“You kept track of them?”
He smiled with a cruel pleasure. “Most of them were kind enough to remain together in the same coven, so when the Dark Lord began to thin the barriers between dimensions I was able to nudge my children into getting rid of them.”
She knew. The minute he spoke the words she knew that he meant the coven that she’d seen so gruesomely murdered in the photo.
And he spoke of the massacre as if they were mere bugs being squashed.
Blessed goddess.
Her hand shifted to press against her stomach, trying to stifle the churning nausea.
“They were slaughtered,” she said in a raw voice.
The . . . Gaius-creature shook his head. “All but one.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “My mother.”
The strange glow in his eyes flared, but prepared for his anger, Sally was rattled when instead it was her own simmering anger and fear that was stoked higher.
As if Gaius was capable of draining the emotions from her.
“I couldn’t have known she had left the coven,” he complained. “But when the spell remained intact I realized there must be one left.”
She quivered, trying to regain control of her emotions. Now, more than ever, she needed a clear mind.
“Two left,” she absently corrected.
That horrifying smile returned. “No. Only one. Now.”
Profound shock gripped her, crushing any grief she might have felt.
She simply couldn’t accept a world without the woman who had given birth to her.
“You killed my mother?” she rasped.
“Gaius was kind enough to perform the deed on our way to his lair in Louisiana,” the creature murmured, speaking of Gaius as if he were a separate being.
She shook her head.
Dead.
“I . . . I can’t believe it.”
Gaius dismissed her distress with a wave of his hand. “Once again I was to be disappointed, but I was growing stronger every day. So long as the book remained hidden it couldn’t do any harm.” Gaius reached over to trail an icy finger down her cheek, tracing the path of her unconscious tears. “But then it called you here.”
With a shudder of revulsion she took a hasty step backward, forcing her fogged mind to concentrate on the danger standing directly in front of her.
She would work through her grief and regret for her mother if she managed to survive the night.
Something that was looking increasingly unlikely.
“Called me?” she shook her head. “No, I came because I wanted Gaius out of the house.”
“If it hadn’t been that, it would have drawn you here by some other means,” he assured her. “It felt my presence. It would have done whatever was necessary to get into your hands.”
She glanced toward the hole in the wall where she could feel the steady pulse of the black spell.
A spell that had caused the death of thirteen witches, including her mother. And was now her supposed legacy.
“Why?” She turned back to the creepy, glowing eyes. “What’s in the book?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he countered, clearly unwilling to reveal the truth of the book. “Once you’re dead the book will be destroyed once and for all.”
Sally braced herself, muttering an attack spell beneath her breath. She didn’t believe it would actually damage the vampire, or whatever the hell was controlling him, but it was all she had.
Then, even as she felt a massive power beginning to build in the room, Gaius was suddenly turning toward the door, his hiss of annoyance scraping over Sally’s raw nerves.
“I warned you, Santiago,” he growled, seeming to forget Sally. “Now Nefri will pay for your arrogance.”
Chapter 27
Santiago didn’t do helpless.
After he’d been pulled out of the Gladiator pits beneath Barcelona, he’d sworn that he’d never again be in a position where he was at the mercy of another.
A mistake, of course.
He should have known that the minute he’d made that bitter pledge, it would curse him. Life was nothing if not perverse, and what could be more destined to force him to face his worst nightmare than declaring it could never happen again?
Now he stood next to Nefri, his muscles quivering as he battled his urge to charge across the floor of the warehouse and rip off Gaius’s head.
He told himself he was biding his time.
That was why he’d agreed to kidnap the witch despite his grand pronouncement he would never, ever betray his brothers. And why he was standing here like a damned mannequin while the bastard revealed the truth of his reason for traveling to the warehouse.
He’d left his clue with Styx on the off-chance that the Anasso would be able to track them. And then positioned himself so he would be able to grab Nefri and escape if the opportunity presented itself.
Tonya, after all, had been left behind in Wisconsin and by now should have been able to create a portal to take her back to his club. So all he had to worry about was the female standing like a statue beside him.
But, while he could pretend he had some sort of control over the situation, the moment Gaius glanced in their direction he knew it was an empty lie.
He’d become a helpless pawn who had not only used his connection to the Anasso to kidnap an innocent young female, but he’d led his brothers to this warehouse all because he was willing to sacrifice everything and everyone to protect Nefri.
And now . . .
Now he could sense Styx and at least four other vampires approaching the warehouse and Nefri’s power beginning to swell in an awful tidal wave of looming destruction.
Rock, meet hard place, a voice mocked in the back of his mind.
For all his efforts he’d done nothing more than make matters worse.
So what the hell was he going to do now?
Styx and his vampires would be breaking through the door in less than a heartbeat. At the same time Gaius would send Nefri into a mindless bloodlust. The battle between the vampires would be epic and violent and lethal.
Which meant that he had less than a nano-second to choose between two very bad, very awful decisions.
He picked the very awful one.
And more importantly, the one that Gaius would never have prepared for.
Not giving himself time to think, he reached down to snatch a stray piece of rebar off the floor. Then, as Nefri trembled beneath the surge of bloodlust, he stepped behind her and with one smooth motion he slammed the bar against the back of her head to send her crumpling to the ground.
The blow was hard enough to knock her out, but not hard enough to cause permanent damage. Which meant he would only have a few minutes to come up with a better plan before she was awake and on the rampage.