“Believe it.” The words were spoken so softly that Havily didn’t know the source. She whirled around. Marcus’s arm fell away from her shoulder.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“A voice, a man’s voice, said,
Believe it.
”
“Fuck.”
“Greaves?” she asked as Marcus also turned in a circle.
“I want my sword but there are too many people around.”
A loud explosion outside the tent on the south side sent Havily running with Marcus to the door flaps on the north side. Once again, people scattered, running madly every which way.
“We can’t fold out of here,” Marcus cried. “Security has everything locked down. I’m calling Jeannie. She’ll fold us back to the villa.”
“I should stay here.”
But he met her gaze. “The hell you should. Trust me, Seriffe will take care of business.”
She nodded, but she hated the thought of leaving. The Festival had been her idea. Yes, the colonel was in charge, but she’d put him in charge, which made her responsible.
As Marcus released her to retrieve his phone, a different arm surrounded her neck from behind and choked her. “Hello, Havily,” a heavily masculine voice said into her ear. “Miss me?”
She recognized Crace’s voice, but she didn’t understand what was happening or why Marcus didn’t do anything to help her. Instead he stood in front of her, not two feet away, as though paralyzed, his phone in his hands. He stared up and to the right of her at some object she couldn’t see.
She craned her neck, a hard thing to do because Crace had her trapped, but she now saw what Marcus was looking at. Crace had a bomb in his hand, which he held high overhead. It was a strange-looking cylinder with an old-fashioned lit fuse. The length had already burned down to within three inches. Two-and-a-half. Two. She couldn’t breathe. She felt light-headed. Her vision sparkled.
“Bye-bye, Warrior.” Crace laughed.
Everything happened so fast. Marcus took off at preternatural speed in the direction of the lake, which was away from crowds. Crace threw the bomb straight for him.
Havily saw the explosion, as flames in red and yellow rising to green and lavender spread over her vision. At the same moment, her world turned to black.
When a sword falters,
The brotherhood gathers.
—
Collected Proverbs,
Beatrice of Fourth
CHAPTER 22
Havily awoke to searing pain around her wrists, both wrists. Her neck hurt and her back. Her shoulders were killing her. In addition, sweat poured off her forehead into her eyes. The combination of the salty perspiration and her makeup made her eyes burn.
She was in a sitting position, sort of draped with some kind of see-through gauze-like fabric. Underneath, she was naked. Something supported her but it was very hard, like a low wooden bench.
She had trouble forming thoughts, and her eyes felt so heavy. She wanted to open them so that she could figure out why she hurt so much, but she couldn’t.
And why was it so hot?
Her neck felt bruised and raw. She wanted to rub her neck, ease some of the pain away, but she couldn’t move her arms. She must be restrained in some way.
She was so weak.
With great effort she opened her eyes, the barest squint. She couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. A kind of rope or plastic tube was attached to her left forearm, and where it was joined, it hurt. She lifted her head and saw that an IV dripped into the tubing.
Oh. She was being cared for. Had she been in an accident? Was that why she hurt so badly? Why couldn’t she think, and why did her right forearm burn in exactly the same way as her left forearm?
With great difficulty, she turned her head in the other direction. More clear tubing, only it was red this time. A transfusion? She followed the line of the tube. It didn’t go up, however, but down, and the bag holding the blood sat on the floor, a stone floor, a dirty stone floor. What kind of hospital was this and why was she sitting on a bench so near the floor?
She leaned forward but she couldn’t get far. She was restrained around her waist.
She knew one thing. She needed to get the tube out of her right arm, the one carrying her blood away from her body. Someone had made a mistake. She tried to reach over but she couldn’t move her arm very far.
She turned once more and saw a black chain. She lifted her hand. The chain was connected to her right wrist by a heavy black bracelet decorated with butterflies. It was pretty in a way but more goth than she liked.
“I don’t intend to drain you, if that’s what you fear.”
The voice was male, sort of familiar, and sounded chipper.
Drain her? That made no sense. Why would someone in a hospital talk about
draining
her and of what? Her blood?
She looked at the man and worked hard to focus. His features started to take shape through the fog of her mind. She had seen him before.
A whisper of fear moved through her. She was looking at Crace, the death vampire who had attacked her in her town house. Why was he in her hospital room?
“Yeah, I had to give you a drug, otherwise you’d just fold out of here or worse, head into the darkening, and I can’t have that. But don’t worry. The bruises will heal. Don’t you remember? You struggled when I put the manacles on. Again, don’t worry. The manacles are high-tech. They have clip releases and hinges because every once in a while I’ll need you out of chains.” He laughed.
“It’s hot,” she whispered as more sweat dribbled into her eyes and burned all over again.
“You’re in my forge, Havily Morgan, and you’re going to be here for a long, long time. Welcome home.”
* * *
Marcus lay shaking. He drifted from complete blackout, to awakening in so much pain he would do a dry heave then black out again.
He woke up this time, his sight bleary, and turned his head to empty his empty stomach once more. He remained awake despite the sensation that all his skin had been peeled from his body.
Jesus H. Christ.
He ignored the pain. “Havily. Where’s Havily?” What had happened to his voice?
“Good. You can talk.”
He shifted his gaze, turning his head slowly until a mountain of black hair came into focus. She’d looked the same way at the COPASS hearing, like a wild child. “Endelle? Did you find her? Is she dead?”
“We haven’t found her yet.”
“Crace has her.” He struggled to sit up. “I have to get to her.”
“Easy, Marcus.” Endelle again. “We know. Let Horace and his team take care of you.”
