Plagued: Book 1 (45 page)

My mind whirled in confusion. Who was fooling who? Was Julian really just some whack-job psychotic stalker? It could be possible, it could. Everything Savan said made more sense in my world, the real world, than anything that had
ever
come out of Julian's mouth.

“It's drugs. He's drugged you. Whatever you think you saw. It wasn't real. Come with me,” whispered Savan again, so seductively, so compellingly. “My darling.”

The world seemed to fade as I stared at Savan, that brush of curls across his forehead, the full, sensuous mouth whispering endearments. Something I needed to do, something I needed to remember. What was it? There was a movement somewhere in front of me. Tearing my eyes away from Savan, I looked over his shoulder. Across the club, like a magnet, I was drawn to Julian's stare. His green eyes burned into mine even at this distance. With that look, I remembered everything: frail Keiko turning to dust in his arms. The anguish in his face at that moment. You can't fake that with drugs.

“I, I don't feel well. I'll be right back. Wait for me.” I squirmed out of Savan's arms and snaked through the crowd of people towards the girls' bathroom before he could hold me back.

The restrooms were reached through a set of thick draperies. Julian stood almost hidden in their heavy folds.

“Savan says you're crazy; he says you're a stalker,” I stammered, the words falling out in a rush as I reached him. “You're dangerous, psychotic. That you drugged me.”

He gripped my arms so hard, I yelped. “Focus, stupid girl!”

Shaking me until my head hurt, the girls waiting in line for the bathroom turned and stared. He yanked me behind the drapes, out of sight. We were standing in a little corner alcove, the light just filtering through.

“Savan is putting a
glamour
on you. It is like hypnosis for the supernaturally gifted. A vital part of how the Club kept you enthralled to them. He will make you believe what he says is somehow right and you are wrong. Snap out of it. He is a devil.”

“As are you, I remember you saying.”

A look of pain passed across his features of such honesty that I flinched. “A monster. I said I was a monster. But I am your monster, Alexandra. At least for now.”

Staring into his eyes, that terrifying gaze I found so difficult to meet head on, Savan's
glamour
melted away. Julian had a strength that went far beyond the surface allure of Savan. Not that he wasn't beautiful in his own right. Huddled there, the music beating into my brain, I felt everything subtly shift. Not in my head and not physically; somewhere else deep inside. There was an undercurrent to the atmosphere between us here in this hot, stuffy alcove, tugging insistently at me. It was trying to pull me towards some realization. I wished he'd smile at me, reassure me that everything was going to be fine. He wouldn't though. His handsome mouth twisting into a superior sneer, he would say “
Don't be stupid.
” There was, though, a bond between us. He could sense my thoughts and feelings. Did that mean I could sense his as well?

Someone passed by our alcove, brushing the curtains, and he went very still, looking out through a sliver of space. I used that moment to reach out. Clumsy and awkward as my attempt was, I could feel a wave of emotions roll off Julian. A little hazy and undefined, yet still there. Anticipation, maybe? Excitement. No fear. Unlike me. Definitely no fear at all. He turned back and my concentration broke.

“I told him about you.”

“Yes, I gathered that. Careless. No matter. It will make him determined to learn everything you know about my movements. We need to get Savan outside and away from the crowd. He will follow, wanting to keep you close. Walk to the wharf and then one street back. There are several blocks of warehouses there. Deserted at this hour.”

“What shall I say?”

He made a face. “Do I have to tell you how to do everything? You're a girl. Use your feminine charms. You are exceedingly charming.”

I stared at him, surprised. He thought I was charming. Was he actually paying me a compliment? Where did
that
come from?

He pressed something into my hand.

“Hold this and squeeze it when you are near him.”

I looked at what lay in my palm. A small, sharp crystal, shadowed and indistinct in the semi-darkness. “Is it
magical? Is it witchcraft?
”

He gave me one of his familiar exasperated looks. “No, it is
sharp
. The pain will keep you alert. Really, the idiotic things you say.” Pulling the curtains aside, he stepped away, leaving me in the shadows with my sharp stone and muddled thoughts.

