Vile Magic Page 5

  They would try him.

  They might even kill him.

  I couldn't say goodbye.

  “Let me,” Leon said from outside Xavier's room.

  There was a flash of magenta light and a crash. Leon had blasted Xavier's door in. The man wanted our blood and he wanted it now.

  “Father!” Primrose shouted. She was beginning to see that something was very, very wrong with him. “Where is your restraint?”

  “I need Xavier,” he said in a different voice. “And Alyssa.”

  It was Thoreau's voice. He was coming through a bit after all.

  “Oh my god,” Primrose said, and broke into a run.

  Leon stepped into the room.

  Xavier cursed and the world snapped to violent purples. We fell through a void of magic together, without Thorne.

  Chapter Four

  Familiar pink tile surrounded us when we landed.

  Women screamed.

  I stumbled and grabbed onto a sink. It took me a second to realize what had happened.

  We had landed in that same restroom of the mall we had wound up in before. Liliana and Xavier let go of my arms and I whirled around to face two young women, who pressed themselves up against the wall of the bathroom, purses swinging.

  “Sorry!” Xavier shouted, face turning crimson. He was trembling worse now. He staggered as he grabbed onto a stall. His strength was almost gone, period. I had the feeling we had barely made it here. Had we taken Thorne, we might not have gone anywhere at all.

  “Why did we pick this?” Liliana asked.

  The women screamed again. We had just emerged from a column of purple fire in front of them, maybe even forcing them away from the sinks. I hadn't imagined the mall would be open this late, but I remembered that there was an attached movie theater close to this spot. That would be open for late night showings and this was the bathroom closest to the theater. The women also smelled like buttery popcorn and soft drinks.

  I wanted to bite someone so bad but I wouldn't. These people were innocent. If I stuck with those who deserved it, I didn't feel quite so bad. I was weak but Xavier was worse.

  "Get out of here!" one of them shouted at Xavier.

  "She has a sword!" the other yelled.

  "We have to go," I said. We had three ticks against us. We were obviously Abnormals, barging in here with magic. Xavier was a guy. I had a weapon.

  "Sorry," I said, grabbing Xavier's arm and pulling him off the side of the stall. "We're leaving. Please don't tell anybody we were here."

  Liliana and I both pulled Xavier out of the bathroom. He managed to catch his step. "I feel like I have the flu," he said. "We could have picked another part of the mall."

  "Well," Liliana said as the bathroom door swung shut behind us. "That was the part that was seared into my memory forever. I couldn't remember any other parts of the mall well enough to Transpose there."

  So it had been her fault we wound up in that bathroom again.

  "We need to hide," I said.

  The three of us stood in the carpeted hallway now, right at the end where the theater's movie listing sign glowed in red. A single light was on right in front of the theater and the refreshment counter was closing down. A single guy was cleaning out the popcorn machine and a couple of patrons were coming out of the theater and heading for the side doors. The theater was the only part of the mall that was still alive at this time of night. A closed gate blocked the rest of the mall from access. The last movie had been at eleven and must have just wrapped up. I heard the music from the credits playing from somewhere within, an action theme for a crime movie. People were heading home.

  "You're right," Xavier said, leaning on me. "I need to eat."

  My skin tingled at his touch. "You should have done that in the first place," I said. Inside the bathroom, a phone dialed. I dimly heard an operator asking what the woman's emergency was. "They're calling the authorities on us right now."

  My legs trembled. I was going crazy with hunger. The two patrons heading out to the parking lot smelled like chicken wings. Someone would get bitten soon and it wouldn't be Xavier. I couldn't let it be him. I was close enough to completing Thoreau's horrible plan.

  He and Leon were probably working together now. I had seen enough proof. I didn't know what deal they'd reached but it couldn't be good. They were both slimy enough to want to rule the world. Maybe Thoreau promised him restored pride and power. Leon had lost enough of it over the course of his life.

  And Thorne might be dead already.

  "Then we need to leave," Liliana said.

