Soul Kissed (12 page)

“I had the bodies burned immediately,” Francis was saying as he led them through the massive entry to a large set of wood-worked doors. “I couldn’t risk further contagion. Like you, I am the last of my line. Everywhere either Erom or my father touched has been purified. I’m afraid there’s nothing left to examine.”

A dog-whistle high vibration came from the glass above. The fae, straining in their glass prison. Made the fine hairs on the back of Mason’s neck stand up. Hell of a place to live.

“I’m not actually looking for clues in the here and now,” Cari explained.

Francis opened one of the doors and they all entered. The space had been emptied. A beautiful wood floor gleamed golden. Fat moldings lined the pale blue walls, with lighter patches where paintings had hung.

Cari walked to the center of the room. “I’m looking for the antumbra of the mage who created the plague. I waited too long to look at my father’s death. The trail was too far gone for me to sense who killed him.”

Mason kept back, his stray instincts zinging. He folded his arms across his chest. Concentrated on Francis. Something not right about him.

“And will you tell me what you find?” Francis kept back as well, perhaps still concerned about contagion. He seemed resistant to move further into the room. “My House deserves satisfaction.”

“We all do,” Cari told him. “But yes, I will tell you who I find. In a way, our murderer is still here. I just have to look back in time to discover him.”

Mason could already feel the Shadow rising within her. Awareness of it rushed him, heat and blood, a dense roil of power. The intensity this time had him clenching his jaw. Cari’s draw on darkness was unlimited. He knew that now. She might seem composed and quietly beautiful, but she was undoubtedly raging inside with magic. It drew him, though he fixed every muscle to keep himself from moving toward her.

“What do you mean look back in time?” Francis started forward.

But Mason grabbed hold of him by the arm. He would not approach Cari either.

Francis resisted, yanking forward, but he’d gone soft in his middle age. Mason only released Francis when he stopped fighting.

Cari was all Shadow, her skin gleaming, eyes darkening to black milk—not unlike the all-seeing sightlessness of the voluptuous statue at the heart of her home.

The fae trapped in the glass keened. Mason wanted out of there. Wanted
her
out of there. Something wasn’t safe.

Cari’s mouth curled downward, so he knew she’d found something.

Her expression flexed in shock, eyes watering, head tipping away as if she didn’t want to see, as if something smelled bad, but she had to experience it anyway. When she covered her mouth with her hand, her fingertips were trembling.

Mason wanted to go to her. Stop this. Break her trance.

But he had to watch Francis, whose breath had quickened and face had reddened.

Several long moments passed while she observed what had to be the death throes of Salem and Erom Vauclain, and then she finally lifted her Shadow black gaze and fixed it upon Francis.

“Patricide.”

“But he’d already
been
in the room with Erom for a while before I got there,” Francis protested. He took a step back from her, guilty. “He was
already
going to die.”

“You don’t know if your father was infected or not.” Cari strode forward, obliterating the scene that had just sprung to life in her vision. “And I know what I saw.”

Children will play,
Maeve said in her mind. Indulgent.

The fae had surged within Cari the moment she had reached for Shadow, and now Cari was fighting again to push her back down.

This wasn’t a game,
Cari told her.
It was murder.

Cari felt Mason put a hand to her waist, to keep her away from Francis. She had no doubt Mason was ready to step in should the new Vauclain so much as twitch. But she was in no danger.

You’re invincible,
Maeve whispered.

“My father was past his time,” Francis argued.

“But not dead yet,” Cari shot back.

“Listen.” Francis’s face hardened. He leaned his forehead into his argument. “They were nothing. Nothing.
I
am the master here. Dolan and Vauclain can
still
unite. Erom was a fool, and I’m too old to care that you’re frigid. We are both the heads of our Houses and we both need heirs immediately. You were going to marry a second son; surely you’ll take the first.”

“You silver-tongued devil,” Mason drawled.

Cari would’ve cracked a smile at Mason, but she was too shocked and revolted by Francis.

A little squeeze and I could burst his heart,
Maeve offered.

No, thank you,
Cari returned.

Francis must have mistaken her silence as an indication that she was actually considering his proposal and was about to decline.

“You
owe
me,” Francis said.

For Erom’s death. Because he’d come to see her when she’d asked. That had to be Vauclain’s reasoning. Her fault. Cari braced for the recriminations.
Here they come.

“You just can’t cut Vauclain out of the Umbra project now.” He nodded as if he agreed with himself. “You owe me for Erom’s work. Umbra is Vauclain’s future just as much as it is Dolan’s. That’s our stake, too.”

“The romance of it all,” Mason muttered.

Cari did smile this time.

So Francis didn’t blame her for Erom’s death.

Dark House owes nothing to anyone,
Maeve hissed.
This world is yours to begin with. Let me give it to you.

Francis didn’t care about losing Erom. Only Umbra, her father’s legacy at DolanCo. Francis had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Erom hadn’t been working on behalf of Vauclain House; he’d wanted to split from his family, and work together with her. And now Cari understood why: Francis had waited so long for his father to die, he’d gone crazy.

Time does have a maddening effect,
Maeve observed.

“You owe me,” Francis said. “And I’ll take it before the Council.”

Power leapt within Cari. “What do you think I owe?”

Francis licked his lips. “Umbra is worth a fortune, and you know it.”

