Author: A. L. Kessler
Category: Paranormal
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Liz snorted. “I’ll go with him. Simon and Merick can handle your wound.”
I waited for the two of them to disappear and hoped Levi wouldn’t attack them and they wouldn’t run into Samuel.
I pulled my shirt over my head, flinching as it pulled on the wound.
Merick pulled the tape and gauze off and cringed. Fresh blood was flowing and the gauze was brown and red from the blood. “This is deep.”
Simon got up to get the first aid kit while Merick examined the wound. I looked down at it. “From what I can see, it’s already looking better. I’m pretty sure it hit a rib.”
“A rib?” Simon shook his head and pulled out a sterilized needle and suture thread. “Some days, Abby, I just want to wrap you up and take you to pack lands and keep you there. Safe.”
“But the pups might eat me,” I said, trying to joke.
Simon snorted. “I’ve seen you take on almost an entire pack of werewolves. The pups don’t worry me.” He met my gaze. “Here we go.”
I took a deep breath as he slid the needle into my skin.
Several minutes and a ton of swearing later, my wound was stitched up nicely, and I had a clean shirt on. Liz and Zayne arrived with my bag, my box, and the suspect cup of coffee.
“I have instructions from Catalina to talk to Agent Avarin at PIB to get the coffee tested.” Zayne held it up.
I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, he’s probably the best one right now.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted Nick involved with this at all, but I wasn’t sure who else at PIB to trust.
“Okay, I’ll get it there. I’ll check in before dawn. Catalina wants to see me.” Zayne bowed his head and disappeared.
I looked at Liz. “Was Levi or Mario there?”
“No, no one was. So I don’t know where Samuel and Hannah have taken them. If they took them anywhere. Levi and Mario might have just been staying out of sight to be safe.” Liz shrugged and set the box and my bag down.
That worried me. “Okay, you said you had news?” I settled back into the couch with Simon at my side.
Liz nodded. “We have a victim at the hospital. They brought her in, injured and unconscious. Much of the right side of her body was burned. The thing is, when they brought her in, the nurse saw water gathering in the girl’s hand.”
“An elemental?”
“I think so. I want you to talk to her when she’s awake. She might feel more comfortable with you since you’re also one.”
I had the opposite element, but hopefully I could bring some calm to the girl. “Your girl? How old?”
“Best bet? Ten, maybe eleven.”
Elementals normally had to touch another elemental to waken the power, and it rarely manifested before the late teen years when magic was also awakened. “That’s really young.”
“I know. I’m hoping when she wakes, she can give us more information.”
“Oliver gave me a lead to ask about the underground. He had some useful information on Agent Ross as well. We might want to pass it on to O’Donald so he can talk to her higher ups.”
Liz sighed. “You’re going to have to go to this contact, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, want to go tomorrow? Could be fun.”
Simon snorted. “A contact for the underground. I think only you could think that it’s fun.”
“Well, to be fair, it’s at a club.”
Simon tensed at that. “Which Club?”
“Do you really have to ask? It’s aptly named.”
“The Underground,” Simon muttered. “Wolves aren’t allowed there. It’s mainly witches that hang out there, some friendly, some not.”
“Is it warded like your bar?”
One of Simon’s businesses was warded to keep humans out. Technically it was illegal, but many people turned a blind eye to it.
“No, but most humans avoid it just based on reputation alone. Just be careful if you go there.” He pulled me close.
Fatigue crept over me. I glanced at Merick. “Is Cult allowed there?”
He nodded. “Yes, we are. Some of us walk in the underground crowd as well, so we may even have allies there if you have to go deeper in.”
Good. I let out a yawn. “Okay, I need a nap.”
“Abby, it’s eight o’clock at night. We call that going to bed.” Simon raised a brow.
I rubbed my eyes. “Just a nap. Then I’ll get back up and look at the files.”
“Let her take a nap, Simon. She’s keeping human hours and vampire’s hours now.” Liz laughed.