Chapter 27

Bi-Polar Bare

Savan took out an oversized brush and painted a spell in the air. The brush was like the kind used for calligraphy, beautifully formed with a tapered head. He shouted words that snapped and crackled into sparks in the dark. The hairs on the brush transformed, going from dry to dripping with ink. Savan's eyes turned black, just like in my dreams. Furiously he began painting strange interconnecting symbols. Of course it was magic, the symbols hanging in the air, wet and shiny.

Julian rolled by grappling with two hairy, long-armed goblins. He shouted my name. “Alexandra! Stop him! Stop him from painting!”

Things had not gone quite as planned after we left the party.

Or maybe this was the plan. My experience in magical entrapment being somewhat limited and all. I was teetering on the crest of a supernatural learning curve that was proving extraordinarily slippery. One slip and maybe I wouldn't have to worry about dust.

Luring Savan out was easy. He was so obviously confident in his hold over me. Easy, too, steering him towards the street of warehouses. I hung on his arm and pretended to be weary and confused. Actually, my heart was jumping in my chest as I squeezed Julian's sharp little stone in my other hand, willing myself not to be beguiled by Savan's voice and touch.

Julian leaped out from one of the alley's between the massive warehouse buildings in a sort of “
A ha!”
Kung-Fu movie move. Instead of cowering in terror, Savan snapped his fingers. A gang of hairy goblins (at least that's what they looked like to me) swarmed down from the warehouse roof, throwing themselves on top of Julian.

That was pretty much where we were right now.

From the tip of Savan's brush, symbols flowed, glowing like embers in the darkness. A keening wail grew louder and louder and the glowing embers began to look uncannily like eyes.

“Stop him!” Julian shouted again.

Stop him how, precisely? Savan was, as I had admiringly observed many times, something like six-foot-two, and built on male supermodel proportions. I searched wildly for some sort of weapon. Besides a cluster of weeds at my feet, there didn't seem to be anything portable within reach. Wait, my feet! Taking off one three-inch heel, I raised it over my head and with all my strength, smashed the improvised weapon into the back of Savan's perfectly sculpted neck. The heel cut through flesh and I felt a sickening sort of
squish
.

Crying out in pain and surprise, he lashed out viciously with his free arm. The blow knocked me to my knees.

“Bitch!” he snarled, lips curling, the blood streaming from his neck to stain the immaculate white shirt red. His eyes shifted back from black to brown as he lost his concentration. Leaning over, he slapped me hard. I tried to deflect the blow with my forearm, but it was still strong enough to knock me all the way to the ground. On my back, I kicked out desperately, defiantly, with my remaining shoe right into the side of his knee at the joint. There was a nasty creaking sound. Savan screamed again even louder. Scrambling up, I grabbed the brush from his hand and throwing off the other shoe, took off running like I had never run before. In front of me, tantalizingly close, a busy thoroughfare was alive with people, taxis, and cars. I could see it, if I could just reach it.

So close.

Not close enough.

There was a wrenching pull to my head and I lost my footing. Savan towered over me, his hand tangled in my hair, his handsome face twisted and ugly with rage. He dragged me kicking and struggling, back into the shadows. I held on, desperately trying to keep him from pulling my hair out by the roots, screaming and shouting for help. The warehouses, huge, gray and squat, seemed to muffle all sound. No one came. He threw me against the closed metal shutters of one of the buildings, the corrugated metal rattling and creaking. My head spun and I thought I would be sick.

“You couldn't just go quietly into that dark night could you? No, you had to fight. Make trouble.”

“Gee, sorry,” I gasped out. “Sorry not to roll over and
die
so the Club could eat my
soul!
What was I thinking?”

