Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
B ram’s quiet admission resounds through the room. I struggle to pick my jaw off the floor. A quick glance around the study tells me I’m not alone.
“Fuck,” Ice growls.
“Do you have any idea where she took it?” I demand. “Or where she is?”
Bram shakes his head. “None.”
“Fuck.” Ice sounds even less pleased.
The Doomsday Diary is the ultimate weapon in the magical war. If used properly, it’s rumored to grant any wish, up to and including the annihilation of the world. People have died to obtain it. Lucan’s life is in shambles because of it. The Doomsday Brethren formed to fight—and die—to protect it. If Mathias gets his evil hands on the book and uses it to bring about doomsday, that’s everyone’s problem.
Even mine.
“What Ice said,” I mutter.
Duke looks apoplectic as he glares Bram’s way. “You had no magical protections on the book?”
“Of course I did—against anyone magical . I never imagined that a human would know of the book’s existence, much less that I had it.”
“The only way she could even suspect that is if she’s Mathias’s pawn.”
The titled prat has a point—which leads me to my own. “And you took her as your mate?”
Bram whirls on me, looking as grim as I feel. “I refuse to believe she’s willingly doing his bidding. Perhaps she’s under his thrall. I can’t say. We…didn’t talk much.”
“What if Mathias has the diary now?” I hate to ask…but I have to.
He paces, raking a frantic hand through his mussed hair. “I don’t know. I can only guess what he intends to do with it. And what he’ll do to her.”
Now that her usefulness is at an end? I wince. It won’t be pretty.
Duke scowls. “Use your mate bond to locate her.”
“I can’t. I don’t know why. I should be able to…” Bram growls in frustration. “This is bloody confounding.”
“You bedded her, aye?” Marrok asks.
Bram nods emphatically. “Until we both fell into exhausted slumber.”
Ice scoffs. “Or rather, until you did—after thirty whole seconds.”
Bram looks ready to rip his throat out. “Fuck you.”
Marrok forcibly separates them. “Whilst you were bedding her, did you use your powers to read her mind?”
“Yes…and no. I read her body quite easily but not her thoughts. I’ve never encountered a woman who could shield her mind from me.”
“That should have been a fucking clue that something was dodgy, don’t you think?” Ice drawls.
Duke curses under his breath. “We’re off track. We can’t change what happened last night. So we must focus on what the devil we do next.”
Panic?
I keep the thought to myself.
“Precisely.” Bram nods, clearly ready to escape the blaming and finger-pointing.
“Unfortunately, I must add to our problems. Have any of you seen this?” Duke drops a piece of paper onto the table in the middle of the room. It’s a printout of a website I know well.
The bold black headline screams Supernatural forces battle in south London Tunnel .
Bram glances at the paper. “ Out of this Realm ? It’s a rag. No one takes that rubbish seriously.”
Not true. Back home, some influential Dallas Morning News reporters I work with are addicted to the paper’s imaginative paranormal stories. They take their articles as gospel.
“You will after this issue. The byline belongs to Sydney Blair. She’s disturbingly close to the truth. Most news outlets wrote off the battle with Mathias as a foiled terrorist act, a gang initiation, or the work of a madman. Ms. Blair calls it ‘an ongoing clash between powerful factions within magickind.’”
Bram’s eyes bulge. “How the bloody hell does she know there’s an ongoing battle? Very few witches and wizards even know of Mathias’s return.”
“Indeed. Before I came, I consulted Peers and People of Magickind . I found no mention of her.”
Duke’s words detonate in the room like a bomb.
“You’re saying she’s not even a witch? And she’s not mated to a wizard?” I quiz.
“Precisely.”
“She’s…human?” Ice asks.
His Grace nods grimly. “It appears so.”
Brilliant.
Bram scrubs a hand down his face. “How does she know there’s a magickind?”
Isn’t that an excellent question? Though I disavowed magic long ago, even I know the necessity of keeping magickind’s existence a secret. Witch hunts, trials for heresy, and burnings at the stake aren’t distant memories for a society whose citizens often live to be one thousand. The seventeenth century is, relatively speaking, last year. No one in this room is na?ve enough to think that technology is an insurance policy against genocide. People still kill what they don’t understand.
“Mayhap she is one of Mathias’s soulless minions,” Marrok suggests.
“Other humans would notice a walking cadaver, like the Anarki we previously fought, in their office,” Bram points out. “Besides, if Mathias wants to influence humanity, why would he take over a tabloid reporter’s mind—and not some influential world leader’s?”
