17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The retrieval of the hammer of Arwen was as anticlimactic as the bomb in the tunnel. It lay sprawled at the foot of a plant that I was certain was not poisonous or sentient. As far as I could see, we could just reach out and take it – but surely it couldn't possibly be that easy?

Before I could tell the others that, Ben stepped up to the hammer and picked it up. I tensed but nothing happened.

‘Huh,' Tarkers said. ‘That's almost a bit disappointing.'

‘Well,' said a feminine voice behind us. ‘We can't have that, can we?'

We whirled around.

‘Hello, Lucy Barrett.' Geneve sneered superciliously.

‘Geneve,' I greeted her calmly. ‘It's actually Lucy Alessandro-Barrett these days. Now tell me, why the hell would you give two shits about the orb when your hoarding instinct is clearly for plants? '

Her smile was condescending. ‘Oh, my poor little wolf. You still haven't figured it out yet, have you, Lucy Caboosy?'

Hearing my nickname fall from her lips made my skin go cold. How did she know what my family called me? I needed to knock that smirk right off her lips, so I told her the conclusion I'd drawn. The only conclusion that made sense.

‘You're one of the Domini,' I accused flatly. ‘And you're trying to take power from others to keep it for yourself like the power-hungry bitch that you are.'

Behind me Tarkers said to Ben, ‘Her parents never taught her to play nicely with others.'

Geneve ignored him and clapped her hands slowly. ‘Oh brava , Lucy – but you're not quite right. I'm not one of the Domini, I am the Domini.'

‘V,' I mumbled. ‘You're V. GeneVe.'

‘You've been doing your homework,' she said approvingly. ‘Yes, little girl. I'm V.'

‘One of the nine rulers of the Domini.'

She snorted. ‘Honey, there are nine of us in Europe but we're everywhere. There's a whole fucking alphabet. You didn't stand a chance against us. You never did.'

I needed to lash out, to make her emotionally unstable, because unstable people made mistakes and we needed all the advantages we could get.

I smirked. ‘Tell me, did your parents call you Geneve because they fucked you into existence in Geneva, or was it because they couldn't spell Genevieve?'

‘Tell me,' she replied, her tone saccharine sweet, ‘did your parents really not want you so badly that they cleared their whole memory?'

I froze: something in her tone was too malicious, too knowing. Son of a bitch! That's how she knew my nickname! ‘It wasn't my dad's choice at all, was it? You did it. You ordered him to be cleared.'

‘Imagine my surprise when some adoption papers crossed my desk and there was your surname, Barrett, staring at me in black and white. You tried to fuck me over with Emory and you dared say no to the Domini's invitation, so yes, Lucy, I arranged for your dad to visit a wizard I know. I was going to peel your support away from you one person at a time. Your mum was going to be next. I thought I'd rip off her legs.' She smiled at the thought and my stomach lurched with revulsion. She really was crazy.

‘My parents never did anything to you!' I snarled.

‘They raised you! ' she spat back. ‘You who believe the wolves should be something! You should be cringing in the shadows, grateful the rest of us let you into the Other. How dare you try to rise above your station without The Order's say so? You are nothing, Lucy Barrett, and it's time that you recognised that.' She didn't even try to disguise the disgust and malice in her tone.

Steady, Esme counselled softly, lending me her calm. Her anger swam beneath the surface, but for now she'd battened down the hatches and I needed to do the same.

It was hard to wrest my emotions back under control but I needed to keep a level head. I leaned on Esme's restraint, pulling it around me like a cloak, and with it came clarity.

I had no doubt that Geneve was trying to screw with my mind as much as I was trying to screw with hers. I'd deal with the situation with my dad later when we all got out of this situation alive and were free to help him. I refused to contemplate any other outcome, despite Ben's dire warnings.

I looked at the plants around me and pictured Daniella in her cell. ‘And Daniella?' I asked. ‘What the hell did she do to you? Why take her?' Keep Geneve talking, keep her doing her bad-guy monologue, and maybe I could get the orb to work while she was ranting.

I eased my hand into the bag on my hip and touched the orb but nothing happened. I pulled my piping magic to it but again nothing happened. It felt inanimate, nothing more than cold, hard glass. If I'd risked everything for a hunk of boiled sand, I was going to be seriously pissed.

‘Daniella? Why, she did nothing to me,' Geneve snorted. ‘ She is none of your business.'

I frowned. ‘She's my wolf.'

The woman smiled. ‘She'll be an ex-wolf soon. Power games are so much fun, aren't they?' I had no idea what she was talking about.

She smiled at my confusion. ‘You still don't get it, do you? Poor confused Lucy. Ha! I don't know why I ever thought you were a threat.' Her eyes focused on my bag, and my hand inside it. ‘You can't get it to work, can you? I let you take it to see if you'd light it up, but if you can't then your usefulness is truly at an end. Not that you had much to start with.'

Charming. Her comments about lighting things up though had given me an idea. Geneve hoarded plants, surely the urge to protect them would be strong? If I set them on fire, maybe she would get distracted. We really needed her to be distracted, or things were going to get dire.

Terrance, I said urgently, some fire would be good! Let's burn some of her plants!

Gladly, my Queen.

Flames leapt out from my fingers, broiling the nearest plant.

I expected her to get a hose pipe, or a bucket of water or something to save her precious hoard, instead her face twisted into a mask of incandescent rage. In a blink, Geneve shifted from human to dragon. She was emerald-green, and if she hadn't been the vile person that she was, I would have said she was beautiful.

She screeched her fury at me, making us cover our ears, then flapped her strong wings and rose effortlessly above us. Next to me, Tarkers let out a low whine; he was right – this wasn't good. I had miscalculated. Werewolves were flammable and her breath was fiery.

But I had Terrance and I was a natural-born elemental. Even without Terrance, I might be able to absorb her flame, though for obvious reasons it wasn't a hypothesis I wanted to test.

I could pipe her and completely control her, but I hesitated as thoughts of the guilt that had been riding me since I'd killed Rain gave me pause. I'd been questioning my humanity and my morality since I'd torn out the foul man's trachea. Just because he was evil, didn't mean I needed to be too. If I piped Geneve to kill her, would I descend deeper into that darkness? And would I survive if I did ?

I hesitated, and that hesitation cost me everything.

Geneve gave a triumphant scream. As she opened her mouth, hot, inescapable fire roared towards me. Its heat singed my very lungs, but Esme and I braced ourselves.

Ready, Terrance? I asked.

Always, he assured me, though his tone was serious and focused and there was none of his usual jocularity. It wasn't going to be easy to absorb all the flames rolling towards us, but we were as ready as we'd ever be.

We planted our feet akimbo and waited. First it felt like everything was happening in slow motion – then everything that followed happened far too fast.

With a strangled cry, brave, impulsive Xander leapt in front of me and took the full brunt of the flames. They struck him with a whumpf and I screamed as he burned.