Angel Magic, page 6
part #2 of Sirangel Series
Dimorelli crossed his legs in the opposite direction and draped an arm across the back of the chair as if he were having a casual conversation with an acquaintance. Nothing about the vampire matched the circumstances. “And how is it that you’d just met?”
Quinn shrugged, the gesture stiff because of his dislocated shoulder. “She just showed up at the house. There wasn’t time to figure out much about her before you arrived and attacked us.”
Quinn was telling Dimorelli the truth, which made me think the vampire hadn’t been exaggerating his ability to identify lies.
“So you have no idea what she is?” Dimorelli’s voice was heavy with skepticism.
“I don’t know for certain what she is, no. I spent a total of a few hours with her in my entire life before she showed up here. So if you’re looking for information on her, I don’t have it to give.”
“Well, that’s a shame. I’d hoped to spare you from what’s coming. But you give me no choice. Do you see that, Quinn? You’re forcing me to do this.”
“Whatever lies you need to tell yourself to sleep at night. Oh wait, you don’t sleep. You never get any kind of peace. Maybe that’s why you’re so nasty.”
Dimorelli straightened in his seat and growled, all beast. Gone was the sophisticated businessman in a three-piece suit. He twisted all the way in his seat until he faced the rest of his underlings. “Come, all of you. The boy here needs to learn to respect me.”
When the six goblins were lined up shoulder to rounded, drooping shoulder in front of Quinn, they looked to the vampire for final direction. “How far do we go, Masta?” one of them asked. I thought he was the one who’d been petting the ginormous rat Boodles, but it was difficult to be sure. “We almost killed him last time.”
They’d almost killed him? My heart hiccupped and a spike of adrenaline whooshed through my body, giving me the strength to push myself to sitting. “Y-you’re not going to have all six of them hurt him at once, are you?” I asked, wishing I’d been better able to hide the tremor in my voice. Six of them! If this was what I felt like after three, and not all of them at once, they’d for sure kill Quinn. He was already broken to begin with.
“What’s it to you if I am? You barely know each other.”
“It doesn’t matter how well I know him, I don’t want you to hurt him. You shouldn’t be hurting any of us. We’ve done nothing to harm you or anybody you care about. You’re not being fair.” I leaned against the back wall to hold myself up as I glared at the vampire, ignoring the fact that his eyes were searing into my own like they could light me on fire by will alone.
The vampire stared at me for another few moments before throwing his head back in abrupt laughter. “Fair? You expect life to be fair. Where have you been living, princess? There hasn’t been a single fair thing in my entire life, and I’ve been alive since the sixteenth century. I lived through the supposed Renaissance, but there was no revival of anything but horror. If you expect life to be anything beyond suffering, then you don’t know what life truly is.”
I held his stare even as his fury illuminated the depths of his eyes from within. “What I’m doing isn’t about fairness, it’s about power. The only thing that matters in this world, in this long and wretched life, is power. That’s the only way to survive. You must outpower everyone around you.”
His anger brought a bit of color to his pale, shadowed face. He gestured toward the goblins. “Do you think they do my bidding because they admire me? Because we’re friends? No, they do what I ask because they know that if they don’t, I have the power to wipe them from the Earth and make them hurt while they’re on their way out. Do you think Naomi Nettles brought you to me from the kindness of her charred and blackened heart? Or because I wield enough power and influence over her to bend her to my will?”
The vampire rolled his neck and snapped his straight pristine ivory shirt collar even straighter. “Which is all why, Selene, you will give me what I want. And so will Quinn. The only thing you need to decide is how much pain you’ll endure before you give me what I want. Because I always, always get what I want. Nothing you can do will change that.”
He dismissed me and turned his attention to Quinn, who hadn’t moved from his spot. “Magic him until he wishes he were dead, but don’t kill him.”
“Ah, all of us at once, Masta?” Even the goblin sounded like he didn’t think that kind of magical force at once was a good idea, and I was pretty sure the goblins enjoyed inflicting pain.
