Darkness Divides (Sensor #3) (22 page)

My hands curled tightly. “What do you think is going on?”

He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. The phone systems work, but no one is answering. Fae methods of contact don’t work at all. It doesn’t make sense unless someone is cutting them off from communication with us.”

“We need to get back as soon as possible.” Fairbanks was our home. The fae problems would have to wait.

The master vampire ran a hand through his dark hair and paced the room.

“We cannot leave until after we raise the shield tonight. The amount of power Derrick and I must contribute will leave us too drained for immediate travel. The soonest we can depart is tomorrow evening after we’ve rested for the day, but I’ve arranged for a plane to pick us up soon after sunset. With the shield back in place, the fae can disperse the storm so it can land close enough that we won’t have to walk far.”

I should have known the shield would have to come first.

“Do you think Emily’s okay?” I asked.

“I’m not sure how anyone is doing right now,” he said, giving me a frustrated look.

Elros stepped out of his room. “My apologies for interrupting, but in this case I must. We’ll need Melena to finish the last few interrogations tomorrow. That will at least help us narrow down our suspects before she leaves.”

It didn’t really surprise me that the druid had listened in. By the expression on Nik’s face, he’d expected it as well. It was a mere formality that he’d given us the illusion of privacy. What was the point of having guards on me if they couldn’t spy as well?

“I can finish them up,” I said, nodding at him. “No problem.”

There were only three fae left, including Yarrow, who had access to the vault or knowledge of its contents and hadn’t been fully questioned. If it wasn’t one of them, we were going to be out of leads anyway.

I looked up at Nik. “That sounds like a plan then. I’ll finish up what I can for the fae tomorrow, but I’ll be packed up and ready to go at sunset.”

“We’ll see you then.” He and Derrick headed for the door.

Chapter Twenty-four

The fae had begun to raise the shield. I woke up to powerful magic pressing at my skull with a vise-like grip. A high-pitched ringing noise rose up in my head with no break in its monotonous tone. I moaned and curled into a ball, covering my ears as if that would help. Behind my eyelids sparks of light flashed brilliantly. There was no escaping as it continued to build.

At least not until a sharp blade at my throat redirected my attention. Pushing past the magic pressing all around me, I opened my senses to figure out who had invaded my room.

Yarrow.

What was he doing here? I could sense none of the discomfort or sick feelings he’d emitted earlier—just cold, hard anger. He was in a murderous rage and there were no magic trinkets fueling him. This was all natural.

“I knew I’d find you hiding in here,” he said, cutting a shallow slice into my throat.

“What do you want, Yarrow?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “Your death.”

I tilted my head a fraction so I could see him better. “Are you still holding a grudge over the compulsion Lucas did for me?”

“You fool. This is a lot bigger than that. Now get up!” He backed away just far enough for me to do so.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I could hardly defend myself lying in bed with a blade at my throat. It told me something about his stupidity that he allowed me to get to my feet first. Then again, the mattresses were so soft here there was probably no way he’d be able to cut deep enough without me sinking into the bed. Not that I’d lay there and take it.

Keeping my eyes on him, I swung my feet to the floor and stood.

“This would have been much easier if you’d just died when that idiot werewolf attacked you.” Even though the only light we had came from the kerosene lamp in the sitting room, I could see Yarrow’s face had turned red.

I spread my feet apart, carefully positioning my body into a better fighting stance. “Did you have something to do with that? Someone had to put the trinket on Gabe.”

“He should have killed you.” Yarrow pressed the blade against my throat. “Instead you had to defy the natural order of things and become immortal.”

Right. Because everything else about the supernatural world wasn’t unnatural. I’d always suspected the fairy was psychotic, but he’d hid his craziness fairly well. It didn’t help that most fae were a little off in their behavior, making it tough to judge what was normal.

“Did you organize the attack?” I asked. Might as well see how much he’d confess to while he was in the talking mood.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He scoffed. “This is much bigger than you can imagine.”

