Chapter 34: Uneasy Alliances

SERAPHINA

Aleksandr’s blood was a wonder. It was something that had me relaxing in a bath and emerging feeling as if I had just recovered from the flu. The wounds on both my neck and back were barely more than healing flesh that I had turned several times to examine in the mirror.

The healing effect had taken hours instead of days or weeks, leading me to wonder if all vampires possessed such an ability with their blood.

My curiosity was hardly enough to distract me from the trio that sat in my study. Evelyn wore a disapproving frown on her face as she came in to perch next to me, setting down a cup of tea.

The debrief was too important to ignore as Aleksandr placed a handful of bloody pebbles from his pocket on the table. The remains of a ring, in some capacity, gleamed within.

“You lied. You told me he had the orb,” Chen griped, his mustache twitching in his seat as he looked over the rubble.

“The portal was open. Clearly, I was mistaken.”

“Then how was it opened? You owe me, Vasiliev. I pulled my best men out here. I can’t just tell them it was to save some pampered pillow princess.”

“They’re all morons,” Evelyn muttered. The comment grabbed everyone’s attention.

I placed a hand over hers gently to silence any more remarks.

“Jack never had the orb. That’s what I’ve been telling all of you since the start. He’s never had the orb,” I said, tired, exhausted from repeating it over and over again.

His death no longer phased me, but I hoped to put this rumor about the orb to rest. At the very least, I wanted people to stop pestering me and throwing me through any more portals over it.

“What Jack had was a conduit. He stole power. It’s why after he died, his coven was nothing but an empty husk.”

I gave Evelyn a sharp look. She shrugged.

“Sorry, but they’re going to find out eventually. Elis and his group are desperate and hungry. Marcus’s own sister has been rotting in jail and he doesn’t even have a clue. Or didn’t… I don’t know if he’s among the dead.”

Her tone changed into one a little softer, more respectful for the possibly deceased doctor. A doctor I knew was thankfully alive and well, thanks to my own actions just days ago before this fiasco.

I tried not to take a mental tally of everyone that had been in attendance tonight. Grief was already heavy at the thought of Tina and Gloria’s remains.

“So he didn’t have the orb. You still owe me, Vasiliev.”

“I’m sure something can be arranged, especially since I’m sure Ms. Blair is more than grateful for your assistance tonight,” Aleksandr replied smoothly, as if shifting the repayment onto me.

I didn’t bat an eyelash, already seeing how close Chen was to storming out. I knew that some sort of agreement would have to be reached later when tensions weren’t so high.

Let alone when there weren’t dozens of dismembered bodies in the same house on the floor below. “I’m very grateful, and would be happy to follow up at some point with some sort of agreement.”

Chen cursed, flipping us the bird as he stomped out of the room.

“Some sort of agreement my ass. This isn’t the end. Not for any of you, not even you, Eyak!”

I tried not to flinch at the banging noise, my shoulders slumping in response to his departure.

“What the fuck happened over there, Seraphina? How did this happen?” Garrick’s voice was hushed, as if he was partially blaming himself as he looked me over.

I shook my head, knowing that even I had been completely deceived. Damien had been with me since I first met Jack, making it hard to wrap my brain around. Let alone, how exactly he had died.

Melting into some strange pool of his own goo…from shadows that had come from my own body. Shadows just like the ones Zagreus had wrapped around his form.

I was itching to look up the word Karkadann as my mind replayed what Aleksandr had said about my blood. What was I? Had that creature known? Why wasn’t I human?

“Stop interrogating her. Can’t you see how exhausted she is?” Aleksandr snapped, irritation flashing over his features.

Garrick looked as if he were about to argue, but abruptly changed tactics at the look on Evelyn’s face. It was a look that said if looks could kill, he would likely be dead a thousand times over if he dared to question me further.

“We need to get my clean-up crew in here. There’s no way to cover it, but it’s not going to be too hard to make it look like…like a cult infiltrated your house,” he said, the last part lamely, as if unsure of what exactly to say about the situation.