“Yes,” the vampire hissed. “All of you. Now. Until I tell you to stop.”
The goblin nodded and shared a couple of concerned glances with the others before hot, white sparks erupted between his knobby hands. I turned to Quinn, suddenly unable to sit still out of my nerves for him. No one person could withstand six of the attacks I just had. It wasn’t possible. It was simply too much.
“Quinn!” I whisper-shouted urgently. Magic already crackled in the air but hadn’t yet driven into him.
He turned his head slowly, as if he were already in that place in his mind where he retreated to in order to survive the pain. “It’s okay,” he said in a level voice that told me he really was broken inside. “They can’t hurt me anymore.”
His eyes, the ones that had once reminded me of the sparkling insides of an abalone shell, were dim, as if the light had already started to leave his spirit while he was still alive. “Goodbye, Selene. I’m sorry we never got to know each other.” Then he smiled sadly, and the gesture about broke my heart. A traitorous sob tore free from my chest.
The vampire’s head whipped around to look at me.
“What?” I seethed. “Can’t I care about another person without us knowing each other’s secrets? Can’t I care that you’re about to hurt an innocent man?”
Dimorelli stared at me for so long that his response confused me. Then he grinned—all teeth and pointy fangs along the edges, not a speck of heart.
“The fact that you care is what makes this work so well.”
He flicked his hand to the goblins. He held my stare while the magic crackled so intensely in the cell next to me that the hairs on my body lifted in response. The bright light from Quinn’s cell flickered across the vampire’s lifeless eyes, giving them the illusion they actually had life to them.
But they didn’t. They couldn’t. No one could be this heartless and have a heart to give him life.
The smell of burning coated the musty air. Whimpers emanated from the cage, and I still refused to look. I wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing me break.
Then sounds of flesh slapping stone rattled through my cell. My head turned as if of its own volition. I gasped. As light of six different bright shades, from white to violet to blue to orange, poured into his body, Quinn’s body thrashed and spasmed against the hard ground. His hands contorted against the pain, and he spun to escape it against his dislocated right arm.
Quinn had told me not to worry about him if he were tortured. But there was no way he’d last another minute like this. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and I shrieked, “Stop! Stop right now and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
But the sadistic creep didn’t order his minions to stop, though many of them turned to him for the signal. He leaned toward me in his chair. “I want more than what you can tell me. I want your power. Give me that, and I’ll order them to stop.”
“I-I can’t shift.” I flicked desperate eyes between him and Quinn. “I never have before.”
“Then agree to give me whatever I can figure out to take.”
That sounded like a terrible bargain, but I didn’t even hesitate. “Yes! Yes, I’ll do it.”
The vampire looked into my eyes for another few agonizing seconds while Quinn thrashed violently across the filth beneath him. I jumped from my seat on the floor, rushed to the bars, and snarled through them. “Stop this right now or I withdraw my offer.”
Of course, the reality was that I had no real leverage and he probably knew it. But I’d learned one lesson well at the Menagerie. You act like you have the upper hand whether you do or not.
As if we were discussing the weather instead of Quinn’s life, he waved his hand casually. The goblins’ magic ceased abruptly. They retreated from Quinn’s cell back to their place, lined up against the wall.
Quinn sucked in air in huge, desperate gasps, his eyes bulging. Then he curled in on himself and began coughing in racking spasms until he spit up blood. The light filtering from the other room illuminated the deep crimson hues of his suffering.
He tried to push himself to sitting but collapsed onto his right shoulder. He wheezed in pain and shot up from his arm, flopping onto his back, where he dissolved into a puddle of limpness.
I rushed to the bars between us. “Quinn?” I whispered.
But he ignored me, choosing instead to spear Antonio Dimorelli with a stare so filled with hate that I shrank away from it. “One day, I will kill you.”
The vampire smiled broadly at that, as if he admired Quinn’s desire for vengeance. “No, you won’t. And in the meantime, I’ll make you suffer. Now that I know she cares for you, I suspect hurting her might be the way to finally get you to shift for me.”
