17. Changes
Wasting no time, I texted Lydia, my faithful assistant, who was up for the challenge. By the time I portalled myself to the base and reconstructed my old laboratory, she’d made it to my side.
Explaining all I knew about what had happened didn’t take long, considering many of the changes were obvious to her senses, and she’d witnessed the aftermath in Merlin’s quarters. Still, she listened patiently, taking it all in.
“Don’t shoot me, but I think Julian is right about including your dad.”
My cheeks flushed with anger, but I bit back my response as she continued on.
“He’s already done the groundwork, so why take the time to catch up? I know the guy’s not the ideal father. I get that. Mine wasn’t ideal either, but maybe you can use the guilt card to get what you need from him.” She grimaced when she finished and waited.
“He only cares about the work, not me.” I snatched a vial from the counter and held it out for her so she could take my blood to get started.
“Then he’d still be in for this. Why not use him? He sure used you and Zoe—no offense, Doc.” She stuck the needle expertly in my vein and withdrew several vials after the first.
I stared hard at the warring glow of various magics that I knew she couldn’t see around each tiny tube and forced myself to think beyond my own pride and anger for any valid excuses.
“Let’s go pay him a visit,” I agreed, my posture slumping. “I am only agreeing to question him to get up to speed with anything he might be able to offer information-wise. Then we come back here where it’s safe and continue working until it’s time for the catering appointment.”
Lydia grinned, rocking her shoulders in a sly move. “I can’t believe you’re planning a fucking wedding! I’m all in.”
Rolling my eyes, I bumped her with my hip. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
“Is it safe for you to go back there if what you said about Elsa is true?” Lydia grabbed my arm as I raised it to open a portal.
“She won’t know if I take us directly into the lab. And right now, I have far more power, so I’d almost like to see her try to do something about it.” The knowledge of her interference in our last life together sent shivers of rage through my body, stoking the magic within. If she raised a hand against me, I wouldn’t hesitate to act.
Lydia stepped back, and I opened the doorway to the lab in the vampire estate’s basement where my father spun around, slamming a large metal cabinet closed behind him.
Right away, things felt off. For one thing, I’d never seen that cabinet before. For another, he’d noticed and acknowledged my presence immediately with a too-wide smile. But my senses told me something else was happening, and I squinted at him out of instinct.
A blue aura swam into view, swirling around him. Not only was that impossible for a vampire, but it wasn’t the blue I was used to in aura’s—the one that indicated truth. No, this was different somehow, and yet familiar…
I threw out an arm, and the cabinet door behind him flew open, sending him sprawling. Out of the interior fell a corpse, ghostly white and in the tatters of what used to be a camouflage uniform. Her blonde hair had tumbled over her face, leaving the jagged red marks of a vampire bite over an old matching scar.
My stomach dropped. Major Marcia Honeywell, who had disappeared from the MorningStar lab without a trace after it was destroyed by a changeling, lay exsanguinated on my father’s laboratory floor. Despite my managing to avoid retrieving her for him, Elsa had somehow managed to do it anyway, just as she’d promised.
The major had tortured both Julian and me. She was ultimately the one responsible for the silver poisoning that forced me to make my deal with the queen. And yet—I remembered when she’d shown me the top of that scar and told me she’d known my father as well. That he could act sweet but be ruthless. She’d been as much of a pawn to him as I was. And now she was dead.
Stuffed into a cabinet.
Refusing to find her and inflict harm was one thing, but would I have saved her if I’d been earlier? I glared at my father, who’d risen to his feet.
“What have you done?” I demanded.
His gaze darted to the body on the floor. He knew I meant aside from draining her, and he better answer in the next two seconds if he didn’t want his throat ripped out. I felt about as unstable as I had when I’d first been turned.
“She was one of my original test subjects secured by Elsa,” he explained calmly, moving over to his lab station as though he was about to continue studying something else. “Elsa procured her as a natural psychic, and with patient zero, I was able to isolate the demon genome. I thought it would allow me to, well, make more of you. But somehow, though the abilities were strong, they never matched the way the sample the demons had given me freely attached themselves to you.” He smiled weakly as though he thought he was complimenting me.
I stared, holding Lydia’s wrist to prevent her from doing anything rash. This was my fight if it came to that.
“So, you admit you knew they weren’t gods at all, but demons?” I started with, stepping closer to him.
“Is that what concerns you? No, no, I didn’t and don’t care what they’re named. What matters is what they are, and what they provided toward the evolution of our kind.”
“Our kind?” I echoed.
“Witches, vampires.” He stuck a needle in his own arm and withdrew a sample of blood. Then he smeared a drop on a glass slide and set it beneath a microscope.
