Dominion (16 page)

He managed to snatch one of the creatures in his hand, the texture of the thing like a rat slicked with oil. He had hold of the thing around the waist and lifted
it
up
before slammin
g it to the ground, crushing it
into th
e dirt. The little body crunched,
but then the consistency
changed
and
it melted away, turning into air and shadows beneath his hand.

Around him, the little creatures shrieked with rage, but they let him go. He landed heavily on his back, the back of his head smacking against the ground.

Not allowing himself to rest for a moment, Sebastian leapt back to his feet. He spun one way and the other, but there was no sign of the strange critters. They had vanished.

Hurry up
.
Get me back again.

If he stayed here too long, he feared he might never return.

Chapter Sixteen

Serenity gasped for breath,
her hands clutching at her throat,
the interior of the trailer pulling away
as darkness crept into her vision
.

In front of her, Sebastian slumped on the floor and immediately the pressure that had been constricting her chest and throat vanished.

Iona’s hand pressed against Serenity’s shoulder and she glanced up. “I’m so sorry I had to do that to you. I couldn’t see any other way.”

Serenity’s throat and lungs burned, but she managed to nod. “It’s okay,” she croaked. “I understand.”

“Close your eyes. I’ll help the pain.”

Serenity looked up into the girl’s clear blue eyes. Genuine concern etched her face.

“Please,” Iona said.

Serenity closed her eyes and Iona’s small, warm hand pressed against her sternum. Heat flared through her throat and lungs and, instantly, the raw, burning pain vanished. Iona’s hand withdrew and Serenity opened her eyes.

“Thank you.”

Iona shrugged. “It was the least I could do.”

“So, now what?” she asked, glancing over at Sebastian. He appeared to be unconscious on the floor, collapsed on his side, his eyes closed. Trepidation tripped though her, stealing her breath once again. She didn’t want to go near or touch him, terrified the demon would reappear in his face.

“Help me sit him upright,” Iona said, already heading over to his inert form. “And then we can get on with this. The sooner I find out what I need to know, the sooner we can try to get your vampire back again. And, believe
me,
we want to get this done quickly. The longer he stays on the other plain, the harder it will be to bring him home.”

“Okay.” Serenity got to her feet, pushing aside her fears. She would face a hundred demons if it meant saving Sebastian.

Together, struggling with his bulk, they hoisted him to sitting, his back resting against the wall, his chin dropped to his chest. He looked so helpless, like a shell of himself.

Serenity straightened, her hand pressed against the base of her spine.
“So what now?”

“Now I try the spell again, only this time without your vampire resisting.”

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?”

Iona didn’t answer. “Just stand back and keep quiet.”

Serenity pressed her lips together and took a step back. Was this girl really only sixteen? At moments she seemed exactly what Serenity would expect of a sixteen-year-old, and other times she acted like something else entirely.

Iona knelt in front of Sebastian, his large form dwarfing hers.

“Don’t hurt him,” Serenity said, sounding like a child herself.

Iona looked back over her shoulder, sweeping her mane of white-blonde hair across her back. “I’ll do whatever I need to.”

She didn’t have the power to stop Iona, even if she wanted to.

Serenity tore herself from her chain of thought. She needed to trust that Iona was doing the right thing to help them.
The girl might not like vampires, but she did like Elizabeth and wanted to stop this thing from getting out.

Iona held her hands out, placing them over Sebastian’s chest with an inch of space between. In low tones, she began her chant again.

Within moments, darkness rushed beneath the surface of his face until it swam beneath his skin like a bruise. His cheekbones swelled, one side of his nose bulging outward. Something moved beneath the smooth skin of his forehead and Serenity had to stifle a scream.

“Tell me what circle summoned you here,” Iona demanded.

Seeing the face of something else behind the features
of one Serenity
loved so dearly was horrifying. It was as though the demon wore Sebastian’s face as a mask.

