Page 23 of Lower World
Dominic jerked back like I punched him when I mentioned the cages. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought it’d snap at any second. Rage burned in his eyes as he struggled to control his animal so he didn’t shift. I had no idea why I openly spoke about it. It wasn’t a conscious decision, the words just spilled from my lips because I wanted both of them to understand how serious what they heard was.
“Do you think he was telling the truth that Frederic can track him by his blood?” Dominic asked through clenched teeth.
My shoulder twitched in a shrug. “It could be. Alice made a valid point. If they fed me his blood too, it’s all gone from my system. I’m willing to bleed Johnathan dry if you catch some game so we can give him enough blood for him to be able to speak.”
“If we do that, do you think they won’t come here again?” Alice was gnawing on her lower lip.
“It might take them longer to circle back that way because they’ll look for us elsewhere.” A humorless smile stretched my lips. “But they’ll be back. And when they do, I’ll be ready for them this time around.”
“A female with a plan.” Dominic grinned, too. “I like it.”
14
“You really think this will work?”
Alice asked for the umpteenth time while I went up and down to the basement checking to make sure Johnathan was not drained to the point it’d take a week to bring him back. Dominic was holding a young deer high on his chest, while a tube was connected from its neck directly to the Atua’s throat. My friend was standing at the trapdoor, waiting to corner whoever walked out because she had to know what was happening. I couldn’t blame her; I’d want to know if I were in her shoes, too.
“I’m sure it will work,” I assured her, taking her by the shoulder to move her away. The wolf trotted on her heels, plopping down as soon as she took a seat. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine,” Alice huffed, shoving her glasses up with her forefinger. “It’s not me suckling on a deer.” She chewed on her lip, and I bit back a smile.
“What is it?” It would take a few moments for Dominic to be done in the basement, so I figured I’d keep Alice talking. If I could get her mind off things, it would be less likely for her to get into trouble.
“When you said I’m not a witch …” Trailing off, her teeth sawed over her lip on those words before continuing. “You also said I’m not fully human.”
“I did, yes.”
“What does that mean, Brooklyn?” Her gaze lifted from the top of the table where she was carving a line in the wood with her nail. “Am I going to sprout fur at any moment? Or am I going to grow pincers and jump one of you to chomp on your neck? Because let me tell you, from what I’ve seen so far, witch was the best-case scenario I was hoping for.”
I had to bite hard on the inside of my mouth so I could keep my face expressionless. Alice was fascinated with my world, romanticizing it with whatever things she’d read in fiction books. I understood her need to belong, especially since she’d been stuck in the middle of a war with an army of monsters hell bent on killing us and just the three of us on her side, plus the wolf. The problem was, I couldn’t be sure she understood the dangerous part of it. She was a fixer. That was Alice in a nutshell. If she saw someone hurting or struggling, she was jumping in headfirst to help. It was what got her in this mess in the first place.
“I am almost certain you will not sprout fur nor grow pincers, as you call them.” Her eyes narrowed like she didn’t believe me. “All we know is that you can do magic. Blood magic, to be precise, which would drain a witch in less than a minute according to Dominic, but it fed you energy after doing it for ten to fifteen minutes. That makes you … not a witch.”
“What, like a bloody witch?” I nearly laughed at the incredulous way she said that.
“Blood witch, you mean, and no. Those don’t exist. I’m sure of that, at least.”
She was bobbing her head absentmindedly. I could hear the gears in her brain turning from across the table. Racking my brain to steer the conversation in another direction, I remembered snippets of the nightmare I had on the train. Mulling it over, I couldn’t see anything wrong with giving her something else to think about. Reaching behind my neck, I unclasped the necklace and brought it up between us. The stone dangled on the chain, making both of us follow the swinging with our eyes. Light reflected on the deep red stone from the electrical bulb above our heads.
“Are you trying to hypnotize me so I can tell you what I really am?” Alice snorted softly under her breath.
“If only it was that easy.” My lips twitched at one corner, but I brought the stone down, laying it on the table and straightening the chain. “In my nightmare on the train, I was dreaming about …”
“Veronica,” Alice said at the same time as me.
“About a situation before the Council imprisoned her and about the night that she was killed in front of me.” My throat tightened, but I pushed down the lump. “In my dream, she spoke more than what actually happened back then.”
“What did she say?” Alice leaned forward, her eyes wide.
“In reality she said ‘Love you, Bee’ before she died. In my dream, she followed that with ‘Figure out the pendant and you will find the truth. Look at the stone,’ which could be just my imagination playing tricks on me, mind you. But it’s been nagging me ever since.”
Alice focused on the pendant with newfound interest. She didn’t reach out to touch it, but she did bring her face so close to it her nose brushed over the surface of the stone. My attempt to occupy her mind with something else was a success, but for whatever reason, uneasiness clawed at my insides. Did I make a mistake by bringing Alice’s attention to the pendant? Something inside me was screaming yes.
“It has some symbols on it,” my friend muttered under her breath like she was talking to herself. “And I have a very strong urge to touch it.” Her face lifted so she could look at me, her fingers gripping the sides of the table as if she was trying to strangle it. “I never wanted to do that while you were wearing it. I never even thought about it while it was around your neck.”
“Don’t touch it. I’ll be right back.” We both jumped when Dominic spoke.
The deer was no longer struggling in his arms, the creature almost sleepy hanging its head over Dominic’s shoulder. He refused to kill an animal to feed Johnathan, and of course Alice suggested we could use the same method she applied the first time she fed me her blood. She was nothing if not creative with her ideas, which I had to admit helped us quite a few times in the last number of days while dealing with the Syndicate. Dominic returned before we had a chance to wonder why he wanted us to wait and stepped next to the table, looming over me.
