Letters From New York [Blood Magic, Book 2]

Chapter 12: Family Reunion

Of course, the former king knew that, or he wouldn't be trying to trick me into making the same sorts of mistakes that Ephraim had made during his dealings with the Nosferatu.

Lucia's face stretched into a frown, it was even more horrifying than the smile had been. It looked carved on. "Then she dies." Keel's father jerked Lucia's body towards the edge of the building: she twitched and lurched like a marionette controlled by an incredibly inexperienced puppetmaster.

"You wouldn't dare," I shouted, hoping my fury would mask my swelling panic. I couldn't think of any way, even using magic, to stop her from plunging over the edge of the roof if he willed it.

"Wouldn't I?" he threatened. "She wouldn't survive it, but I would. She's merely a conduit here. A means to an end. A means to speak to my son."

I took a step towards him. Keel's father raised one of Lucia's legs over the concrete lip of the roof. I inhaled sharply, watching it all play out in my head: Lucia plummeting towards the sidewalk, all that sass and energy splattering against the concrete; the police tape that would strung up around my apartment building for days; and, of course, the endless questioning. Never mind that Lucia's mom would have to identify her daughter's broken body in the morgue – her only child. It turned my stomach, all of it.

"Don't you mean a means to get both me and her to the compound? A gift to the new king from his dead daddy," I countered. "If you kill her, you lose all hope of having your little father-son chit-chat. So what will you have accomplished?"

"A small measure of revenge," he snarled and flung her other leg over the barricade. Lucia was now sitting on the ledge: one big gust of wind, one slight loss of balance and...

My veins ran cold. Keel's father was going to continue his torment from the afterlife and in doing so he was going to take away the one person I'd connected with since my return. Right in front of my eyes, no less. All this supposed power, and there was absolutely nothing I could do. It was unbearable. Overwhelming. Soul-shattering.

It paralyzed me. My feet locked in place. My heart beat double time. The rooftop lurched and spun around me. I regained motor control just long enough to grab onto one of the concrete planters to stabilize myself. It didn't help the dizziness. I fell to my knees and threw up. My shield went down with me, sputtering out in a pathetic, barely audible fizzle.

I was going to lose this one.

I wished I could trade places with Lucia on that ledge. She didn't deserve this. Not one bit. If I'd just accepted my fate all those months ago, none of this would be happening now.

I tried to shove myself to my feet, but I still couldn't move. Lucia leered at me from the edge of the roof with a lopsided grin; she was rocking precariously, leaning further forward with each sway of her body. If I knew the former king, he was enjoying my suffering.

When I tried to move again, a molten lava-like heat radiated up inside me. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. I felt as if I was about to spontaneously combust – a human supernova. The invisible flames licked at my consciousness, driving it back until my vision darkened and blurred; when the inferno finally subsided, I was not alone in my skin, nor was in control of it. I threw the whole of my soul against whatever had shut me out.

This can't be happening! Not now!

I tried to command my eyes to look up at Keel's father – maybe if I could see him I could figure out if he was causing this – but they remained down.

"Don't fight." The words weren't mine: they just appeared in my head.

I sure as hell wanted to fight – against what had taken up residence in Lucia's body, against what had moved into mine – but I'd been made an unwilling, hapless spectator, much as I was when I was with Keel in those inescapable dreams. Mentally, another piece clicked into place.