Eddie Lancaster Box Set 2, page 35
part #4 of Eddie Lancaster Series
I heard the front door fly inwards. The force of it hitting the wall shook the house. I looked at the hallway in puzzlement. Sabrina ran for the front door and seconds later went hurtling through the air towards the kitchen. Who the fuck was attacking me in my own home? Surely the factions hadn’t decided to retaliate so quickly. If they had what did that mean for Gabe and the others? I ran out into the hallway. Several people in dark clothing were hustling through the door.
‘Who the—’ I started. One of them pointed at me, sending a spell my way. Instantly I felt the drowsiness set in. I’ve cast enough sleeping spells to know they work too fast to fight. Still, I raised my arm to return a spell their way but before I could even concentrate the world slipped away and I was falling.
I woke up on an uncomfortable single bed. It seriously felt like I was lying on one of those gym mats from school, the thin blue ones. The ones you never actually trusted to protect you from a fall. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked around at my surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. The light was coming from an orb suspended above me. Magic. Sorcerers were behind this. They’d hit me with a sleeping spell. I did not appreciate the irony of that. Was it Cheryl, Goku or the other one? I couldn’t remember her name, only that she lived by the river.
I stood up and saw that I was in some sort of clear box. A cage made of glass or plastic. Mine was just one box in a row of many. There were no windows about, so I discerned that I was in some sort of dungeon. Each box had its own orb hanging inside it. I touched my hand to the glass and tried to crack it with a spell only to find I had no magic. Was the box blocking my power? Then I saw that I was not alone. Two boxes down sitting on the floor of her box sat a woman. A woman I had seen before. It was Lauren, the warlock whose hearing I’d attended at the…
‘Fucking bitch,’ I said under my breath as I realised I was at the AOC. It didn’t make sense, though. There was no way Clara would actually have the gall to arrest me from my own town for no reason. Had the factions gone to her for help? Had Richards? I was about to get my answer.
I heard her heels on the concrete floor before I saw her. Clara Winters. Back in her full blue suit, hair up formally. Gone was the more casual, younger girl I’d seen in her office. The bitch-witch was back.
‘You better tell me what the fuck you’re playing at, Clara, and you better tell me quickly,’ I threw the words at her as if they’d be able to cause her some damage.
She stopped on the other side of the glass and took a deep breath, forcing herself to look me in the eye. ‘I didn’t want to do this, Eddie,’ she said quietly. She sounded unsure of herself.
‘Do what?’ I asked, wondering exactly what she had planned for me.
‘Arrest you. When I heard you were trying to contact Nick… I panicked. I couldn’t let you go through with it. I couldn’t risk you joining him. You’re too dangerous,’ she explained. She wasn’t being forceful or domineering like she usually was, she was being reasonable, almost humble.
How did you even know I was going to contact him?’ I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. Had she bugged my house? I wouldn’t put it past her.
‘Sabrina has been feeding me information,’ Clara admitted.
‘She is so fucking dead,’ I growled. I started to pace angrily. ‘And you…’ I stopped and glared at her. ‘How can you not see that this is a serious breach of our trust? How am I ever going to believe you again?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge another day,’ she said sadly. She obviously regretted doing this, but I didn’t care. I was too angry to care. I wanted to hurt people. First her and then Sabrina.
‘I wasn’t going to join him. I just wanted to talk to him,’ I said. ‘But you can rest assured that I’m going join him now. Who the fuck do you think you are?’ I walked right up to the glass and pushed my face as close to hers as I could. She didn’t back away.
‘I’m sorry, Eddie.’
‘Sorry!’ I screamed. ‘Let me the fuck out of this cage right fucking now or I swear to god I will make you understand the meaning of sorry!’
She backed away slowly as I raged at her. Her eyes were wide and horrified. She’d never seen me this angry before. Very few people had. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever even been this angry before. It was a good thing I didn’t have my magic because if I did this building would be burning to ashes. ‘I’ll come back when you’re calmer,’ she said quickly and then hurried away. I screamed after her until she was long out of sight and even then I continued to scream. I screamed, and I shouted, and I kicked and punched at the glass, but nobody came to answer me.