“I ran away from her. He had her and I ran away. I abandoned her. She’ll never forgive me now.”
“No, Marcus.” He knew that voice, Kerrick’s voice. It came from behind him but very close. “I saw what happened. Crace had a bomb in his hand, lit, ready to go off. You ran away from the crowds, to direct the explosion toward you. You saved a lot of lives tonight.”
He tried to sit up. “I have to get to her. I have to find her.”
Kerrick, however, pinned him down with hands on his shoulders. “We’ve got to get you healed first.”
He shifted to try to look at him. Pain streaked through him, all over his skin, into his muscles. “Kerrick. Go after her. Find her. Please.”
“Marcus, ease down,” Kerrick’s voice sounded anguished. He put his hand on Marcus’s chest and held it flat, a weight that … settled him. His chest had been bouncing. Oh, shit, he couldn’t see because he was crying. Fuck.
Marcus shifted his head toward Endelle. “Can you find her with your voyeur’s eye? I know that’s one of your powers.”
“I’ve tried,” she said. “But I can’t get a fix on her. She must be in one of Greaves’s locked-down military facilities. Sorry, Warrior. When we’ve got you on your feet, I’ll go into the darkening, but without a location it will be a goddamn crap shoot.”
Kerrick leaned close. “We’ll find her,” he said straight into Marcus’s ear. “Somehow. We’ll find that bastard. We’ll slay him, brother, if it’s the last thing we do.”
Marcus turned once more and met Kerrick’s gaze. He’d missed the bastard. Goddammit, for two hundred years he’d missed Kerrick. Now Kerrick was making promises about finding Havily and avenging her kidnapping.
Oh, dear Creator, was Havily still alive? She had to be.
He nodded and his eyesight dimmed. He faded again. Dammit.
* * *
Endelle stared down at the mess that was Warrior Marcus. She had rare moments when she felt like this, not enraged because
enraged
was too small a word. Explosive. Yes, more like that. She wanted to stretch out her arms, draw in power from every corner of the universe, let it flow through her, then annihilate the entire planet.
If she understood what had happened, High Administrator Crace was now a death vampire of tremendous power and he’d made it his priority to gain control of Morgan, which he had. The few people in the vicinity who had seen the abduction and were still alive told the same story: A huge, muscled man, shirtless and dressed in a black kilt and battle sandals, had put his arm around Havily’s neck then disappeared with her.
That he’d been able to fold into and out of a locked-down site like this … Shit. She could do it. Greaves could, which meant there was another entity on Second with powers that could challenge hers … so, yeah, shit.
Though she rarely made use of her healing gifts, she employed them now. She put her hands over Marcus’s face. His eyes, now closed, were blood red. His cheek and neck were burned into deep tissue. She worked over his eyes first as Horace worked his legs, where the greatest damage was done. Horace had summoned healers from all over the globe to help with the disaster. Several worked beside him now just on Marcus, his skin knitting together by magic beneath so many sets of warm, glowing hands.
As for the attack, it would be weeks before she had a report from Seriffe on exactly how the bombs had been cached in the fireworks batteries, whether they’d arrived as part of the original orders or if some other kind of stealth had been employed. If Crace had been behind the incendiary bombs then probably
stealth
. So, again … shit.
The death toll, however, hadn’t risen very high so far, just eleven confirmed, and thank the Creator the number was so small. But in her opinion, one was too many.
Within an hour she was sweating, but Marcus opened his eyes again and this time he didn’t hurl. He started to talk but she said, “We’re about halfway, Marcus. Just try to relax. We’re healing you as fast as we can. You feeling better yet?”
“Yes.” But the word came out hissed.
“Good. Now relax.”
“Fine.” He closed his eyes, and though she could tell he was still conscious and anxious to be moving, he stopped struggling against his incapacitation.
She glanced at Kerrick, surprised that he was the one cradling Marcus’s head on his lap. “You okay?” she asked.
“Too many fucking memories.”
She chuckled. “No shit.”
Kerrick met her gaze, his eyes wet. “Yeah.”
“You thinking of Hannah?” Endelle asked.
At that Marcus’s eyes popped open, and as though the men had practiced together for months they bit in unison, “Helena. Her name was Helena.”
Endelle smiled, and the tension eased out of her shoulders as she held her hands just above Marcus’s neck. “You boys are just too easy to bait.”
* * *
Parisa stood next to Warrior Medichi. She kept replaying in her head what Madame Endelle had told Warrior Marcus earlier about not being able to find Havily with her
voyeur’s eye.
From that point, a terrible feeling of dread had descended on her. What if Endelle asked for her help? What if Endelle wanted her to try to use her special
eye,
to open her voyeur’s window and try to locate Havily?
She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.
She stared at the battlefield around her, at Madame Endelle working over Warrior Marcus, at Warrior Kerrick supporting the man’s head and upper shoulders on his lap, at the healers clustered around Marcus’s almost naked body. Her gaze extended beyond. There were people on the ground everywhere, but dozens of healers were working on the worst of the victims. Most of the moaning had stopped, thank God.
She kept swiping at her cheeks.
Shortly after the attack started, Thorne had called for Medichi. Of course he had to come to the scene, all of the Warriors of the Blood were here, which meant she’d had to come as well.
But oh how she wanted to leave, to be freed from the sight of so much destruction. People had died here tonight and so many were injured, burned. Most of the fires along both sides of the banks had been put out, but the air smelled torched and rotten.
She’d vomited once but Antony had been so kind. Even now he kept a hand around her waist, very lightly, as though steadying her—and maybe he was. She couldn’t exactly feel her knees.