19. Lane
NINETEEN
LANE
Lane settled in Rowan’s desk chair, the glass of Caden’s blood before him. Rowan, Cecile, Kai, and Evangeline waited as he gathered his thoughts. He’d never cast a surveillance spell like this and wanted to nail it on the first try.
Jack hurried in from the hall with a bowl and three candles. After filling the bowl at the sink, he deposited everything on the desk.
“Thanks.” Lane arranged the candles in a triangular formation, lighting them with a snap of his fingers and a flare of power. “I’ve double-checked everything, but I’ll save some blood in case I need to do this more than once.”
He poured a portion into a second glass and set the rest aside. Caden had been agitated after donating it, and Lane wouldn’t want to disturb him for more.
With the blood positioned at the center of the candles, he closed his eyes and began the spell.
Generally, the tracking revealed the subject’s location in the caster’s mind’s eye, but Lane didn’t know the city as well as the vampires, so he’d added a clause to project the image into the water’s surface.
Lane spoke, and power thrummed through him. The candle flames sparked, fire crackling. An image of Rowan’s building—the Arcadia sign—swam into view. Shit, the spell was tracking Caden. He repeated the words, homing in on the link within the blood, not the blood itself.
A room appeared. It was tidy, the window overlooking the sidewalk in front of Arcadia. “Dammit.” This must be where Felix and Caden were right now, down the hall from them.
“It’s all right, Lane,” came Rowan’s steady voice. “Relax.”
He took a moment to collect himself and dug deeper.
The river came into view. A bridge full of people. An unfamiliar road. A warehouse with what looked like a junkyard out back.
“Looks like the South Banks,” Cecile said.
At least the image was projecting into the bowl all right. Lane kept going, but the vision fixated on the warehouse. The street returned to view. Then the warehouse and its dark interior. Caden’s sire must be there. Lane pulled back and searched for a street sign.
“There! Got it.” Cecile’s triumph had Lane opening his eyes, the spell broken. “It’s farther from the river than where we found Emile, but still within the city. Let’s go.”
She led the way out of the office, Evangeline, Jack, and Kai close behind. Lane stood, and with Rowan at his side, he followed them out of the building.
A black SUV was parked in the alleyway. Kai climbed into the driver’s seat, and Cecile into the front passenger. Everyone else filed in, and Kai pulled out.
“I’ve sent the location to the rest of the coven,” Cecile announced.
“Good. We’ll aim to question him, but killing him is better than losing him,” Rowan said. “If he has an accomplice, treat them as hostile.”
“Think he’ll have captured any more humans to turn?” Jack asked.
“It’s possible. We’ll need to get anyone mid-transformation safely to Arcadia.”
Lane hoped like hell this vampire hadn’t gotten his hands on another victim. What if they couldn’t help them the way they had with Caden? Even if they could, Caden wasn’t exactly okay.
Kai navigated to the nearest bridge allowing traffic to cross the river. Lane had never spent much time south of the main city, and the farther they went, the more industrial it became.
Rowan was an unreadable wall beside him. All the vampires were. It was as if every single one of them had gone into kill mode and were no longer bothering to act human. It was a little unnerving.
Speed and strength made them far more lethal than Lane, even with his magic. They were all experienced fighters, he supposed, so they must be used to this. Lane soaked up as much of their confidence as he could.
He took a moment to cast a hypnosis-blocking spell over himself. It should give him enough time to incapacitate any vampire who tried to enthrall him, but the protection wouldn’t last forever.
“Ready?” Rowan asked in his ear.
“As I can be. I’ll check for protective spells when we arrive, in case he’s hired a witch.”
Rowan nodded, a furrow creasing his otherwise smooth brow.
“What’s up?”
“I’m not sure. Cris hasn’t invaded my mind since the curse broke, but I keep getting flashes of him.”
“Flashes?” Could the curse have given Rowan permanent mental scars?
Cecile swung around in her seat. “What are you talking about?”
Rowan glanced around at them all, giving Lane the impression he wanted to brush this off.
He pressed their hands together. “As the curse wore me down, old memories surfaced. It was almost as if Cris were lurking nearby, intruding on my mind. I’d hear him as if he were in the room with me.
It was part delusion, part resurfaced trauma. I didn’t expect the effects to linger.”
There was a beat of silence before Cecile said, “Mental wounds take time to heal. Far more slowly than our bodies.”
Rowan hummed in grudging agreement.
The curse had undoubtedly traumatized him with all it had triggered. Cecile was right, healing would take time, and lingering effects weren’t necessarily permanent. Once this was over, Lane would see how Rowan wanted to address it. He had too much cooped up inside his head to ignore it forever.
“The warehouse is coming up.” Kai caught Lane’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Scan for spells, and I’ll circle around.”
Lane wouldn’t have been surprised if the building were abandoned before the vampire moved in. It looked rough, with most windows boarded up. He scrambled to concentrate and scanned for magic. “There’s something there.” He couldn’t immediately tell what the spell did.
“Any protections?” Rowan asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s not a ward.”
Kai pulled around the corner and parked in a loading zone along the side of the warehouse.
Rowan placed a hand on Lane’s knee. “Do you need to be closer to get a better look at the spell?”
