Chapter Twenty-Three
Lavinia awoke in a haze of contentment. Michelle lay cradled in her arms, still asleep, her breaths deep and slow.
The first rays of sunlight peeked around the curtains, bathing Michelle in a soft glow.
It was a blissful lull, one of those delightful moments where time slowed down and it felt like everything was as it should be.
Michelle was here, in her arms. Lavinia let her eyes drift shut again, nestling into the warm, drowsy embrace.
The doorknob turned, and Quintia barged into the room with the subtlety of a rhinoceros. “Rise and shine,” she said, throwing Lavinia’s clothes at her. “Assholes have been at it again.”
“What?” Lavinia said, not quite following. Her mind was full of Michelle, and only Michelle. Of the feel of her, the taste of her. There was no room in her thoughts for Quintia’s emergency.
“The murderers. You know, the ones that’ve got it out for your lover over there? They’ve killed again. Octavia just called. She’s waiting for us.” Those words were enough to shatter Lavinia’s reverie.
Michelle stirred and opened her eyes, blinking the haze of sleep away. “What’s happening?”
“I have to get up,” Lavinia said, extricating herself from their tangle of limbs with regret. She placed a tender kiss on Michelle’s forehead. “You can stay here. Get some more sleep.” They hadn’t gotten much last night, after all.
Michelle rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “No, no, I’m coming.”
“Alright,” she said, looking at Quintia, who simply shrugged. Michelle would be safe enough in the apartment, but Lavinia preferred to have her close.
Quintia gave her a quick rundown as they hurried into their clothes.
A vampire had found three dead bodies only fifteen minutes away.
Octavia was already at the scene. The police couldn’t be far behind, so if they wanted to have a look before the humans got involved, they would have to leave right now.
Michelle looked somewhat pale in the bright light of morning as they neared the building where the bodies had been found.
It was a house at the end of a street, its windows boarded up and its tiny patch of a front garden overgrown with waist-high weeds.
Lavinia squeezed Michelle’s hand briefly, and she gave a grateful smile in return.
Lavinia’s heart clenched. She would do anything for this woman.
When she finally got to the warlock who was targeting her, they would fall by her sword.
They entered the building through the back.
The door had been nailed shut at one point, but now hung open limply.
They stepped into a dark kitchen, scant light making its way around the boards covering the windows.
The stench of blood pervaded the air so thickly that Michelle coughed.
It mingled with the damp mustiness of the mould clinging to the walls, its black tendrils burrowing through wallpaper and stone.
It was exactly the kind of space a rogue would use, and underneath the freshly spilled blood was indeed the unmistakable scent of a rogue: the sour bitterness of a vampire gone wrong.
Quintia took point, climbing a wooden staircase, passing through a corridor of bare floorboards covered in dust and debris.
She led them into what must have been a bedroom at some point, but what was now a scene of carnage.
Three dead bodies lay in the room. Octavia stood in the middle of the space with her arms crossed, surveying the scene.
No furniture was left behind by previous inhabitants to clutter the empty space.
The smudged wallpaper hung down in strips, the damp having loosened the adhesive until gravity won its battle.
One body lay so close to the door opening that they had to step over it.
“Careful,” Lavinia muttered, helping Michelle avoid the pool of blood that had spread underneath it.
“What have you got so far?” Quintia asked.
“Three bodies, all human. Two female, and the one by the door is male. Looks like the male was killed by a tenebris, the other two have clear marks of draining.”
“So those were killed by the rogue.”
“Exactly. They were found by a civilian vampire passing by. His name is Claudius, son of Claudia, seventh of her name. He smelled the blood while he was walking across the street and got curious. As he went to the back door, he heard someone exit the house through a window at the front of the house. Once he realised what had happened, he called the Magistrate. They let us know.”
“Did the civilian hear anyone else?” Lavinia asked, kneeling beside the body at the doorway. It was difficult to guess the man’s age. His face was covered in deep scratches, blood obscuring his features.
“No,” Octavia said. “Which brings us to our problem.”
“What problem?” Quintia asked. “Besides all of the murdering.”
“Smell them,” Octavia answered.
It was difficult to penetrate the stench of blood to take in the more subtle scents that lay underneath.
Lavinia sniffed the man. There was the rogue, unmistakable in its bitter note.
Human blood, of course. The brimstone of a demon, an uncomfortably sulphurous odour.
Then, the scent of the human himself: soap, beer, sweat, and a hint of cinnamon.
She swapped positions with Quintia, examining the woman.
One of them lay beside a summoning circle carved into the floorboards with a knife.
It was surrounded by symbols that meant nothing to Lavinia.
They carried the odour of witchcraft, the unmistakable smell of spice that all magic brought with it.
Michelle stood in the corner, staying out of the way, while Lavinia and Quintia investigated.
“I don’t get it,” Quintia said. “Humans, check. Rogue, check. And it reeks of magic.”
“There are only four,” Lavinia said slowly.
“Four what?”
“I can only smell four individuals. Plus the demon, of course.”
“So?”
“If this is the work of a summoner and a rogue, there should be five,” Octavia said.
Quintia frowned. “But that’s impossible.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Octavia said, troubled. “But I have been here for half an hour, and I am sure of it. No other person beyond these three humans and the rogue have entered this room over the last couple of days.”
