Page 14

Seething rage coiled in my chest like a viper.

Titus, with his insufferable smugness, thought he could take control of the situation… but I wasn’t going to let him take control away from me so easily.

He hated it that I’d been the only one to present Lucian with any evidence of the betrayal he believed existed with the ranks of his followers.

Of course there was dissent.

Of course, there were doubters.

They weren’t worthy of being called Necromi.

And they knew it.

As I stormed through the darkened corridors, I could sense Valen’s presence behind me.

“Bastian,” he called out, “where are you going?”

“The city,” I snapped. “Thanks to Titus. I need to get some answers—”

“Hey— wait—”

“I don’t need your help,” I snarled.

I pushed open a side door that led outside and stepped into the cool, damp air.

I took a quick breath and strode toward the garage.

The door didn’t close—Valen was following me.

He jogged to catch up, but I didn’t turn.

“Do you think he suspects anything?”

“Do you really think I care?” I shot back, my impatience rising.

“You should,” Valen said. “You’re just as guilty—”

I spun around to face him. “Am I, now?”

He didn’t flinch, even though my face was mere inches from his.

“You think you’ll find loyalties in Messana that haven’t already been bought?” he asked. His voice was annoyingly calm.

“I know I’ll find what I’m looking for,” I said, venom still lingering on my tongue. “Lucian wants blood—and I intend to give it to him before Titus makes his move.”

Valen let out a sigh, an ambiguous sound that could have been sympathy or exasperation—whichever one it was, it set my nerves on edge. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Maybe you should focus on keeping your own neck intact,” I hissed.

He shook his head and then shrugged. “If you’re going into the city, then so am I.”

I bared my teeth and took a step back. “I don’t need you.”

“Maybe not, but if you’re going to do something stupid, I want to be there to see it.”

A laugh burst from my lips and echoed flatly in the night, but Valen didn’t smile.

“Fine,” I said bitterly. “Go on then. I’ll catch up. I need to pay my rat a visit and make sure the trap is set.”

Valen regarded me carefully for a moment, his face expressionless, and then he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

I dismissed him with a tilt of my head. “Don’t have any fun without me.”

Valen pushed past me. “Prick.”

“Bastard,” I taunted him.

Valen’s shoulders straightened, but he didn’t turn.

Too easy.

I had an idea… Titus had his own agenda, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have one of my own.

I was worried that Lucian suspected us.

It would be easy—we were suspicious as fuck, and Titus wasn’t doing the best job of hiding his anger.

Lucian wanted results, and I planned to give him what he wanted and keep his eye off us.

Off me, anyway.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Valen was out of sight. The lights of the garage burned in the darkness across the estate, but I couldn’t see him.

It didn’t matter.

I turned back to the house and took a route to a side door that would allow me access to the house and a hallway close to Lucian’s study.

My father was on the edge of something—but it was impossible to know if it was madness or transformation.

No one wanted to admit it, but he’d changed since Avril had come to Withermarsh.

I didn’t understand it, Titus didn’t understand it… but there was something about her.

We all felt it.

She’d captivated my brothers with more than her deliciously corruptible innocence…there was something more to her.

Lucian seemed consumed by her, and the thought of their impending wedding twisted in my brain like a thorn.

An image of Avril’s pale face and the cloud of auburn hair spread over her pillow flashed in my mind and I could barely suppress the shiver that ran up my spine—she was taking too many risks with the grimoire.

I hadn’t thought she’d be brave enough to try anything…

But the pool of blood on the bathroom floor had kicked that assumption aside.

She was stronger than I gave her credit for.

Or dumber.

Maybe both.

The doors of Lucian’s study loomed in front of me.

The house was quiet and I couldn’t sense Titus anywhere—

Good.

I wanted this to be a private meeting.

I set my hands against the door and sent the smokey threads of my magic into the locks. The wards were in place, but I wasn’t a threat and their presence was just that… something I could ignore.

They clicked once, and I pushed against the heavy wood. The doors swung open, and I crossed the threshold into Lucian’s domain once again.

“You’ve been dismissed,” Lucian snarled. “I don’t want to see your face again until—”

With careful precision, I cloaked my rebellious thoughts beneath a smoke screen of loyalty and calculated half-truths. If he decided to probe my mind, he would find only that. Nothing more.

“Until I have something interesting to tell you,” I said. “But I do, father. I didn’t get a chance to tell you— Not with them around.”

A flicker of interest flashed across Lucian’s pale eyes, cold and calculating. I could almost see the gears of his mind whirring.

This would be too easy.

I was almost disappointed.

