Blood Sacrifice (11 page)

Adam started down the first step then turned. “I’ve used this as a place to sleep, nothing more. I’ve never seen the grounds.”

“Oh.” With that, there really wasn’t much more to say. Why was I getting so sarcastic and stupid? What Adam had done before we were together meant little to me. I mean, I knew he and Niko were paired for centuries, lovers for a long time, and family even longer. I didn’t care about that. Maybe it was just this place, so full of whispers of the past, of restless spirits.

We descended the stairs in silence, past the opening to the kitchen, past the sounds of the women chattering, down another flight into gloom. A carved wooden door stood at the bottom, stained dark with age, its carvings intricate and very obviously done by hand. A weak lightbulb illuminated the landing. I peered at the carvings. “Angels?”

“Yes, angels, devils, saints, and sinners,” Adam said as he pulled open the door. “This used to be the chapel.”

He stepped through the silent doorway into the darkness beyond. I followed.

The cool of the room came as a blessed relief. Inside were several benches of some sort, up front, a table? Adam reached the front of the room and flipped a hidden switch. A few dim overhead lights sprang to life, illuminating wooden pews and an altar. Well then. “I take it ‘used to be’ is a heck of a lot more recent than I thought,” I said.

“Yes.” Adam ran a hand down the edge of the wooden altar, its rounded edge smooth and shiny. No fancy embroidered cloth covered it as it sat naked on the slightly raised dais. “I believe the sisters still use it regularly.”

“It’s not consecrated?” No duh, I thought. Or else Adam wouldn’t have been able to enter the room.

“Sacred, but not consecrated,” he said. “No cross, no trappings of man-made religion. It was once blessed, but no longer.”

“Just a quiet place to pray.” Niko’s voice came from behind us. “I’d forgotten this was here.” He smiled a little and, like Adam, ran a hand down a pew, as if remembering, savoring thought and memory by touch. “It’s a good place.”

“Where’s Tucker?” I asked.

“Charming the ladies,” Niko chuckled. “Your brother thought it would be good to get food. I don’t think you two have eaten in a while, have we?”

“Good idea,” Adam said. “We may be here for quite a bit.” I had to agree, it was a good idea. I hadn’t noticed until now, but I was famished. I think the last actual meal I’d had was sometime yesterday evening, before I’d dolled up for our Reception. I’d grabbed a protein bar this morning while organizing the final exodus with John, but that was about it. I knew that Adam hadn’t fed properly, either. We’d been too wound up with preparations and the little blood shared as part of the ceremony hadn’t been for nutrition but only symbolic. He’d fed a little before he left, but not enough to satisfy. I doubted that either Niko or Tucker had done any better.

“Tucker filled you in?” I asked Niko, who’d pulled a
pew to one side and positioned a folding table in front of it.

“Yes,” he answered. “Here, help me, would you?” He motioned to another pew. “Could you bring that one over here, too? That way we can sit around the table.”

I did as he asked. Adam stood silent, facing the altar. Was he praying? Thinking? Probably not the former, as he, unlike Niko, had never been human, never followed a religion. Perhaps just contemplating our limited options.

My first instinct had been to rush to the ranch as soon as it was dark, only we couldn’t. That damnable Challenge forbade it.

“So, food’s on,” announced Tucker as he entered, bearing at least two laden trays, with a couple of jugs of water dangling from each hand. “Shall we eat and contemplate our imminent demise?”

I laughed, unable to help myself. Only my brother. “Let’s shall,” I said. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tonight…”

“Tonight,” echoed Adam. “We may die.”

Food. Drink. Comfort, right? Only not today. Not this afternoon. The sandwich went into my belly like lead. The water sloshed down my gullet, chilling me. We ate in silence, the vampires drinking water and sipping on some blood wine that Tucker had packed. Better than nothing, but I knew that both Adam and Niko would have to feed—which meant Tucker and I had to eat as heartily as possible. I managed to chew through a hefty roast beef on ciabatta with a side of crudités. I knew I needed the nutrition, but I could’ve been eating
week-old plastic-wrapped vending machine food for all I tasted.

“This totally sucks,” I finally said, tossing the last bit of crust onto the tray. “What fucking choice do we have?”

Adam looked up from some scribbling he was doing on a piece of parchment that had lined the serving tray. “At this point? Nothing.”