Chapter Twenty
Gabe drove himself straight to Eddie’s house, the newly signed document detailing the agreement between the factions in his hand. This was what he’d been aiming for when he’d first come up with the idea of letting the factions form. Now running the town would be so much easier. The factions would do all the work and Eddie would only need to oversee things. He hoped that Eddie wasn’t harbouring any ill-will towards him for not running his ideas by him before today. Truthfully Eddie had been in no state to run the town. He was grief-stricken and barely functioning. He could barely dress himself without guidance and Gabe had happily provided that guidance. Eddie meant a lot to Gabe. He had given his life direction.
Before becoming a vampire, Gabe had been nothing. His parents had pretty much disowned him after he’d dropped out of college. He wanted to find his own way through life, not follow the route they’d planned out for him. He certainly did not want to be a teacher which was what his father had wanted for him. He preferred the idea of being a lawyer, or an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, after dropping out of college he found he didn’t have the right grades to get on a law degree and he had no idea where to start with being an entrepreneur. His parents kicked him out and he ended up living in a grotty bedsit on Union Street with job seeker’s allowance as his only income. That was until he’d been kidnapped for the Mondersons' experiments. Queue Eddie’s rescue and several months later here he was, the leader of Eddie Lancaster’s vampire team.
Not all of the vampires had been as enthusiastic about working for Eddie as Gabe was. That’s why Gabe had been put in charge. Gabe saw it as an opportunity. A career. He’d been given a whole host of supernatural abilities and all he had to do was keep one guy safe. It turned out that was a tougher job than he’d originally realised. Eddie had a lot of energy and after spending some time with him Gabe could see why. As much as Gabe liked Eddie the guy could benefit from keeping his mouth shut once in a while.
It was sad but true that Ashley’s death had brought with it new opportunities for Gabe. He’d turned a simple security job into a personal assistant job and from there had managed to step up to practically being Eddie’s number two. Gabe had never been as happy as when Eddie had told him to take care of the rest of the faction meeting earlier tonight. Eddie had given him real responsibility. He’d trusted Gabe with the running of his town.
Gabe’s parents still did not want anything to do with him. A couple of months ago he’d gone home to see them. He thought that if they saw him in a fancy suit, with plenty of money they’d realise he was a success and that they’d been wrong. But all they’d seen was that he was not a teacher. How could they have such low ambitions anyway? He was better than a teacher. He was pretty much a politician. He’d left that house and vowed never to return. Eddie appreciated him. Eddie valued him. That was the main thing.
Gabe saw that something was wrong as soon as he arrived at the house. The front door was ajar, and the house was too quiet. His vampiric hearing should’ve been able to pick up some sort of noise made by Eddie, but there was nothing. He focused more, straining to hear his boss’s breathing but he didn’t hear a thing. Eddie might have just gone out, but then why was the door not closed? He wasn’t that careless.
Gabe folded the document and tucked it into the inside pocket of his Dolce and Gabbana suit. Eddie did not care for Gabe’s elaborate dress sense, but the designer suits made Gabe feel like he was somebody. And when you could make someone give you whatever you wanted you might as well go designer. He pushed the front door open slowly. Sabrina was lying at the other end of the hallway, her head twisted right the way round.
‘Shit,’ Gabe whispered. He pulled out his phone and sent a distress text to the others. There was nobody else in the house, there was no way they could be this silent. All the same Gabe shot through the rooms with enhanced speed just to be sure. It didn’t look like the intruders had gone anywhere but the hallway. The rest of the house looked fine. The hallway had a broken table and a dead Sabrina in it. Gabe sat down at the bottom of the stairs and waited for Sabrina to revive. He tried calling Eddie whilst he waited but as expected it went straight through to voicemail. He only needed to wait a minute before the female’s head snapped round and her eyes shot open.