The charm melted from him like butter off a hot knife, revealing the sharp edge of something ugly and cruel. Reaching around my throat with one hand, he squeezed. “Can't you just die like a good girl? You should have been dead days ago.”

“You can't kill me,” I wheezed. “Not yet. The other's need me alive so the soul magic can run its course.”

“That doesn't mean I can't cause you
a lot
of pain.”

The menace in his eyes was something I had never imagined. You read in books about evil, never thinking to come face-to-face with it, especially in a face you know and trust. I'd kissed those lips again and again. He shoved me once more, hard, against the shutters. Cracking my head, I saw stars. My legs gave way and the world spun dizzily.

Savan stepped away probably thinking I'd be sick and not wanting to get his expensive suit dirty.

There was a horrible yowl and a piercing scream. I saw one of the long-armed goblins in a heap at Julian's feet. He held two others at bay with his jagged knife. He was still too far away to help.

Savan raised the calligraphy brush. He was going to paint again, calling forth something terrible. I tried to crawl away on my hands and knees, unable to get to my feet. He dragged me back by my hair, threw me to the ground and raised a fist.

“What's all this then?” came a crisp voice in a British accent out of nowhere.

Savan paused, fist up, brush floating in the air by him, to stare.

The lead singer from the Albert Einsteins was standing a few feet away, hands on his hips, rocking back and forth on the heels of his designer boots. The past week had been very strange but nothing seemed stranger than seeing the front man of one of the hottest bands in the world here in a dark alley seething with magic and mayhem, as calm as could be.

“Can't have you knocking girls about, mate. Just not done, that. Not done at all. What would your mother say?”

“Run! Run away!” My voice came out as little more than a cracked whisper. “He'll kill you.”

To my astonishment, the singer smiled and said, “Will he now?”

Savan grabbed the brush, slashing at the air furiously. Hideous shadows took form in its wake.

Faster than the eye could follow, the singer stood between us. Pulling me up, he pressed me back against the rough metal gate.

“Stay there.”

From inside his sleeves two knives as long as my forearm shot out into his hands. Savan stepped back, swearing in surprise, distancing himself from the bright blades.

Darkness rushed out on clawed feet and I screamed. Bringing the knives up, the singer fought back against the darkness. Blood arced up and out to splatter against the walls making artful, terrible designs. I don't know where the memory came from, but I remembered my first email from Savan. He told me he just read a book on overcoming phobias.

“Spiders,” I shouted, “if you've got any magic, he hates spiders.”

“Spiders?” The singer said way too cheerfully, I thought, given the situation. “I can do spiders.”

Kicking at the dark masses of whatever Savan had called forth, stabbing at them with one blade, he used the other to sketch a shape that glowed in the air, bright and hot. Within its center, other symbols writhed and turned. Shouting words that made my ears burn, the singer sent the image hurtling to the ground. The earth trembled and a black hole opened at Savan's feet. A dark form erupted out of the ground. It was a split second before I realized it wasn't only one dark form. Thousands of hairy spiders massed together, each the size of a man's fist, swarmed up and over Savan in a black, wriggling wave. Flailing wildly, he screamed, the rising note of hysteria unmistakable in his voice. At our feet, the spiders engulfed the darkness, or whatever it was since all I could see was blackness, red eyes, and claws. Unfortunately, the spiders then came for us as well.

“Oh sod it!” was all the singer had time to say. The knives disappeared and he grabbed my arm. Half carrying, half pulling me, we ran from the crawling horde towards the water. “Canal,” he said. “Spiders don't swim! By the way, has anyone told you tonight that you look absolutely stunning in that dress?”

“What? Dress?” I panted breathlessly. “No. No one.”

“
Swish
,
swish
,
swish
when you move, those beads. Yummy. I was watching you in the club. gorgeous girl. You should always wear beads. But not too many!”