“Did Micah get too close to the truth? Did you take him out?”

He snorted. “The nephilim was no concern of mine. I was simply asked to put him into
the sleep
. It was another who took him away.”

“Where did they take him?” I angled my body so I wasn’t backed up quite so close to the bed.

“Enough questions!” He dropped the knife and pulled a sword from a scabbard strapped close to his side. I hadn’t even noticed it.

Yarrow wasted no time swinging it at me. I ducked just before it reached my neck, but felt the air stir over my head.

“You must die. It’s all part of the plan.” He swung the sword again.

I rolled to the side toward the open door, dodging the blade. My bed chamber was too small to maneuver in. I needed to get him into the sitting room where I had a better chance of defending myself. But first I needed something from my pack, which was thankfully next to the door.

“What is this all about?” I asked, reaching behind me to dig into the bag.

“As if I would tell you.” He moved to swing the sword again.

I thrust my leg up and kicked his arm hard enough to send the blade flying. He raced across the room to grab it.

“You can’t kill me, Yarrow. You’re wasting your time,” I taunted, standing up. I’d gotten what I needed from the pack.

“Everyone can die. It’s simply a matter of figuring out how.” He drove the blade forward, charging like a bull.

I scrambled backward into the sitting room, but tripped on the rug behind me with my bare feet. The object I’d grabbed went flying from my grasp. Yarrow’s blade sliced across my stomach before I could twist away, but it didn’t go deep.

“If it can bleed…” he began.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, clutching my wound to stem the flow of blood. “It can be killed. You watch too many movies.”

Yarrow was a strong fairy for only being sixty-five years old—young by his race’s standards, but I didn’t think he had enough power to kill me. That didn’t mean I wanted to test that theory by letting him try, though.

When his blade came arcing toward me once more, I rolled to the side, barely missing it as it struck the rug instead. It was time to stop playing around and get my taser from where it had fallen.

When he came for me again, I grabbed the nearby end table and held it out in front of me. It had a preservation spell on it that would have made it effective if not for the blood on my hands. The sword cut it in half, fracturing it into pieces. I tossed them at the fairy, forcing him to protect his face.

Before Yarrow could swing at me again I dropped to a kneeling position and swung my foot out, landing a blow to the side of his knee. He went crashing to the floor, but kept his sword upright. Wasting no time, I grabbed the taser and turned it on the highest setting.

He was staggering to his feet when I shoved it into his side. His body immediately began convulsing. I’d heard most sups didn’t handle electrical charges well—hence their dislike of lightning—but this was a stronger reaction than I’d expected.

Within seconds he was flat on the floor and blood was coming out of his mouth where he’d bitten his tongue. I put one foot down on his wrist since he was still gripping his sword and shoved a knee into his belly. The taser was no longer needed, so I tossed it onto a nearby chair. It took peeling his fingers back one by one to get the sword free of his hand, but I managed it.

Standing up, I pointed the sword downward and thrust it straight into his heart. A fairy couldn’t die this way, but like most immortals it would incapacitate him until it was pulled out. I needed him alive and wouldn’t take his head. We needed to find out what he knew. I was especially interested in finding out who was behind the attack and if he knew where Micah had been taken.

Positioned with one foot on either side of Yarrow’s body, I kept a tight hold on the sword. He struggled to breathe, to move, to even twitch his fingers. I watched it all dispassionately. Now he knew how I felt when he’d had the same thing done to me.

Nienna and Elros walked in a few minutes later and gaped at me standing before them. I was wearing nothing but a tank top and underwear, blood covered my stomach, and my hair flew in every direction. A mirror across the room told me how bad I looked. Plus I had a man straddled between my legs and a sword shoved into him. Thinking of it that way, it sounded like the beginning of a really bad comedy.

Chapter Twenty-five

“Melena, what…” Nienna’s mouth opened and closed as she looked at me and my captive. “What happened?”

