Demon’s Bluff (Hollows #18)

Chapter 22

Chapter

22

“The library?” Dr. Ophees’s hands gripped the wheel of her electric convertible tighter as we stopped at a red light.

Elyse, who had insisted on taking the front seat, beamed a comforting smile. “It’s closed. But we have a way in. Go left here. There’s parking at the delivery bay.”

The older woman’s fingers tapped a frustrated staccato, and I leaned forward, uncomfortable at her obvious mistrust. It had followed her like a stray dog ever since leaving the hospital. Not that I blamed her. “Is this a problem?” I intoned, feeling like Al as I sat in the back and glowered.

“Yes, it’s a problem,” Dr. Ophees said. “I can’t claim a published charm as my own.”

“Oh!” Elyse immediately relaxed. “We aren’t here because the charm is. We’re here because that’s where she stashed her old boyfriend.”

I wasn’t sure what Kisten was, but “old boyfriend” sounded so…in the past, even if it was correct. Who are you doing this for, Rachel? “It’s a new charm. I guarantee it.”

“You guarantee.” The light changed, and after a telling moment of hesitation, she turned down the less busy street. “Your guarantee means goose slip,” she added, grip easing.

Whatever… “Down that alley,” I said, and the car slowed to make the sharp left.

“Better and better,” Dr. Ophees muttered, but I could see her relief when the tight drive opened into a large paved courtyard between four buildings. There was another alley exit right in front of her, plenty of room for deliveries—or a quick departure.

She brought the car to a halt beside a dumpster and shut off the engine. “Okay. Clock is ticking,” she said as she pulled her purse onto her lap and opened the door.

I scooted to follow her out of the little two-door, hesitating when the woman slammed the door in my face. Annoyed, I shifted to the other side of the car, vowing never to put Al in the back seat again. Elyse was already out, striding up the smooth, stained cement steps to the delivery bay door, leaving me to manipulate the seat by myself. Ruffled, I got out and slammed Dr. Ophees’s door shut right as Elyse yanked the rolling gate up in a noisy, somehow-comforting clatter.

Dr. Ophees was decidedly wary as she popped the trunk to get her box of materials. I guess having me and that big knife alone in the back had been too much for her.

“I can’t believe she came out here,” Elyse said as I scuffed up the stairs to join her. “We could mug her and steal her car and no one would know.” She watched Dr. Ophees stand at her closed trunk, box at her feet, her phone in her hand. “I’m not saying we would, but damn! I thought you were trusting. How did she survive this long?”

The whoosh of an outgoing email sounded, and I smirked. She survived because she was a badass. “Have you felt how much line energy she’s packing?” I said as Dr. Ophees headed for the steps.

“Yeah. I get that, but it’s almost too easy to nullify a ley line practitioner.”

Tell me about it.

“There could be five big men waiting to jump her,” Elyse continued, whispering as we went inside and hit the call button for the freight elevator.

Dr. Ophees lingered in the sun coming into the open bay as the old machinery clattered awake, the woman pulling in line energy slow and easy in case we went too deep and she couldn’t tap a line. Smart. “Okay.” I turned my back on the older woman. “First of all, picking your take from the basement of the hospital is stupid when there are a dozen trusting people wandering the streets. Second, even if we wanted to mug her, your synapses are singed, and since I’m pretty sure she’s seeing past our glamours, she knows I have a big vampire hickey, telling her I’m stupid and therefore easy to overcome. Third, she just emailed someone where she was. Fourth and most important, she deals with the undead. Alone. They wouldn’t put her down there by herself if she couldn’t handle a surprise attack from someone potentially stronger than her.”

The elevator clunked into place and I wrestled the gate open as Dr. Ophees joined us.

“And lastly, if you try anything, I will flatten you to the walls, sweet thing,” the doctor said pleasantly as she pushed past us to confidently take the back of the elevator.

“She also has really good hearing,” I said as I joined her there to leave Elyse to fumble the gate down and hit the descend button.

The lift hummed and clunked into movement, and we all stared straight ahead as the floor seemed to rise over our heads and darkness took us. “Sorry,” