Page 101 of Worse Fates

His complexion is healthier, there’s even some pink to his cheeks, and his bloodshot eyes are clear—well fed, and recently.

“I found another of those assholes,” Rurik grunts. “Went into his head and ripped everything out before draining him dry.”

“Just another nightmare I’ll be adding to the list…” Summer grumbles under her breath.

“And what did you find?” I ask Rurik.

“There’s an abandoned industrial estate on the city’s outskirts—our last real lead, Luc.” Rurik’s grip tightens, leather cracking. “We’ll find Apollo there, I’m sure of it.”

Before I can say anything, Rurik slams his foot down and we speed across the salted road, Summer clinging to the door for dear life and making a high sound of annoyance. I don’t blame her, Rurik isn’t a careful driver at the best of times, and she’s been stuck with him for hours.

“Did you manage to get anything else from him?” I ask, buckling in as we speed through narrow lanes and winding paths. Wind whips through the car, sending Summer’s hair and fluffy purple coat flying wildly around her scrunched-up face.

Rurik grunts.

“There are more blood mages than we thought,” Summer shouts over the roaring engine.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Rurik swerves over a corner, jolting us all forward as he bumps over the pathway. He rights himself with little care of the man he almost hit. “That Emma woman’s been collecting up people no one will notice are missing. That's why she started that fight club,” he says. “She was trying to find people with blood mages in their history.”

“This is a mess,” I bite out. “Why is she doing this?”

“I might be able to answer that.” Summer pulls her coat tighter. “I reached out to some other mages and turns out that the Sovereign to one of the oldest blood mage towers, Sebastain Roth, died without naming anyone heir.”

Rurik shakes his head. “You mages and your fucking politics.”

“Hey, this isn’t all mages, it’s one tower.”

“One towering doing a lot of damage,” I reply coarsely.

“Because vampires never cause problems,” Summer grumbles. “Anyway, there isn’t an heir and everyone isinfighting. I can’t say for certain, but Emma has to be gunning for it, too.”

“And the other blood mages won’t care if she brings in untested weaklings?” I ask.

Summer shrugs. “If she has more numbers, it won’t matter what any of them think.”

She has a point there.

A blood mage war is the last thing we need, even if it’s only one tower. There is only one in England, but two in Ireland. Another close by in France. Each with a power hungry Sovereign who’d do anything to expand their power, but as long as they keep their fighting as hidden as possible, the other supernaturals won’t get involved.

But if not…

Fuck, it’d be even more of a mess.

I need to stop this before we bring more death to our door. I care little for the humans and supernaturals who live in this city, but I’ll rip heads off before Golden gets dragged into the middle of a war.

Early morning traffic soon halts our progress, and we arrive at the abandoned industrial estate well into the late morning.

Brown grass and roots choke the entrance, doing more to keep people out than the rusted chain link fence. It’s no hulking beast like other estates, more a sad collection of two storey brick buildings and a handful of warehouses. The windows either boarded up or smashed in.

Rurik parks outside of a ‘Keep Out’ sign, covered in bold graffiti.

And under the scent of rotten wood and nature reclaiming what was always its, in a forgotten gray frozen landscape, is the rancid stink of blood.

Beside me, Summer shivers in her boots.

“Fuck,” she curses, fists clench and nose turned up. “Magic, a lot of it, too. How could I have missed this?”