“What does that mean?” Michelle asked, her voice somewhat choked. The room really did reek. Lavinia wished she could whisk her away and keep her from these horrible realities.
“Logically, it means that the rogue and the warlock are one and the same. There were never two people working together. Except that vampires have no magic. Vampires can’t be witches. No vampire has ever been born with those capabilities.”
“Until now,” Lavinia said quietly.
Octavia nodded. “Until now.”
Quintia swore. Lavinia didn’t say anything, but she agreed with the sentiment.
Rogues were bad enough as they were. They had a level of animal cunning, able to hide in the corners of society until they were caught.
But none of them had the foresight or capability to manipulate magic and summon demons.
Lavinia had always assumed complex thought was beyond the mind of a rogue.
Apparently, everything they thought they knew had been wrong.
“What do we do now?” Quintia asked.
Octavia answered, “The way I see it, there are two positives. First, we now know what we are dealing with, even if we don’t understand it. Second, we can follow the rogue’s trail. All of us have his scent now. He won’t be able to hide as easily anymore.”
“True,” Quintia growled. “Let’s go after him.” She breathed deeply, eyes closed, committing the scent’s profile to memory. Then, in a whirlwind of movement, she was gone.
“We will need to let the witches know,” Lavinia said, turning to Octavia.
“Even if we’re wrong, and the warlock somehow managed to successfully cloak their scent, we can’t keep this suspicion to ourselves.
” Better safe than sorry. Lavinia wasn’t keen to find out what the witches would do if they considered the treaty between vampires and witches to be broken.
It had been a messy couple of centuries before the treaty was agreed upon.
Octavia nodded. “Agreed. I will call Vesta, let her run point on the communication with the Witch Council. Quintia will be tracking the rogue already, and we will join her on her trail. I imagine Luce will want to send reinforcements. If this is truly a rogue who commands magic, we need as many of us as we can spare.”
Quintia’s absence manifested as a minor itch on the edge of Lavinia’s consciousness. She had to join the hunt, join her Sister. There was only one issue: Michelle.
Michelle still stood in the corner of the room, looking lost in the shadowy interior.
She had wrapped her arms around herself tightly, and the shallow and fast heartbeat that thrummed through her veins spoke of her distress.
Lavinia ignored the call of the hunt and approached her, cupping her cheek, stroking that buttery skin with her thumb. “Are you alright?” she asked softly.
“Yeah. I think.” Michelle’s eyes were wide, a wisp of panic moving below the surface. “What will happen to these people?”
“When we’re done here, we notify the human police. Call from a payphone, tell them we heard or saw something suspicious. They will take everything from there.”
Michelle closed her eyes for a moment, leaning into Lavinia’s touch. “Who are they?”
Octavia spoke up from behind Lavinia. She had politely pretended not to hear their conversation, but even the quietest whisper would still be audible.
Privacy among the Sisterhood was a polite fiction.
“Their names are Stacey Jones, Taylor Richmond, and Elliot Warbrick. All of them still had their wallets with them. I had a look while I was waiting.”
Michelle frowned. “Warbrick? That’s my dad’s name.”
“Do you recognise him?”
Michelle shook her head. “I don’t know anyone in his family. And he’s too…” She swallowed heavily, “wounded to be able to tell whether there is any resemblance. I have only ever seen a handful of grainy pictures of my dad, anyway.”
“Could be a coincidence?” Lavinia offered.
“It’s not a common name at all. I never met anyone with that last name.” Her eyes whipped to Lavinia. “What if it’s not a coincidence?”
The puzzle pieces of the case in Lavinia’s mind tumbled, reshaped into a different picture. The warlock—the rogue—was killing people. Their souls have been taken, Arran had said. What if, somehow, he was harvesting them? What had seemed random at first might not be so at all.
Michelle had a small amount of magic, the witches had said after their assessment.
What if, for whatever reason, someone was going through her bloodline, picking off those people who weren’t under the protection of the Witch Council?
It would explain why the witches themselves struggled to make the connection.
Lavinia had no idea whether that was even possible, stealing another person’s magic.
The only thing that really mattered was that someone might be after Michelle, not just because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but because of her.
Because of a heritage that she hadn’t even been aware of until recently.
“I think you’re right,” she said slowly. “I fear it might not be a coincidence at all.”
Michelle took a shaky breath. “What happens next?”
Lavinia leaned forward and brushed a fleeting kiss onto her forehead. “We will find who is responsible. Quintia will already be tracking him, and my Sisters and I will join her. It won’t be long until we find him. You can stay in the apartment, where you’ll be safe. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“What about your leg?” Michelle asked.
The scent of death and violence had pushed any worries about her injury from her mind. Now she was reminded of it, the ache returned. “It’ll be fine,” Lavinia said. “I rested it for a couple of days. Don’t worry about me.”
Michelle smiled wanly. “No promises.”
“Come. I’ll take you to the apartment,” Lavinia said, wrapping her arm around Michelle’s shoulders.
“Zachary is outside too. Could you take him as well?” Octavia asked, looking up as they passed.
“Of course,” Lavinia agreed.
To leave the room, they had to step over the man killed by the demon. The man who might be related to Michelle. When they reached him, Michelle looked at him for a moment. She bent down, lightly touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered under her breath.