  Xavier was no good strength wise. Even his wood smoke scent was weak. I passed him to Liliana and he leaned on her instead. I ran up to the counter, definitely not at full strength, and swung at the guy cleaning the popcorn machine with my fist before he could turn his head. It was enough to stun him and sent him sailing to the floor. I muttered an apology and grabbed a big popcorn tub with a smiling cartoon car on the front and shoved as much of the popcorn from the machine into it as I could. Making sure the patrons had cleared the area, I smashed the glass of the counter that kept the candy safe underneath while Xavier and Liliana shuffled closer. I tossed candy bars at them and Liliana scooped them up. "Eat while you go," I said, jumping over the counter and shoving the popcorn at Xavier.

  The woman making the emergency call in the bathroom was babbling into the phone. She had lost control. I dimly heard the operator telling her to calm down. There was something about getting almost-attacked in a bathroom that made people vulnerable. At least her hysteria was buying us time. Maybe, if she hadn't mentioned the mall.

  Liliana tore open a candy bar and chowed down as we made for the exit. I grabbed onto both of their arms. Xavier's was shaking and he groaned with the weakness. He held onto the tub of popcorn and I pushed open the glass door to the parking lot. Liliana was stronger than Xavier right now.

  "I can't eat this," Xavier said.

  "Do it," I said. "You're not going to kill yourself." He was making me into a worse monster than I ever feared I would be. He was scared of me. Xavier had even purchased me new colored contact lenses--gray ones rather than blue--after I had lost my old one on the border of the Underworld. It was as if he didn't want to see my red eyes and by extension, what I was.

  It was a sentiment I shared.

  "I won't," he insisted.

  "Eat!" Liliana shouted at him, her mouth full of Butterfinger.

  I pushed the double doors open. We were outside now and the stars stretched overhead. "I won't bite you. I promise," I said. "Eat something because you're scaring me." I was pulling Xavier. He was so weak that he wasn't helping much. "We're all going to end up at the ATC if you don't get your strength back. I can't carry you." I was getting bad myself and my knees were shaky. We were a mess.

  Xavier lifted the popcorn tub and ate out of it with just his mouth. It would have been hilarious under any other circumstance, but the first sirens were sounding through the air. The police were coming and I was sure the black ATC vans would be with them. They were silent. Scary. Secretive. This time, there would be no George coming to our rescue.

  Xavier continued to eat. I was able to let go of Liliana. Her blood smelled of sugar and chocolate now. At least she was getting something into her system. Behind us, inside the mall, the women asked the guy behind the counter if he was okay. I hoped I hadn't hurt him too badly. I had a passing thought that I should have bitten him while he was knocked out--at least he wouldn't have felt the pain of it--but that would have taken too much time.

  The sirens were growing louder. They came from the direction of the expressway. There was a ramp nearby and once they were off, we would have less than a minute to hide. There was a manhole cover in the parking lot, not far from where a car was parked that might belong to the guy behind the counter. I pulled Xavier in that direction as he continued to eat. I said something about taking the food down with him so we wouldn't leave a trail. He smelled like glorious butter. Liliana w
as eating another candy bar. Her strength was returning.

  The manhole cover was a struggle for me to pull off, even though I normally didn't have a problem with that. "I feel better," Xavier said as I let go of him.

  "You need to eat more than popcorn," I said.

  "Have a candy bar," Liliana said.

  The sirens got louder. They must only be a couple of miles away and speeding fast. I yanked the cover off, arms quivering. Xavier unwrapped the bar and mowed down, gripped by extreme hunger. The Transposing had drained the energy from his cells.

  All they had to do was eat to replenish their strength.

  I had to do much, much worse and it wasn't possible right now.

  A ladder led down into pure darkness. My gray vision snapped into place and I saw a dry sewer floor on the bottom. Xavier and Liliana climbed down first. I spotted flashing blue and red lights coming down the freeway ramp and onto the road. Three black vans with the letters ATC were right behind them. Turn signals went on as they prepared to pull into the mall parking lot.

