Chapter Eleven
Before I could say anything, he had kissed me swiftly on the cheek, turned on his heel, and disappeared down the hall. I stood there dumbfounded for a few moments, my hand brushing the spot where I could still feel the warmth of his kiss.
I pushed myself up to my elbows, shoving my phone away as I continued to ignore all the text messages Sara-Kate had sent the night before.
She was dying to hear about my date from last night, but I didn’t have the energy or the capacity to make up something just to appease her quite yet.
My mind was still reeling from all that I had learned and from the fact that the only two people I could possibly talk to about this had been lying to me since the beginning.
I rubbed my eyes, pushing up to my feet as I meandered to the shower.
I still had so many questions, but I hoped my training with Alaric would shed more light rather than cast me deeper into the shadows.
There was something about this bond between Alaric and me—this Twinflame thing everyone kept mentioning.
My ring flared and hummed as my thoughts drifted once again to Alaric.
I stepped under the spray of the hot shower, willing away the cold that still lingered in my bones after last night.
I showered, trying to keep images of the Stonebound out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, I stood face to face with the Stonebound, their gaunt and lifeless eyes boring right through to my soul. Even at this moment, I felt as if I were being watched.
I quickly got ready, eager to get moving if not for anything than to dispel my dark thoughts from closing in.
I opened my door, heading to the kitchen when the cracked door of Uncle Dan’s office, with light pouring out, stopped me.
I glanced in, finding Dan at his desk, but instead of poring over books or documents, he sat back in his chair, a glass of what looked like bourbon in his hand, his eyes glazed as he seemed lost in thought.
I pushed the door open, making my presence known.
“A little early for that, isn’t it?” I tried to joke, tried to be normal, but the words felt like gravel in my mouth.
Dan jerked, almost spilling his drink as he noticed me. He tried to smile, setting the glass down on his desk. “Been a rough night.”
“Yeah.” I leaned against the doorframe, not quite ready to fully walk into the room. “You and me both.” I stared at him, willing my anger and frustration at his inaction to dissipate, trying not to give in to my raw emotions.
Dan sighed. “I wanted to tell you everything, Mari. Please believe me.”
“How can I?” I spat, the betrayal I felt rushing through me with fresh vengeance. So much for being calm and collected. “You could have told me everything; you should have. Maybe then I wouldn’t have this stupid death mark and I wouldn’t have to be Twinflames with Alaric, whatever that means.”
Uncle Dan nodded as the guilt he had been carrying weighed heavily on his shoulders, seeming to physically push him down. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve just been so distracted . . .”
“By what?” I roared, stomping into the room. “I’m so sick of half-truths and white lies. What is going on? I know you know more than what you are telling me.”
“That’s fair,” Uncle Dan admitted, hollow-eyed, as if he hadn’t slept at all.
He chugged his glass of bourbon before slamming it down on the table and standing in one swift motion. “To hell with the Council. You deserve answers.”
I froze, stunned, but when he strode to the bookshelf and tugged at a hidden lever, I found myself following.
The familiar click opened the secret door within the bookshelf.
The hidden Bloodwright room waited on the other side, heavy with the scent of dust and leather.
I followed closely behind as he headed straight for the map of the world, the one with pins pushed in, mainly around dense urban areas.
There were a lot of pins in the New England area that grabbed my attention.
“Up until recently, there have only been a few emergences of Bloodwrights per generation,” Uncle Dan explained as he pulled a file from underneath several ancient tomes and documents on the center worktable.
He pulled out a chair for me, so I sat, listening with rapt attention while glancing at the different documents he pulled and handed to me.
The first was an autopsy report on Michelle Nelson, the girl who had been murdered at Windsor Academy two weeks before I started attending the school.
The report mentioned strangulation as the cause of death, but it was the pictures of her right arm that took my breath away.
She, just like me, had the golden sigil tattooed from her collarbone down to her fingertips.
A deep-seated nausea took root in my belly, spreading like ice through my veins. My ring thrummed and tightened uncomfortably, as if it too were reacting to the image before us.
