Blood Prophecy

CHAPTER 18



Isabeau


Wednesday night


Running through the woods with a pack of dogs at my heels usually made me happy.

It made me feel free and wild and part of the mysteries, a true handmaiden to the Hounds. It was invigorating and grounding. Necessary. But too slow. Frustrated, I pushed harder. Pine boughs slapped at me. Magda ran beside me, slapping back at them. Snow shivered in the air behind us. The dogs lowered their heads and flattened their ears, streaking between the trees. Even as fast as we were, we’d never make it in time.

“I hate your boyfriend,” Magda snapped as more snow fell on her head.

“You didn’t have to come,” I reminded her, leaping over a fallen tree. Charlemagne sailed over it, tight at my side. His tongue lolled out in a happy canine smile. The pack on my back bounced against my shoulder blades, filled with ritual gear.

“Like I’m going to leave you alone with the Drakes,” Magda shot back. The moonlight caught on the daggers at her belt and the chainmail sewn into my tunic over my heart. “After what happened last time.”

And by that, she meant the time I’d brought one of them home with me. Logan had snuck under my defenses with his old-world courtesy and quick grin, and now he was an initiated member of our tribe. Something that never failed to infuriate Magda, on principle, if nothing else. She didn’t share well. It was another ten minutes before we broke out of the forest and along a deserted road. Headlights flashed as a Jeep sped up behind us.

Logan.

Magda called him something rude under her breath before yanking the back door open. Charlemagne leaped in after her. “Suivez,” I ordered the other dogs who had stopped running and were barking from the shadows.

Logan reached over to push my door open and I climbed in. His hair falling over his pale forehead and the lace at his cuffs did nothing to detract from his grim expression. His smile though, when he saw me, was gentle. I didn’t have time to smile back; he’d already slammed his foot on the pedal. I held tightly onto the door handle as the vehicle sped down the road. I knew it was faster than running, and more efficient than the carriages I remembered, but I still preferred the carriages. They didn’t make me feel trapped.

I held on tighter, my fangs poking out from under my top lip. Hounds didn’t generally bother retracting their fangs since we lived in secrecy and had no need or desire to blend into society, even vampire society. They feared our extra set of teeth. I’d caught more than one vampire sniffing me back at the camp, to make sure I wasn’t Hel-Blar.

Logan glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. They were grass green even in the dim glow from the lights on the dash. I still wasn’t sure how he could read me so well but he didn’t say anything, only pushed a button and the window slid open. Cold cedar-and-snow-scented air made the bone beads in my hair clatter. I could see the shadows of the dogs chasing us on either side. Charlemagne pushed his head out my window from the backseat.

“Are you sure about this?” Magda asked, as she’d asked me on the hour every hour since I’d made my offer. It didn’t matter that Logan was sitting right next to me.

“Oui,” I replied. “Bien sur.” I wasn’t acting as the handmaiden to Kala, the Hounds’ Shamanka in this; just as Magda wasn’t acting as my guard or ritual sister, but as my friend.

“Thank you,” Logan murmured. “We have to try.”

I reached out, interlacing my fingers through his. “There was too much magic unleashed the day Solange took the crown, and that is no coincidence. Else it would have happened when your mother was crowned too.”

We crested a hill and at the bottom another car was set off the road, the front dented around a fence post. The lights were still on and beyond them, Solange lay on the ground tied up with rope. Around her stood Kieran, Lucy, Quinn, and Connor. A tall man with black hair and a vicious smile broke out of the trees, flinging stakes. One of them narrowly avoided Lucy’s cheek, and only because Quinn kicked her feet out from under her, dropping her like a stone. She pushed to her hands and knees, scrambling to grab a crossbow before it was crushed under various boots.

“Constantine,” Logan spat, slamming on the brakes and screeching to a halt. I could hear the approach of the dogs on the other side of the hill.

“And Hel-Blar,” Magda added. “On your left.”

On the other side of the street, Hel-Blar shuffled in our direction, reeking of mushrooms and mildew. Charlemagne growled, despite his training. He knew danger and it made his hackles rise. “Non,” I told him sharply. It was too risky for any of the dogs to attack the Hel-Blar and they were all carefully trained to avoid them, by their smell and the sound of their clacking jaws. I whistled to forbid them from attacking. They were on the other side of the hill, but they’d still be able to hear me.