A valid question. Then again, who can decipher Mathias’s twisted mind?
“So the reporter is seemingly human, and she acted of her own free will.” I don’t understand what’s happening. “Is she trying to get killed?”
Duke raises a brow. “Quite. Or she’s frightfully ignorant of the consequences.”
“Whatever her motives, Ms. Blair is frightfully well informed,” Bram muses.
“Or perhaps”—Ice turns to glare at me—“she’s getting her information from someone who rejects magickind and would celebrate its end.”
“Me? I have no love for magic, but I would never advocate genocide. Besides, ending you all would mean my brother’s death as well. Would I be trying to save him if I intended to expose or end magickind?”
“A fair point.” Duke nods.
Muttering under his breath, Ice backs away. Barely.
Duke focuses on the newspaper again. “Whoever Sydney Blair is, I fear she’s dangerous. The rest of the article reveals even more. ‘The bodies discovered in the tunnel are decomposed far beyond expected, given their recent deaths.’”
“That is no secret.” Marrok waves Duke’s words away. “The media has been scratching over that like a mongrel with fleas.”
“Keep listening,” Duke barks. “‘ Out of this Realm has learned that the bodies bear new wounds and fresh traces of gunpowder, suggesting they somehow fought in the battle, rather than merely being left behind as a macabre message. It appears as if they were actually more dead than alive prior to the battle but able to fight due to evil magic.’”
“She’s guessing. She must be,” Bram insists, but he’s gone pale.
I wince.
“There’s more,” Duke reads on. “‘According to an anonymous source, there’s a mad wizard on the loose, allegedly fighting social injustice in the magical world. He’ll stop at nothing to tear down the establishment and replace it with his version of anarchy.’”
Around me, every single warrior freezes. Their collective panic is palpable.
Poor bastards.
“Who the hell is her bloody anonymous source?” Bram seethes.
Duke sets the paper down with quiet concern. “Ms. Blair claims it’s ‘a witch who recently found herself tangled in the magical war.’”
“Name me any witch who knows so much,” Ice spits.
There’s one possibility that makes my heart stutter. Anka .
“My sister knows, of course,” Bram concedes. “But she would never…”
“Of course not,” Duke agrees. “Sabelle is far too discreet.”
“What about any of the other missing females, like Craddock’s daughter?” Bram muses. “Then again, what witch in her right mind would spill magickind’s most zealously guarded secrets to a bloody human reporter?”
Isn’t it obvious?
“One who’s recently been traumatized and may not be in her right mind,” I point out. “Anka.”
This is the first possible clue to her whereabouts I’ve stumbled across in a fortnight.
Duke concedes that possibility with a shrug. “Whoever her source, Sydney Blair knows there’s a magickind, that we’re at war, and that Mathias is supposedly fighting the Social Order. I shouldn’t have to tell you gentlemen that’s dreadful news.”
Bram rakes a hand through his disheveled hair again. “The worst. The moment anyone actually listens, humanity will hunt us. It’ll make the Inquisition seem like a bloody holiday. And if Mathias reads this, her life will be in danger. We must handle this situation immediately.”
“Indeed.”
When Bram leans back against his desk, the morning sun slants through the open shutters, illuminating just how much strain the wizard is enduring. I nearly feel sorry for him—until he pins me with a wily stare. “I know how we deal with Ms. Blair. You work at a newspaper.”
I frown. “So?”
“Offer your services as a photographer. Find out who her information source is and shut her up before she reveals more about magickind.”
“How do you expect me to finagle information from her? I’m a stranger; it’s unlikely she’ll trust me with her secrets. Wouldn’t it be faster if you performed that wizard mind-reading trick of yours?”
“It only works if I’m touching a woman”—he clears his throat—“intimately. Now that I’m mated, I can no longer shag any woman except my own. You’ll have to pry information from her the human way.”
I’d rather not get tangled in magickind’s problems, but perhaps I can placate Bram while helping my brother. And if I can persuade Ms. Blair to divulge whether Anka is her anonymous source and where my brother’s mate is hiding…even better.
What other options do I have? I need to find Anka to restore my brother’s sanity. At the moment, the bloody reporter is my best—and only—lead.
“Well?” Bram smiles. The bloody bastard has me by the balls, and he knows it.
“Don’t ask me for anything else.”