Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1) (19 page)

She was out of the cell, but not ready to celebrate just yet. She was fairly certain several of her ribs were broken. She had a bruised tailbone, a wrist fracture, and she remained stuck in the bowels of an institution that wanted to torture her to death.

She swallowed hard, trying to block out the pain as they drew closer to the corridor’s end. What hellish torments had the Brotherhood unleashed behind those doors in the name of humanity?

Miranda, Tammi, and Aurora were just a few feet away from them right now, but there was nothing she could do about it. It wasn’t like she could break through six inches of metal door without getting caught; even Caine couldn’t do that.

At last, they reached the end of the hall. Two guards flanked another set of metal doors, and Rosalind slowed, letting Caine take the lead. She couldn’t let the guards see her face. Even if they didn’t recognize her features, the raw pain written in her eyes would spook them.

A tall, dark-haired man nodded at Caine. “What’s going on with the traitor?”

“Interrogation got messy.” Caine kept his eyes down and mimicked Josiah’s voice. “It’s still going on, but the others are handling it.
Lux in tenebris lucet
.”

The blond guard pushed a button, opening the metal doors. “You get your hands on that bitch? I want a turn on her when they’re—”

Fury rushed through Rosalind, and before she could stop herself, her leg swung up, and her boot connected with the man’s face. His neck snapped back, hitting the wall, and a fraction of a second later Caine slammed his elbow into the other guard’s skull. The two men slumped to the ground.

“Unconscious,” Caine said. “At your request.”

“Thanks.” She gripped her ribs, suppressing a moan.

The door had swung open into the older part of the chambers—a brick hall that opened into a stairwell leading to the ground floor.

“We’re almost out,” she said through labored breaths, climbing the stairs. She tried to catch her breath, her lungs still burning. She held on to the rails, gasping for air. What she really needed was a goddamn hospital. Caine glanced at her before slipping an arm around her waist.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“I’m alive.”

At the top of the stairs stood another set of doors. While these doors required scans to get in, there was nothing to stop them from leaving. Rosalind pushed open the door, trying to project an air of confidence as she strode past the guards into the central hall. A sigh slid from her. They were now clear of the maximum security part of the Chambers, and they just had to make it through the lobby and onto Oxford Street. She cast a quick glance around at the lobby’s towering ivory columns, the busts of famous Hunters, and the crimson walls lined with portraits of the Brotherhood’s most illustrious members: King James I, Cotton Mather, and England’s witchfinder General. This had felt like her home once.

Was it only a week ago that she’d strode through here, certain that her future was secure in this building, that she’d one day lecture to a crowd of students in the Chambers’ old Mather hall?

Her heels clacked over the marble floor as they crossed the lobby, striding past the wooden security desk to the glass doors, illuminated by streetlights outside. So close to freedom, her heart pounded harder.

Still, guilt tightened her throat. She was leaving Tammi and the others at the hands of the psychopaths.

With a final glance at Caine, she pushed on a glass door, but it didn’t budge.
What the hell?

Caine pushed another door, with the same result.

Locked.

The security guard’s voice broke the silence. “You gotta use the scanner. When the alarms are going off, no one can leave without scanning.”

“
O
f course
.” Caine kept his voice even when he spoke to the guard. “The scanners.”

Any minute now, they’d be found out. She couldn’t let herself imagine the torture they’d endure after an escape attempt that left a trail of bodies.

“Get ready to run,” she whispered to Caine.

She took a few steps back before pulling the gun, aiming it at the glass doors. If she couldn’t scan her way out, she’d have to shoot her way out. She squeezed the trigger and broke into a sprint. Glass shattered all around them. Shards blasted against her skin as she bolted to the pavement outside. They cleared the door’s entrance just as the guard unleashed a round of bullets. Caine pulled her out of the crossfire, taking shelter behind the building’s brick facade.

He folded her in an embrace and pulled off her ring. In the shadows, he began chanting in Angelic. The mage joined in as their mingling auras whirled through her body. Panicked shouts echoed from within the building, but the magic was already rippling over her skin, and a thick, protective mist enshrouded them.

Caine slipped the ring back on her finger, and the mist thinned. Rosalind let out a long, slow breath. They stood in Mount Auburn Cemetery, dwarfed by Abduxiel Mansion. Blood streaked Caine’s neck.

Pain splintered her shoulder. She pressed her fingers to her collarbone, wincing. “I’ve been shot three times in two days. This is not how I imagined my life turning out.”

Caine slipped his arm around her waist. “Let me get you inside. I’ll heal you.”