“Indeed,” Lucian replied. He feigned a disinterest I knew he didn’t truly feel. His long fingers tapped against the books in front of him. “Your brothers seemed convinced that there was something amiss—”

“I don’t trust my brothers,” I said. “They have their own agendas…”

“Don’t we all,” Lucian mused. “Tell me more.”

I shook my head. “You don’t want to be distracted by petty sibling rivalry, do you? Not when I have more to tell you about the traitors who writhe like worms in the heart of the Black Council.”

He sat up a little straighter. “Very astute, my son.”

“Titus doesn’t want to admit it, but he knows everything.”

“Why would he keep knowledge from me?” Lucian pressed.

“He didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily.” The lie was smooth and polished like a stone from the river. “The whispers of rebellion are louder than we thought. We need swift control before the Council fractures completely— Before they destroy everything you’ve built here in Messana.”

“And what do you know of their plans?” His tone betrayed a hint of manic enthusiasm, and the same glint shone in his eyes.

“The meeting I spoke of before— It’s real. But the location has shifted. They suspect something.”

“And what do you mean to do about it?”

“I’ll find the true location,” I said.

That much was true—my informant had been sloppy, and I worried that our chance to discover the core of this rot would be lost.

I had to be quick.

I nodded, my heart hammering as the final gamble approached. “If we act now, we can seize control and extinguish this threat before it spreads.”

Lucian closed the book in front of him and sat back in his chair.

The glowing red orb pulsed and the swirl of mist that surrounded it changed directions.

I had him.

I dared to push further.

“I can give you a name,” I offered, rolling my words with a serpent’s smoothness.

Lucian’s eyebrow rose. “A name.”

There was no disguising the eagerness in his voice.

“And who would this be?” he leaned in and lips curled into a predatory smile.

“A member of the Black Council who thinks he’s far too clever to be discovered,” I feigned a knowing laugh. “I can deliver him to you. Let him suffer the consequences of their treachery.”

“Give me the name,” Lucian demanded.

I clicked my tongue at him. “Now, now. Have some patience. Don’t you want to wring information from this little rat yourself? Hear him squeak and watch his back break under your power as he gives away his secrets?”

The manic glint in Lucian’s eyes was unnerving, but that was what I wanted.

“Bring him to Withermarsh,” he ordered.

“As you command, father,” I murmured before I left the study.

“You’ve done well, Bastian,” he called after me. “A fitting end to the day—”

Wasn’t it?

I didn’t try to stop the smile that spread over my face.

Lucian’s praise was difficult to come by, and even though I’d manipulated him to get it… No. That somehow made it more valuable.

I’d earned it.

If he knew, he’d approve.

And then he’d probably try to kill me.

Try.

Stepping away from Lucian’s study was like escaping the gaze of a relentless predator, but that relief was fleeting. The tether of guilt tugged at my conscience, but ambition dulled its pull.

The member of the Black Council I’d selected as the sacrificial lamb… His life wasn’t worth losing my edge over Lucian—or my chance to seize my fate.

His time would come… and soon.

But first, I had to trap my rat.

Lucian’s words of praise echoed in my mind, as chilling and sharp as they were rare and precious.

I had witnessed the grotesque pleasure he took in manipulating lives; and the way the glee of torment sparked in his pale eyes was almost unbearable—but why?

Because it’s too familiar?

Maybe that was it.

A smirk twisted across my lips as I stepped through the door and inhaled the night air as the door swung closed behind.

I shoved my hands deep in the pockets of my leather jacket as I took the path that led to the garage. The door was open, and Valen’s bike was gone.

Good.

He was the last person I wanted to deal with right now.

Too many questions.

Too much conscience.

As I reached the garage, the echoing silence was a welcome embrace.

My hands, still trembling from the adrenaline of my calculated treachery, brushed against the cold metal of my motorcycle. I still had time before dawn—and I needed to get into the city. I retrieved my helmet and shoved it down over my head.

I swung my leg over the bike and turned the key.

The engine roared to life, and the machine vibrated beneath me.

The sound reverberated through the empty garage, a wild, untamed growl that mirrored my own reckless pulse.

Tires screeched as I tore through the gate and down the serpentine road that led away from Withermarsh. The wards over the estate’s boundaries swept over me, and I put on more speed.

The dark road whipped past in a blur and I let my thoughts drift.

Had Lucian bought into my scheme?

He was paranoid and obsessed… and that made him unpredictable, but his desire to crush the rebellion would keep him blind to the rest of it.

At least for now.

The city’s lights spread out like an ember-filled net in the distance, vivid against the endless black of the sky.

I didn’t like Valen asking questions. He was too soft.

Avril could have bent him in any direction she pleased, and he would have followed her blindly.

Pussy whipped.

An image of Avril spread out and begging for us flashed into my mind and a smile twisted over my face.

