Page 35 of The Second Sight (Wanderlust Emporium Presents, Season One)

Chapter

Twenty-Four

SEVEN

Iguided the Porsche through the night streets of Chicago with practiced precision. Kasi’s presence beside me stirred both ancient instincts and new emotions. The weight of tonight’s events forged an even tighter bond between us. There was Brooklyn’s abduction and appearance of Kasi’s fae relatives.

The threat of the Bambara Brotherhood was growing stronger by the hour. I hated that gang of shaman bastards. They stood for nothing. They were just a gang that preyed on any supernatural beings they felt they could control.

My phone vibrated against the leather seat between us, the sound unnaturally loud in the tense silence. Kasi startled, her golden-brown eyes darting to the device.

“It’s Lily,” I said, hitting the button on the steering wheel to accept the call and letting the Bluetooth connect. “What is it?”

“One of our trackers found them,” Lily’s voice rang clear through the car’s interior. The crisp efficiency in her tone couldn’t mask the underlying urgency. “An abandoned warehouse near the old stockyards. Our spy confirmed the human girl is alive.”

Kasi let out a small, choked sound beside me. I reached over and squeezed her hand, my fingers lingering on her warm skin longer than necessary.

“Is she hurt?” I asked, already calculating the fastest route to my mansion. We needed weapons. We needed allies. We needed a plan.

“Yes, but restrained,” Lily replied. “Gideon has her on the third floor, but the place is heavily guarded.” They’ve set up some kind of ritual space.”

“A blood ritual,” I muttered, more to myself than to Lily. I’d seen the Bambara’s handiwork before, centuries ago in Nigeria. The memory was etched into my immortal mind with perfect clarity. I pushed the images away, unwilling to reveal their horror to Kasi.

“They were probably preparing it for Kasi. Get home immediately,” Lily demanded through the speaker, her voice crisp with authority.

“On my way,” I responded. Then, remembering Malcolm Bacchar, the innocent human father who had no idea what dangers now circled his life, I added, “Send two of our people to watch Kasi’s house. Keep them hidden.”

“Already done,” Lily said, surprising me. Perhaps she was finally accepting the place Kasi held in my life. “Charlie and Marcus are stationed across the street in a painter’s van. No one will see them unless they wish to be seen.”

“Good.” I ended the call with a quick press of my finger. The night outside the car windows seemed darker suddenly, the streetlights dimmer, as if the shadows themselves were gathering against is.

I glanced at Kasi, intending to offer reassurance, but the words died in my throat.

She had gone completely still beside me.

Her body was rigid in the passenger seat.

Her golden-brown eyes, the eyes that reminded me so much of Basirah yet were uniquely her own stared straight ahead.

Her breathing had changed. Her inhales had become shallow and rhythmic.

I recognized the signs immediately. She was having a vision.

Part of me wanted to pull over, to cradle her through the intrusion into her consciousness.

But the strategic vampire who had kept his coven alive through wars, plagues, and hunters knew we needed to get to the safety of my manor.

My mansion stood as a fortress against our enemies, warded with both blood magic and human security systems. Every minute we remained exposed on the road was another minute of vulnerability.

So, I drove on, weaving through late-night traffic with the reflexes of my kind, all while keeping careful watch over Kasi.

Her eyelids fluttered slightly, tiny movements that would have been imperceptible to human vision.

Her fingers twitched against the leather seat, and a small frown creased her forehead.

Whatever she was seeing caused her distress.

I wanted to shield her from it, to pull her from the vision and back to me, but I knew better than to interrupt.

The sight was her birthright as a yumboe descendant, a power in her blood was as natural as my thirst was in mine.

My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as I took the turn onto Kingery Highway. The Porsche handled it perfectly, hugging the curves in the freeway with mechanical precision. I’d chosen this vehicle for its speed.

Four hundred years I’d walked this earth.

Four centuries of hunting, feeding, fighting, and surviving.

I’d crossed oceans, witnessed empires rise and fall, adapted to technologies that would have seemed like magic to the human I once was.

Through it all, I’d maintained careful control of my hunger, my power, and most importantly my emotions.

Yet in the span of days, this half-human, half-fae woman had shattered that control.

She made me feel things I thought long dead, awakened hungers that transcended mere bloodlust. The protective rage that rose in me at Brooklyn’s abduction wasn’t just concern for an innocent, it was fury that someone had dared to hurt someone Kasi loved.

The traffic thinned as we left the more densely populated areas.

My mansion lay ahead, just minutes away.

The Bambara were ancient hunters, nearly as old as vampire-kind.

They knew the old ways, the dark rituals that could grant power to those willing to pay terrible prices.

If they had Brooklyn and were setting up a ritual space, it could only mean one thing they were preparing to bleed my Kasi, the half-yumboe girl whose blood they coveted.

I wouldn’t let it happen. Not to Kasi. Not to anyone under my protection.