Maeve?
Cari called. The fae had been helpful before and had promised so much more.

Because there was no way in Shadow’s pitch that Francis Vauclain was going to have anything to do with Umbra. She would not condescend to fight his lies before the Council. Maeve had said Cari could have anything she wanted, and so far the fae had failed miserably at providing. Cari set aside all her reservations about her fae stalker, the implicit warnings in her father’s journals, the sleepless nights of heat and restlessness. It was about time for Maeve to prove her worth.

Cari could feel the roll of Maeve’s pleasure. It rippled through Cari’s blood in an ecstatic shiver so that she squirmed in her skin at the rush of magic. A gush of darkness coaxed Cari’s empty hands to open and come together, and as soon as she did, rough, egg-sized stones filled her joined palms. Her arms shook with the weight of them, fingers splayed to hold them all.

Mason’s expression went from irritated to serious and wary. He looked at her as if she were a wild tiger.

Okay, so he was concerned, and Cari knew that maybe she should be too. But this felt too good. Too rich. Sensual beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Frigid? She wasn’t frigid now.

Large, raw jewels, dusty and crusted with time, were in her grasp.

Francis’s eyes grew huge.

This ought to do it.
Payment in full.

“Your fortune.” Cari dropped the lot at his feet. They knocked and rolled on the wood floor. A diamond glimmer of wealth winked up at him.

Then she stalked past both men like an ancient queen who owned the world. She strode into the large main entrance, drawing a potent wake of Shadow behind her like a royal robe. Faery brothers and sisters cried out above her where they were trapped in Shadow-leaded glass.

“Cari!” a low, male voice shouted.

The human.

She turned, Shadow sweeping behind her, to relish the brilliant blue light of his soul. She heard his heartbeat in her mind.
Ba-boom, Ba-boom.
Smelled the earthy funk of sweat, iron, and semen. Could almost taste the sweet salt of him.

She’d been wanting him. It’d been so long since she’d had a man and now was as good a time as any. Blood beat between her legs in anticipation. She was alive!

The human grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. The fae trapped above screamed with her passage.

“What the pitch was that?” he demanded.

Such passion. She laughed and twined an arm around his fine shoulders. Put her mouth to his neck.

“Francis!” the human yelled. “The wards. Now!” Then lower. “Got to get you out of here.”

The bug appeared holding a stone. Or maybe the stone was holding him. She couldn’t be sure. It could go both ways with greed.

The human dragged her toward the foyer, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close to his hard body as he opened the door. “Your nose is bleeding,” he growled.

She licked her lip. Sweet. Delicious.

The thin veil of Shadow cloaking the place disappeared. What a curious thing.

“Now,” the human said and pulled her across the threshold.

Outside, the sky was blue blue blue—a
day
sky—not Twilight black. She tilted her face upward and opened her heart to take the sun inside her, while her entourage screamed at the searing heat.

“What did Francis do to you?” the human demanded when the door slammed shut.

Francis? Oh, the bug. Yes. She sent a flick of Shadow back, heard the crisp shatter of glass, the cry of the fae . . . the scream of the bug as the dark ones took him.

The human looked at her in horror, which was not quite the same as passion—she was about to instruct him thus—but a searing light across the way had her earthly eyes squinting.

Her mood soured as she recognized what had disturbed her.

“Angel,” she spat.

 

 

Patience. Watchfulness. Preparedness. These are required when hunting a cunning rat.

Xavier kept his distance from the Vauclain wards, but took his adversary’s measure.

Cari Dolan.

The father, Caspar, had been scorched from the Earth, but the plague had passed over the heir. And of all magekind, she was the
first
that needed to die.

Cari Dolan’s death was imperative.

Ignorance is not the same as innocence. Youth is not the same as purity. Blood will out. Dolan House required destruction, or every other effort was lost.

Thus far, she’d been protected by exposure—television crews at her place of business and cameras held by the rabble of humans at her home. This age was too filled with technology to hope for secrecy. He’d had to let her pass by him too many times.

But the time had come. His enduring patience had indeed provided.

Divine light filled Xavier with scorching purpose. The world could not suffer her to live. Not again. Never again. He dropped his sign, proclaiming
The End of the World,
to reach for his spear. He lifted the heavenly weapon, primed his arm, his aim sure, and hurled it toward the witch.

 

 

Detective Anderson flew at the vagrant. Where had the fucking yellow spear come from? He hit a wall of strength, as if the old man’s body were made of solid rock. Brian’s 200 lbs didn’t even shift the vagrant’s balance; Brian bounced back, hit a park bench cock-eyed—his still-healing ribs screamed. Wheeling toward the Vauclain property, he watched the spear cut through the air to where Cari Dolan and her companion stood.

And he groaned with relief when the aim faltered.

 

 

Mason shoved Cari behind him, heard the dull cough of her body hitting the wards. The dense concentration of Shadow went out of her as a steel-bright spear whizzed by them. It hit the Vauclain wards with a warped tang that all but shattered his teeth.

Cari whimpered at the sound. Her hands gripped him at his sides.

Mason drew his gun and fired, the report barely kicking back to his wrist. His weapon, treated with Shadow, never missed.

But the old man snatched the bullet out of the air with his bare hand and dropped it on the ground beside him.

What had Cari said?
Angel?