“Nah. It's part of the gift: you getting to think about it for the next three days. Figure it's incentive for you to escape Zoe too.”

“Excellent incentive.”

We kissed goodbye, and I set up Neil's meeting. The private place he wanted to meet was a cluster of trees near the library. They were technically off-limits, especially this time of night, but if we were caught, we could claim we were cutting through to the library. With my studious reputation, no one would question it.

Surprisingly, he was late, which didn't seem in character. When he finally arrived, he looked chagrined. “Sorry. Angeline kept following me around, and I had a hard time shaking her.”

“She likes you, you know.” I didn't feel bad pointing it out because he had to know. “Or, well, she likes the idea of you. She wants you as a theoretical rebound.”

“What in the world is that? Never mind.” He shook his head. “I don't have time for anything like that.”

I wondered if he'd have time for something “like that” with Olive if she lived closer.

“So what's going on?” I braced myself for some sort of interrogation about the magic. What came instead nearly knocked me over.

“I need you to help me go after a Strigoi.”

Silence fell between us for several strained moments. “You're going to need to elaborate on that.”

Neil pointed at his arm, where the tattoo was. “Everyone's so excited about this, but what does it mean? Is it worth anything? We're never going to find out unless we test it with a Strigoi.”

I was aghast. I'd known that, of course, but proactively pursuing it wasn't something I'd really expected to happen. “You want to be turned?”

“No, no. Of course not. Here's the thing. I was looking through some guardian reports, and there have been sightings of Strigoi in this neighborhood in Los Angeles.”

I wasn't surprised by that. There were always Strigoi in Los Angeles.

“One Strigoi, actually,” Neil continued. “I want to find him and lure him out before others go after him. They know his patterns enough now that it's going to happen sooner or later. Usually, he just drinks and kills, but there've been reports that he sometimes turns victims. Either way, if we use me as bait, he'll have to taste my blood, and we can find out what kind of reaction he has.”

It was one of those things that seemed so logical on the surface, I was almost on board. There were just a few flaws. “If the tattoo doesn't work, you end up dead or Strigoi.”

“That's where you come in,” he said excitedly. “That thing you did with the fire—”

“Neil—”

He held up his hand. “No, no. I'm not telling anyone. I'm not even going to ask you how you did it. But if you could hide somewhere nearby and make that fire again, you could incinerate him before he does anything to me.” A little of Neil's enthusiasm dimmed. “And if he does manage to turn me, then you can kill us both.”

“Neil! Do you hear yourself? This is insane. You're literally talking about suicide.”

His gaze met mine through the shadows. “Yes, and my life would be a small thing to give in order to obtain these answers. And that's not melodrama. I know some of you—especially Adrian—think I'm ridiculous and over the top, but I swear, service to the Moroi is my highest goal. I want what's best for our people. All we're doing now is waiting . . . which is the same as doing nothing. If we could pull this off, it could be the breakthrough everyone keeps talking about.”

I had to look away. It was all crazy . . . but there was some sense to it. “I understand your point, but if you want to toy with Strigoi, go get it sanctioned by the guardians. Let them arrange something.”

“Do you think they'd let me do this?” I didn't answer because I doubted they would. “Exactly. That was a lot of fire you summoned that night. Do you think you could engulf a Strigoi with it?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “But I'm really not comfortable being all that stands between you and damnation.”

“You won't be.” Neil pointed behind me. “Right on time.”

I turned and saw a very puzzled-looking Eddie striding toward us. “Hey, I got your message,” he said. “What's going on?”

Incredibly, Neil began the same sales pitch to Eddie about sacrificing for the greater good of the Moroi. Neil didn't mention me and magic, but his offer to Eddie was the same, how there'd be need for someone to stop the Strigoi if things got out of hand. Actually, there was no “if,” I decided. “When” was a better word.