So. This was the woman who had been responsible for the fire that had killed her aunt and nearly brought an end to her own life.
The…bitch.
Anna tilted her chin, her body trembling with something more than fear.
“Yeah, well, you missed,” she said, knowing it was lame, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances. What she wanted to do was get her hands around that perfect neck.
The emerald eyes narrowed in fury. “How did you survive the fire? The spell I used should have killed you.”
“I have a few powers of my own.” And a healthy dose of blind luck.
Morgana hissed, the fruity scent so powerful that it was making Anna’s stomach queasy. Or maybe that was just the terror.
“I should have killed you the moment I suspected who you were.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Morgana’s image became sharper, clearer. As if the portal’s reception was being fine-tuned.
“I had to be sure. I had to know that you were the one with the powers I had sensed before I risked exposing my presence.”
“Exposing your presence?” Anna shivered with the age-old pain. “You mean burning a townhouse to the ground and killing an innocent woman in the process? Tell me, was Aunt Jane even related to me?”
“Of course not,” Morgana scoffed. “She was just a foolish old woman with a mind that was pathetically easy to control.”
God. How had she ever lived beneath the same roof with this woman and not sensed the evil that marred her soul?
“And what of my real parents?” she gritted, her hands squeezing poor Levet’s fingers until he gave a small squeak. “Did you kill them?”
Morgana laughed, her slender fingers lifting to stroke through the fiery curls.
“I killed a vast number of your relatives. I can only suppose that among them were your parents.”
“Ummm…Anna,” Levet whispered.
Ignoring the gargoyle, Anna glared at the woman who was determined to see her dead.
“Why? Why are you trying to kill me?”
“Anna. Sacrebleu, woman,” Levet snapped, jerking on her arm until she could no longer ignore him. “We are about to be pulled into the portal.”
Too late, Anna realized that the shimmering glow was indeed growing, the outer tentacles reaching across the room to where she stood.
“Crap.” She vainly struggled against the power that held her motionless. “How do I stop it?”
Morgana held out a slender hand, a smug smile curving her lips. “You cannot, my sweet. Soon we will be done with this tedious game.”
“Levet?” Anna rasped.
The gargoyle shot her a desperate glance. “Now would be a good time for those powers of yours.”
Morgana laughed. “She cannot best me. I am a queen. My powers are without limit.”
Anna could feel the strange ripples of energy brushing her face. Damn. This was bad. Really, really bad.
“Don’t you have a spell or something?”
“Oui, but…”
“But what?”
“They are not always so predictable.”
“Perfect.”
The gray eyes were round with fear as the demon gave her fingers a painful squeeze.
“Do it now, Anna.”
Do it? Do what?
Anna squeezed her eyes shut. A part of her warned she was as likely to bring the roof down on their heads as to save them, but with that strange energy beginning to surround her, she knew that she had to do something.
Anything.
Releasing the doors in her mind, Anna focused on the blood rushing through her veins. In that blood was the magic that was growing stronger with every passing day.
So strong that she wasn’t at all certain what was going to happen.
Reluctantly opening her eyes, Anna met the triumphant emerald gaze of Morgana le Fay and allowed the building power to explode around her.
Cezar was returning to Dante’s mansion when he felt Anna’s distress.
He had wasted hours among the books, searching for any hint of Morgana’s weakness. Hours that revealed nothing more than one obscure poem that only confirmed what he’d already suspected.
At last it was the approaching dawn that had driven him from the tunnels and back onto the streets of Chicago. He said a terse good-bye to the hovering Jagr and tracked his way toward the north of the city.
He was still blocks away when he felt the first surge of fear race through him.
It had taken him a moment to actually realize that it was Anna’s feelings he was experiencing. As a vampire he could read the souls of those standing close to him, and even their emotions if they were strong enough.
But this was different. This was far more personal. Far more intense.
It was almost as if they were…mated.
He didn’t have time to worry about the dangerous sensations flowing through his body. Not when the fear that he sensed reached the level of terror, then disappeared with a shocking wrench.
Anna.
