Chapter 25

“What are you doing?” someone hissed.

I froze at the familiar voice and glanced over my shoulder. “Jaz?”

“He’ll never forgive himself, or me, if you get killed.” She kept her voice low as she crept around the cage containing Nimbus.

“So, what do we do?”

Though I’d often seen Jaz with bright lipstick that set off her porcelain skin, now she was just wearing a gloss and very conservative clothing. Her eyes darted around nervously, and her head was tilted slightly as if she listened hard to what was going on around us.

“Just watch for your opportunity. I can’t do anything until we’re assured of success, but if we find our opportunity, I’ll wake Katsuro. You’ll have to do the rest.”

“How do we rescue Nimbus?”

Jaz gave the cloud puppy a dismissive look and shrugged.

Clearly, she was more worried about Katsuro than anything else. I supposed I understood. I was more worried about Nimbus than the vampire. I hoped Jaz really was on our side, though. For whatever reason, the enemy seemed to trust her, and I just couldn’t help but worry that they knew something we didn’t. Katsuro trusted her, too, but since I didn’t know her story, I couldn’t judge for myself.

The room we were in appeared to be some sort of large study. A massive solid wood desk sat in front of a fireplace. Bookshelves lined the walls, and another fireplace was on the other side of the room with a dark leather couch and loveseat arranged in front of it. Neither fireplace was lit, which, considering the time of year, made sense. I rubbed my arms, still having a hard time regulating my temperature after being drugged. Though I looked, I didn’t see any smaller chairs. I could have used them as a weapon, and that might be why they were missing. If the bad guys had considered that, anyway.

The rug Katsuro lay on looked Persian, though I wasn’t an expert. Generic art, mostly pastoral scenes, plastered the walls. Heavy black curtains covered the windows, no light leaking in.

While Jaz watched, I staggered over to the desk and looked around for anything. A letter opener, a paperweight, something.

Either this room wasn’t used for its apparent purpose, or my kidnappers were smart. There was nothing, and the drawers were empty. The only thing potentially useful that I could find were the books. The cloud of dust that rose up when I pulled one off the shelf made me think they hadn’t even remembered they existed, despite being obvious.

Interestingly enough, the book I pulled out was a tome on varieties of apples.

Apples… Make the apples grow.

How?

Clutching the book, I went to the fireplace and sat on the couch. I tried not to look too closely at the cage they’d put Nimbus in. I had to rescue him, but if I couldn’t touch the cage, I’d have to use magic. Also, I didn’t want to accidentally hurt the cloud puppy in the process. So. Magic.

Which meant I needed to make my magic work.

I cradled the book like a talisman and tried to capture the feeling I remembered from my initial unfolding. In my mind’s eye, an orchard formed around me, a crushed stone path at my feet. I followed it, feeling the pain of Nimbus’s absence. He should be at my side, helping me on my journey as I helped him.

Instead, another presence joined me. Twister pushed his fluffy head under my hand as he stepped close to me. We didn’t speak. I simply walked, my hand tangled in his fluff.

All the trees were in various stages of growing fruit. The first ones we passed were barely buds. As we continued, the buds matured into full flowers, then the beginnings of fruits were on the tree. Our path stopped, and the vision simply seemed to end in a fog.

Clearly, I needed to do something to proceed. Reaching inside myself, I tried to pull the warmth of the magic out and feed it into the vision.

The fog swirled, and I moved forward. It gave way, revealing trees with apples still green but much larger than any I’d yet seen.

Before I could try again, the vision dissipated with the sound of a banging door, and I snapped open my eyes.

I recognized the hawk’s nose and sharp features of the first man to walk into the room. Drake. The shade that had originally been after Nimbus. The vile man glanced at the cage that held the cloud puppy and the smile that crossed his lips promised nothing good.

The second man I didn’t recognize. He was taller, like Drake, had short cropped black hair, and pale skin that had clearly not seen the sun in centuries.

Well, shit. Maybe this was the man on the supernatural side of the trafficking ring I’d helped put away.

“Ahh, Ms. Miller, I believe you’re going by that now, yes?”

I didn’t reply, and he didn’t seem to be waiting for one.

“Your friend in the FBI was quite helpful after a bit of persuasion. Unfortunately for him, he was just strong enough to break away, and we had to put him down. Can’t have that kind of person around. Too troublesome.” His voice was smooth, low, and oily. I already wanted to scrub myself with lava soap just to get the feeling he gave me off. Not to mention the way his eyes traveled my body. My breath caught, but I otherwise remained as calm as I could. My FBI contact had been a good guy, and he’d had a family. These people didn’t care, though. Obviously.

“You’ve caused us quite a bit of trouble. First cutting off our blood supply, and second, stealing our creature. Either one of these would be a death sentence, but both? Well, we might need to get creative. Death, I think, is too easy.”

I avoided glancing at Jaz. She couldn’t help me. At least not yet. Katsuro was out of the picture, and I had no idea if the others would find me in time to save me. I had to save myself, because I could well imagine what sorts of things this man might have in mind for me, and none of them were good. If it came down to it, I’d make him kill me, but I hoped my magic and my friends would come through in time.

The vampire stalked toward me. I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. Their endless depths promised pain, and worse, but they held me, and I was unable to look away. Something whispered in the back of my mind, telling me it wouldn’t be so bad to submit, but a greater part of me screamed a warning.

“On your knees, bitch,” the vampire whispered in his smooth, oily voice.

An apple tree sprouted between me and the vampire’s deadly gaze. I focused on it, forcing it to grow, to spread, to save me from this creature.

With a shout of rage, I jerked myself away from the vampire.

He snarled and his fist lashed out, catching me across the jaw and sending me tumbling backward over the couch.

My neck ached from the whiplash motion, but at least he hadn’t broken my neck.

“I suppose we’ll have to have other sorts of fun together.” He’d regained his composure, and I managed to get back to my feet in time to see Drake whisper something to the vampire.

They turned and left without another word. I glanced around but Jaz was gone, too, leaving me alone with an unconscious Katsuro and Nimbus.

I had to save Nimbus, no matter what, so instead of curling into a ball and crying like I wanted to, I sat on the floor and focused on apples.