vampires mage 02 - witch hunter (2 page)

“Total mystery.” He studied her closely. “Has someone trapped you here as punishment for your time as a Hunter?”

She flicked a stray strand of hair from her eyes. “According to a demon I know, I’m locked up for my own good. Apparently, I’m impulsive and likely run to my own death.” She bit her lip. “I don’t suppose you know how to unlock wards, do you?”

He glanced away, scratching his cheek. “Well… I’m not sure…”

Okay, he clearly doesn’t trust me.
Why would he? She’d just confessed to being an ex-Hunter with impulse control problems, one who’d thrown her own sister in jail.
Let’s back up a little bit.
She held out a hand. “I’m sorry. Maybe I should introduce myself properly. I’m Rosalind.”

He shook her hand, his grip firm. “My name is Drew. And I’m relieved you’re no longer likely to hunt me to my death. I’m not sure I’d want to take you in a fight.”

Her smile this time was genuine.

He nodded at the skull. “Isn’t your friend going to introduce himself?”

“He’s bone-weary.” She nearly groaned at her own terrible pun, but her smile widened. “This is the first normal conversation I’ve had in weeks.”

“Is this what passes for normal in your world?” He crinkled his nose. “That’s a little bit sad.”

Finally, she held out the skull to Drew. “At least you’re human. And alive. That automatically makes you quality company in my book.”

He took the skull from her, handing her the large silver coin in return. “Human and alive. Those are two of my finest qualities.” His smile faded. “And, in regards to your question about destroying the ward, as much as I’d like to help free you, I don’t want to anger a reaper like Orcus.”

Her throat bobbed with disappointment. “All right. I guess I understand.”

Pity softened his eyes. “I’m not sure how much you know about demons, but you don’t want to provoke their wrath. I’ve got a coven to look after. We’re involved in something big right now, and I can’t risk it. I’ll trade with a demon, but they’re dangerous to have as friends. You understand, right? They may seem human at times, but their basic nature is to view us as prey.”

She tensed. It was the same thing Josiah had told her, and he’d turned out to be a lying asshole.
Don’t trust anyone, Rosalind.
“Some demons are different, surely.”

“I suppose. But they don’t value honesty the way we do, and it’s in their nature to try to enslave us.”

Her brow crinkled. Caine had made it sound like it was the other way around. “My friend said demons were enslaved in Maremount. Incubi especially.”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. The city’s leading philosophers found ways to keep us separated from demons. Before we gained control of the city, a monstrous demon nearly destroyed us. He viciously slaughtered the king and queen, tried to take over the city. His memory still haunts the kingdom. Parents scare their children with stories of the Ravener to keep them in line.”

“The Ravener…” Goosebumps rose on her skin. “He sounds terrifying, but Orcus doesn’t seem so bad.”

“A Hunter living among the demons.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Seems very strange.”

“
Ex-
Hunter.”

“And what are you now, if you’re no longer a Hunter?”

She twisted her iron ring around her finger, shivering in the chilly breeze. “For now, I’m simply hepped up on too much coffee.”

A smile ghosted across his lips. “I don’t think there’s anything simple about you, Rosalind.” He held up the skull. “But, intriguing as you are, I need to get my new friend home. There are dark forces at work around us, and the winds are thick with menace.”

The hair rose on the back of Rosalind’s neck, but she couldn’t let him go just yet. He was from
Maremount
,
after all. “Before you leave—can you tell me if you knew the Atherton family?”

She heard his sharp intake of breath. “Why do you ask about them?”

“They’re my family. Or so I’m told. I don’t remember them. I left Maremount when I was little, and I can’t remember a thing that happened there.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and Rosalind almost thought she felt a sudden shift in the air, a thickening of the shadows. But Drew only shook his head. “I didn’t really know them. Only the name. Sorry. I can’t help you.”

“If you come back, can you help me learn about magic? I don’t need a lot of help…” She trailed off.
How do I explain this?
“I already have all the knowledge inside me. I just need to access it. I need someone to help me not go crazy while I learn.”