I pulled the blanket over me and tucked myself into Simon’s side. “Just an hour or so.”
Simon kissed my head. “Fine, an hour or so.”
I closed my eyes and heard Simon flick on the television. The nightly news lulled me to sleep, but they mentioned nothing about the press conference. No, the soft whispers faded into the night as sleep claimed me, dragging me down.
My phone rang, pulling me out of my sleep. I felt around for it until Simon put it in my hand. “Agent Collins speaking.”
“Asleep already, Abby?” Mason’s voice came across the line, and I sat up.
“I was just taking a nap. I’ve had a long night already.”
“Yeah, I saw the press conference. I need you to come down and look at something, are you up for it?”
I glanced at the time on my watch. It was just before ten. “Yeah, I’ll have to bring someone with me, a bodyguard.”
He let out a sigh. “Really?”
“Yeah, it’s been a long night, like I said. I can bring Simon or a vampire, your pick.”
“Simon, and if Liz can come, bring her too. I’d like you both to look.”
“Got it.” And then I remembered I was supposed to be on desk duty. “Liz, want to go to a crime scene with me? It’s Mason asking.” I glanced at Liz, who shrugged.
“Might as well, Mason specifically invited you down there.”
“Okay, shoot us the address and we’ll be down there as soon as we can. I’m at my house right now.” And hopefully Samuel was going to stay away after the stunt he pulled earlier.
“I’ll send you the coordinates.”
Coordinates typically meant the middle of nowhere. Which made me wonder what exactly we were looking at. “Lovely, see you soon.” I disconnected the call and looked at Liz.
“What are we going to tell O’Donald when he finds out I went on the field?”
“That you’re being kept busy so you don’t do something stupid.” Liz shrugged.
I was going to open my mouth to argue, but she was probably right. “Okay, let’s go then.” I stood with Simon right at my back.
“Are we sure Samuel won’t try anything once you leave the house?” Simon asked as we made our way to the door.
I grabbed my jacket and my bag. “No, I’m not, but he’s already made his move. I think he’ll wait until I decide what to do. Me or the council.”
“This isn’t a game of chess.” Simon put a hand on my shoulder. “I swore to protect you.”
I met his gaze. “Samuel plays things like a game of chess. He calculates every move and reaction. I had the same discussion with Levi. There are certain things that Samuel needs to think he won in order for us to win the war. If we keep me locked up, then he thinks he won with that last move. But he hasn’t. He has no idea what everyone is capable of, and we’ll use that to our advantage.”
“You didn’t have an advantage at the mansion when he used Levi and Mario against you.”
I nodded. “I know that. I was caught without my weapon and facing Levi. Mario was trapped in a circle. He wasn’t a threat to me. Turns out that Levi is strong enough to walk through my circle, so magic didn’t work, and I didn’t want to risk using a red one on him or he might have hurt himself trying to walk through that.”
“And if you had a weapon?”
“I would have shot Samuel right there and picked the fight with him and Hannah instead of Levi. It would have given Levi a chance to get out of there.” I shr
ugged. “I might have lost it, or I might have taken Samuel by surprise. There’s no telling. What I do know, is that Samuel wants me alive, so he won’t kill me.”
At least not yet.
I shivered at the thought of what Samuel liked to do with witches. Luckily for me, Liz had opened the door and the cold night air came through at the same time. Simon sighed. “If Levi kills me for this…”
“He won’t kill you. He knows I love you. That wins out over his anger.” I promised and kissed Simon real quick. “Now, let’s get in the Hummer and let’s go.”
Liz groaned. “Do we have to take the Hummer?”
I nodded. “Because I know where we’re going. It won’t explode.”
“It has made it through the years,” Simon chimed in.
Liz looked at it and sighed. “Okay, fine, we take the Hummer, but I swear to the goddess Abby if it explodes and kills me, I’m haunting your ass.”
I mocked her and got in the Hummer. “I won’t be around to haunt either.”
She paused for a moment. “Okay, that’s fair.”