  I climbed down and yanked the cover back over the hole. My sword got caught in the ladder rungs. The belt was helping but there were still problems.

  Jumping down, I crouched as I landed on the floor of the sewer. Xavier was finishing up the candy bar and opening another. Liliana had stuffed several of them into her pockets. Smart move. Both of them smelled like a chocolate explosion mixed with salt and butter. My mouth watered. I needed to feed and very soon. Ever since I had started actually biting people the urge had gotten worse. I wondered if this was what Trish lived with all the time. I couldn't go more than a couple of days without doing the worst.

  Life had been so much easier when I used blood bags and hadn't known about any of this. That easier life had a door that was now slammed in my face. I would never get over that.

  But right then thinking of how I had terrified my own mother--twice--helped me gain a control over the hunger. My stomach calmed, through my limbs remained shaky. Xavier was eating a third candy bar now and looking better, with more color in his face. The whole sewer smelled like a night out at the movies mixed with Halloween.

  "We need to go," I said. The sirens above were very loud now. I checked to make sure that the cover was over us, tight. It was. "They might have dogs."

  "But dogs freak out around you," Xavier reminded me.

  "Exactly," I said. "If their dogs freak out and don't want to come over here, they'll know I'm down here."

  That got Xavier and his sister moving. The three of us ran down the sewer, using my gray vision to guide us. At least I had one good thing on our side. I kept my thoughts on the police and the ATC above while Xavier whispered the directions to George's house in my ear. We were going to invade the poor guy again. But by now I was starting to get to know these tunnels. I had been down here more times than I cared to admit. The sewers were a lifesaver for those Abnormals trying to stay out of sight. They were some kind of limbo zone between the real Underground and the surface.

  Rats scurried out of the way. They smelled like garbage and old food. I had a passing thought to bite one, but the thought was just disgusting. I wasn't going to stoop that low unless I had no other choice. Xavier would really look at me like some kind of monster.

  So I jogged while he and Liliana continued to eat. Xavier couldn't stop his hunger now. George's place was on the other side of the city and I wanted nothing more than to lie down at that point. But I kept going. "Some rest we're getting," I mused. "I'm glad you're eating."

  Xavier didn't say anything to that. He knew that his eating would increase the chance that I would bite him. I had told him what I smelled when people ate and how enticing it was. Maybe on some level, I had been trying to warn him.

  "I'm glad he is, too," Liliana said.

  "I have to," Xavier said. "That Transposition drained the crap out of me and I was weak to begin with."

  "Well, we're out of there," I said. "We should have gone straight to George's house."

  "It was too far from where we were," Xavier said. "The mall was the closest thing I could picture clearly that wasn't in the Underground. Oh, crap. We left Thoreau down there with everyone."

  "I don't know how well he can manifest down there," I said. "I don't know much about your wards."

  "Well, they're very good wards since my family is, um, rich," Xavier said. "They're supposed to be strong enough to keep out all demons unless they're battle partners with us. Allunna could get through them. Thoreau shouldn't have. Or maybe he can, now that he's merged with Leon."

  "They get to enjoy each other's thoughts," Liliana said.

  That shocked me, coming from her. She was better liked than Xavier by far but after what had happened back there, any respect she might have had for Leon had evaporated. At least she wasn't calling Xavier a moron anymore. His near brush with turning into a Shadow Wraith had changed things between them and I was glad to see it.

  "I'm sure they keep each other great company," Xavier said. "I think Thoreau got through because of the merger. He might be able to come through a little, but not much inside the wards. At least, that's my theory."

  "Your aunt knows something's really wrong," I said. "Maybe she will convince the other Elders."

  "Even she's going to have trouble," Xavier said. "Then again, Thurton is gone."

  "Do you think Leon will hurt her?" I asked. I found myself feeling sorry for the woman.

  "Leon won't," Xavier said. "Thoreau would."

  "Let's hope Leon wins for now."

