Sapphire Curse, page 11
part #1 of Rebels of the Realms Series
“To know me?”
“To have you know yourself.”
Jasmine entered the parlor with all the towels she could carry. She said, “Next magic lesson—how to make money rain from the ceiling.”
Russ laughed, “That’s called get a better job.”
“My boss is great,” said Jasmine. She shimmied her shoulders. “And dreamy.”
“You probably shouldn’t pine for your boss,” said Darcy.
“He calls me dreamy too,” said Jasmine with a wink. “We’re a perfect pair, especially since we have the same taste in men.”
“His sister is a little loony,” said Russ. He didn’t seem to dislike her. Lucia’s oddness amused him. “The strangest thing you’ll find in that morgue is her.”
Darcy snapped her fingers and grinned. “Maybe not,” she said. As her breath skimmed her palm so did a brush of blue light.
“What exactly are you doing?” asked Jasmine. She was curious though nothing like Darcy. She put a bit more distance between her and the unknown. “Is it anti-vampire light?”
Though Russ had already seen it, Darcy’s light still enchanted him. He said, “That is magic in its purest form.”
In the light appeared the metal star. The light vanished, leaving behind the star with its blue jewel. “I found this lodged in Winny’s neck,” she said.
Russ drew closer to examine the piece. “Ah, it’s a verdad pendant. It’s something witches stole from elves.”
“Elves,” Jasmine snickered. “Let’s call the deputy and have him hunt down the little cuties.”
Russ scoffed, “Little bastards is more like it. Most enchanted jewels came from elves long ago. Their weapons are made from wood from their sacred trees, but a witch has taken the sapphire and put it to metal. Another key indicator here is the shape. Elves use a square of some kind for earth, wind, fire, and water.”
“This is a star,” said Darcy. “Five points.”
“Exactly,” said Russ. “Five is a witch number. The sapphire may have been taken from elves, but the rest is a witch’s work.”
“Do you know what it is supposed to do?” asked Darcy.
Russ explained, “This pendant was used in the days of the Spanish Inquisition to help the witches discover who had been accusing them of witchcraft. They could use this to extract pieces of the past. It was a way to get clues.”
Impressed, Jasmine asked, “What would they do with the accuser when they figured it out?”
“Some would blackmail them with other truths they discovered,” said Russ. He rolled his hand as he rattled off the details. “If that wouldn’t silence them, they would curse them. Boils. Disease. Impotency. Anything to scare them from further accusations.”
“Truthful accusations,” said Darcy.
Russ said, “If they were going to go down, they might as well go down with some vengeance.” He winked.
Darcy took back the pendant and rolled it between her fingers. She said, “So the vampire that lodged this into Winny’s neck could have figured out from her past how to bring Traian back.”
Jasmine laughed awkwardly. She said, “I don’t think I’m ready for that. A shower feels like magic 101 and this sounds like a PhD.”
Darcy tucked her tongue into her cheek and examined her cousin. This was her first brush with magic, and she was already afraid. She had no idea what magic was truly capable of. Darcy knew enough to fear letting Jasmine go any deeper.
“You can stop now,” said Darcy. Part of her wished she would. “My gut says dealing with these vampires is going to need tricks a lot more difficult than rain.”
Jasmine huffed, “I don’t have a choice. This Yin lady brought the fight to me by coming to my home. I don’t care if it’s easy or not. It won’t be easy for her either. I’m going to give her hell.”
10
The sun began to dig its grave for the evening. Darcy pulled on an oversized sweatshirt and stepped outside the Shaw house to see the dying colors of the sky. Watson ate his supper in the kitchen, not to be disturbed. Darcy made her way to the back of the house alone.
The air was still for once. The cold didn’t bite as hard, allowing Darcy to soak in the smells of the water and the oncoming evening. The waves challenged each other, clashing on rock. Darcy hadn’t seen the ocean before moving to Cape Emerald. Carter moved them all over, but he made sure the coast was never one of their stops. The longest stint she had anywhere was Chicago for residency. That’s where she met Alex and the coven. That’s where her father died.