There wasn’t much I wouldn’t have done for the chance to put my cock in that sweet cunt.

Even Titus was captivated by her.

It didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t going to question it.

Whatever happened, we were bound to her now.

Our little sister was a cunning little witch, and I couldn’t deny how much I loved to make her moan.

The familiar scent of burning incense and old magic invaded my helmet as I raced through the outskirts. Here, the shadows felt alive, watching with prying eyes from every corner and alleyway.

I dodged through the heart of Messana until I reached an area where life seeped into the air and filled it like smoke.

I pulled up outside a rundown three-level apartment building and cut the engine. The silence after the motor died was deafening.

The place looked abandoned—the perfect cover for someone like my little rat.

Rye had done his job, but the change of venue for the meeting was irritating.

I’d had a plan.

But now that plan had gone to shit, and I was about to take it out on a Rye’s worthless hide.

He was probably pissing himself right about now—I wondered if he’d guessed I was coming for him.

I stopped in front of the apartment building and looked up at the dilapidated structure.

What a shit hole.

I muttered a ward over my bike to keep it hidden, and then turned toward the building, closed my eyes, and reached out with my magic.

Awareness of the structure of the building, and the lives inside it, flooded into my mind.

Three heartbeats— No.

Five—

Erratic and heightened.

Druggies.

Ashroot addicts, most likely.

Lots of trauma to numb down at this end of the city.

Easy prey.

Time to get this over with.

Maybe Rye would have a name for me this time. I was in need of a name.

Or something more useful than the bullshit he’d spun the last time I’d pinned him to a wall.

The front door was open, and I nudged it wider with the toe of my boot so that I could slip inside.

This apartment building had seen better days—about ten years ago.

The parts of the walls that weren’t filled with holes from fists or feet had been sprayed with graffiti and smeared with stuff I didn’t want to look at too closely.

I let my magic guide me through the building and I slipped soundlessly over the filthy carpet and up the narrow stairwell at the end of the hall. I climbed them slowly—I wasn’t in a rush. Rye wasn’t going anywhere.

The heartbeats I could sense in the other rooms were slow now—sluggish.

Only one was beating with any urgency.

Rye.

The telltale presence of black sap was thick here, and its sickly sweetness mingled with the stench of desperation and rot that permeated the building.

A grin stretched my lips as I felt Rye’s anxiety spike on the floor above.

He knew.

Of course he knew.

But there was nowhere for him to run. Not with my magic coiling through the walls like smoke, tracing every heartbeat and every breath.

I took my time, letting him stew in his fear until I reached the top landing.

The hallway was dim, and a single flickering bulb made jittery shadows against peeling wallpaper.

The first apartment didn’t have a door, but the room was empty. A pair of dirty mattresses lay askew on the floor and my nose wrinkled.

A groan came from an apartment to my left, but I didn’t turn my head to look.

There was only one junkie I was interested in, and his apartment was at the end of the hall.

The door hung slightly ajar, trembling on its hinges.

I pushed it open with a gentle nudge of my magic—I wasn’t touching it with my bare hands—and it slammed against the wall with a satisfying crash.

A weak cry of surprise was enough to tell me I was in the right place.

Leona.

Poor lamb.

“I bet you thought I’d forgotten about you,” I said as I stepped inside.

Rye scrambled back from an overturned couch where he’d been hunched like a rat in a trap. His pallid face glistened with sweat, and his eyes were wide and bloodshot—but he wasn’t high.

The woman on the stained mattress under the window, however, was really high.

But not on ashroot.

I’d seen that blue sheen in her eyes before.

“Is she on Vesper?” I asked incredulously.

The woman flinched away, and I noted the scratches on her arms and legs. She’d had too much of the stuff.

“B-Bastian,” Rye stammered. “I-I was just about to—”

“Lie to me?” I interrupted, advancing on him with slow, deliberate steps.

“No! No!” He tripped over himself in his haste to retreat. “I swear!”

“Just like you said?” My voice was sharp enough to cut and the woman on the mattress let out a low moan. “Did you give anything away, little rat? Is that why the meeting has been moved? They’re not going to the Old Road anymore, are they?”

“N-No…” he stammered. “It’s… but it’s not my fault. They don’t suspect—”

“That’s good,” I snarled, “because if they did, I’d take it out of your worthless junkie hide.”

He skittered away, but not fast enough.

My magic was faster and the black smoke wrapped around his waist and pulled him back toward me.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Rye,” I said. I gestured to the woman on the filthy mattress. “Your sweet Leona is high as a knighthawk— but everyone else in this building is chewing on ashroot, and she’s flying on vapor.”