He strained against invisible bonds which held him where he sat. His back bowed, pushing out his chest, his biceps bulging.

“I come from no circle, witch!” Sebastian spat, his voice deeper and harsher,
not his own. “Only the promise of a soul has brought me here.”

Iona’s hands trembled with effort as she continued to use some kind of invisible magic to pin both the vampire and demon to the wall. “Explain
yourself
!” she commanded.

“The one who brought me here made a deal with the power of Dominion. She promised the soul of an original and, in return, I will do her bidding and kill those who have caused her harm.”

“An original what?”

“An original child.
A soul half-light and half-dark.
She will help us break the boundaries between our worlds.”

“Elizabeth!” Serenity breathed.

Iona’s head turned, her wide eyes horrified, clearly having come to the same conclusion. The break in concentration made her lose her control of the demon and Sebastian fell back against the wall, his body relaxing,
the
darkness in his face clearing.

But for once, Serenity’s attention wasn’t on him. “She doesn’t have a half-dark soul,” she cried. “Elizabeth is light, through and through.”

“She’s half vampire,” Iona reminded her.

“I don’t care! There isn’t a bad bone in her body.”

“Right now, I agree with you, but perhaps in the future she has the potential to choose to go one way or the other.”

Serenity stared at the girl. She didn’t want to believe her. She knew her own daughter and there was nothing bad about Elizabeth. She was as sweet as a child could get.

But what about the time she’d spent with Demitri? He had fed her blood and Elizabeth admitted that she’d liked it, that she’d wanted more. Was that the dark side this demon spoke about? If Elizabeth had continued down the route, if things had gone differently and Demitri had won, would Elizabeth have continued wanting blood? Would she have turned into a child who killed?

The thought was abhorrent.

She turned her attention to Sebastian.

“Is the demon still inside him?” she asked, nervous. He looked like himself again, though he was unconscious—or whatever the vampire equivalent of unconscious was.

Iona nodded. “It’s still inside him.
Hiding beneath the surface.”

“But what about this circle you were talking about? Did you get what you needed to know?”

Iona chewed at her lower-lip. “There is no circle. Somehow the vampire you’ve spoken of has done this herself.”

“Does that make things better or worse?” Panic rose in Serenity’s chest, catching her breath. Now, it seemed not only could she risk losing Sebastian to this other world, but her daughter was at risk as well.

Iona held her gaze. “I don’t know.”

Shouts from outside caught their attention. 

They exchanged a confused glance.

“What the hell?” said
Serenity.

Iona had already turned to run from the trailer. Serenity followed and they raced outside to find Vincent standing on the outskirts of the camp. A number of burly men from Iona’s people stood around him, but the huge, skinhead vampire held his own, his eyes glaring yellow in the dark, his pale skin catching the light spilling from the trailers. The men from the camp danced around him like matadors around a bull. He
snarled, revealing his fangs, his jaw thick and protruding in the dim light. He made an imposing and terrifying figure.

Bridget stood by, Elizabeth clutched behind her. “That’s my son!” she cried. “He’s supposed to be here.”

“It’s another goddamn vampire,” one of the men snapped.

“He’s my son!” Bridget insisted.

Iona strode forward. “Henry, Conner, stand down. The vampire has been asked here."

One of the guys—a black-haired man in his late thirties—turned to her, confusion and anger on his face. “What the hell are you doing, Iona, bringing more of their kind onto our turf?”

“Back down, Henry.
This isn’t your business.”

“Hell it isn’t! This is our home. Our children live here.”

Vincent spun around to face him. “I’m not going to eat your goddamn children, moron.”

Henry scowled. “No, you won’t,
cause
we sure as hell won’t let you!”

“Don’t think for a minute that you fairies could stop me.”

Bridget released Elizabeth and the little girl ran to Serenity.

“Stop it!” the older woman cried, walking forward to put herself between her son and Iona’s men. “Just stop it. Iona and I need Vincent to be here. We asked him here.”