As they approached the tall oak door, it swung open, revealing a cavernous hall. Moonlight shone through a stained glass window—an image of an angel. Twinkling lights hung suspended in the air like stars, flickering over an empty marble floor. If she weren’t half-dead, she might actually enjoy this place.

Orcus rushed from a darkened archway. “I tried to keep her here. She wouldn’t listen,” he hissed. “Are you injured, Master? And what is happening with Bileth?”

“I’m fine, but she’s badly hurt.”

Orcus pulled off his hood, revealing black eyes and a pale, bald head the color of bone. “Take her into the celestial room. Try not to get blood everywhere. I’ve just cleaned up. I’ll draw a bath in the adjacent washing room.”

She leaned into Caine, and agony burned through her shoulder. He led her through an archway, pushing open a door into a candlelit room. Midnight-blue wallpaper, marked with silver stars, surrounded them. A silky, blue bed stood in the center of the room, and a twinkling chandelier hung from the ceiling.

“Lie down,” instructed Caine. “You’re walking like you’re in agony.”

She pulled off her boots, wincing as she bent over.
Nice of him to notice.
She lay on the soft bed, barely able to restrain the tears welling in her eyes. “I
am
in agony. And what about you? You’re covered in blood.”

“I was shot in the neck, and the rest is from the glass.”

Her stomach clenched. “Shot in the neck? Why aren’t you dead?”

“I can’t be killed that easily, not unless it’s a hawthorn stake.”

A hawthorn stake—so that was why Malphas had been weakened. Her sense of relief at their escape was crushed by the weight of guilt—not just because of Malphas, but the friends she’d left behind. “What about the others? What if Josiah and Randolph punish them for what we did? We need to get back there.” Miranda probably looked exactly like her, and Josiah would be sadistic enough to act out his most depraved revenge fantasies on her.

Caine eyed her with concern. “You need to calm your breathing. You won’t heal as well if you’re panicking. We’ll save them, but I need to heal you first. And then you can tell me about your plan. Open your shirt, please.”

She unbuttoned the front of her shirt, grimacing at the pain when she moved her arms.

Caine brushed his hands over her sternum, chanting in Angelic. His aura seeped into her skin, soothing away the pain. He trailed his fingers lower, lingering lightly over her broken ribs and lung, before they moved to her neck and face, lanced with shards of glass. With each stroke of his fingers, the pain began to ebb, leaving behind only a dull ache in her muscles.

“Is there anything else?” he asked, his eyes roaming over her body.

“That’s it. Just soreness.”

His gaze met hers. “I didn’t realize how bad it was. You had five broken ribs.”

“You let him torture me.” She sat up. “Why didn’t you stop it?” She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know the answer.

“There were two reasons.” He spoke quietly, gently picking up her hand. “One—the Brotherhood believed that iron chains were enough to bind an incubus. I didn’t want to dispel that myth. If they believe iron alone can hold us, it works to our advantage. That meant I had to wait until it looked like you were the one to break us out—until you very ingeniously found a way out of that chair. And the other was simply that Josiah’s interrogation gave me valuable information. I now know what’s important to him and to the Brotherhood. I know what he knows about us, and what he doesn’t.”

“Sounds very practical.” She pulled her hand from his grasp and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them. “Is there anything he could have done that would have spurred you to action, or would you have sat there and watched him murder me as long as you got the information you wanted?” She wasn’t sure why she felt so betrayed. He’d never promised her anything more than an uneasy alliance. Like he’d said. They weren’t friends.

“Don’t be absurd. I wouldn’t have let it go that far.” He looked down at his hands. “I didn’t realize the damage he was doing. I forget sometimes how fragile human bodies are. But you need to get over it. You’re alive. And if it makes you feel better, I plan to kill him in the most excruciating way possible.”

“I’m not sure that makes me feel better. And that’s another thing—how are we any better than the Brotherhood if we kill everyone just like they do?”

He shrugged. “We aren’t any better.”

She’d been expected some kind of argument, and had no idea what to do with that response. “But I hate them and what they do. I don’t want to be the same as them, or I’d have to hate myself. I used to think it was okay to kill people as long as they weren’t human, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s immoral to kill people unless it’s pure self-defense. Like, if you’re about to die.”

“We’re at war, Rosalind.”

“Only because everyone keeps
saying
we’re at war.” Loring was right about that much—words had power.