“The dog and I will handle clean-up. You should focus on relocating and resting,” Aleksandr amended, his words affectionate. He cocked his head to Garrick, trying to dismiss him from the room as he stood.

Garrick pushed off the wall, giving me a long, longing look. Our eyes met once more. The connection between us was undeniable. I could see in his eyes how badly he wanted to pursue it, to talk about what I saw in his eyes reflecting back at me.

However, now was neither the time nor the place. He gave me a small nod, as if understanding it would be a later conversation.

Both men left the room, quietly shutting the door behind them with a soft click. They left me alone with Evelyn as I melted into my office chair, feeling the strange sensation of new skin on my back crawl from the movement.

“Fuck.”

“You’re telling me,” Evelyn replied with a huff, popping up onto the desk to sit. “A shit storm and a half. Ready to leave yet?”

“I can’t,” I retorted with a bite in my voice, rubbing my temples as the images of dead bodies and eyes full of madness flashed behind my eyelids. I knew what I was about to say was going to be condemning, but it was important that someone else knew. Someone alive in case I died.

“I kept the genetic program. Marcus is safe because I sent him there two days ago. He’s being held there to…work.”

“Whoa.” Evelyn looked as if she would have sat down with the information, the feeling a heavy one at the realization I had imprisoned him of all people. “You didn’t have the stomach to kill them?”

“One of them is basically a sibling or weird clone. Jack made him with my own blood. It’s not even that, they’re people, Evelyn. Jack made them look like test subjects on paper but when I was there; they’re real.”

“So, you’ve seen this…perversion of yourself face to face?”

“I didn’t have the heart to,” I said with a heavy sigh. I knew something I hadn’t before, something I didn’t dare say out loud to Evelyn. Something I didn’t want to say out loud to anyone.

I knew now why Jack had made the program, and why he had tried to effectively clone me. Power. Jack was more power-hungry than I had realized.

He believed that my love for him would have brought him back from death itself if I had been able to wield his ring. A conduit that had sucked power not just from his coven, but from me and every other genetic monster he had created and visited on a weekly basis. I hadn’t realized the amount of damage he was doing to everything, and everyone.

“It would be easier if you didn’t have empathy, wouldn’t it?”

“Curse of womanhood and all that, sorry for my bleeding heart,” I mocked. I pulled out my phone to begin the process of finding a place to lay my head for the night.

“Your bleeding heart saved Marcus,” Evelyn pointed out, staring out the window behind me with a heavy sigh of her own as she crossed her arms. “So what do we do about this orb then? This won’t be the last mess of Jack’s we’re going to have to clean up if more people are after an object that doesn’t exist. You don’t even have a coven to protect you, and I doubt your sexual charms will keep Eyak or Vasiliev around forever.”

“Find it and return it,” I lied, already knowing how hopeless that was. “Keep looking is really the only answer I have other than trying to shift some of our business deals. Especially since Chen and Vasiliev might be new avenues with Jack out of the picture.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and let out a deep sigh, letting me know how little she approved.

“You’re welcome to leave,” I offered, not unkindly. “I’d pay you out the rest of your contract.”

“As if. You attracted a bunch of bad people that were strong enough to rip a magical portal into the earth in real time. Something I got to witness with my own eyes. I’m sticking around to see it again.”

I let out a small, hoarse, barking laugh at the frenzied excitement in her voice. “Don’t get your hopes up too high for the near future. I don’t think there’s any portals opening with a jacuzzi present.”

“I’ll stick around to see. Warm bubbling water worked in a movie, and if it doesn’t take us to wherever you weren’t, I can at least relax and pick your brain as you tell me every detail about the other side tonight.”

I looked at her suspiciously. I knew that her curiosity didn’t usually extend to what one might call a girls’s night, even if she was pumping me for information. “Which one is paying you to keep an eye on me?”

“Who said it was one? Bidding wars are fun, but even better when they both end up paying,” she replied brightly.

She joined in with my laughter at her con amid the tragedy to both Aleksandr and Garrick.

The only light in an otherwise disastrous day.