Rye’s eyes widened and his greasy hair fell into his eyes. “I— I swear—”

“You’re full of shit, Rye,” I growled. “You don’t have the kind of money to get that good stuff on the shadow market. That’s high end. Sages only. Elite stuff… What’s a piece of shit like you doing with a score like that? Huh?”

My magic tightened around Rye’s chest and he let out a choked cry.

On the mattress, Leona let out a whimper of fear and I glanced over my shoulder at her. “She’s had too much,” I said. “I can see it in her eyes— You know it, too. But she’s hooked now. Might be kinder to kill her before she’s severed entirely.”

“That’s— That’s not happening,” he stammered.

I looked at him in disbelief. “Don’t you know how that shit works?”

His mouth trembled.

Idiot.

“Every hit she takes? Every hit severs her soul from her body… That’s why it feels so fucking good. Just a little at a time. One sliver. You won’t miss one sliver. But chasing that first sliver?” I shook my head as memories I didn’t want flooded back. “And if she’s hooked— Well, there’s not much time left before she’s hollow.”

“You’re lying,” he whispered.

A bitter laugh ripped from my throat. “Why would I do that? Telling the truth is much more fun.” The smoke that wrapped around Rye’s torso crept higher and caressed his throat. “Now it’s time for you to tell me the truth ,” I breathed. “Who are you getting it from? There aren’t many Sages who have access to Vesper Smoke. Are you stealing it from him?”

The rat’s eyes were wide and scared.

He’d been slowly murdering the woman and hadn’t had any idea.

Poetic tragedy.

Anyone else would have been moved to compassion. But not me. I was going to use it to my advantage.

“A name,” I said. “Give me the fucking name.”

“I—”

“Yes you can,” I pressed. “Look at your sweet Leona— I bet she was a beauty once. She probably did all kinds of filthy things for you when you gave her that Vesper, didn’t she? I can tell.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

It was hard not to laugh.

“Ireni—” he croaked. “Elder Ireni Ubaris.”

I snorted.

Really?

That was the name he was going to give me?

Not who I’d expected.

I flicked my fingers absently to release my magic, and Rye let out a thin cry as he dropped to the floor.

Lenore’s answering shriek was muffled, and I barely glanced at her as I walked to the door.

“You’ve been very helpful, Rye. More than you know—”

“What are you going to do?” he called out in a ragged voice.

“You don’t have to worry your greasy little head about it,” I replied. “I suggest you get whatever pleasure you can out of your sweet Leona… When the effects of what’s left in that pipe you brought her wear off, she won’t be much good for anything but channeling demons. And no one wants that.”

“What—”

I was already halfway down the hall when I heard footsteps running toward me.

My knife was in my hand and I pivoted quickly.

Hot blood gushed over my hand and dripped onto the already ruined carpet.

Leona’s face, pale and haunted, stared back at me.

Her stare was blank, but the sheen of blue on her eyes was unmistakable even in the erratic glow of the broken hallway light. Too far gone. Her hands were skeletal as they clutched at my arms, plucking at the leather.

“I’ve seen you,” she croaked.

“I’m sure you have,” I murmured.

A strangled cry echoed in the hall as Rye’s lanky silhouette appeared in the doorway. “Leona—”

“I’ve done you a favor,” I said.

A smile tugged at Leona’s dry lips even as a trickle of black blood dripped from one nostril.

“I’ve seen you— Don’t let him take her—”

With a grunt, I angled the knife up and thrust it deeper into her ribs.

Goddamn junkie.

Her fingers tightened on my arms, but she didn’t make a sound as I pulled the knife from her body and stepped back to let her tumble to the floor.

Rye stayed frozen in the doorway.

Loyal ‘til the end.

Asshole.

I bent to wipe the blade of my knife on Leona’s stained dress and then gestured at Rye with it. “Get your shit together,” I said. “When you find out where the meeting has been moved to—you send me a message.”

“H— How—”

I straightened and shoved the knife back in the hidden sheath at my back. “You’ll figure it out.”

Without another word, I strode down the hall and down the stairs to the main floor.

A quick flick of my fingers started the fire.

Just smoke at first.

It smoldered in the rotting carpet—the smell—

But the spray paint and chemicals caught quickly, and by the time I kicked open the front door, the manager’s office was ablaze.

I lifted the ward on my bike and swung my leg over it.

I looked over my shoulder at the burning building—shadows skittered into the darkness like cockroaches.

Good riddance.

If Rye got out alive, he’d be getting a visit in a few days’ time.

If he didn’t—

Well, I had the name I’d been looking for.

Titus wasn’t going to believe this.

Elder Ireni Ubaris.

It was almost too good to be true.

I shoved my helmet down over my head, kicked my bike into gear, and roared off into the night.