Simon rolled his eyes and climbed into the front seat. “If you two are done discussing who will haunt who, I believe there’s a crime scene waiting?”
There was an edge to his voice that said he didn’t want to talk about death, even jokingly.
“Aye, aye alpha sir,” I muttered and started the engine. We all held our breath for a moment afterwards, as if waiting for it to explode. Nothing happened, so I put the Hummer in gear and off we went.
We pulled off to the side of the road when we couldn’t get any closer to the coordinates Mason had sent us. I jumped out of the Hummer and looked up at the night sky. “What I wouldn’t give for a brighter moon tonight.”
Simon grinned. “Leave it to me. I can see in this.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me into the waiting forest. Liz followed behind us, keeping close. Simon was in his element as he moved between trees and over fallen branches and trunks. I could see a glint of yellow in his eyes as he moved us through. He halted when we got to a small, cleared section and Mason stood there.
The area looked like it had been cleared out by hand and was maybe ten feet around total. Mason looked over his shoulder. “Oh, good, you found it.” He stepped up to greet us and I found why he had called us.
In the middle of the clearing was a teenager, half burned, half of his body in a circle, and the other half outside.
“That’s not possible,” Liz muttered as she walked closer, ignoring Mason.
I grabbed gloves out of my bag and handed a pair to her as I stepped up. “Mason, this is…”
“Special, I know. It matches the victim that Liz saw in Agent Ross’ case.”
I nodded. “I’ve never caught someone half in and out of my elemental based circle, so I don’t know if this is possible or not.” I frowned and looked at the body. The line between the burned skin and normal skin was almost perfect, like not even a lick of fire crossed over to the other side.
Perfectly controlled if this was an elemental, or it was a normal witch or warlock controlling black magic, either way it was terrifying.
Liz touched the burned skin and frowned. “This isn’t bad enough to have killed him quickly. This took time.”
“An expert on burned flesh?” I asked her, a small joke in my voice.
“I started looking into it after we saw the photo in Ross’ file.” She stood up and looked at Mason. “Get the body to the morgue and let us know when you get an ID on him.”
Mason nodded. “Any idea of what we’re looking at?”
“Not really, but I have a feeling you might see more. Make sure you call us.” Liz crossed her arms and looked back at the body.
“We need to go.” Simon let out a low growl. “There’s something in the woods, and I don’t like the smell of it.”
The trees rustled around us.
“Too late,” I muttered and threw up a protective circle. The purple haze surrounded us, and I took a moment to pray to the goddess that whatever came through the tree line wouldn’t be able to cross my circle.
“Abby…” Liz’s voice hesitated, and I turned around to face the body. The circle that had been under the body glowed red. Inside my circle.
Fuck.
The red started spreading out, giving me no choice but to drop my protective circle. The moment I did, the red circle stopped spreading.
Interesting.
Two people came through the tree line, and Mason, Liz, and I all had our guns out and aimed.
They held their hands up. The woman gave a nervous laugh. “Sorry, we saw something on our trail cam and came out to see what was going on.”
The man gave a nervous nod. “It took us a bit to hike out here, so we didn’t know you’d arrived.”
Mason lowered his gun. “You must be the Petersons. I’m Detective Mason, this is Special Agent Collins, Special Agent Jefferson, and Simon.”
The two raised a brow at Simon’s introduction, but Mason continued. “I asked you two to stay in the house until we knew what was going on. It could be dangerous out here still.”
Simon glanced at me and gave a subtle shake of his head. Whatever he smelled, it wasn’t these two.
I holstered my gun, and Liz followed my lead. “I’d like to take a walk back to your house and see that cam footage though.”
“We’d rather Detective Mason did,” Mrs. Peterson said. There was something in her tone that made me think she distrusted PIB. It wasn’t uncommon, especially since most of the agents were supernatural creatures, but it was rare that someone just flat out refused my request.