As the Porsche crested the last hill before the long driveway to Crackstone Manor, I resolved that I would get revenge for Kasi, her mother and for my Basirah.

Fuck the treaty. Bambara would learn the cost of challenging a vampire who’d survived four centuries of enemies far more terrifying than they ever seen.

But first, I needed Kasi to come back from wherever her vision had taken her from me. Whatever she saw might be the key to stopping what was coming.

Kasi’s sudden gasp shattered the silence in the car.

Her body jerked forward against the seatbelt, hands grasping at nothing as her eyes cleared from their glazed state.

I fought the urge to pull over. Four centuries had taught me patience, but seeing her vulnerable like this tested the limits of my control.

Her breathing came in short, rapid bursts, and the scent of fear rolled off her skin in waves.

I tasted her blood and now I could feel her fear.

Whatever she’d witnessed in her vision had frightened her deeply.

“Kasi,” I said softly, reaching for her hand. “You’re safe. I’m here.”

She blinked rapidly, her eyes focused on me, then on the road ahead, then back to me again, as if reassuring herself of where she was.

“I saw him,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Desmond Moreau. He was walking off a plane at O’Hare airport. I saw the gate number and the arrivals sign. He was coming down the escalator to baggage claim.”

My jaw tightened involuntarily at the name.

Desmond Moreau. The leader of the Bambara Brotherhood.

The monster who had ordered the slaughter of countless fae over the centuries.

The man who had burned my Basirah alive just because she was an ally to the faefolk.

I wanted to burn in fire when I received word of her death.

It was Lily that stopped me from taking my own life.

“You’re certain it was Desmond?” I asked, keeping my voice controlled despite the ancient rage stirring in my dead heart. “You saw his face?”

“Yes.” Kasi nodded, her composure returning gradually. “Tall, dark skin, powerful build. And the scar, a long one that runs from his eye down his cheek to his chin.”

The scar Theia had given him in the Goree Island war. A wound from an enchanted golden blade that never properly healed, even with all his dark magic. It was him, without question.

“He wasn’t alone,” she continued, her hands still trembling slightly.

“Tarus was waiting for him at Door 7 arrivals in a black SUV, the same hunter that take Brooklyn.” Her voice quivered on her friend’s name.

“I think it’s happening now, or already happened.

I can’t always tell with these visions.”

“But given Lily’s intelligence about the warehouse preparations, Desmond must have just arrived.”

I shifted gears abruptly, the Porsche’s engine roaring as I accelerated down Kingery Highway.

Traffic was almost non-existent this late at night.

A few but vehicles still dotted the road.

They mere obstacles to be navigated around.

My reflexes allowed me to weave between them with precision that would have made a professional racecar driver envious.

“His arrival changes things,” I said, more to myself than to Kasi. “Desmond doesn’t leave his sanctuary in Liberia unless something significant is happening.”

“What does he want?” Kasi asked, gripping the door handle as I took a corner faster than human safety would suggest.

What did he want? The same thing he’d always wanted, power. Immortality without the vampire’s curse. The magic that flowed in fae blood, especially yumboe blood.

“You,” I said simply. “Or more precisely, your blood. The Bambara Brotherhood sustains itself on fae blood, but their leader, Desmond especially. He consumes it to extend his life through rituals.”

I didn’t tell her the rest, that Desmond had a particular hatred for the African fairies. He’d decimated their numbers in Africa decades ago in what amounted to the genocide we all called the Fall of the Fae.

Kasi absorbed this with remarkable composure. “Do you really think Brooklyn still alive?”

“Yes,” I assured her. “The Bambara won’t harm her until they have you. They need her alive as leverage.”

I didn’t add that once they had Kasi, Brooklyn’s fate would be sealed. Humans who witnessed Bambara rituals never survived. The Brotherhood left no witnesses to their dark practices.

The road stretched before us, the mansion now just minutes away.

“We’ll reach the manor soon,” I said, my voice deeper than normal. “Lily will have gathered the coven fighters. The yumboe will be waiting as well.”

“Will it be enough?” Kasi asked, her eyes meeting mine. “Against Desmond?”

Desmond Moreau had survived for centuries himself, though through different means than vampire immortality. He’d slaughtered fae, werewolves and vampires alike in his time. His power was considerable.

“It will have to be,” I replied, unwilling to feed her fear.

The gates of Crackstone Manor appeared ahead, their wrought iron intricacy was a familiar sight that normally brought comfort. Tonight, they represented a fortress, a gathering place for the forces that would stand against Desmond Moreau and his Bambara Brotherhood.

I pressed the accelerator harder, the Porsche responding with a surge of power that pressed us back into our seats. Time was against us. Brooklyn’s life hung in the balance. And somewhere in Chicago, the monster who had haunted my nightmares for centuries prepared his next move.

We would be ready for him. I would not fail again. I would not lose another woman I loved to Desmond’s cruelty.