Iona stepped up front, her presence somehow greater than her slight figure. “She’s right, Henry. We need this vampire to help us find someone. There is more at stake here than just a dislike of their kind. If we don’t stop this thing, it might be the end of our world.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Her eyes flicked to where Elizabeth stood with Serenity.
“Exactly what I said.
Allow the vampire past. We have bigger things to battle.”

Vincent shoved past the man, knocking his shoulder. Henry stared after him with fury in his eyes. As Vincent walked on, he hit something, like an invisible force field and rebounded off it. Henry’s mouth turned up in a smirk.

“What the hell is this?” Vincent demanded.

“Sorry,” said Iona. “We couldn’t take any chances. Henry, Conner, you can remove the shield.”

The men narrowed their eyes, but both lifted their right hands and spoke something in Latin.

Straight away, Vincent pushed his way past the invisible line. He rolled his thick shoulders as though shrugging the magic off. “So, do you need this ring or not?”

Serenity stepped forward. “We do, Vincent. Thank you for coming.”

“Wasn’t much of a welcome
party.
”

“I’m sorry, but they need to be careful.”

His eyes flicked to Elizabeth. The girl cowered behind Serenity’s legs. Whatever else the rest of them thought of Vincent, Elizabeth clearly still remembered her time in captivity.

The big vampire glanced awkwardly away.

Bridget placed her hand on her son’s heavily muscled arm, drawing his attention. “Did you bring what we need?”

Vincent nodded.
“Of course.”
He scowled at the men still surrounding him. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Come with us,” said Iona.

The small group—Iona, Serenity, Elizabeth, Bridget and Vincent—made their way back to Iona’s trailer and closed the door on the aggressive vibes still coming from Iona’s people. Serenity prayed this wouldn’t all go wrong. She didn’t want her small family on the wrong side of the angry Irish.

They stood together awkwardly in the middle of the sorceress’s living room. “I need for us all to join hands,” said Iona.

Serenity cast her gaze around the strange ensemble. “But we’re not witches.”

“No, but you’re the ones who need to find this … woman. Your need will help my magic locate her. That and the ring the vampire has brought.”

Vincent fished in his jeans pocket and pulled out a band of gold, circles of diamonds embedded in its surface. “Demitri gave it to her,” he said. “I think she imagined the ring meant something, though he probably stole it from a woman he’d killed.”

Serenity cringed, wanting to cover Elizabeth’s ears with her hands. But Elizabeth had already seen far worse—memories Serenity would never be able to wipe from her daughter’s mind, however much she might want to.

Iona took Natasha’s ring from the center of Vincent’s huge, overstretched palm. The massive vampire made her appear even more petite than before. She placed the ring on the floor in the middle of the room and extended a hand out to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth smiled shyly at her and took her hand. On the other side, Iona reached out to Bridget. Bridget took the girl’s small hand and then outstretched her other to Vincent.

Iona shook her head. “Not him. The dead interfere with the living.”

“I’m not dead,” Vincent said with a scowl.

“You’re not alive either.”

Vincent pressed his lips together, obviously repressing another remark, but he managed to hold himself back and took a couple of steps back to the outskirts of the room.

Iona nodded at Serenity, motioning for her to join them. Serenity took a shaky breath and stepped forward, joining hands with Elizabeth and Bridget to complete the circle. Elizabeth’s eyes locked with Serenity’s and the girl gave her a brave smile. She forced herself to smile back, though involving both herself and her daughter in any kind of magic made her nervous.

“What’s about to happen may feel strange,” Iona said. “But if you want to find this other vampire and free Sebastian, you can’t break the circle.”

Serenity and Elizabeth nodded obediently.

Iona closed her eyes to concentrate and began her chant. “I draw from the elements of the earth to locate the owner of this object. I draw from the elements … I draw from the elements … I draw from the elements …”