Page 34 of Vampire Sins
Pink frowned and crossed her legs, taking another sip of her tea before she spoke. She made a face, the tea likely too bitter for her taste. She always did have a sweet tooth. “And that’s why I helped you, Nathanial, but it’s time I bring more of the coven in on this now that it’s done.” She glanced at Grans. “Miss D’Ange is only going to deteriorate faster. She needs a witch with her at all times.” She nodded. “And that’s what Emily will do for her as long as it’s required.
Grans began to protest, but Pink held up a hand.
“I’m not questioning why you’ve brought Emily here,” I explained, “I just don’t know if someone so… if she’s ready to hear about all of this.” The girl was already giving me a horrified look with those wide, glittering eyes of hers. Magic slipped from her freely, out of control and in a frenzy. A ringing bounced around in my head from the magical overdose and I stuck a finger in my ear. “I am mortal, you know. If she freaks out, there’s not much I can do about it.”
Pink slipped her hand over Emily’s shoulder and gave the girl a squeeze, calming her magic with effortless ease. “It’s okay, darling. Now, remember why I bought you here?”
Emily bit her lip and nodded, slinking over to Grans and offered her hand.
The succubus considered it for a moment before taking Emily’s tiny fingers into her grasp, then she went rigid as light flared between them.
I moved to stop her, but Pink held out a hand and gave me a stern look.
Curling my fingers into fists, I watched as it happened all over again. A succubus was meant to draw in sexual energy, their main source of drawing the life-giving force that lives in mortals. The soul is an endless source of power, but it is more like a battery, slowly going empty and returning to the source to be recharged. A succubus draws on that power, eventually killing a mortal victim where their soul is forced to leave the body it had chosen for this lifetime. However, what I was witnessing now was the direct opposite of that. A reverse sharing of power. This succubus, Miss D’Ange, she’d fed on so many lives and outlived too many mortals. The power in her had become toxic, slowly devouring her from the inside, although she didn’t want anyone to know. It was a rare condition, one that only happened to the most ancient of supernaturals that fed to survive. Vampires could purge themselves by sleeping and naturally rebuilding their stores, but one of the succubi, they didn’t have such an option. They protected themselves by building a shield around the toxins that built up inside. A succubus could stave off the toxin for hundreds of years, but even Grans was reaching her limit.
Instead of allowing that toxic energy to destroy her from the inside, she decided to make some use of it, even if it sped up the process of her own death. Pink had already helped us put the toxic energy into the mortal girls my father had devoured on his trip to Shanghai, and now we were going to do it again.
It hadn’t been enough. Derek was still alive and he had to be stopped.
Black ooze dripped from Grans’ nose and I grimaced. She buckled over and gagged as the toxin fell in gobbled droplets. Instead of hitting the ground, it lingered in the air as Emily chanted, transforming the sickness into tiny shards.
When she was done, the shards fell into her palm, and she offered them to me. Her innocent eyes gazed up at me, as if that had been the most normal thing in the world.
I cursed and took out a handkerchief, opening it for her to drop them in. No way I was going to touch one of those things.
Death shards. Just as much fun as they sounded.
“There,” Pink said with approval, “Emily is a natural, wouldn’t you say?”
I glowered at her as I folded the shards safely into the cloth and tucked them into my back pocket. “You okay, Emily?” I asked, ignoring Pink. The witch forgot what it was like to be young.
The girl put on a brave face for me, but I was really good at reading people. She was standing a little bit too straight, and her fingers curled into a fist briefly before she opened her hands again. She nodded, but I’d seen enough.
Glancing at Pink again, I narrowed my eyes. “Outside, now.”
I puton four layers before venturing onto Detroit’s frozen streets. The only nice thing about the cold was that it kept most of the undesirables indoors. I shuffled my way through the snow as Pink walked by my side, wearing only a light coat. Magic hummed around her, creating a shield that would be invisible to most mortals and would keep her warm. She glanced at me, glowering just long enough for me to know that she had more than enough power to keep me warm, if she so chose, but she let me freeze.
“You know what I’m going to say,” I began.
She sighed. “We have so many new recruits, Nathanial, and you have no idea what it’s like for them. The echoes of Death have been building for over twenty years and it’s about to come crashing down on our heads.” She looked up, her brows knotting with concern as if she feared the sky would fall on us just as she’d said. “We need them up to the challenge and to be ready as soon as possible. Making death shards is child’s play, but its one of the many skills that’ll help witches like Emily learn their magic.”
“Learn how to be cold and heartless, you mean,” I countered and wrapped my coat a bit tighter around my shoulders. “She’s helping an old woman die faster by extracting the toxins of her thousands of victims. You really think she’s ready for something like that?” I scowled when Pink didn’t respond. I huffed, my breath puffing in the air and I tried to suppress the endless shivers that swept through me. I’d grown up in Seattle, but it hadn’t been this bad. An icy wind somehow found its way down my neck and mercilessly cut through my layers.
Pink rolled her eyes. “Can we go inside now? You’re going to get frostbite.”
I kept going and she tottered after me. “Tell me what’s really going on. Shanghai? Venice?” I had to know that Sonya was okay, and that started with making sure the supernatural cat didn’t get out of the bag.
“From what I’ve heard of the dragon shifters, Jet has overthrown his brother, Jin, and he’s searching for the secrets of the Hugh Modali before he goes to Venice.”
I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t told Pink about the strange pull I’d had to both Shanghai and Venice. At first I’d just thought it had something to do with Sonya, that I missed her, but there was something more. The mention of this dragon, this Jet, caught my interest. “What does that mean for my father?”
A gust of wind tackled her shield, breaking it for a moment and tousling her hair before she righted it again. This was clearly a topic she did not like discussing. I wondered what it was about my father that always had her so fidgety. I knew he had an effect on women, but witches could resist him, for the most part.
“Derek was after something in Shanghai,” she said, “I heard rumor of another blood stone. It’s why he was able to convince Apollo to finally attack his brother.”
“But he didn’t win,” I finished for her. I knew Sonya was still alive. I felt her and every bone in my body begged me to drop whatever I was doing and get to her as fast as I could. The only thing that kept me in Detroit was knowing that I could make a difference for her here. The rebel coven of witches that supported me was part of a growing network of witches who didn’t align themselves with the supernatural. Instead, they aligned themselves with mortals—with me.
“No,” Pink confirmed and crunched her way through the snow. “He didn’t win. In fact, one of our scrying attempts revealed that Hades is awake and has killed Apollo.”