Every time she was near the water it reminded her that this move wasn’t only to take a job or find her family. It was also to get a fresh start, like the waves could wipe out the last few years and take them out to the ocean to be forgotten. Here there were no traces of the life she knew, only the life she had always wanted to know.
The water could hold her focus for hours, but it was the sound of a nearby whistle on a wind that wasn’t there that caught Darcy’s attention. The sound was straight ahead. Darcy searched for a source without knowing what it would look like. Her father had told her about the whistles. As a kid it was a game. As an adult she started to believe that the whistles were signs of something Carter Shaw hadn’t understood. Over the years, the whistles had led her to important moments and places. Her friends in the coven had a theory the whistles were connected to other realms, but she left the coven before they could prove it.
Whether or not the sounds had anything to do with magic, Darcy had hunted down many of them over the years. Sometimes she would feel a change in the air or a pressure. This was the first time she saw a lavender gleam. It was straight ahead and floating at eye level.
Others might turn back or flee, but Darcy’s curiosity often overrode her logic. As though reaching for a falling snowflake, Darcy held up two cupped hands and walked forward. Soon she grazed her fingertips over the gleam. Something nipped her skin, cold on some fingers and searing on others. All the sensations dissolved and trickled down her arms. Her body trembled from the tingling, but it was the sight at the edge of the cliff that took her breath away.
From where Darcy stood night was arriving. At the edge of the cliff the sun was rising with its arrows of gold and peach-tipped amber aimed at the woman standing there. The woman turned to face the arrows, and her wild hair fought the rain to dance with the wind.
The ground around the woman was slick, but Darcy’s skin was as dry as autumn leaves. Darcy couldn’t quite explain how she came from the chill of an oncoming October night and now somehow felt and saw a summer sunrise, but she didn’t need an explanation. She followed her curiosity toward the woman in the soaked dress.
Darcy made it within ten feet of the woman without even a drop of rain touching her skin. It was as though she was in this place in a bubble, part of it but not quite breaking through to it at the same time. Perhaps it was because it was a different time, of that she was sure when she got a better look at the woman listening to the tempting call of the waves below her.
“Are you—” Darcy murmured, starting because she wanted to know and stopping because she didn’t.
An orange arrow pierced across the sky and barely missed the woman’s bare, muddy feet. The woman was thin though it didn’t seem natural. It was like something had drained her. If the wind picked up much more, it would lift her from the rock and use her night gown as a sail to send her away.
Darcy swallowed and bravely tried once more. “Are you Felicia Redwood?”
It had to be. She was everything Darcy had imagined from the pieces her father had given her. Felicia’s hair was a blaze, in color and in its vibrancy. She had a thin nose and small ears. The only jewelry she wore was a black necklace with a tiger’s eye woven into it. Her eyes were a plain brown. There was nothing striking about her. She was a spirit more than a person, physically there but mentally disconnected from the present. This wasn’t the present. It couldn’t be.
Felicia’s nails had been chewed. The edges of two fingers bled as she tapped on her stomach. Her lips fumbled with sounds that meant nothing until Darcy took a step closer. Then Felicia shut her mouth, turned her chin over her shoulder, and looked right at Darcy.
“It is the only way,” said Felicia, airily but not feeble. She licked her wet lips and savored the flavor as though to make it last a lifetime.
Rain slapped Felicia hard in a thick sheet, but she did not waver. Nothing could change her course. She faced the horizon once more as another arrow struck her chest.
“Wait,” said Darcy. Her brow furrowed. She watched Felicia’s toes curl. This wasn’t an average morning where Felicia came out to the Shaw house simply to watch the sun. This was a special sunrise—her last. “Don’t jump!”
Darcy reached out for Felicia’s arm. Felicia grabbed Darcy by the hip first. Darcy’s jaw fell, but no sound followed. Somehow this ghost of Felicia Redwood was touching her. Seeing her. Speaking directly to her.