“Of course. I’ll come back.” A few of his blond curls danced in the wind, and he turned to leave before gazing back at her. “Rosalind. Here’s your first magical lesson: To create a ward, you must use a sigil. It’s a type of symbol, something in a circle that your jailer would have marked somewhere. Perhaps a piece of paper… Once you destroy that, you’ll be free.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Drew.”

He looked around him furtively. “Be careful. Demons don’t belong with humans. Not even magical humans like you.” He turned, walking off into the darkening cemetery.

Chapter 2

A t the wooden table in the mansion’s kitchen, Orcus hunched over a bowl of bacon bits, scooping them into his mouth. Only a dim, guttering candle lit the room. Shadow demons weren’t fond of bright lights.

Rosalind sipped her coffee, frowning at his breakfast. “I don’t think you’re supposed to eat bacon bits that way.”

“I’m four hundred eighty-seven years old. I can eat them however I like.”

Four hundred eighty-seven?
She sipped the strong coffee, studying him—his shiny bald dome and hairless face. Large, black eyes and thin lips. Come to think of it, she didn’t actually know what a grim reaper was, or how long they lived.
“I had no idea you were so old. Are you immortal?”

“No. I was human, once. And now I collect souls for Nyxobas.”

“And what do you get out of that deal?”

“Once I’ve collected all the souls in my ledger, I’m free from my bargain.”

“What did you bargain your soul for?” she asked.

“For the love of the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Now if I collect enough souls for Nyxobas, I can escape the shadow hell.”

She beamed. “For love. That’s awfully romantic. Where is she now?”

“Dead.”
Crunch.

“Oh.” She’d learned about mortal demons when she was in the Brotherhood—they could live on for centuries, unless they were killed with the right combination of iron and hawthorn wood. The Brotherhood, of course, had those weapons stockpiled.

Orcus took another bite, his crunching echoing off the high, stone ceiling. “Did you sell the skull?”

“I did.”
And now I’d like to find where Caine hid the damn sigil.

Orcus held out his hand, and she pulled the silver coin from her jeans pocket, dropping it into his palm. “The mage told me humans have been going missing from all over Cambridge and Boston.”

Orcus grunted, completely uninterested.

“Did you know your client was from Maremount?” she asked.

“Is that so?”
Crunch.

“He said that in my homeland, demons and humans are kept separate. He said something went wrong in the early days of Maremount. The demons got out of control, and the city’s philosophers had to put protections in place.”

Orcus’s looked up from his breakfast. “Seems awfully one-sided.”

She cocked her head. “I’m totally confused. How did Caine end up with my parents as a little boy if the city was protected from demons?”

“Never mind that.” His eyes darted back to his breakfast. “I have some dried bloodroot I need you to make into a paste.”

“Bloodroot. Right.” She dropped her empty coffee cup on the table, crossing her arms. “Do you know anything about my family?”

“I know you shouldn’t be interrogating my clients.” Orcus snatched the bowl of sugar from the center of the wooden table and poured out a mountain of granules. His long, pointed tongue darted out to lick his finger, which he dabbed in the sugar before sucking it clean.

Rosalind grimaced, her stomach turning.
Nausea welled in her gut, and Orcus’s eating habits weren’t helping the situation. “What are you afraid I might learn if I speak to your clients?”

“A bunch of horseshit to nourish the soil of your nightmares. You should be sleeping soundly. And you should eat. You’re getting too thin.” He licked his finger again, jabbing it into his sugar pile. “I’m going to make you a soporific potion. You’ve become unhinged.”

She’d been getting sick of Orcus telling her she looked tired, so she’d slapped on extra makeup from Tammi’s stash today—a dewy blush, deep raspberry lipstick, concealer under her eyes. But apparently reapers couldn’t be fooled with makeup. “I haven’t been feeling well.” Her leg bounced up and down. “And I feel out of the loop. It’s strange to me that Caine took Tammi.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“You’re sure Tammi is in a safe place? I just find the whole thing odd—Caine taking her while we slept, with no explanation.”

“I told you. He put up the wards, and took her to a safe house. It’s in the letter he wrote for me, marked with his seal.”

She shook her head. “I thought
this
was a safe house.”

