Chapter Two
Izabela frowned as she studied the faint plume of ghastly, dark-purple smoke rising from the old cauldron.
It held a spoonful of Saintcrow’s blood mixed with a few rare herbs and a dash of earth from the Holy Land where he had died and been reborn.
Normally, the smoke should have been gray or black.
She had no idea why it was purple. Had he ingested poison from someone he had preyed on?
Eaten mortal food or drink? Both seemed unlikely.
And at his vast age, neither was likely to do him any harm.
Was he changing? Transforming? And if so, into what? And why?
Puzzled and curious, she took the vial of his blood from her skirt pocket. Was it darker than usual? Vampires found witch blood decidedly bitter and unpleasant. Contrarily, witches – especially dark witches – quickly became addicted to the blood of the Undead.
Removing the cork from the bottle, she took a sip. And gagged. Stars above, in all her long life, she had never tasted anything so vile. Ordinarily, his blood had a dark, bitter-sweet taste that was quite pleasant. Odd. Very odd.
Replacing the cork, she set the bottle on a shelf, pulled a silver flask from another shelf and rinsed the taste from her mouth with a swig of double-bonded bourbon.
There was definitely something wrong with her favorite vampire, but she had no idea what it could be.
Vampires didn’t get sick. Poison, viruses, the common cold, disease, none of them had any effect on the Undead, especially those as old as Saintcrow .
To her knowledge, the only thing that had ever affected vampires – and then only the young ones – had been a spell cast by Luca Sasan, an evil necromancer.
Frowning, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called her second favorite vampire, Jake Kincaid.
~ * ~
Kincaid frowned when he picked up his cell phone and saw Izabela’s name. What the devil did she want? he wondered as he muttered, “Hello.”
“I need to see you.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
Kincaid stroked his fingers over Rosa’s cheek. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“It’s about Saintcrow,” the witch said. “I think he’s in trouble.”
“I’ll be right there.”
~ * ~
The witch was waiting for him at the front door.
“I don’t mean you or anyone in your house any harm,” Kincaid said, before she could ask the ubiquitous question.
With a wry smile, she unlocked the screen door and invited him inside.
“So, what’s going on with Saintcrow?” he asked, perching on the edge of the sagging, dark green sofa.
She quickly told him about Saintcrow’s blood, the purple smoke, the vile taste.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
Izabela shook her head. “I have no idea. Have you ever heard of anything like it in your years as a vampire?”
“Hell, no.” Jake frowned. “You don’t think it could be some after-effect of destroying Luca? Or Eleni?” Saintcrow’s sire had been a conniving, jealous woman who had signed her own death warrant when she threatened Kadie’s life.
Looking thoughtful, Izabela settled into her favorite rocker. A moment later, her big black cat curled up in her lap and went to sleep. “I’ve never heard of a vampire concocting a death curse,” she mused, her brow furrowed. “But a necromancer...” Her voice trailed off.
“It can’t be Luca,” Kincaid said. “He’s been dead for years.” And then he frowned. “I remember he screamed something when the flames took him. I thought it was just a cry of pain. You don’t think...?”
Izabela tapped her forefinger against her lips.
“I suppose it could have been a curse,” she remarked thoughtfully, and then muttered an oath.
“The dark purple smoke that rose from the pyre,” she murmured, more to herself than Jake.
“It was the same dark purple color as the smoke from Saintcrow’s blood. ”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The witch quickly brought him up to date. “But most curses die when the witch does.”
Eyes narrowed, Kincaid stared at the black crow who stood on its perch staring back at him.
But it was Luca Sasan’s image he saw in his mind’s eye.
The necromancer who had unleashed a hideous curse that had affected all the young vampires in Wyoming, turning them into the living dead, unable to move or speak.
It had affected Saintcrow’s wife and sent Jake and Saintcrow on a journey to find and destroy the necromancer.
It hadn’t been easy but they had prevailed in the end.
Was it possible that Luca, who had been burned to death thanks to the combined efforts of Saintcrow, Kincaid, and Izabela, was exacting vengeance from the other side?
And if so, how the hell did you fight a man who no longer existed?
“So, where do we go from here?” Kincaid asked. And grunted softly when Izabela slowly shook her head.
He felt an icy chill when her strange, yellow-flecked brown eyes met his and she murmured, “I have no idea.”