Christine Warren - Huntress

“I am not the inexperienced girl I was when we last met, Sebastian,” I said softly, menacingly. “You have no idea the power I have. The stories you’ve heard about me—they’re all true. I could kill you with a thought. And when I do come for you, no one will be able to stop me.”

Sebastian glanced down at where Jonas was still lying on the floor, writhing and moaning. He’d live, but it would hurt like hell for a long time.

Louder, so that the court could hear me, I said, “I know what you’ve done, Sebastian.”

“You can’t prove anything,” he said, and there was fear in his voice.

I cocked my head to one side. “Now, see, an innocent man would ask what I was accusing him of. But you know, don’t you? You conspired with some witch or wizard to summon a demon to kill me. Or perhaps it’s still my power you want. Whatever your intentions were, Sebastian, I don’t believe even you would turn something like that loose on your own people. You’ve lost control of it and now it’s slaughtering your vampires. And it’s infected my husband. I will stop it and I will get the proof I need to satisfy the High King’s law. And when I do, I’ll be back … and you’ll pay for what you’ve done with your life.”

“There was a time when I wanted you,” he whispered. “But now I just want you to suffer.”

“Your wants haven’t interested me in nearly a hundred years, Sebastian,” I said simply, and with one last, contemptuous look, I turned and strode back through the ballroom.

Hushed whispers from the court followed me and I smiled. Whether or not I could prove Sebastian’s guilt, I had just placed the seeds of doubt in the heads of his vampires. He’d be lucky if he lived long enough for me to kill him.

When I reached the doors to the ballroom I glanced back, one last time. Sebastian was whispering furiously into the blonde woman’s ear, and from the way she was nodding in response it appeared that he was giving her orders. He was a cunning bastard, I’d give him that. I was certain he enjoyed being Regent, and he couldn’t afford for there to be any proof of his direct involvement in this. No, he would have gone through intermediaries. And I was practically positive that his harlot would lead me straight to the demon.

Grady was waiting by the door and I pulled him aside.

“The woman with Sebastian,” I said. “Who is she?”

He glanced across the room. “Barbara? She’s a ruthless bitch, one of the Regent’s lackeys.”

I nodded, thinking. She’s the one who does the things he won’t sully his hands to do.

“I need something that belongs to her. A piece of jewelry would work best, something personal. Can you get it for me?”

Grady nodded. “I think so.”

“Good. We’ll meet you at the end of the drive.”

He disappeared into the crowd just as Justine reached my side. She linked her arm with mine as we descended the stairs.

“You should have let us fight them, mon amie ,” she complained. Much like Michael, she loved a good brawl.

I shrugged. “It was beneath us. Besides, we have a much bigger fight ahead of us.”

When we returned to the house on Upper Brook Street, Ginny met us at the door, her face ashen. Warren stood behind her, looking grim.

“He was here,” Ginny said.

I grasped her by the shoulders. “Michael? Are you hurt? What happened?”

She shook her head. “No, we’re both fine. I never even saw him but … well, you’d better come look.”

We followed her up the stairs to the door of my bedroom. She paused with her hand on the knob.

“After dinner we went through the house, just like you said to, and checked the doors and windows again. When I looked in your room, the window was open. And—”

She swung the door open. The window was closed now and all of my things were just as I’d left them. The writing on the wall, however, was new. Painted in blood above my bed were the words “I love thee not, chaos is come again.” It was part of a line from Shakespeare. And it was in Michael’s handwriting.

“What does it mean?” Ginny asked.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” I said numbly.

“It must mean something,” Grady said. “Else why would he have done it?”

Just to torment me , I thought, imagining the man I loved writing such words to me.

“It’s from Othello ,” Devlin added, saying what I already knew.

Justine walked into the room and ran one finger over the letters. The blood was still fresh enough to come away on her skin.

“It’s human,” she said.

“Didn’t Othello kill his wife?” Warren asked softly from the doorway.

Everyone fell silent, uncomfortably waiting for my response.

“Ginny,” I finally said, “could you please clean that up as best you can? If it’s stained the wall, Devlin and Justine can rearrange the furniture for you. Put the wardrobe over it. I don’t want Michael to see it when I bring him home.”

I turned to go, but Devlin caught my arm. “Where are you off to?” he asked, his dark eyes filled with concern.

I held up the silver ring that Grady had stolen from Barbara’s room. “I’m going to the library to cast a location spell.”

He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, but he let me go. In a daze I walked down the stairs and entered the library. Shutting the door behind me, I leaned against it and closed my eyes. All I could see was Michael scrawling those words above our bed. I love thee not. I love thee not. I love thee not .

“Stop it,” I said to myself. “It’s not Michael. It’s the demon. Michael loves me. He always has and he always will. I am the other half of his soul and he is the other half of mine.”

It was something he said to me often. I had to remember that.

Crossing the room, I cleared the scattered books off the big table and retrieved a map of London from the bookshelf. I unrolled it and used four silver candlesticks to hold down the corners. The map was old, but it would do. I didn’t even bother to take my coat off. This shouldn’t take long.

I placed the ring on its side at the edge of the map, and then I laid my palms flat on the oak table and took a deep breath. Spellcasting wasn’t easy for me, but location spells were fairly simple. Clearing my head as well as I was able, I thought of what I wanted. The ring would tell me where Barbara was. If Sebastian had anything to do with summoning this demon, she was part of it too. I centered myself and called up my magic.

“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, that I won’t find where you abide,” I called out.

The ring began to move, rolling across the map to the north. It stopped just inside the city but it didn’t fall, which meant that she was still moving. I pulled up a chair and waited. After what seemed like hours, the ring finally tipped on its side and lay still, coming to rest on the other side of Whitechapel, near Shadwell. That made sense in regard to the human murders. He would want to hunt in an area near his base, yet not in his own backyard.

I slipped the ring into my pocket and exited the library just as Grady was coming down the stairs, carrying a bucket of pinkish water.

“Grady, is your carriage still out front?” I asked.

“It should be,” he replied. “Jensen knows to take the horses around the block if they get restless, but I told him to wait for me.”

“Good, come with me,” I said and started for the door.

He set the bucket on the floor and looked uncertainly over his shoulder. “Don’t you think we should tell the others?”

Justine would happily go with me, but Devlin would never approve of what I was about to do. Somewhere in the back of my mind that thought set off warning bells. I was going to do something that was probably foolish. If it had been anyone else’s idea, I would have been the first to object. But that demon had been in control of Michael’s body for nearly twenty-four hours and I had to know that he was all right. I wasn’t ready to fight him yet, but I had to see his face.