  Xavier smiled at me. It was good to see him not shaking. "I hope so, too. The wards should help keep Thoreau back. Leon's fighting him. I know it. He will in order to keep his precious favorite daughter safe."

  "They seemed to be working together," I said. I looked behind us. We had left the police well behind us and they weren't opening up the sewer.

  "Both Thoreau and Leon want us but for different reasons."

  An awful smell hit my nostrils.

  It was sewage mixed with steak. It wafted down another tunnel that branched off to our right. A faint bit of moonlight reflected off the flowing water in that tunnel, making light waves on the walls.

  Voices followed the scent, echoing and distant.

  "Shh," I hissed.

  "Huh?" Liliana asked.

  "I smell something bad," I said. "It's coming from the tunnel to our right."

  A woman spoke and a gruff voice followed. I had heard these voices before. The woman's voice sounded almost human, but it was also dark, like it emanated from a void. The gruff voice who answered her definitely wasn't human at all. It reminded me of the doorman who guarded--

  "The Pit," I finished.

  "What about it?" Xavier whispered as we stood there.

  "Beatrix," I said. "I smell her. She's down that way."

  "I can't see it," Xavier said. "I can summon a light."

  "No," I said. I remembered the crime boss, the half-demon who had once been friends with Leon and worked with him on some illegal stuff. She ran The Pit, a horrible nightclub for the worst Abnormals out there and even some Normals who were in on her crime ring. We had used her portal once to get to Turkey and let out the fact that we had killed Leon before we knew she had once been his friend. It hadn't gone well, to say the least.

  I sniffed the air again. There were more scents now. Doggy smells. Werewolves. Even more rotten sewage that betrayed the fact that some demons--probably incubi and succubi--were with Beatrix. It seemed like her entire hangout was down here somewhere. "I wonder what they're doing down here," I said.

  "Avoiding the ATC?" Xavier asked.

  "Everyone's doing that," I said. Beatrix had no love for Thoreau. She wasn't with anybody. "The point is, we should vacate this area before a werewolf picks up on our scent." The breeze was blowing out of the tunnel and towards us, so that reduced the chance of them detecting us, but I didn't want to take the chance. I listened as the voices continued. "They're maybe half a mile down that tunnel.
"

  "That's too close," Xavier said.

  "Is Beatrix--" Liliana started.

  "The crime boss who almost killed us," I said, checking down the tunnel and leaning to do so. It curved, like most of the others, blocking the people down there from view. More muffled voices floated towards us. They were coming this way. I wasn't sure which tunnel they would head down once they got to this intersection. We had a one out of three chance we'd head down the same tunnel they were about to use. There must be at least a dozen beings, their voices all blending together. There was no way Xavier and I could fight them all, even at full strength.

  "Then what?" Liliana asked.

  "I'm sick of running," I said, "but we have to run some more." My strength was running out. My stomach hurt, I was so hungry, but I doubted there was anyone in that crowd I could bite. I never wanted to ingest demon blood again. I still had a sense of dread in my gut from when I had accidentally bitten Thoreau.

  Beatrix's doorman said something. I heard no wolf growls. The werewolves in her posse were in human form but they could change that whenever they wanted. We had to make a decision. If they came around that curve and saw us, it was all over.

  "Straight," I said. "There's a chance they won't turn and follow us. They might stick to the same tunnel." I hoped so. Turning back wasn't an option with the police behind us. They'd check the sewers sooner or later, maybe even meeting Beatrix and the gang. I felt bad for the police in that case.

  We ran across the intersection as quietly as we could and we didn't slow down. This tunnel curved, but if they came down this way that wouldn't help us for long. The breeze was neutral here. There was no air circulation. That could be good or bad.

  I stayed behind Liliana as we ran, even though I could still move a lot faster than her. Xavier remained next to me. I wondered if our footsteps were loud enough to get picked up by any werewolves or vampires who were with Beatrix. Probably. There was really no getting out of this.

  "We need an exit," Xavier said, echoing my thoughts.