“They’ve desecrated our land, Adam,” I began, my voice rising.

“And we shall deal with it,” he responded. “I’m trying to figure out these symbols.” He pointed to the paper. “See this?”

It was a squiggle topped by a slanted line and a few more lines bisecting it. “What language is that in? I recognize the Ogham runes, but…”

“Ogham runes spelling out… hmm… seems to be some Latin words perhaps. Could be the Old Language, possibly a shortcut spell symbol.”

“Possibly? Could you be a bit less vague?”

“Hmm.” Adam murmured something I couldn’t make out, then bent back over his scribblings. “Can’t really,” he finally said, after retracing a symbol or two. “The photos the sheriff sent weren’t clear enough. He concentrated on the destruction, not the symbols. Probably thought they were just scribbles.”

“Or gang tags,” I said.

“We’re going to have to go there, aren’t we?” Tucker asked.

“If we wish to decipher these spell markers, yes.”

Niko’s eyes widened. “But the Challenge restrictions—”

“Yes, well, there’s the rub.” Adam pushed aside his
paper and tossed the pen back onto the food tray. “This is useless. Other than the one warespell I recognized, without seeing them in person, I can do nothing.”

“But if we go…” Repeating Niko’s statement wasn’t likely to get me a different answer, but I had to.

“Yes, exactly.” Adam leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. “It has been a very long time since I felt this caught between options,” he said.

“What if we leave this alone?” Tucker pulled the paper off the tray and studied it. “I can recognize variations on a theme, but as you said, there’s no way to tell if you’re right. In my opinion, this is one of Gideon’s tricks—hire someone to vandalize the cemetery, scribble fake spell marks on various gravestones and lure us back.”

“What in all the hells did he hope to accomplish with that?” I stood and paced across the floor. “I’m angry, yes, but frankly, this isn’t a ‘must do now’ situation. Carlton’s keeping an eye on things, so we can let it lie for now.”

“Maybe.” Adam tossed me the phone. “Look at the second photo. The stone that is to the right and partially obscured by the broken one.”

I caught it and checked the photos. A shot from the entrance gate, one gravestone broken in two, the bottom still stuck in the ground, the top fallen in front. Just behind and a little to the side, another stone, this one intact, but with blue paint marks. I could make out part of a loop, two slanted lines and what could be a second loop at the bottom. “What am I supposed to see?”

“That mark could be one of several symbols,” Adam said. “The most innocent of them is nothing more than a mild digestive curse. These aren’t fake spells.”

Brilliant, just bloody brilliant. “Okay, well, what would set it off?”

“Anyone walking in the vicinity,” Adam replied. “At best, your police friends won’t be able to stay on the job long, due to bellyaches and loose bowels.”

“At worst?”

“Death.”

I sank to the floor, staring at the photo. “You weren’t kidding.” I wasn’t asking.

“No. Without seeing these in person, I cannot even begin to figure out how we can neutralize the spells.”

“What if the symbols were just painted on by someone human?” Niko asked. “According to the Challenge rules, no one beholden to us or part of Gideon’s people are allowed on the property during the Truce period. If he hired some locals…”

Adam nodded. “A possibility. If they were painted on by non-magick folk, then they are just symbols.”

“But do we want to take that chance?” I said. “I can think of several scenarios where Gideon conned or persuaded someone who is not of his crew, nor ours but yet still Sidhe to set the magicks.” I sighed. “We’re back to square one, aren’t we?”

No one had to answer me. We were. Damned if we did, and possibly damned if we didn’t. Could I take the risk of those spells being true spells, being anything from discomfort to death? Was that even an option?

“Adam, is there any way to contact your father?” Tucker asked.

“If he’s already gone Below, then we can try to Call him,” Adam said. “It’s not a Summoning, but more like a request. Keira would need to do so, since I no longer have Sidhe magicks.”

“What’s your angle, Tucker?” I asked. “Not that I’m not willing to try, but what can Drystan do?”

“Well, to be precise, he’s neither beholden to you, nor is he part of Gideon’s retinue.”

“But he is our father,” Adam said. “He is bound by blood to us both.”

“Damn it.” I pulled my knees up and hugged them. “So what do we do?”