‘Argh,’ she groaned, her hand going to her neck. Gabe had had his neck snapped enough times to know it hurt like hell. ‘Gabe,’ she said quickly, shooting up to her feet.
‘What happened?’ he asked, also rising. He kept a cool composure but on the inside he was on red alert.
‘Uh…’ she looked at the front door as if it might answer for her. ‘Sorcerers came through the door and hit me with a spell. That’s all I remember,’ she said.
‘Where was Eddie?’
‘In the living room,’ she said, poking her head in to see if he was still there.
‘He’s gone now,’ Gabe said. ‘Kidnapped by the looks of it. I really thought the factions had agreed to play ball but all the time they were planning this.’ He walked into the living room, took out the signed document, screwed it up and threw it. The ball of paper stopped mid-air and suddenly Nickolas Blackwood was standing before them, the paper ball in his hand. Gabe froze like a deer in headlights. If there was a higher alert than red he would’ve been on it now. Nick was a wildcard. Gabe wasn’t sure whose side he was on and he had no idea if he could be trusted. Maybe Nick had taken Eddie. He tensed himself ready for a fight and waited to see what Nick did.
Nick unscrewed the paper calmly and then smoothed it out as best he could. He walked casually across the room, as if he had nothing to fear from anyone in the world and offered the paper to Gabe. ‘Your factions had nothing to do with this,’ he said silkily. Gabe took the paper automatically.
‘Then who did?’ he asked.
‘Clara Winters took Eddie. Why don’t we sit down and discuss how you’re going to get him back?’
Chapter Twenty-One
My anger raged on for so long it surprised even me. I punched the glass until my knuckles were raw and bloody. Then I turned my frustration on the bed until it was no longer a functioning piece of furniture but more some sort of expressionist artwork. Nothing seemed to calm me down but trashing what little I had in my cell did make me feel a little more satisfied. Gabe would come. He would need to convince the factions to help because five vampires were not going to cut it. But the factions would never help, most of them had moved to Maidstone because they were scared of Clara, they weren’t going to march to war against her. The only way I was getting out of this cage was if I found my own way out. Maybe I could trick Clara into thinking I’d joined her… No, she wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that. There was no way she was going to let me out of this cage. Not unless I was shackled in iron. But then, maybe I could get myself out.
I looked around to make sure I wasn’t being watched. The only other person in the vicinity was Laura and her cage was so far away that she wouldn’t be able to tell what I was doing. She hadn’t paid me any attention so far, not even when I destroyed my bed. I approached the glass and laid my palm flat on its surface. My blood was still smeared all over it, so I avoided that bit and found a clean section. My knuckles were throbbing, I needed some magic to heal them. With my palm flat on the glass I closed my eyes and focused. The building blocked magic using a spell powered by the entire Alliance of Covens. That meant there was magic I could siphon right out of the building. There was no way I’d be able to take all of the magic, not without blowing myself up, but maybe I could steal just enough to break free. I couldn’t get anything. Even my ability was blocked by the bloody spell.
‘You’re going to need a lot more power to overcome all of the sorcerers powering that spell,’ said a familiar voice. I opened my eyes and saw Dean on the other side of the glass. He was leaning on the opposite cell, his arms folded over his chest.
‘Unless you’re here to let me out, fuck off,’ I snapped. I withdrew my hand from the glass and turned away from him. I would’ve sat on the bed but there was nothing left to sit on.
‘And they say I’m the grumpy one,’ he muttered. I turned and glared at him.
‘Grumpy? You think this is grumpy? This is pissed off! There’s a difference!’ I shouted. If I’d had any magic at my disposal I would have blown him away with my fury. He was lucky. As it was he could tell he was in no danger and didn’t even flinch when I shouted. He probably wouldn’t have flinched anyway.
‘Finished?’ he asked, as though I were a child throwing a wobbly. ‘There’s no point being angry at me, I didn’t put you here.’ He sighed and straightened up. ‘I’ve told Clara this is a mistake, but you know what she’s like. She only listens to herself.’