With blinding speed he consumed the last few blocks and burst into the massive house, the door swinging open with enough force to rattle the pictures on the walls.
“Anna?” he bellowed, heading for the stairs, when Dante abruptly appeared before him. Coming to a halt, Cezar glared at his friend. “Where is she?”
Something that might have been sorrow touched the lean features. “Cezar.”
“Dammit, Dante.” Cezar reached out to grab the vampire by his shoulders, giving him a violent shake. “Tell me where she is.”
“We don’t know,” Dante muttered.
He gave the man another shake, a cold dread forming in the pit of his stomach.
“That’s not good enough,” he rasped.
Abby appeared at his side, her hand reaching up to lightly touch his arm. Under normal circumstances that light touch would have been enough to send him bolting away. The spirit within Abby had a nasty habit of setting demons on fire.
Now he didn’t even flinch.
“Cezar, I know you’re upset,” she murmured.
“Upset?” he growled, glaring into her brilliant blue eyes. “I’m way past upset.”
Her expression remained calm even as the lights flickered and more than one bulb burst beneath his surge of power.
Obviously she was accustomed to dealing with angry vampires.
“I know, but if we’re going to find Anna and Levet then we can’t fight among ourselves,” she pointed out softly.
Cezar hissed. He was wise enough to know that Abby was right. If Anna was in danger then he needed all the help he could gather to rescue her.
But at the moment, he didn’t want to be wise.
He wanted to tear the city apart brick by brick until he had Anna in his arms.
Backing from her touch in case he did something truly stupid, he held himself with a rigid restraint.
“Tell me what you know.”
Glancing briefly toward Dante, Abby sucked in a deep breath. “Anna and Levet went to her rooms to discover a means of shielding her mind. They had been in there less than half an hour when I brought a tray to them and discovered they had disappeared.”
“You heard nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“What about the room? Was it…”
As his voice cracked, Dante clapped a steadying hand on his shoulder. “There were no signs of a struggle. No blood. But there is something you should see for yourself.”
Cezar grudgingly allowed himself to be led up the stairs. Dios. His entire body trembled with the fierce need to be on the hunt. Anna was out there…somewhere. And no matter how great her powers, she needed him.
Stepping into the room that Anna had stayed in so briefly, Cezar came to an abrupt halt as her sweet scent invaded his senses.
Closing his eyes he allowed the lingering essence to seep into his body.
“Cezar?” Dante murmured softly.
With a shake of his head, Cezar forced himself to move further into the large room decorated in shades of yellow. His gaze skimmed the canopied bed and French armoire, noting that everything seemed to be in order.
If there had been a fight here then it had been a tidy one.
It was as he was moving to check the window that he was struck by the too familiar odor.
“Pomegranates,” he snarled. “Morgana.”
“That was our guess,” Abby breathed softly, kneeling beside a scorched mark that stained the ivory carpet. “This was not here before.”
Cezar frowned. “Magic?”
“Yes, although I don’t know enough to say for certain what sort,” Abby confessed.
“It had to be a portal,” Dante gritted, his silver eyes flashing with fury. He didn’t like magic any better than Cezar. “There is no other means for Morgana to get past my security.”
“Morgana has Anna.” Cezar’s cold dread was replaced by a raging fury.
The Queen of Fairies had to die.
She had to die now.
Turning on his heel, Cezar blindly stalked out of the room, heading down the stairs and entering the foyer before Dante could leap in front of him and bring him to a sharp halt.
“Cezar, wait,” the vampire snapped, his muscles trembling with the effort of restraining the furious Cezar. “You can’t just charge out without knowing where you’re going. It will be dawn soon.”
Cezar shook his head. Mixed with the fury was a raw, pounding pain that made him want to howl.
“I can’t stay here.”
Dante refused to ease his grip. “At least wait until Viper and Styx arrive. We can’t do anything until we know how to find Morgana.” The silver eyes narrowed. “Did you discover anything among Jagr’s books?”
Knowing he would have to distract Dante if he was ever to get out of the mansion, Cezar dug into his pocket and handed over the scrap of paper that he used to copy the original text.