Quinn chuckled, but the sound was empty, desperate, overcome by fear. “The girl means nothing to me.” He spit onto the floor next to him, blood swirling through his saliva. “I told you, I barely know her.”
Even though I realized Quinn was just saying it to protect me, and even though his voice lacked the necessary conviction—maybe because he’d almost been tortured to death moments before—his words still sliced me to the bone. My heart squeezed and I realized I had to get him out of here. Because I no longer was certain how capable I was of living without him.
Our connection wasn’t normal, and Quinn, even unable to sit up, was fighting to protect me and what we shared—whatever it was.
The vampire looked between Quinn and me, back and forth a couple of times, before his wide lips broke into the worst and most feral grin yet.
My heart stuttered.
He stood and pushed the chair back with a loud, piercing squeak. He pulled on his suit jacket sleeves and straightened his shoulders. His grin lit his eyes before settling on Quinn. “You’re lying. Hurting Selene will hurt you just as much.”
He turned back toward the entryway. “Come on, boys,” he said to the goblins. “Let’s allow them to rest for a bit so they can better endure what’s coming. Because once I start, I’m not going to stop until they give me exactly what I want.”
The vampire disappeared through the doorway without a single other word to us, followed by a chorus of sneers and shuffling. The monstrous rats popped back up out of the shadows and scampered across the floor of the dungeon to catch up to the goblins.
Then the light flickered out, plunging us into darkness so all-encompassing that it reached for my soul.
“Quinn?” I said with a shaky voice.
8
“Quinn?” I repeated when he didn’t answer. I stared into the inkwell that was his cell, but with my eyes readjusting from the artificial lighting, I couldn’t make out a thing. The sliver of night the small window in each of our cells revealed did little to help, especially since rain had rolled in sometime since Dimorelli began torturing Quinn. Cold, thin raindrops snaked in through the opening, making me long for water—to drink, to bathe in. The goblins hadn’t left us food or drink. But however desperate I was for water after days without, I didn’t wish them back.
I slumped against the back wall of my cell, pressed against the bars that separated me from Quinn. Tears stung my eyes and my throat as all of my aches revealed themselves in the absence of Dimorelli’s torment. If I felt like every one of my limbs was leaden with pain, then how was Quinn feeling?
“Q-Quinn?” I tried again. “I know you’re hurting, and I know...” Hell, what did I know of what he was going through? I’d only been awake for hours. He’d been here, enduring the vampire and his goblins, for months. “Just let me know if you’re all right, or if you’ll be all right, I guess. Just give me some sign.” I was rambling. Quinn probably didn’t have the energy to say a word. He should focus all his strength on recovery. But what those goblins had done to him, it was enough to kill a person. Of that, I had no doubt.
I waited … but no murmur, no sigh, not even a grunt of pain came. There were no sounds of shuffling or … anything.
“Quinn?” His name tangled in a sob that I worked hard to contain. The least I could do for Quinn was maintain some semblance of strength for him, even if I wasn’t sure I had enough for the job.
But again, Quinn did not answer.
I didn’t dare think it. I didn’t consider the obvious reason why he might not be answering.
I shook my head in my empty cell, and steadfastly refused to entertain that option. Nope. I wouldn’t do it. Quinn was strong. Hadn’t he just been protecting me by defying Dimorelli?
Quinn would recover. He just needed a little rest after the shock his body must be working to overcome.
As the minutes slipped by and melded with the hours, I could no longer keep the panic at bay. The rain stopped and the thickest of the clouds parted from the moon. It was little more than a sliver of silver that I could make out in the upper corner of my view, but it was enough to illuminate Quinn lying on his back, limbs splayed wide, unmoving. But the waning moon wasn’t enough to reach his face, and I couldn’t discern whether or not his chest rose with breath.