“I’ll handle it, Agent Collins,” Mason promised. “You get back and start working on theories. We’ll have Jason out here in no time to take the body back to the morgue.”
Mason motioned in the direction the couple came from. “Let’s hike to the house.”
I wanted to argue and go with him, but I couldn’t without making a scene, and if they had evidence on their trail cam, then we needed it.
We watched Mason walk off, and I let out a sigh. “That’s an easy way to get yourself shot.”
“No kidding. But that’s not the threat I smelled. It’s still lingering on the air, but it’s further away now.”
Liz pulled out her phone and took a few pictures of the scene. “I’m sure Mason will have the crime scene team here soon, but I don’t want to leave that circle intact.”
She muttered something under her breath and then pushed her foot over the circle, deactivating its magic.
“Good call.”
Simon jerked his head. “Okay, you two, back to the Hummer. Whatever else is out there, I don’t think we can take it on.”
“And I don’t want to risk it.” I agreed. We hiked back to the Hummer and found Zayne leaning against it.
I frowned. “I thought you had to be with Catalina tonight.”
“And I thought you weren’t allowed on the field. If it weren’t for the trackers Oliver has on your stuff, I wouldn’t have known where you were.”
“That’s why he has trackers on me.” I shrugged. “But there’s something lurking in the woods, so let’s go, shall we?”
I climbed into the Hummer. Simon got in the front, and Zayne and Liz were in the back.
“Princess Abigail, you need to at least text me before you leave your house.”
“Simon and Liz are both with me. I’m still following protocol.”
He let out a sigh, and Simon laughed. “Oh, he’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Fun wasn’t exactly the word I was going to use for Zayne. “You’ll have to adapt to my life, Zayne. I don’t slow down for anything.” I pulled the Hummer onto the highway. “Did you get my coffee to Nick?”
“I did. He said something like only you would find something suspicious in a cup of coffee.”
I snorted. “Did you tell him the situation?”
“Only what he needed to know. I know that you two are still… at odds with each other.”<
br />
I didn’t miss the pause. “You weren’t there, but Nick was being used.”
“Like Mario and Levi,” Zayne made it a statement.
“I knew it was a possibility for Samuel to use Levi against me, and Hannah had used Mario against me once before, leaving me in a trap.” I pressed my lips together. “Vampires have that special link to their sires, but Nick is human. He was bound by magic, and I don’t know how that magic worked. I don’t know if he had a choice or if he was really willing to take me out. When he was in hiding, he wanted me to help him kill the king of vampires.”
“Did he know it was Levi?”
“No, he thought it was Ira.”
Something jumped in front of the Hummer, and I cursed, swerving to miss it. The wheels squealed as the Hummer came to a stop, and Liz looked at me. “Abigail.” She growled low.
“Not my fault.”
Something pulled the door of the Hummer open, despite it being locked. Fuck.
A hand grabbed the seatbelt, ripping it, and yanking me out of the seat.
As soon as I cleared the door, I pulled my gun and fired. I wasn’t going to waste time trying to figure out who or what had a hold of me.
It cried out and threw me across the dirt road. Zayne was by my side in an instant. “Are you okay?”
I stood and saw two more creatures by the Hummer. Creature wasn’t the right word though. They were blood-starved vampires. Not hybrids.
I might have just shot one of Levi’s people without knowing it. Fuck. What kind of princess of vampires was I if I shot Levi’s subjects?
I shook the thought from my head and looked at the vampire still moving toward me. Zayne took a stance in front of me and pulled out a knife from a sheath hidden under his jacket. Glad he was armed. I turned to see Liz and Simon get out of the Hummer. They both looked okay. Liz had her gun out and Simon was by her side.
Footsteps on the road behind me made me turn. I had to trust Zayne to have my back. Two other blood-starved vampires shambled up to me. Their eyes damn near glowed red with their need to feed.
I took aim. “Back off, because I really don’t want to shoot you.”
They hesitated slightly. “He promised us we could feed,” one said and started moving forward again, almost like a zombie.