“Look at me,” I demanded, and he did with a sigh. “So, Marcia had demon DNA as well because of you, and you drained her?”
“I would think that was obvious given what I said,” he snapped.
“You’re planning to drain a powerful witch and a fairy now, aren’t you?” I asked, pulse thundering as my father’s ultimate vision unfolded in my mind. He’d worked for Elsa and others all so he could find a way to become the ultimate creature himself. “Unless you’ve already done it?”
“No. Not yet. My studies show that it’s important to let the magic of each settle first. If I were to do one after another, the magic could become volatile.” Dad adjusted the microscope as his words washed over me, cold and terrifying.
“What do you mean, volatile?” I asked, shifting my weight as I studied my own hands, sparkling with swirls of the fae and witch magic I’d consumed in short succession.
Dad looked up, scrutinizing me. “You took both already yourself, didn’t you?” He asked with a grin.
I wanted so badly to wipe it off his face, but I simply folded my arms and nodded. “Not on purpose. I’m not a methodical killer like you.”
Dad shrugged. “You’ll recover after a period of chaos. The curious thing is that the mixture seems to soften the vampiric impulses. From what I can tell, you still have the benefits of strength, speed, immortality, and well, fangs. But you will no longer need as much blood to survive, and the violent instincts may lessen over time, as well. I value my instincts and would hate to see them lessen.”
Did that mean that whatever was happening to Julian and me with the mating bond would subside too? Maybe the control and subservience wouldn’t be the end of us. My pulse increased as hope fluttered in my chest and newly beating heart. Naturally, Dad misinterpreted my sudden emotional change.
“If anyone else deserves this gift, it’s you, Charlie,” he said softly, pride shining in his eyes. “You and I? We have the brilliance it takes to wield this kind of power. Together, we can change the course of history.”
“You are delusional,” I said, shaking my head. “Elsa will decapitate you if you try to take the glory from her.”
My father laughed. “She won’t know or be able to stop me once I’m done. See, I’ve already procured the samples needed.” He strode toward the same cabinet and reached through the back, apparently an illusion. His arm disappeared briefly until he pulled out two people from behind it. Both were clearly glamoured into what appeared to be a submissive, sleep-walking state.
I swallowed hard as Lydia tensed beside me. The fairy I did not recognize, though my heart hurt for her, a slight, young-looking girl with gossamer wings and golden eyes. But the witch…the witch sent my blood to boiling, and all I saw was scarlet as my fangs extended fully.
My own sister—his daughter–stood there with his grip on her arm, staring straight ahead at seemingly nothing.
“You fucking monster.” I screamed the words as I lunged. Removing her from his poisonous touch was my first and only concern as I pried his fingers off her, snapping each one with ease.
I held Zoe to my chest and growled at the man I used to call father who stood clutching his wounded hand in shock.
“She is your firstborn child,” I said around my fangs. Tears flowed from my eyes as I trembled in an attempt to focus on these women and their wellbeing before dealing with the monster now cowering before me. Violent tendencies lessen? Not yet, they hadn’t.
“And her life would be worth something as a sacrifice, Charlie, like yours already is. Like ours are.” He pleaded silently, and I stepped backward as he moved toward me, not wanting to be in the same space as someone like him.
“You will leave Zoe alone,” I ordered, threading my magic through the words. “No more kidnapping and draining innocents. You will not come near me or those I love again.”
Without another word, I motioned for Lydia to grab the fairy, and I steered us and Zoe through my own portal to Hazel’s newly regrown cottage.
“Char? What happened?” Hazel ran toward us from the kitchen sink and grabbed Zoe’s hand. “Zo?”
“Zoe, wake up,” I said, and she gasped, coming back to life. I turned and did the same for the fairy, whom Lydia escorted outside, trying to calm her down.
“What happened?” Zoe asked, looking from me to Hazel before sitting heavily on the loveseat.
Karma climbed into her lap in cat form, mewing and rubbing against her.
“What do you remember?” I asked, sitting beside her.
“The doorbell rang, and Hazel was still asleep.” She tilted her head at me. “Was it you?”
“No.” I opened my mouth to tell her what happened then closed it again. Our father had left me with the horrifying responsibility of revealing just how evil he was.
Hazel’s hand fell on my shoulder, and the feeling of comfort washed over me. I glanced up at her and frowned.
“The important thing is you’re okay now, and we have some food to test with Murphy at the Rusty Shifter in half an hour. Sometimes it’s best to take a breath before going too far down the rabbit hole, eh Karma?”
The cat in Zoe’s lap burst into bunny form and jumped into his witch’s waiting arms.