“Michelle Nelson was marked for death,” Dan explained. “Only Bloodwrights can see these markings, so I recognized what the police couldn’t. Of course, I can’t issue it into evidence, but it got me thinking. Michelle wasn’t the only dead body to show up in the morgue with these markings.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “What do you mean?”
He pulled more files and more autopsy photos; nothing gruesome or terribly traumatic, but different body parts with the golden sigil tattoo—on arms, legs, torsos, backs.
It looked like there were at least 20 other case files, including various victims, causes of death, but with one thing in common—they all had a golden sigil tattoo.
My hand drifted to my left arm, rubbing the mark softly, feeling a phantom itch.
“This is only from the past six months.” Uncle Dan ran a hand through his thinning brown hair.
“I typically don’t even look too closely at the autopsy photos, just read the reports, but I started to notice more and more death marks, and started taking my own photos.
The victims have nothing in common; most of the causes of death are accidental or natural.
But then Michelle Nelson turns up murdered . . .”
“And you get assigned as the ADA to try the case,” I finished for him. “So you decided to dig deeper. Why not bring this to the Council?”
Dan sat next to me, his eyes wild with passion. “I did, and they dismissed it. Said it was a coincidence and that I should let it go lest I draw unwanted attention.”
“You’re clearly good at following instructions,” I replied dryly, my gaze moving to the map across the table. “You’ve been keeping track of emergences not just in New York, I see.”
He jumped up. “Yes. I have contacts with other Bloodwrights from other smaller councils around the world, and a few of them have also noticed an uptick, but also maintain that the majority seem to be coming out of New York.”
“So, do you think the New York Council has something to do with this?” I asked.
“God, I hope not, but it makes you wonder. It made me wonder, so every free moment I’ve had, I’ve been trying to get to that boy, the one we arrested for the Nelson murder.
I want a moment alone with Jacob Donohoe to evaluate him for any Bloodwright influence, but his lawyer filed a motion blocking me until the arraignment, so I can’t access him outside of the courtroom. ”
“You think he’s a Bloodwright?”
“Either that, or he was under a more experienced Bloodwright's influence when he committed the murder,” Dan elaborated, shaking his head in frustration.
“His lawyer continues to claim that Jake had no memory of that night and that he did not kill Michelle. All he remembers is meeting up with Michelle after school in the library and then waking up in the locker room next to her dead body early the next morning.”
The thought churned in my stomach. “That would mean there are Rogue Bloodwrights again. Forcing emergences. That’s suicide—they’d draw the Stonebound.”
Uncle Dan’s expression hardened. “Unless that’s the point. Unless they want to draw them out. To destroy them.”
I shook my head slowly. “That would take an army.”
“Exactly.” His voice trembled as he sank into the chair beside me. “And that’s what all of this points to. A coordinated effort. A war on the horizon.”
The silence that followed pressed heavy on my chest. For the first time, I realized Uncle Dan wasn’t just exhausted or haunted. He was afraid.
I closed my eyes in concentration, trying to feel the echo of my power enough to let it flow freely through me, just as Alaric had said.
Right now, we were in the Archive of Shadows, a specific training area that existed within the New York chapter of the Bloodwright Council.
The entire New York chapter existed underground, beneath St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.
While there were only currently five members on the Council, there were upwards of twenty-two Bloodwright members who had turned up within the last two years.
Most were apparently younger, having been officially initiated recently, making it appropriate for their presence in this secret place.
While my presence on the other hand wasn’t exactly welcomed.
Apparently, after the Ancient Council fell to the Stonebound and their Warden a thousand years ago, smaller councils scattered across continents had taken their place.
But they didn’t work together. They barely spoke.
Sitting here underground, I understood why.
After last night’s chase, solitude felt safer than solidarity.
I sat on the cold stone in the center of the room that was the training space.
With my eyes closed, my other senses were heightened—the smell of iron and old stone mingled with the creaking of the floor above us and the sound of Alaric’s careful footsteps as he walked circles around me.
I swear I could almost hear the sound of his teeth grinding as he waited for me to do something.