“I’m guessing he made himself temporarily sick to get out of us fully questioning him—plus it got him out of raising the shield. Just a little while ago he paid me a visit with his sword and tried to kill me. It appears I was getting too close in our investigation and he wanted to do away with me before I discovered his guilt.” I twisted the blade in Yarrow’s chest for emphasis. He groaned.

Elros slipped back out the door. I supposed to tell someone what was going on. Nienna took a few steps closer and looked down at Yarrow.

“How did he get in here? The door was locked.”

We both looked over at it, but it didn’t appear to have any damage and I sensed no lingering magic spells.

I shrugged. “Check his pockets. Maybe he’s got a key.”

She knelt down and started searching him. There were actually several loose keys in his pants pockets. She compared them to her own and one matched.

“He must have stolen it. The key master would never have given him a copy.” She shook her head.

“You’ll have to ask him about that.” Even I hadn’t gotten one and I slept here.

“What has Yarrow told you so far?” she asked.

“Not much. He did admit to helping with Micah’s disappearance and orchestrating the werewolf attack on me.” I went on to give her a brief recap of the events before her arrival.

By the time I was done, Elros was back with a set of heavy duty chains and two burly trolls. The gleam in their eyes said they looked forward to this duty.

“We need to get him to the elders. They have ways of forcing him to talk,” Nienna said, taking the chains from Elros.

Working together, we got the sword out of Yarrow and rolled him over to truss him up. There were two sets of chains. One that bound his wrists close together and another that shackled his legs, leaving him just enough room to walk at a shuffle. Elros took the sword from me after the trolls got Yarrow standing. The fairy’s face was ashen from blood loss, but the rage in his eyes said the fight wasn’t out of him yet.

“Will the elders need my help?” I asked.

“You might want to take a shower and put on some clean clothes,” she suggested. “They’ll want to speak with him alone first, but they may request your help after that. You should be ready in case they do.”

As soon as the group left, I locked the door against any new would-be attackers and headed to the bathroom connected to my room. The shirt and underwear I had on were ruined and had to be dumped in the trash. Somehow my hair had gotten blood in it as well and would need to be scrubbed extra hard.

My nerves were still shaken, but I was anxious to find out what Yarrow knew. We’d finally gotten a solid lead—at my expense—and they kept me away. I was really sick of being left on the outside with the fae. What did I have to do to prove I wasn’t going to turn on them?

Almost two hours passed before Elros returned. I covered up my annoyance after he told me the fae elders requested my presence. He led me to the spiral stairs down the hall, but rather than going up as usual, we traveled farther down. The temperature dropped with each level we descended until I was sure I’d see my breath soon. At the very bottom we reach a heavy wooden door with a troll standing on either side of it. They nodded at Elros and opened it for us.

We entered another dark corridor with a dungeon-like quality to it. There were torches lining the walls and rushes on the stone floor. I counted a total of six cells—three on each side—with iron doors and small windows for guards to check on any prisoners inside. There was no need for me to look. My senses told me they were all empty. The only people down here were those occupying the room at the end.

When Elros led me to it, I half expected it to be a torture chamber full of all kinds of devices like the ones Kerbasi used on Lucas in Purgatory. Instead the only thing inside was something that looked similar to a rack, though it didn’t stretch the prisoner—it just kept them bound in place with iron manacles that were attached to it.

Yarrow lay there, wearing nothing more than a pair of pants and a grimace. Blood still covered his otherwise pale chest. His muscles were taut as he fought some kind of mind meld that Ireth had placed on him. The elder elf woman’s face was a study of deep concentration as she worked inside his head. I could sense the invisible tendrils between them.

Everyone stood at the back of the room observing her work. There were no chairs or other furniture to sit on, but it didn’t appear there was a need for them. The male fairy screamed when she probed deeper into his mind. It made my head hurt just sensing what was being done to him. It was like she was peeling away each layer of his consciousness. If she could do this, why had she needed me?