Page 81

Just in time to witness Maelle unleash her shadow creature.

It boiled through the doorway and straight at Jaqueline. Her eyes went wide, and she stepped back, her gaze cutting to the right, toward the spot where darker magic now pulsed, but before she could run, the snake cut her off.

“Mother, you can’t?—”

The words died as the snake flowed over her. Flowed into her. She made a garbled sound and dropped to her knees, her expression one of horror and pain. Maelle was spelling, and her power rose, though I had no idea what the spell was other than dark, because she wasn’t speaking in any language that I knew. It didn’t sound French, more Latin, I thought. As the force of it rose, the darkly lit shadows continued to boil around and through Jaqueline, though I suspected it was the spell rather than the snake that was causing the jerky movements and the shimmering in and out of existence. Her skin was stretching, changing, the bloom of youth fading into something more timeworn. Even her hair lost some of its shine and gained silvery streaks that glittered in the darkness.

The spell wasagingher.

Or was this the doing of Maelle’s shadowed demon? There were plenty around who fed on the life force of others, many of them leaving their victims as little more than aged husks.I hadn’t gotten the impression that that was what Maelle had intended for her daughter, but who really knew? The revelations of the last few days had certainly proven just how little we’d really known about her.

Maelle’s spell reached a pinnacle, and Jaqueline’s body “solidified” once more. Though I really couldn’t see her that well, she’d definitely aged. Just how much remained to be seen.

“Dearest Jaqueline,” Maelle murmured, her voice now resonating with a power that crawled across my skin. “You are hereby once again made as you were born. Humanity is yours to use as you wish, one year given for each century you have existed. But you can never return to the life of darkness. What has been taken can never be returned.”

And with that, Maelle’s power snapped away, and her snake—bloated and luminous—left Jaqueline and returned to its mistress. Maelle reached out with one hand, running her fingers through its diaphanous form before murmuring what sounded like a spell. The snake flowed up her body, seemed to kiss her cheek, and then disappeared, returned to whatever hell it had been summoned from.

Jaqueline remained on the floor, her arms wrapped around her body in much the same manner as mine, though for a very different reason. The magic that had flown through me had never intended to hurt; my flesh was simply incapable of withstanding its force for too long. That was obviously not the case with the magic that had swept Jaqueline, and I was sure it had done far more than merely altering her being to dismiss her vampire-given immortality.

You want us in there? came Belle’s thought.

No. Maelle is—I paused and studied her. Though I could see her face, I didn’t really need to, given the myriad emotions flowing around her. While regret and fury were dominant, there was a deeper sense of instability radiating off her. It wouldn’ttake much to set her off, and I did not want to be anywhere near her when that happened.On edge.

That isn’t exactly a new development.

No, but it has definitely gotten worse.

And Jaqueline?

Alive, and possibly human.

What?

Explain later.

I cut our connection as Jaqueline sat back on her heels and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Her once-perfect face was lined and her skin a little paperish, but in truth, she still looked amazing.

“What in God’s name have you done, Mother?” Her voice was hoarse and held more than a little trace of fear.

“I swore an oath to protect my line,” Maelle said evenly. “Marie intended to use you—use your magic—to boost her own so that she could kill me. I merely thwarted those plans and, in the process, saved your life. She would have drained you unto death to defeat me.”

“Making me human does not erase my magic.”

“No. The Nakahi did that.”

Was that why her shadow creature had looked at me so … heatedly? It had wanted to feed, and I was a far closer meal possibility than Jaqueline? Thank God Maelle had called it away.

Jaqueline stared at Maelle for several seconds, her eyes wide, her expression disbelieving. Then she flung out a hand, as if casting a spell. Nothing happened. No magic rose.

She screamed in fury, pushed to her feet, and launched at her mother, her fingers curled into claws ready to rent and tear. Maelle calmly raised a hand and flicked a thin rope of dark purple magic toward Jaqueline, looping it around her daughter’s neck and stopping her in her tracks.

“Do not be so foolish, dearest, as my patience has the thinnest of edges now that Roger has been taken from me. I suggest you step through your portal while it still lingers and then leave this reservation—and Marie—for good.”

“Marie will help me.” The comment came out even hoarser than before, no doubt thanks to the rope lashed around her neck. She was apparently human now, and humans did need to breathe. “She will find a way around what you have done?—”

Maelle laughed, the sound low and derisive. “Oh, if you believe that, then you truly do not understand our maker. You have lost that which made you useful. You will be cast out, have no doubt of that.”

“She would not?—”