If she could see it.
“It’s bound in something, but now that I really look at it, I don’t know that it’s leather, Mom. And I’m going to be honest. I’m afraid that the spells are written in something that’s not ink. It’s red but it doesn’t look like ink.”
Blood. My son was looking at a blood spell written in a language so old the damn demons didn’t use it anymore.
“It’s got a picture of a door,” Lee continued. “I think that was painted in blood, too. I think that book is bad.”
That book had been written by the man who’d killed Lee the first time around. Oh, I was sure Daniel would argue, but I knew what the wizard had done. It had been the wizard who sent us all out that night knowing full well the Council had come for us. I even remember that he’d warned me he was doing it. He’d told me I would have to look past my grief to get the job of handing Daniel his crown done. He’d known Lee would die. He’d wanted Lee to die.
“I can’t see it,” I admitted. “And that means he’s got it warded against me.”
I had to hope I was the one he’d specifically warded it against and not Sarah. It would be hard to have Lee describe each spell to her. But that was a problem for another day.
“I can get it, Mom. There aren’t any cameras in here. Grandad and I studied the plans.”
“Because you hacked into the Council records?”
He gave me a grin. “Aren’t you happy I did?”
I groaned. It did make perfect sense that Myrddin wouldn’t have cameras in here. He wouldn’t want anyone to see what he was doing. I glanced around and I couldn’t see anything in the normal places where a camera would be, but I still wasn’t sending him out in the open. “I’ll hold the cloak against the table just in case. And I’ll handle Gladys. I don’t know how it reacts to humans, but I do know she doesn’t particularly like men handling her.”
“That’s not fair,” Lee groused. “Gladys is cool. She was Dad’s for a long time.”
“Well, she should have been mine,” I shot back. “Be careful with the book. Don’t touch it any more than you have to.”
I didn’t want to think about all the blood that had been spilled for Myrddin’s grimoire. I definitely didn’t want my son touching it. I pressed the sides of the cloak against the table, drawing them together when Lee told me to. He had the bag of holding in one hand and I watched as he moved his other. It looked like he was miming closing a book and then shoving it into the bag.
He grinned up at me. “It’s in there.”
I glanced inside and sure enough, there was a damn book in there. I couldn’t see it in the real world, but this pocket world had been primed with my blood. It was a tiny kingdom that was mine and my father’s, and apparently wards didn’t work here. If we had to, Sarah and I could climb in that sucker and read that book while Albert served us tea. Or vodka.
I would outsmart that fucker if it was the last thing I did. I scooped up Gladys and placed her in there, too. She hummed briefly in my hand and I could have sworn I felt satisfaction come off that sword. She hadn’t liked being handled by the wizard.
There was another bang and I realized we really needed to get the hell out of here. “Let’s go.”
When we got back to the living room I winced because Dannan and the cat had battled mightily, and it looked like the pixie was victorious.
The cat had a flowerpot stuck to its head. It looked like Dannan had tricked kitty in and then flown out the tiny hole for draining. The cat was howling its displeasure as it swerved around the somewhat destroyed space.
“Cool,” Lee said.
“Dannan, stop gloating. Let’s go,” I commanded.
The pixie swept inside the cloak, taking his place on Lee’s shoulder.
We made our way out of the apartment and I could breathe again.
Chapter Thirteen
Kelsey
My head ached from whatever the hell that little shit had done to me, but I couldn’t let him gut himself. Well, I couldn’t let Marcus convince him to gut himself. It was kind of my former honey’s go-to move when he got annoyed with someone. Luckily, for the most part, Marcus is a pretty even-tempered guy. But do not touch his shit. And by shit I mean whatever female he was involved with. I’d been that female for a while and the man could be super protective. He still was.
But I wondered if this wasn’t more about Summer than the fact that the Harry Potter wannabe had managed to give me a headache. Either way, the kid was about to take one to the gut, and that meant I had to fix the situation.
“Dean, don’t.” Summer was moving toward the young man with a shock of blond hair that could almost be considered white. His body hadn’t completely filled out yet, but his shoulders were broad and he was tall, showing every evidence that he was going to be superhot one day.
I glanced down and Marcus had that look on his face. It was the predatory look of perfect focus he got when he was inside someone’s brain doing nasty things. Marcus wasn’t the strongest vampire in the physical sense, but no one matched him mentally.
Dean had the sword I’d taken from the soldiers in his hand and was about to push it through his gut when I gripped his wrist.
“Marcus, come on, man,” I said. “You know you’ll have to turn right around and heal him if you do this.”
I vowed to apologize to Trent when I saw him next because I remembered teasing him about not being able to hold back a weak-assed shifter who’d been trying to do the same thing to himself a few years before in Ether. This guy had less physical strength than that one had and I was struggling. Like I said, Marcus was strong.
Summer was on the other side of the kid. “Dean, please don’t do this. Fight it. Fight it.”
I looked over to where Dev Quinn was still holding his forehead.
“You want to help me out here, buddy?” I asked, my arms starting to ache.
Quinn frowned my way. “Not particularly. My head feels like it’s going to explode. Play with him before you kill him, Marcus.”
Freaking men. The kid was close. So close to getting that sword in his gut. I decided to appeal to Marcus’s logic. “Summer likes this guy. Not going to help the whole courtship thing if you murder him. Summer, you need to understand that the hot vampire guy is totally making this happen. You tell him he won’t get any honey at all if he doesn’t fall in line and not kill people you like. Make that a hard limit. You have to take control, sister.”
I needed someone to take control because I was losing this fight. Every time I managed to move the kid an inch, he gained it back. The sword had started to press against the linen of his tunic, and it wouldn’t be long before the blood started to flow.
My head ached, but the truth was I’d been able to feel a bit of the soul that had invaded my brain. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. He was clumsy. He was a toddler and I’d been a puppy he held too tight. When he’d been inside my mind, I’d felt what I can only describe as a glow coming from him, and it hadn’t been bad. He wanted to do good. He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to make the world around him proud.
He also wanted Summer. And that, I believe, is what Marcus truly took exception to.