‘Maybe when I get out of here I’ll cut off her ears so she won’t even be able to do that,’ I seethed. It only took me a second to realise that what I said made absolutely no sense. My anger was starting to make a fool out of me. Dean raised an eyebrow.
‘This anger is why you’re still here. I’d got her to consider letting you out but then you went and threw a tantrum and now you’ve got no hope.’
‘What did she expect a cup of tea and a slice of cake?’ Actually, I could do with both of those right now.
‘She said you reminded her too much of Nick when you lost your temper. She’s scared, Eddie. Scared you’ll turn into him. She can’t risk your ability falling into his hands.’
‘So, what? She’s just gonna keep me in here forever?’ I demanded.
Dean shook his head. ‘No. You’ll be here until Nick is taken off the table. She’s going to find the Ambrotos Dagger, use it to put him down and then bury him in cement somewhere he’ll never be found. Then you can go back to Maidstone and carry on with your life.’
‘Oh, as if! She’s going to take over Maidstone while I’m out of the picture. There’ll be nothing for me to go back to,’ I argued.
‘Actually, she’s not. She’s going to reach out to Gabe. As long as he doesn’t try to rescue you she will let him run Maidstone in your absence. It will be right there for you when you get out. She said she wouldn’t take Maidstone and she sticks to her word.’
I laughed drily. ‘Is this sticking to her word?’ I gestured at the glass walls enclosing me.
‘Well, technically she never said anything about not locking you up.’ To that I said nothing. The only answer he got was my iciest glower. ‘Her motives are good, but as usual her methods are flawed,’ he conceded. ‘She wants what’s best for everyone.’
‘No,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘This is what’s best for her. When you go back up there you make sure you tell her she has lost my support for good. There’s no going back after this. I will do everything in my power to fuck up every plan she comes up with. We are enemies now. Go on. Go and tell her that.’
Dean looked at me sadly. Pityingly. ‘You know that after I’ve told her that she’ll never let you out of that cage. The rest of your life will be spent behind that glass. You will never be free.’
The white glowing orb above my head darkened to a blood red at the same time a hideously high siren started to wail. I covered my ears and staggered back but the noise wasn’t coming from the orb. The noise was everywhere, filling the whole building. Looking around I saw that all of the orbs had turned red and were pulsing like floating circular hearts. Dean was staring at me as if I’d done it. His face was a mixture of concern and confusion.
‘What is it?’ I shouted over the racket. He didn’t answer. Instead he reached behind him and pulled out a gun before running off towards the exit.
What the fuck was going on? The building must be under attack. Operation Rescue Eddie was under way. I hoped that was what it was and not some separate issue. I tried my luck and went for a spell, hoping that whatever was going on had broken the spell on the building. Not so. I cursed and kicked at the glass. Then I jumped back as a person appeared right in front of me, looking at me through the cage.
‘Fuck!’ he screamed, my hand over my heart as I recovered from the shock. It was Gabe. He was dressed in the same suit he’d worn to the meeting although it now looked far less suave. The jacket was crinkled, the shirt untucked in places and his tie was hanging limply. There was a spatter of blood on his collar.
‘You came,’ I said fondly, a small smile scaring away some of my anger. This kid just kept surprising me with his resourcefulness.
‘Of course I came. You didn’t think I’d leave you here?’ he said, his young brow furrowed. ‘Stand back.’
I took a couple of steps away and watched as he pounded his pale fist into the glass. The first smack cracked it. The second shattered it. It seemed too easy. I guess they never expected a vampire to make it down here, after all they weren’t supposed to be able to enter but Gabe had been added to the guest list. I bet Clara was kicking herself for allowing that now.
‘How have you done this?’ I asked. There was no way he’d managed to pull off this rescue with only five vampires.
‘I’ll explain outside. We just need to get out. I couldn’t get anyone else through the building’s defences so until we get out we’re on our own,’ he explained, already leading me to the door. I shared his discomfort at the situation. One baby vampire and powerless warlock wasn’t the best team.
