Hi,

The bombshell has been dropped! I think most of you didn't see it coming. ;-) 

How will Anna handle the encounter with the head vamp, now that she knows she's no longer his human servant? Does it change everything or nothing at all?

Lara

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Chapter 29

I leaned into him, pulled forward by a reversed, perverse horizontal gravity that drew me to him no matter how hard I tried to run. What was it in those eyes that made me want to look? Look long enough so that I might figure it out, figure him out if just stared long enough?

Alexander's hand sought my waist, brushed against my leather coat. The cold of the grave scalded me with the ghost of a touch on fabric alone, connected with skin on another level. Power grazed my hip and reacted, a soft backlash from the deadly magical junk I carried concealed in my pockets.

I jerked back.

My pockets. My jacket.

One motion. Enough to remind me of what I was carrying in my pockets. Enough to remind me of the weight on my shoulders. People died because of me. I had no business giving in to dangerous feelings, playing games with the head vampire. Games he was bound to win, if given enough time.

I had put a concealing spell on the artifacts of power and kept it up at all times, and still they reacted to his touch. Had Alexander figured out I marched into this brothel armed to the teeth? Was this just another mindfuck he was using to gain the upper hand?

"The hour's up," I said, stepping back.

"The hour is most certainly not up, Anna," he said. "I will have the truth, and I will have it now. You-"

He stopped mid-air, midsentence, cocking his head. The door opened, practically flying open with a violent bang.

Zack rushed in, stopping in the middle of the room. His auburn hair was tousled as if whipped thoroughly by a vicious gust of wind. His broad jaw was set in stone, an expression so alien on his face, it gave me pause for a second. Alexander's second in command looked far from his usual easy-going-attitude, and I wanted to know why.

Alexander didn't spare him a look, eyes still poised on me.

"I said I did not want to be disturbed." He said the words softly, without the human inflection and that raise of the voice usually used in a sentence.

"Something's happened," Zack said. "You might want to come out for this."

Alexander stepped away from me, blinked into non-existence like the ghost of a still-life portrait. The door shut with loud bang. The sound reverberated. Another blink of the eye and Alexander reappeared beside Zack like an apparition blotting into reality.

I watched them in silence. Scraps of sound, like the indistinctive wail of a miniature see-saw cutting through air. Their lips were moving, but for all the sound they made, they might have been actors of a silent movie.

I cupped my elbows. The weight in my pockets grew heavier with every breath, every step I took. I could feel the objects like a seduction song I couldn't stop listening to. As if they had a mind of their own. As if they wanted to be used, when in fact it was me who wanted to use them.

How much longer until I gave way to temptation? What if I did use one of them? Would it corrupt my soul to the point of no return? Would wielding the magic really kill me in one blow as the old witch told me a few nights ago?

I blinked. Alexander had moved in vamp speed, was standing in front of me like he'd never even left the place. Again that bland expression I was well familiar with.

"What happened?" I said.

His lips moved, his voice so low, I barely understood him. "We must leave. Now."

One moment. A blink of the eye. Too slow.

Before I could gain a glimpse of the intent on his face, prepare myself for it, less prevent him from doing it, he had me over his shoulder. We were moving in vamp speed, flying down what I believed might have been an underground tunnel, or maybe something else altogether. Sound was as imperceptible as the shifting masses of gray and black.

Time passed hurriedly, ran through my consciousness like grains of sand. Maybe less than half a minute, maybe less than ten seconds. No way of telling. Cool fresh air, moonlight from above. Motion stopped as fast as it had started, left me breathless and reeling from the backlash of sudden stasis.

The world turned and righted itself. My back was pressed against cold concrete. Alexander's hand was on my mouth, the blue in his eyes piercingly sharp. My fingers were around his forearm. Whether for support or in a vain attempt to dislodge his hold I didn't know.

"Do not draw attention to us," he whispered. "I can bring you out of here, but you must hide us. Neither I nor you can be seen or sensed." His hand lifted from my mouth. Bitter-sweet, decadent scent drifted into my nostrils like an intoxicating drug.

I blinked, stared at him, tried to read something in those eyes. Found nothing.

Sound was coming from aboveground. Trickles of noise to our left. We were no longer on the premises of Alexander's alleged country club. The blaring mix of Electro swing told me had to be close to the Crimson District's outer edges. Maybe one of the clubs we passed before Alexander's luxury black BMW glided into the country club's private driveway.

"What the hell is going on here, Alexander?" I hissed.