“This isn’t the end,” said Felicia. Her words weren’t comforting or soothing. They were more like a warning.
Felicia jerked Darcy against her. Darcy could feel her warmth and the tightness of Felicia’s stomach that protruded out slightly more than the dress had let on. Though it was subtle to look at, Darcy realized when pressed against her mother that Felicia was carrying a child. Then Darcy felt her feet leave the ground. With her arms latched onto Darcy, Felicia pushed off and away from the cliff’s edge.
Felicia was quiet and calm, almost welcoming the plunge. Darcy’s mouth fell agape, but all her breath had escaped her before she could cry out. As her body went parallel with the sky above and the water below, someone else grabbed hold of her and joined the fall.
In the present the sun was gone. The moon struggled to claw through the clouds for a view of the scene. Darcy felt Xavier’s cold skin and the heat of his fear all around her. She also felt the nails of her mother digging into her back as though her spine composed the keys of an instrument. Felicia was desperate to play the song of death. Despite the pressure in her head, Darcy opened her eyes and saw the fierce look in Felicia’s as she orchestrated her crescendo.
As the ground approached, Darcy turned as though on a spit. The sky fell out of view. She had a clear line of sight to the rocks that reached out from the waves. Felicia’s face blurred, and a desperate hunter green gaze tore through it to capture Darcy.
“Look at me!” Xavier called out as though Darcy was a thousand miles away. The waves thrashed, foaming at the rocks for a taste of flesh. “Nothing else. Just you and me.”
She focused on him. On his scruff. On the tender skin around his scar. On the whipping of his hair. Though he didn’t face the waves, he must have seen them in Darcy’s eyes. His chin trembled.
Then the night vanished for both Darcy and Xavier, consumed by the frigid waves and the minefield of rocks meant to nail their coffins shut.
Xavier shielded Darcy from the first rock that found them in the water. Through the tangled spirals of waves, Darcy still heard something snap within Xavier. He was only able to guard her from the initial blow. The dark water then pried them apart and sent Darcy backward and upside down.
Darcy broke free from the water long enough to beg for a breath and not long enough to fill herself with the icy air. With what little air she could capture, she fell prey to the tumbling waves. Her back banged against a rock, stopping her long enough to keep herself from turning upside down again. She fanned her arms to push herself forward. The water pushed her into a rock with teeth.
The last of her breath peppered the water with bubbles as she cried out, a pointless effort. No one could hear her when the rock dug into her hip. She kicked herself away and up, breaking the surface so that something—if only the stars—would know she was fighting.
Two opposing waves battled to own her. She cleared her hair from her face to see the endless horizon. She clawed her way toward the shore. The ocean taunted her, bashing against the rocks around and in front of her. She wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t.
With the help of a wave bulldozing her forward, Darcy made it to the shore. The same wave meant to carry her back into the ocean’s dark playground, but Darcy clung to crevices in the rock with her fingers. She coughed up two rounds of water once the wave gave up its game of tug of war.
Salt from the water soaked into her wounds as she crawled over the slick rock. No sting could hold her back as she fought her way to Xavier’s side. He was on his back when she reached him—what was left of his back.
His shirt had been shredded to streamers. Though there were no cuts or gouges, his skin was bruised in a parade of black and blue. Darcy slowly reached down and grazed her fingers down the largest exposed streak of skin. The cold of his flesh chilled her. She was unable to tell if it was his curse or his death.
She had never seen a sight quite like it. Blood poured from his ears and spewed from his mouth as he coughed. The skin around his brow was dark and hard, but his eyes were still soft when they fluttered open. Even when he wasn’t hacking, blood trickled out from the corners of his lips and down his cheeks.
“You’re not cut, but you’re beaten,” said Darcy. She remained calm, but her voice did waver.
Wincing, he said, “Rock can’t cut me, but it can break me.” He strained to pull up his arm to press his hand into his chest. The next round of coughing sprayed blood over Darcy’s face.
She wiped the blood from her eyes with her sleeve. A streak remained on her cheek like a battle scar. She said, “You look awful.”