What had I done? I could have told Dimorelli I’d give him what he wanted earlier and spared Quinn. Why hadn’t I? Because Quinn had told me not to worry and not to do a thing? How foolish I’d been! And now he might be … dead.
There was no denying the thought anymore. My heart squeezed with the fear of it.
Magic! Quinn had told me our only hope out of here was magic. I’d lost sight of it entirely.
There was nothing keeping me from trying now. If Quinn woke—when Quinn woke—maybe I’d have a way out of here. It sure beat sitting around waiting for him to show signs of life.
I tore my gaze from Quinn and brought my attention inward. I’d have to forget my own aches and cold and figure out whatever magical powers I had, the one thing I hadn’t accomplished even while at the Menagerie—with a support team.
I swallowed a sigh and closed my eyes to shut out my prison. Even though it was said that shapeshifters didn’t have magic, that wasn’t entirely true. They had their own type of magic, the one that allowed them to shift from a form that appeared to be human into whatever shifter form was theirs. Shapeshifters had plenty of magic, just not the kind they could harness for a magical attack like the goblins had used.
I was a shapeshifter … I supposed. I had a tail when in water and the power of a siren’s song even on land. But when on land I had legs and wings, neither of which had disappeared, even though it would have been nice to make my wings vanish. Maybe then creatures like Dimorelli wouldn’t want to steal my power.
But shapeshifters usually only shifted into one creature, and their other shape was human-like. I didn’t seem to possess the human stage, though I appeared human enough—if one could look human with wings. I was a hybrid, the child of two different magical creatures, so it made sense that I’d have inherited their two forms. But … what about the magic? The merpeople didn’t have magic.
I sucked in a startled breath. That wasn’t true, that wasn’t true at all. Deep beneath the sea, Mulunu harnessed magic, powerful magic, and she used her sea crystal and staff to channel it. Moreover, some of the merwarriors were able to access a lower level magic when needed to defend the clan.
Ahh…
My heart sank. But Mulunu wasn’t a shapeshifter like me, nor were any of the other merpeople, who remained as such all their lives. Mulunu had only one shape, that of a merwoman. She was basically a witch who lived underwater.
So if the merpeople didn’t have magic, that left the angels. Little was known about the angels as they rarely came to Earth. My father, Raziel, was the only one I knew of who’d had any kind of recent contact with creatures of the Earth. My magic must come from him. But since I didn’t understand what angels were capable of, this deduction wasn’t entirely helpful.
All the magic I’d managed had been purely by accident. I didn’t intend to send Naomi Nettles or her familiar Petunia anywhere, and yet they’d disappeared. If I could manage that for Quinn and me, then I wouldn’t care if I didn’t understand, or even if I sent us back to that nowhere land that had been so uncomfortable. Any place, even an artificial one between dimensions, would be better than here.
“Quinn?” I called out again. I wouldn’t dare try any kind of magic that might transport me away from here without being able to touch him. No response. I chewed at my lip. I didn’t think I could reach him from here, but maybe...
I smooshed my upper body and face uncomfortably against the bars separating us, stretching my arm toward the dark lump that was Quinn. Spread like a starfish, his left hand was closest to me. I strained and extended my hand so my fingers almost touched his. Almost. I was about a finger length away from reaching him.
My stomach plummeted. I couldn’t even attempt to conjure magic, not without touching him. If I’d proven anything, it was that my magic was highly unpredictable.
I allowed my head to slump against the wall behind me. The wall was damp and cold enough to seep from it into the bones of my back, and from there into every part of me. Still, I somehow managed to doze off. When I woke, the light held the faint tinges of the coming dusk.
And Quinn was staring at me.
“Quinn,” I breathed, rushing to press against the bars between us again. “Are you all right?”
“Just peachy.” He rubbed his left hand across his face. “Man, that was the worst time yet. Sorry I passed out on you.”
“You’re sorry you passed out on me? You’re sorry?” I sounded a bit hysterical, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t let that vamp keep hurting you. I thought he was going to kill you.”