“Nothing more than a vague poem that refers to Morgana’s retreat to Avalon.”
Releasing his hold on Cezar, Dante smoothed the paper and read out loud.
From the ashes of her brother’s grave
Shall emerge the means of her demise.
In ancient blood will powers stir
Arthur’s revenge once more to rise.
The vampire gave a snort at the gibberish. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that Morgana is determined to kill every last descendent of Arthur,” Cezar growled, darting past Dante and charging toward the door. “And next on her list is Anna.”
He was a step away when the door was thrown open and Styx stepped over the threshold.
For an odd moment time seemed to stand still as the ancient vampire studied Cezar’s bleak features.
Then, with one fluid motion, Styx raised his hand and Cezar found himself flying across the foyer to blast through the wall and into a marble column in the next room with enough force to rattle the house.
After that everything thing went blessedly black.
That was it, Anna decided, as she lay flat on her back in what she could only assume was some farmer’s field. That was the very, very last time she was using her freaking powers.
All she had wanted to do was free herself and Levet from Morgana’s portal. It wasn’t as if she’d even allowed more than a trickle of her power to escape.
But the moment the stirring wind had touched the portal things had exploded.
Really and truly exploded.
As in flashing stars, mind-numbing concussion, flying debris (well actually, she and Levet were the debris), and landing with a bone-jarring thud.
The only plus side was there wasn’t a damn portal in sight and the sickening scent of pomegranates had been replaced by the scent of recently plowed dirt and fresh air.
Feeling as if she’d been beaten with a baseball bat, Anna struggled to sit upright, swiveling her head as she frantically searched for Levet.
At last her gaze landed on his tiny form only a few feet away. He was standing, but his wings were drooping and he was anxiously inspecting his long tail as if he feared it had been damaged.
Hell, he was lucky he still had a tail.
Portal travel was worse than braving the Chicago L during rush hour.
“Are you okay?” she managed to rasp, batting the clumps of dirt from her jeans. She didn’t even try to smooth her hair, which felt as if it was standing on end.
Levet dropped his tail, his ugly little face scrunched into a grimace as he peered through the shadows that shrouded the surrounding countryside.
“I am fine, but where the hell are we?”
“I…” Anna gave a helpless shake of her head. There was nothing to see other than the fields and a few abandoned buildings clustered near a dirt road. In the distant sky there was a faint glow, as if the lights of a city were being reflected, but there was no way to know what city.
They could be a handful of miles from Chicago, or they could be in the middle of Kansas.
Or hell, maybe that had just exploded their way to Oz.
“I don’t have a clue,” she muttered.
“Don’t panic.” The gargoyle began pacing in a tight circle, his poor, battered wings flapping in tempo. “We will somehow get out of this mess. Just do not panic.”
“Okay.”
“We have to think clearly. We have to…” Pace, pace, pace. “We have to think and not panic. That is the most important thing.”
“Not to panic.”
“Right. Do not panic.”
Anna cleared her throat. “Levet.”
Coming to a halt the gargoyle regarded her with a wild glitter in his eyes. “Oui?”
“I’m not the one panicking.”
“Okay.” He lifted his stunted hands. “Good point.”
Waiting until Levet had managed to calm his fluttering, Anna took a step forward.
“I don’t suppose you have a cell phone on you?”
Levet managed an offended sniff at the perfectly reasonable question. What was it with demons and technology?
“I am a gargoyle. I do not need such foolish devices.”
“Can you contact someone with your magic?”
“Of course.”
Her heart turned over in relief. “Thank God. You have to let Cezar know that…”
“Wait, Anna,” Levet interrupted, wrinkling his tiny snout. “I am not certain that would be such a good idea.”
Anna counted to ten. They were stuck in the middle of God-knew-where, and he didn’t want to contact anyone to come and get them? “Why not?”
“I communicate with portals.”
Her hope died a swift, painful death.
“Oh.” Anna grimaced. “Yeah, I think we should avoid portals for a while.”
“My thought exactly.”
