dark here. It’ll keep my spellwork from human eyes, remember?”
“I didn’t mean–I’m just saying that–,” he started twice, and then sighed, walked over to the area he’d pointed to, and said firmly, “I’ll be here. Waiting for you.”
“Good,” she said. “This shouldn’t take long, but I do tend to get caught up in my spellwork.” Anastasia walked past him purposefully, giving his arm an absent pat.
“I know,” he muttered, and then called to her, “You wouldn’t even notice a rampaging bear.”
“It wasn’t rampaging,” she called back, laughing.
He’d lightened her mood a little, so that she whispered Nyx’s name with a smile on her lips and, feeling more confident and serene, Anastasia placed the first candle—yellow, in the east for air—and called the element to her circle. Concentrating completely on the spell to come, she reached into the velvet bag that held the binding salt, and as she moved clockwise around the jailhouse, inviting the elements to create a circle, she sprinkled the salt in an unbroken line over the well-trod ground, whispering:
Foreboding pushed aside, Anastasia moved around the jailhouse, casting her circle and thinking calm, serene, happy thoughts. And, though she had decided to set the spell with the air candle, as she worked she automatically visualized reaching down deep into the soil below her and pulling up rich earth magick to help ground the spell and reinforce her intent.
As it had been doing since she’d attempted her first fledgling spell, the element responded to Anastasia, and strong, steady earth magick awakened beneath the jailhouse and began to flow.
The creature of Darkness and spirit that crouched in the basement felt the earth surge in answer to the gentle request of the young priestess, and it knew the time had come to do its master’s will. It began a whisper of quite a different sort.
The human, who had taken to pacing back and forth, back and forth before the silver cage long into the night, paused and listened.
“Yes! Yes, I know.” Biddle snarled the words at the creature. Compulsively, his head twitched and he kept plucking at his shirt, as if to rid himself of imagined insects that crawled over his skin. “But I can’t get to her in the middle of that vampyre nest.”
“You mean she’s outside? Alone?” Biddle didn’t seem to notice that the creature’s voice had changed, gone from a halting serpentine whisper that was barely human to a deep melodic chant that was far too seductive to be human.
From inside the cage the shadowy creature opened its maw wide and, with a terrible retching sound, sticky threads of blackness spewed forth from it, slithering to Biddle, who came forward eagerly to meet them. As if greeting a lover, he moaned in pleasure as Darkness wrapped around his legs and seeped beneath his skin, filling him with a power that was as addictive as it was destructive.
Swollen with borrowed might, Biddle pulled out the long knife he’d taken to carrying since he’d caught the creature—since he’d been feeding it blood.
“Yes! With more power I can get rid of those goddamned vampyres forever! I’ll pick ’em off one by one if I got to. And I’ll start tonight with that arrogant little bastard.” Biddle began up the narrow stairwell. Behind him the creature was still speaking:
Biddle plucked at his shirt, laughed to himself, and ignored the creature’s words.
Anastasia’s spell drifted through the night to Dragon. He could see her silhouette in front of the jailhouse, just outside the edge of the flickering gaslights that framed the stone doorway. She spoke in the same singsong cadence she’d used for her drawing spell.
Dragon thought her voice was probably the loveliest sound he’d ever heard. It soothed him and made everything feel right in his world.
He had been worrying about the fact that Anastasia didn’t like it that he was going to be a Warrior, but as she cast her spell, speaking the words and feeding the ajoite-crushed lavender to the fire, Bryan realized he didn’t have anything to be troubled about.
It would be easy to convince Anastasia he wasn’t really violent. He wasn’t like he used to be. He was older and wiser. He only used his sword when he had to—or mostly only used it then. She would see.
She would understand. Dragon let out a low, slow sigh and leaned more comfortably against the big oak. He was looking up at the sky and thinking that he’d been really smart to leave those sunflowers for Anastasia every day when it happened. One moment he was standing there, peaceful, filled with true contentment, and the next Biddle was in front of him.
Dragon stared at the man, frozen by surprise. In just the few days since Dragon had last seen him, Biddle has gone through a terrible transformation. His face was gaunt. His cheeks, hollow. The skin under his eyes was puffy and dark. He twitched spasmodically.
Dragon tried to keep the disgust from his voice when he said, “Sheriff Biddle, is there something I can do for you?”
Biddle smiled. “Yep. You can die.”
For the first time in his life, Bryan Dragon Lankford looked into the face of true evil.
Instinct had Dragon reaching down to unsheathe his sword, but he was too late. Biddle struck with a speed and strength that was inhuman. He grabbed Dragon by the throat and rammed him against the hard bark of the oak tree, forcing the air to whoosh from his body. With his other hand the sheriff knocked the sword from Dragon’s failing grip.
Biddle sneered into Dragon’s face, saying, “You blustering little braggart!”
“No!” Dragon choked, trying to struggle for air. The eerie familiarity of the sheriff’s words and actions shocked him to his core, and suddenly he was back in that stable four years before, losing his home and his family and his birthright all over again.
“And you know what,” Biddle said, pressing his mouth close to Bryan’s ear. “I ain’t gonna kill her up here and take her down there. I’m gonna do what
Dragon’s throat was on fire, and as everything went dark for him he heard Anastasia, much too close, scream his name.