“No. I can sense it fine. It’s not anything we need to break through to get in. It’s a spell blocking…sound.” How odd.
“If he’s holding victims inside, he wouldn’t want anyone to hear them,” Cecile suggested.
Rowan nodded, hard as stone once more. “It also means we can’t confirm how many heartbeats are inside before we go in. The witch who cast the silencing spell could be here, working with him. Others too.”
None of the vampires seemed concerned by this setback. Lane wanted to beg them to wait, to figure out how many people their enemy had at his side before they went ahead. But it seemed once vampires decided to act, they were all go, like hesitation was a mortal trait they no longer possessed.
“I don’t see any obvious security cameras,” Jack was saying. “Let’s go before anyone notices we’ve arrived.”
Rowan placed a hand on the door handle. “Everyone ready?” The vampires nodded. “Jack and Evangeline, walk the perimeter and cover any back entrances. This vampire got Emile, so don’t split up. Cecile with Kai. I’ll stick with Lane. Everyone else at top speed.”
“Got it,” Jack and Evangeline said in unison. Cecile and Kai nodded.
They climbed from the SUV, splitting off into four and two. Rowan led the way to the door they’d passed at the front of the warehouse as Jack and Evangeline disappeared in a blur of motion.
Lane scanned the door for spells. “All clear.”
Rowan pushed it open, casually breaking the lock with inhuman strength. The resulting crack echoed through the space within. He quickly entered, and Lane followed into the dark interior.
Cecile and Kai disappeared at vampire speed, swallowed completely by the gloom. Lane couldn’t see nearly as well as the rest of them, but the space seemed open and mostly empty with large, irregular shapes looming to one side.
A crash came from the far end of the warehouse. Lane couldn’t see a damn thing. Was it Cecile and Kai? Jack and Evangeline? Or someone else?
Rowan moved, slow and steady, toward the center of the space. “I hear multiple heartbeats. At least seven, maybe eight, but Jack and Evangeline may still be outside.”
So there were at least two others in there with them, possibly more. Lane held his magic at the ready, casting out for any sign of spells or magical beings.
His power tingled, and he grabbed Rowan’s arm, pointing left, his voice a whisper. “One over there.”
Machinery rose out of the gloom, hiding the magical presence Lane detected. He sensed it was a person, not a spell, but they could be a witch or vampire.
“By the machines,” Rowan muttered. It took Lane a second to realize he was speaking for Cecile and Kai’s benefit, whose enhanced hearing would detect the whisper.
If the ferals’ sire were here, he’d hear it too.
Lane’s pulse thumped as he and Rowan moved closer. The magic presence shifted, and Lane pointed, Rowan following with keen eyes.
A light flared, and a figure stepped out from behind a large metal tank. Lane squinted against the sudden brightness, his eyes struggling to adjust.
“You’re surrounded,” Rowan announced without missing a beat. “Surrender yourself.”
“Vampire tricks won’t work on me,” the person said. Was Rowan using hypnosis? Was this the sire? If so, why was his voice familiar? “You’re going to have to try harder,” he sneered. “What—what the Devil? Lane Blackburn?”
Lane blinked furiously against the harsh glare, and the man came into focus, his face one Lane would never forget. “Hillman! You cursed me!”
Rowan went deathly still at his side.
The Hillman witch’s shock dissolved into cruel amusement. “I don’t know how you survived, but it seems I was right. You ran straight to the Valeros.”
What? He tried to kill me to keep this from Rowan? Not my father? Lane’s thoughts seemed to stick. Why was he here?
The Hillman witch raised his arms, and magic swelled in the air. Blood rushed in Lane’s ears, and the world around him fell away. His chest tightened with strangling force, and the bone-deep cold from the night he’d nearly died took hold.
No. He couldn’t be cursed again. He had to fight. Move. Do anything. Why was his mind blank of spells? Rowan disappeared from Lane’s side, and he stumbled, shocked by the loss.
A blur shot across toward his attacker, and a sickening crack echoed through the air, penetrating the pounding in Lane’s head. Then, Rowan was there, holding the Hillman witch by either side of his head, his body dangling limp. He tossed the man aside, and he crumpled to the ground, dead.
Lane’s chest loosened, and he rushed forward. “You snapped his neck.”
Rowan cupped Lane’s face, his eyes glowing fiercely, voice low and lethal. “He hurt you.”
Holy damn, Lane almost swooned. “You saved me.” Rowan’s touch burned, and Lane wanted desperately to kiss him, squeeze him tight, and not let go. He shook himself. Now wasn’t the time.
His mind sharpened, clarity cutting through his shock like a razor’s edge. “The Hillmans must be working with the ferals’ sire. This was their plot against you.”
Rowan nodded firmly. “I bet the sire sent those two into my building to find Caden and kill him so we couldn’t use his blood.”
“Very good,” said a deep, rasping voice, tone dripping with condescension.
Rowan paled, naked terror like Lane had never seen contorting his features. Lane’s heart rate spiked, and he whirled around.
A tall man in a workman’s jumpsuit approached at a casual pace. “Miss me, Rowan? It’s so good to see my favorite creation.”