“Shit,” Logan swore. “Incoming!” he yelled to the others.

“Not again,” Lucy said, whirling to face them. Her first crossbow bolt caught the closest one in the chest, right through the heart. He crumbled into pieces and disintegrated. His companions scuttled through his ashes, snarling and undaunted. They smelled blood and battle and Solange’s pheromones. They’d never stop coming.

“I need to dreamwalk,” I said, despite the danger all around us.

“What, here?” Magda asked. “Now?” She whipped out one of her daggers. “Little busy.”

“I still need to get into Solange’s mind. And for that, I need to be touching her and she won’t let me do that until we get the collar on her. But I never got Lucy’s blood for immunity.” I withdrew the copper collar Logan’s brothers and Christabel had stolen from the Hel-Blar.

Made of beaten copper and glimmering like trapped firelight, it was smooth and simple and curved like a half-moon. The collar was powerful, and even after Kala and I had both examined it thoroughly, we still weren’t entirely sure how it worked. I was taking a risk by using a magical item that might not be dependable, and judging by the foul look Magda shot me, she realized it too.

“You don’t need my blood,” Lucy piped up. “You’ve got me.”

I grabbed her wrist. “Then let’s go.”

Magda gave a twisted, screeching kind of laugh and leaped at the Hel-Blar. Logan followed, distinctly less enthusiastic, but then I’d seen rabid dogs with less enthusiasm for violence than Magda. “Guys!” he shouted at his brothers. “A little help here?”

But they couldn’t help him. They couldn’t even help themselves.

Because Solange was awake now.

She lifted her head, pupils flaring, the whites of her eyes bleeding out in red rivers. The twins stumbled, cursing. “Let me go,” she said softly.

“Don’t!” Lucy shouted.

But it was too late for warnings and they wouldn’t have done any good regardless.

“Let me go,” Solange demanded again. “Now.”

Logan was safe from Solange’s pheromones but he was also too busy fighting off Hel-Blar. I felt the pull of her power as well. Charlemagne moved across me, leaning his considerable weight across my knees to stop me from getting closer. Luckily, I was still far enough away to retain some sovereignty over myself.

“Take my nose plugs—” Lucy stopped. “Damn it, I gave them to Christabel.”

They might have helped but they weren’t a perfect shield. I swayed toward Solange but at least my feet stayed rooted. Between Charlemagne and my own magic, I could buy myself a few more moments. The twins weren’t so lucky. Quinn was already slicing through the thick ropes that bound her. Sweat dampened his hair as he struggled uselessly to fight the compulsion. Connor kneeled next to him and snapped the handcuffs apart. Constantine was trying to get to her and Kieran was just as determined to stop him. The twins stood, hovering beside their sister, straining on invisible leashes.

The Hel-Blar continued to advance.

Solange rose to her feet, like something out of the fairy stories my nursemaid told me when I was a child. Her hair was black as coal, her lips red as blood. Even her dress floated around her as if compelled.

Constantine backhanded Kieran and sent him sailing over our heads. I ducked before his boot could graze my temple but kept running, dragging Lucy behind me. She made a small strangled sound of surprise. Quinn and Connor moved to block Solange. I’d have to get through them to get to her.

“Can you take them?” Lucy asked. “Without killing them?”

“Oui.”

“Without them killing you?”

“I am not so easy to kill.” I handed her the copper collar, which she looped over her wrist like a large bracelet so that she could keep a grip on her crossbow. Her eyes widened suddenly and I knew Constantine must be behind me. Charlemagne was already leaping at him. Constantine dodged, but only barely. He had vampire speed, the kind that comes from being ancient. If he reached Solange before we did, we wouldn’t be able to start the ritual. And Logan’s brothers might die.

I spun on my heel to face him. My dogs raced down the street toward us, leaping the fences and skirting around trees. Constantine went low and I leaped high, avoiding his strike. I landed with a stake in each hand, braids and beads rattling like bones.

“We just want safe passage,” Constantine said. His accent was vaguely British, clipped but charming.

Charming didn’t work on me.

I didn’t waste time with idle talk, only threw one of my stakes. He danced out of the way but not quickly enough to avoid it entirely. It sliced through his side, under his arm, as he turned. His blood stung the air, hot and metallic.

Solange shrieked at the twins.

“Kill the witch!”