He gave me a sly wink. We were being chased by an army of man- and probably girl-eating spiders, and the lead singer of the Albert Einstein's was hitting on me! What the hell? Then I remembered my theory. Soul slut. Oh God, it was
true
. Supernatural guys – and crazy as it seemed, Albert Pantera must be supernatural – saw me as easy cause I gave up my soul without a second thought. How mortifying.

Our direction
vis-a-vis
the canal took us towards Julian.

“Help, help, help!” I shouted, because it's a known fact shouting things several times makes them happen faster.

Julian, unfortunately, seemed to have his hands full throttling one of the hairy goblins. Looking up he saw us, and then, what followed. Giving a sort of yelp, he let go of the goblin and ran. The goblin was slower on the uptake. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it disappear beneath the wriggling mass of arachnids.

“You called them,” I panted at my companion. “Can't you send them back?”

“They might not have finished their job of eating that awful man just yet.”

“We don't want him eaten!” I shrieked.

“We don't want him eaten, damn it!” echoed Julian, running beside us.

“Oh, sorry, my mistake. You draw them off Jules, there's a good man.”

Julian shot him a murderous look.

Gripping my arm even tighter, he veered to one side, dragging me with him in an arc around the swarming mass. For the moment, the spiders seemed content to chase the moving target directly in front of them: Julian.

Letting go of me, the knives shot back out into the singer's grip. He swept them up and around, chanting another mantra of powerful words. As though a part of some ritual dance, he spun the knives in an intricate pattern round and round, in and out, leaving a burning trail of flame floating in their wake. The fire writhed and turned like a living thing. Finally, lowering the knives he said, “Cover your ears.”

I did as he said.

Taking a deep breath, the singer crossed the blades and shouted just one
word
, one terrible, terrifying word that threw my heart into my mouth. An explosion with the force of a sonic boom shot forward carrying with it a flaming firestorm that swept up the swarm. Standing unsteadily at the singer's back, I was not prepared for what happened next. The backlash from the spell as it rocketed off threw me in the opposite direction. I shot backward as though from a catapult, my arms and feet flying out from under. Just before I smashed into the concrete, two arms caught me up. My feet were set back on the ground.

“
That
was a close one.” The singer gave me an engaging smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“How did you do that? Catch me, I mean.”

He brushed at the dirt clinging to my beautiful Betsey Johnson dress. “
Slipstreaming
, we call it. Sort of moving
between
time. Very handy thing.”

I guess so.

There was an awful smell of burning and my ears were ringing. Albert of the Albert Einsteins seemed to have halted the scrambling advance of the spiders with a sonic flaming wall of magic. A few yards away Julian stood up, a little unsteadily. He was smoking around the edges.

“Sorry mate!” shouted the singer cheerfully. “Bet that smarts a bit. Walk it off!”

“Albert,” said Julian in a flat voice, “you are a bastard.”

The singer smiled more brightly. “That's the spirit! Oh, Julian? The tail of your coat's on fire.”

With a look of alarm, Julian began patting at the spark of fire that suddenly flared into flame. Albert let go of my hand, jogging over to help Julian put himself out while I pondered the fact Julian and Albert seemed to be on a first name basis. What the hell?

One of the warehouses stood sturdily a short distance away and I really needed something to lean on. I was not feeling very well at all. Limping over, I slumped against it, back bowed and bent with an exhaustion that made my bones ache. There was the sound of panting and it took me a moment to realize it was not my own ragged breath. Glancing up, I saw a pair of glowing red eyes. One of the clawed, dark beasts Savan had called forth. This one was clinging to the wall and it leaped for me, jaws gaping. Julian surged into its path at breathtaking speed. Taking the full impact of the creature in the chest, they smashed against the concrete wall, the darkness screaming like a banshee and Julian cursing just as loudly. Tumbling, punching and kicking at each other, Julian struggled to get his jagged knife into position.

“Aren't you going to help him?” I said desperately to the singer who strolled over, looking very relaxed and composed.