“Oh. Y-yes, please…” The woman, ruddy-faced and with light burns on her hands, looked at Margaret in confusion.
I cocked my head and closed my eyes for a moment, feeling residual magic. Also an echo of power. I’d never felt something quite like it. I couldn’t tell if it was from spell working within the neighborhood coven, or if the power was individual to one or both of them.
I lifted my eyebrows at Rodney, silently repeating myself.
“Sure,” he said in something like a grunt, playing Mr. Tough Guy.
He had no idea what a real Mr. Tough Guy sounded like, I could tell.
“Fantastic. Margaret, if you would?” I waited for her to start on the tea before continuing. “I was just asking Margaret what she took from the mage’s house.”
“She seems to think—”
“I just told them what I think,” I said to Margaret, planting myself on the other side of the coffee table, staring down at the newcomers. “You will note that I did not ask if you took something. I asked what it was. Oh! Forgive me my rudeness.” I shoved my hand through the air at Darius, careful to keep my movements coarse. “This is my vampire friend. He’s hungry. Being that we saw Roger, the alpha shifter, earlier, and he didn’t detain Darius, you can be comforted by the knowledge that we are authorized to conduct business in the Brink.”
Rodney swallowed, and his hand jerked toward his wife before he stilled it. He heard the threat loud and clear: We can and will kill you to get this information, and we’ll be operating within magical law.
Naive people under pressure were largely stupid creatures.
“What did you take?” I repeated.
“It was just a basic-level book of spells.” Tamara shrugged. “It wasn’t worth anything.”
“Just a book of spells?” I crossed my arms over my chest, studying her, noticing the tightness around her eyes and the thinning lips. Quarter-truths were the same as lying in these circumstances. “Get it. And before you do”—I put out a cautioning finger—“know that I am familiar with the defensive spell you cast as a collective. A few books have that spell, but none of them make it roll like that. So this book that you get should have some pretty high-level notes marking up the pages.”
Tamara’s spine went rigid and her expression set in defiance. She opened her mouth to refuse, but Darius turned into a blur that ended in her dangling from the air by her neck. She flailed. Her husband started, his eyes widening.
“Don’t make her ask again,” Darius said softly. The small hairs rose on my body.
“Hey!” Rodney shouted, struggling to get up. Margaret clutched her throat, a defensive reaction that wasn’t helping anyone.
“Don’t—” Tamara wheezed out of a constricted throat. Clearly he wasn’t cutting off all her air, somehow. “Don’t tell them.”
Rodney hesitated.
They must’ve known someone would come calling for the book, and they were prepared for that someone to use violence to drag the information out.
I sighed, because that would just make all this take longer.
Darius must’ve recognized it, too, because he changed tactics. “Thank you for this lovely meal.” He lowered her to the ground and opened his mouth, revealing his fangs.
“Don’t tell them!” Tamara said through clenched teeth.
They must’ve thought the book was only safe within their coven. Given the spell they’d tried, probably one of the few they could actually do with their power level, that book was a good find. Which made the one I’d taken a great find.
Why would they assume that a bunch of lower-powered witches could keep a book like that safe?
Like a flash of lightning, it hit me. “He was one of you, wasn’t he?” I snapped, walking toward the window to think. “He was at your power level, but he got hooked up with the more powerful mages, and they gave him a way to increase his power. Once he reached a certain level, he was allotted some learning material. I bet that book has sacrifices and possessions and…” I trailed off as confusion rolled across two faces. The third had a sort of dreamy look and a firm grip on Darius’s flexed biceps. He hadn’t even bitten her; he was just whispering into her ear while slowly stroking the skin over her vein with his thumb. The guy was good.
“So then, just higher-level spells, I gather?” I saw affirmation in their expressions. “You want to keep the book to prevent other people from gaining a bunch of power and turning into a whack job, like your former friend and neighbor did. I see.”
Darius pulled his head away from Tamara’s in order to glance at me. There was no hunger or arousal in his eyes; he was playing a strange sort of bad cop. Or a good cop on ecstasy. That worked, too.
“Trust me, it is way safer in my hands than it could ever be in yours,” I said. “I already have that much power. I won’t go crazy, trust me.”
“Don’t give in,” Tamara said, her hands now rubbing up and down Darius’s arms. He might’ve been applying a bit too much charm.
“I want that book.” I leaned against the wall. “He’ll bite her to get it.”
“Don’t give in,” Tamara said again, licking her lips. Her eyes fluttered closed as Darius ran his lips against her skin. Rodney shifted from side to side. His hands flexed and un-flexed. He did not like what was going on, but had no idea what to do.
“You guys didn’t prepare for this kind of torture, I’d bet,” I said, waiting patiently. This was way easier than busting heads and striking fear into their hearts. “Take notes, Rodney. All he’s using right now are words. Clearly you need to up your game in the bedroom. She’s probably bored out of her mind…”
Insulting his prowess did it. Rodney cracked. “He did go crazy,” he said in a thick voice, watching as his wife traced the hard chest of a vampire. “He got hooked up with that crew, forgot we even existed, and the next thing we knew, he was plaguing the neighborhood with heinous spells. He called them practice spells. He had to be taken out.”