"The human police entered the premises. They are doing a raid as we speak."

My hands fell to my sides. "All the more reason to end this. Why didn't you give me back my pendant? I'd have teleported out."

"The device is locked away at the entrance. They were already on their way up to the apartment when Zack reported."

Motion outside, violent blasts of knocks echoing through.

"And they are here now."

I crossed my arms under my chest. "How convenient for you. Please don't tell me the big bad head vamp can't fend off a bunch of human police officers?"

Something in his eyes moved, a small sign of motion that might have hinted at emotion.

"You know as well as I that this was more than just the human police force."

I eyed him warily. "Meaning what?"

He cocked his head. "I hear that this is not the first time that the Death Squad has managed to find you. What made you believe they had given up?"

My head jerked to the side, eyes wide as I flung myself into second sight. The auratic landscape above was in turmoil, black and blue and light red darting back and forth. I stared and stared. There. A flicker of red, there one second, gone the next.

The Death Squad.

I let my eyes roam over the parameters of the brothel. Motion and magic was everywhere, auras all over the place. On its edges flickers of red, flaring up for less than a heartbeat. Then it all stopped. The outer edges of the parameters were void of auras. That meant that the area was magically sealed. I swallowed. No teleporting out.

"How do you know about the Death Squad?" I said.

My vision blurred and cleared. Alexander was in front of me, hands on my shoulders.

"We have no time for discussions now little witch. We are surrounded by witches that are closing in on you as we speak, magically securing the parameters. I can outrun them, but not without complications and certainly not without them noticing. There is only one way of you escaping without them being alerted of your presence."

And yours, you mean.

I had no doubt this was as self-serving as efficient for Alexander as it was for me.

"You must hide our presence," he said. "You must do what you did when we first arrested Rafael Medici."

I stilled. When we first arrested the Raven?

No.

"Link our auras and make them appear human. And do it fast, Anna." His voice was commanding. Deadly serious. The sheer force of his will, infused in his voice, was compelling enough to make armies of grown men cower and simply obey. "They know, or at least suspect that we both are on the premises. If you want to avoid disaster, you must link our auras and hide our presence."

I stilled. Stared at him.

Alexander was right, but... Did he even know what he was asking? This was not the first time he wanted me to link our auras. After we returned from the vampire conference in Pennsylvania he asked me to do the same thing.

Linking two auras was an intimate, personal thing, equal to opening seams and pockets of your mind and soul, inviting your opposite to slip in and get a feel for what was inside. It was like opening yourself up to the other person and giving them access to an essential part of yourself. Maybe a part that was not supposed to be shared.

If I linked us, would I feel what he felt again? Would he glimpse and taste what it was like to live for me?

I licked my lips. "I-"

"There is no time, Anna."

His hand moved down, grabbing my own. Cold fingers interlacing with mine and I gasped.

Too close. Too intimate.

I closed my eyes, if only to shut out the image of us standing together, calling the powers of air in a silent whisper. Second sight opened up to me like a two-fold plane of existence, a pale imitation of reality with all its washed-out, gray colors.

Reflections and mere shadows of that which really was. Masses of black in front of me. Alexander's aura stretched out, the power of the grave leaking from him like a glutted black sandstorm marching to my tidal fronts and barriers.

We were so close, there was no need to stretch out hands, less metaphorical fingers, to feel him. The cold of the grave was so close, it might have been my own. I was going to have to do the impossible, take a step forward and throw myself into it.

If it were only that simple. First I had to connect our auras, then I had to mask them as human.

I freed my aura, watched red particles, bits and pieces of what might have been my soul drifting towards the dark parts that made his. The contact made me gasp.

Cold. Wet. More intimate than the touch of skin on skin.

Colors aligned and changed. What was once red and black became one, a darker red that was blindingly familiar. A finger dipped into a cold surface, water stirring and rippling by one small motion alone.

Gravity changed and turned itself inside out, sucked me backwards and forwards. Sweet bitterness invaded my tongue, cold blood seeped into my system like a slow, but deadly drug. The sharpness of an ancient mind bit into my skull like a mad dog.

It was there again. I was him again. Could only guess how much and what he was feeling of me. The numbness in my/his core was there. And that burning desire for an unspeakable, unfathomable thing I had no name for. And yet, something was different. Something felt off-kilter in the head vampire's system.

I blinked up at him, and it was then that I realized. If I stared long and hard enough at him now, I would be able to see and understand.

Before I could say anything Alexander tugged at my arm. I stumbled into the night behind him.