Claimed by the Immortal

“What makes you think I can do that?”

“Because,” said Damien, “you’re the one who called it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But Caro could see his aura deepening. He was summoning power. She hoped Damien could see it, too. She had a feeling this was about to get very ugly, but she could hardly imagine in what way.

Moved by an impulse she couldn’t explain, she pulled the gris-gris Alika had given her from her pocket and showed it to the man. “We need to talk,” she said in her best cop voice.

“About what?” he demanded truculently.

“About how these murders are going to stop.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did Alika give you that?”

“Yes, to protect me. Apparently she knew something was coming after me. You miscalculated on that. Your elemental is following me because I saw what it did at the Pritchett house. That was your mistake.”

He shook his head. “Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

“We’re talking about you,” Damien said silkily. “And your very big mistake. You’re apparently not a very good bokor.”

The man took a step toward them. “I’m no bokor. No way. Crazy or not, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

“Someone here,” Damien said flatly, “called upon an elemental to kill people. That’s a very big mistake. Especially when it then turns its attention to a cop who had no part in Pritchett’s activities. Otherwise you might have left a trail of unsolved murders. As it is, you’re going to recall this elemental and stop murdering people now.”

“No one in his right mind becomes a bokor!”

“So I would have thought. But the power was called from here, so that leaves you, doesn’t it?”

Suddenly the curtain moved again, and Alika stepped out. She looked drained and unsteady, and at once the young man took her arm to help her. “Mother...”

“No, Jerome, I’m not going to let you fight for me.” She looked at Damien and Caro. “Yes, I called on the power. And I’m not going to stop, not while there’s a single person who might become homeless because a wealthy man doesn’t give a damn about the lives of the poor. You can’t stop me.”

“Mother...”

She patted the young man’s hand and settled onto a chair. “I tried to protect you,” she said to Caro. “I knew you weren’t part of it. And now my son tries to protect me. He cast a spell to keep you away. You should have stayed away.”

“Not while people continue to die,” Caro said. “I’m grateful for the gris-gris, Alika, but I nearly died anyway. How long do you want this to go on? How many have to die?”

“As many as it takes. In less than a month my son and his family will lose their home. Where will they go? What will they do? The rich never think of these things. Pah!”

Caro had to admit some sympathy with the woman’s view. “But there has to be a better way to fight.”

“We went to the meetings. We argued for our homes. They didn’t listen.”

“How does this justify murder? You took the law into your own hands. No one has that right.”

“Easy for you to say,” Alika spat furiously. “You won’t be sleeping on the street.”

Caro gave up the argument. The problem here wasn’t that Alika was wrong about what was happening to all those families. No, she was simply wrong in how she was dealing with the problem. Finally she said, “Leaving people homeless is wrong. But murder is even worse, and it won’t stop what’s happening. There has to be another way. I’m sure there are agencies—”

“Pah,” Alika interrupted. “Agencies. As if they care. Believe me, they don’t care the way I do, the way my son does. How many homes will be destroyed? You tell me where there are homes these people can afford to move into.”

Caro didn’t have an answer for that. Worse, she wondered if anyone did.

“No,” Damien said quietly. “Don’t weaken yourself.”

She looked at him and realized she had lost the image of the corked bottle. The cold was creeping through her again. At once she mentally reconstructed the container and slapped the stopper on it. The elemental remained contained.

“Please,” she said to Alika. “Innocent children died because of your anger at their father. I might have died and may still. You need to recall this thing. What if it slips your control?”

Alika smiled faintly. “It’s in your control now, woman. What will you do with it?”

Caro didn’t have an answer for that. She had the thing bottled up inside her, but with no idea of how to get rid of it. If she even could.

Damien’s voice changed, taking on that eerie note again. He was trying to command Alika. “We both know the rules. You summoned it so you are the only one who can send it back. Send it back now.”

Alika shrugged. “You won’t kill me, because then it will never go back. And if you won’t kill me, you cannot stop me.”

“Woman, I am Magi. You don’t know what you’re bargaining for here.”

“Your powers are gone, vampire.”

“Actually,” Damien said softly, “they are not. Believe me, I can make you wish you’d never been born. Or perhaps you would prefer I make your son wish he’d never been born.”

Caro smothered a gasp.

“You can’t,” Alika said calmly. “It would violate your oath as one of the Magi.”

“Not when it will protect the lives of others. You threaten my lady. You’ve killed many already. You plan to kill more. Which way do you think my oath flows? To life or to death?”

Finally, something that gave Alika pause. She said nothing, her face frozen, for at least a full minute. “Leave Jerome out of this. I left your lady out of it.”

“Not entirely,” Damien countered. “It almost killed her despite your gris-gris. Are you strengthening it? Is it already slipping your control?”

Again Alika remained silent.

Then Damien moved faster than sight, and the next thing Caro could see, he held Jerome in his grip, with his hands behind him. “I have no desire to hurt your son. I have no desire to hurt you. But this must stop and it must stop now.”

“Leave Jerome out of this,” Alika demanded, shoving herself to her feet.

Jerome was beginning to look a little wild-eyed and his gaze kept darting to his mother.

“Then call off your elemental,” Damien insisted. “Send it back. I don’t even need my magic to deal with your son. He’s a mere human. Before you could do a thing I could snap his neck. Or rend him to pieces the way you did with the Pritchett children.”

Caro was appalled by the threats. She hated threats of violence. Yet this time she understood them. Others would die if Alika didn’t back down.

“Release my son or I’ll call on powers you can’t even imagine.”

Damien smiled, showing teeth. “You think I haven’t learned every one of those powers? You’re talking to a mage who has walked this earth for three thousand years. Your knowledge is that of a child’s compared to mine.”

“Let him go or I will kill her!”

Damien said nothing for a moment. He looked at Caro.

“Let her try,” Caro said, feeling a steely resolve grow in her. “Let her son go, and let her try. I have had enough.”

Whatever Damien saw or sensed about her, his smile widened. “Indeed you have, Schatz.” With that he let Jerome go, but stopped him with a word. “If you love your mother, talk sense to her before I have to act.”

Jerome approached his mother, taking her hand. “Mother, you always told me that using power for dark purposes would rebound. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Please, send it back.”

“And let dozens be homeless, including my own son?”