Xavier tried to be snarky, but blood swallowed his tongue. When it poured out of his mouth, he said, “I’ll heal eventually.”
“Are you sure?”
“How does my neck look?”
She leaned down to investigate. She said, “Your veins are dark.” She poked his neck with one finger. “And stiff.”
“Damn,” he groaned. He licked his lips to catch the blood lingering there. Another round poured out from his ears. “I’ve lost too much blood.”
“Too much?” she questioned. “What does that mean? Are you going to die?”
“You wish,” he scoffed. Then he gritted his teeth and winced. “Get Thomas and Winny. We have blood at the house.”
“I’m not leaving you like this,” said Darcy. A thick wave hit the rocks and sprayed over her. The water cleared the last of the blood from her face. “Does your numbing venom happen if you don’t have to bite?”
He shook his head though he had grown so stiff he could barely do it. He replied, “No. That’s in our fangs, but I don’t want to drink from you.”
She pulled back to point at her hip. “I’m already losing blood,” she said, gently touching her tender wound. She brought her fingers up to show him.
His nostrils flared. Straining, he said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to think of me as a predator.”
She cupped his cheek with her palm and brought her nose inches from his. So softly the waves could muffle the sound, she said, “After what you did, you look like a savior to me.”
Darcy felt the warmth of his breath on her lips as he searched her gaze for something she couldn’t understand. She took both of his hands and pulled him up to sit. Then she leaned back onto her elbows, not once breaking their bound gaze.
He said, “You’ll stay with me for a while this way. It won’t last long, but until your blood runs its course, I will feel you.”
Clouds covered the moon, darkening the world below. The rocks went black like the sky. The waves became an abyss.
Confidently, Darcy said, “I’m not afraid of that if you’re not.”
Surprised, eager, and anxious, Xavier descended toward her hip. The wound had split the skin an inch wide, and the blood was fresh and inviting. He nudged her shirt away from the wound with his nose. His lower lip grazed her gash, and together Darcy and Xavier shuddered.
Rather than pain that shot up the last time a vampire drank from her, this was like cool fingers massaged into her hip and trailed up into her ribs. The sensation brushed each bone like it was stroking the key of an antique piano, only meaning to tease with a faint sound. Xavier’s hand latched onto her other hip, and the cool hands under her skin flared across her whole body.
Xavier rocked his head from one side to the other but kept his mouth bound to Darcy’s hip. She drove her fingers into his hair. From his chest rumbled a sound that could strike fear in the waves. His arm that supported him flexed, and the muscles rippled. He clutched onto Darcy as his mouth pulled harder on the wound. The pressure struck Darcy in her chest more than her side.
Flinging himself away from Darcy, Xavier sat up on his hands and feet like he was perching on the edge of a cliff. His mouth was on fire with her blood. His shirt was still tattered, but the bruises had nearly completely melted. His neck was strained but not from rigid veins. The green of his eyes was fierce and bright, glowing as though an unnatural light had lit within them.
“What’s wrong?” asked Darcy. She was alarmed but didn’t push back. She drew closer, curious.
Xavier’s head tipped back. This was an ecstasy he had never known. Spokes of moonlight broke through patches in the moving clouds and scattered over his awe. He said, “You taste like eternity. Blood can’t do this. I feel the past and the present at the same time. I feel the future.”
Frantic, Darcy asked, “What’s happening to you?”
He answered, “You.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I feel my life before the curse. The smells on the streets of Paris when I was a boy.” He shivered. “Mercedes’ perfume.”
“Xavier,” said Darcy, reaching for him. “Did I hurt you somehow?”
He covered her hand with his own. “No,” he laughed. He licked the last of her blood from his lips and let the flavor linger. Waves crashed. So did his high. “You’re hurt. My blood could help, if you want it.”
“I only need stitches,” said Darcy, poking her hip. Blood didn’t come as quickly now, but the flesh was still sore. She barely felt it. There was enough on her mind that nothing her body felt could override it. “Take me to the hospital, and then do me a favor.”