Anna lifted her hand to lightly touch the signet ring that dangled on the chain around her neck. Cezar had promised that she could find him anywhere with the ring, but unfortunately it didn’t include an intercom system. Even if it did, she wasn’t about to stir up her dangerous powers for any reason. The next time she might toss herself to Mars instead of the middle of nowhere.
Glancing around the vast emptiness, Anna heaved a sigh. She had spent enough time over the years living in various places around the Midwest to realize that they were probably miles from the nearest town. “Then it looks like we need to find a friendly farmer who will let us use his phone.”
“Ummm…” Levet rubbed one of his horns. “Actually I need to find a place to hide.”
“Can Morgana find us?”
He shrugged, glancing toward the pinkish glow on the edge of the horizon.
“I don’t know, but the sun will soon rise.”
“Will it harm you?”
“I am a gargoyle, Anna,” he said, as if she were particularly dimwitted. “When the rays of the sun touch my skin I will turn to my statue form.”
“Ah.” Feeling like an idiot, Anna once again surveyed their surroundings, finding nothing but the dilapidated house and barn. “What about that barn?” she suggested.
The gossamer wings gave a sharp flap. “A barn? Do I look like a cow?”
“Fine.” She slapped her hands on her hips. “Then you find a place.”
Turning a full circle, Levet muttered beneath his breath. “I suppose the barn will have to do.”
“Then let’s go.”
Together they stumbled across the rough field, Anna’s aching body protesting each step. Being blasted out of a portal was obviously something to be avoided.
Tripping over a loose clump of soil, Anna moaned as she forced herself upright.
Yeah, definitely to be avoided.
Levet’s small hand reached up to tug on her sweatshirt. “Anna, we must hurry.”
With a weary smile, she grabbed his cold fingers in her hand and tugged him through a gap in the sagging fence. From there it was a battle with the horseweed and blackberry brambles that had taken over the yard.
At last they managed to reach the door of the barn that was thankfully intact, and pulling it open she led the weary gargoyle across the dusty floor into the shadows of the far corner.
The barn was nearly empty. There were a few rusting farm implements scattered about the floor, and a pile of old newspapers that were being slowly nibbled to bits by mice. Whoever had once called this remote farm home had long ago left for greener pastures.
“Here,” she murmured, pushing aside a forgotten bale of hay to tuck him into a narrow stall.
The gargoyle would at least be hidden from casual sight, although if someone actually searched the barn he would be easily spotted.
Where were all those freaking vampire tunnels when you needed them?
On the point of finding her own hiding place, Anna was halted when Levet grasped the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“Anna.”
“Yes?”
“Once the sun rises I will not be able to help you. If something comes you must run.” Loosening his grip he reached for a stray nail that had been left in the stall and scratched through the dirt. “This is Darcy’s number. Call her as soon as you can find a phone.”
Her brows snapped together. “I won’t leave you, Levet.”
“You must. Nothing can hurt me while I am in statue form.”
Anna blinked. That seemed like a handy little trick to have up his sleeve.
Especially if Morgana decided for an encore performance.
“Nothing at all?”
Without answering, Levet glanced toward the narrow window that was blooming with a pale pink wash of dawn.
“Anna, I am sorry.”
She stumbled backward as the tiny body began to glow and then hardened into unrelenting stone before her very eyes.
“Damn.”
Maybe she should be used to the strange and the wacky. God knew that there had been enough of it over the past few days. Hell, there’d been enough of it over the past two centuries.
But the sight of the gargoyle altering from a living being to a chunk of granite was above and beyond what she was prepared to watch.
Bolting out of the stall, she paused to shove the hay bale across the opening before moving across the barn and climbing the narrow stairs to the hayloft.
The beams were low enough that it was easier to crawl on her hands and knees than to risk whacking her head, and thankfully the loft was empty of everything but a few stray wisps of straw. Taking care to test the warped boards before putting her full weight on them, she inched her way to the back of the loft and pushed open the small door that offered a view of the surrounding countryside.
From here she should be able to keep watch for anyone approaching. Friend or foe.
What the crap she intended to do if something attacked the barn was an entirely different matter.