Orcus’s large, dark eyes surveyed her, and he leaned forward. “Listen, girl. I’ve been a warrior far longer than you have. But my orders are to keep you here. I don’t like it any better than you do. I should be out there, collecting souls for Nyxobas, slaughtering hellhounds in the night. It delights me to hear their death cries, and I’m denied this simple pleasure by your stifling presence. And yet I do it, because it’s my duty. I serve the god of night in whichever ways he requires.”

Time for another tactic.
She didn’t give a flying fuck about Nyxobas, but maybe duty was the best way to appeal to Orcus. “What if I can serve the god of night by helping Caine? What if he needs me?”

Another lick off his finger. “For what?”

“I can help get him out of danger.”

Orcus paused, mid-lick. “He can kill people with his mind. I don’t think he needs the help of a human girl.”

She crossed her arms. “When we were together, he needed my mage powers to transport us from one place to another during emergencies.”

The reaper’s pale face broke into an unnerving, toothy smile, lending him the appearance of a death’s head. “Did he now? And how do you suppose he survived such a long time without you?”

“What do you mean, ‘such a long time’?”

His eyes bulged and he stood, picking up his bowl. “I’m not here to engage in idle gossip. Get the bloodroot. It needs crushing.”

Rosalind wasn’t letting it go that easily. “I don’t get it,” she pressed. “If he didn’t need me to chant the spell with him, why would he pretend that he did?”

Orcus blinked. “A spell like that requires a great expenditure of energy, I suppose. He’d burn himself out using it all the time on his own. And I suppose he was probably trying to get you using your magic. Impending death has a way of motivating people, I find. And you needed motivating, with all of your neuroses.”

Seriously?
As Orcus walked away, Rosalind’s fingers tightened into fists. She was trapped here by Caine, who apparently had a tendency to lie about crucial information.

Definitely time to re-evaluate my lack of magical skills.
She’d just have to deal with the fact that she lost her mind a bit whenever she took off the ring.

She crossed to the coffee pot, pouring herself another cup and letting the rich aroma fill her nostrils. As she took a sip, she caught a glimpse of herself in a cracked mirror hanging from the stone wall. Orcus was right—she was starting to look like a skeleton, with cheeks the color of bone and dark circles hanging below her brown eyes.

I need to get away from this prison
. She downed the coffee, and its heat burned her throat.
First, I need to find the sigil.

She had no idea where to look for it, or even what it might look like, but at least she had her first clue. And perhaps she could investigate the creepy old library for information about sigils.

Dropping her mug onto the counter, she crossed the kitchen to the hall. As she walked, she trailed her fingers over the cool stone walls, and her footsteps echoed off the flagstones as she passed into the cavernous library.

The room was amazing. Below a starry, vaulted ceiling, leather tomes stood crammed into oak bookshelves. Ladders reached up to towering upper stories of books. Across from an enormous, multi-paned window, a fire burned in a stone fireplace, casting dancing light over a well-worn embroidered rug.

Rosalind inhaled deeply, the scent of burning cedar filling her nose.
If I can’t find the sigil, maybe I could just hole up here night and day, learning about magic until I can break myself free.

She crossed to the shelves, tracing her finger along a row of book spines, scanning the titles. She half-hoped something obvious would pop out—like “Where to Find Sigils”—but that probably wasn’t how arcane texts worked.
Anyway, most of the titles were written in Angelic or Latin, neither of which she could read. The few in English had twee names like
Comptesse Amauberge’s Love Remedies
or
Early Percy’s Encyclopedia of Famine Curses.

She sighed, crossing into an alcove, and her gaze landed on something that sent her pulse racing. On a faded black spine, copper lettering spelled out the word
Maremount.

Okay, so it wouldn’t tell her how to find a sigil. But now her curiosity was beyond piqued. She had the strangest feeling that Drew had known more than he was letting on, and Caine was certainly hiding things from her.

Maremount was her homeland, and yet she hardly knew a thing about it.

She pulled it from the shelf, cracking it open. The first heading read
1692.
As she read the text, it gave an account of the Salem Witch Trials, which had led to widespread panic among the “philosophers.” In order to escape the Hunter’s purges in Salem, they’d created Maremount using a powerful spell.