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to contact my father,” Adam continued. “He may not be able to go to the land without violating the sanctions, but he might have some other suggestions. I have been vampire much longer than I was Sidhe.”

I sprang up. There that was more like it. Action. That I could do. “What do I need to do?”

“We’ll need blood and a candle.”

“On it,” Tucker said. “I can get us the candle and matches from the kitchen.”

“The blood?” I asked. “Mine?”

“Mine,” Adam answered. “There are a couple of sigils you’ll need to draw on the floor or the wall whilst concentrating on my father. I’ll draw them out so you can follow. They’re not complex.”

“I’m game,” I said. “What is this calling going to accomplish?”

“We should be able to speak to him.”

I laughed. “So our version of a floo call?”

Niko frowned. “Floo?”

“Harry Potter books,” I said. Niko still looked confused. “Never mind, Niko. After this is over, I’ll lend you my copies.”

Adam shook his head as he drew on the reverse side of the paper. “Yes, like a floo call,” he said, “but without
the special effects. This is pure old-school, voice only.”

“As long as it works.” I watched over his shoulder. The marks seemed fairly easy. A circle, bisected by a squiggly line with some loops and curls. Pretty. “So if he wants to come through, physically that is, can he use that?”

“No, this is simply a Calling. A Summoning would require more focus than we have here.”

“When we were in Vancouver, I Summoned you from Below,” I said.

Adam finished the drawing and handed it to me. “That you did. The difference is that there, we had the Portal to Faery handy. Here we do not.”

Damn it. The only door to Faery I was aware of anywhere in our region was the one situated in the very cemetery that had been vandalized—the one potentially full of booby traps and on the land none of us could set foot on without breaking the restrictions of the Challenge. Damn it times a thousand.

“I’m for trying Gigi again,” I said. “She can’t access the cemetery, but she can bloody well fly here and help. This mess is partially her doing.”

Quizzical looks from all three men made me rephrase. “Yes, I blame her for part of this. I know it’s Gideon and his never-ending quest for whatever makes him hard—power, prestige, revenge—”

“All of the above,” Niko inserted with a wry smile. “From what I’ve experienced of your cousin, he’s not in this for anything more than him being on top of the mountain.”

“We can natter on about this as much as we like, but we’re still getting nowhere.” Tucker stood. “I’m taking
the trays back to the kitchen. You call Gigi and see if she’s got any brilliant ideas.”

“If she’s unwilling, I will then try to Call my father,” Adam said.

“Or both,” I said as I pushed the speed dial button on my phone. “Wouldn’t hurt to have both of them here.”

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

—Lewis Carroll
, Alice in Wonderland

“W
hat do you mean she’s still not back?” I practically yelled into the phone. “Jane, we need her. Gideon’s on some sort of power trip. We’re banned from our own land and things are so far from peachy and keen that we can’t think straight.”

“Keira, I’m sorry.” My aunt Jane’s soothing voice did nothing to calm me. “Minerva’s not been back, nor is she answering our calls to her.”

“Where in all the hells did she go?” Adam placed a hand on my arm. I shook it off. “Get Dad for me, would you?”

Jane huffed into the speaker then the on-hold music came up.

“She’s not happy with me,” I said.

Adam frowned. “I don’t think that’s all of it. She doesn’t sound happy with the entire situation. Has Minerva ever done this?”

“Disappeared incommunicado? Not as far as I know,
but Tucker might.” My brother and Niko had gone back to their room. I’d let them, knowing that having them there wasn’t doing anything to help. They might as well get some more rest, because I wasn’t about to. My nerves sang with tension, my energy-aura or whatever you wanted to call it shimmered so brightly that I could almost see it even without focusing. I knew Adam felt it, his soothing strokes along my arm, my back meant to relax me. But the fury of a Kelly trumped his attempt. I might not be redheaded, like my brother, nor have ever been a Viking Berserker, but I felt on the verge of a true rampage right now. How dare Gigi disappear like this? She’d said she was going to do some research, but I needed her. “Damn it.” I slapped a hand against the solid wall. “I hate being kept waiting on hold. I hate this whole fucked-up situation.”

Adam, wise enough to know not to say anything, just nodded and kept stroking my back.

Two long minutes later, my dad’s perplexed voice greeted me. “Hello, honey. Fire up the face chat thing, would you?”