“Mmm.” He apparently couldn’t stop his eyes from roaming over her bare skin now that it had been healed. “Well, let me know when your semantic argument convinces the Brotherhood to stop hunting demons, and I’ll let things lie.” Blood still poured from the bullet hole in his neck, and he winced.

“Can you heal yourself?” she asked. Even if he was a demon, a bullet to the neck had to hurt.

“No. It doesn’t work that way.”

“You can only be healed by human women.”

“And Orcus. He’s not quite as enjoyable, but I don’t imagine you’re going to volunteer.”

“Orcus it is.” She heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss him again. She wanted it a little
too
much. His touch could distract her from what they needed to do. Maybe some moral quandaries were murky, but spending the night in the arms of an incubus while your best friend and sister were being tortured went into
full blown sociopath
territory.

The door creaked open, and Orcus poked his head in.

At the sight of his shining skull, Rosalind pulled her shirt closed. It was one thing for Caine to see her half-naked, but the grim reaper was another matter.

Orcus cleared his throat. “The bath is drawn for the lady. I left you both a change of clothes in the washing room. But could you please tell me what I’m supposed to do about Bileth? He has been here three times looking for you, and I’m fairly certain he intends to send you into the shadow hell in a most unpleasant fashion.”

Caine rubbed the center of his forehead. “Arrange for ten courtesans to visit him. And find ones that look like Rosalind. Tell him they’re a gift from me, and that I’ve already punished her severely.”

“Of course, Master.”

Caine glanced at her. “You should go soak your muscles. The bath he’s drawn will heal the ache in your bones.”

She clenched her fists. “We need to talk about breaking into the Brotherhood. I want to get in there now.”

“I’ll join you in a moment, and we’ll talk.” He eyed her thoughtfully. “I’ll keep my gaze on the floor, if you want.”

“Good.”

Orcus’s heels clacked over the flagstones. “Master, I must heal your neck.”

Rosalind rose, holding her ripped shirt closed, and strode across the cold flagstones in her bare feet. She pushed open the door into a stone washroom. A silver, clawfoot bath stood in the center, filled with bubbles and herbs, and candles guttered in spidery sconces. A silver-framed mirror hung over a sink.

She draped the blanket over a chair before slipping out of her underwear and padding over to the tub. She climbed in, lowering herself into the warm water scented with rose petals and foxglove. She leaned back, resting her neck on the tub’s edge. If she weren’t battered by worry, this would be heaven.

As the water melted the ache from her body, she mentally ran through her plan. Magic was useless in the Brotherhood’s chambers, and technology controlled the whole building: retina scanners, key cards to get in and out, auto-locking doors, sensors that detected magical auras, the sprinklers of iron dust… If she controlled the technology, she controlled the Chambers.

She dipped lower in the bath, inhaling the steam. It all started with a laptop. What were the chances that Orcus had a laptop lying around—that he spent his nights gaming or watching online porn?

Behind her, the door creaked open, and she turned her head to find Caine, his eyes downcast. “I’m going to be exercising a lot of restraint for this conversation.”

“I need a laptop.”

“A
what
?”

“A computer. You know—a digital device? Zeros and ones? Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

“I’ve heard the word before, but Maremount technology is about four hundred years behind yours.”

She turned to look at him. “Well, magic is no use to us in the Chambers, so we’ve got to use what’s available. I don’t suppose you have a spell that creates a laptop?”

“No. Most of our spells are medieval. I could blight someone’s cabbage crop without a problem.” He pulled off his shirt, and she caught a glimpse of the red streaking his perfect chest. Facing the mirror, he grabbed a cloth, scrubbing at some of the blood. “What, exactly are the details of this plan?”

“If I can hack into the Brotherhood’s computer systems, I can control the building. We can get in; the prisoners can get out.” Suddenly excited, she sat up, and the suds dripped down her skin. “I can turn off the dust, shut down the scanners, unlock the doors. I can control it all.”

His eyes met hers in the reflection, and he paused, his cloth hovering mid-air. He swallowed hard. “I forgot what we were talking about.”

“We were talking about you looking in another direction.”

“Right.” He finished cleaning off the blood and pulled off his pants.

For a moment, his strong, athletic form distracted her.
Focus, Rosalind.
She was turning into that full blown sociopath she’d imagined before. “So how do we get a laptop?”

He stepped into a pair of freshly-laundered black pants. “I could just take one from someone.”

“Half of Cambridge will have one,” she said, pushing aside any moral quibbles about theft. “We’re not far from Harvard. The students will be walking around with them.”

He slid his shirt over his broad shoulders. “Give me ten minutes.”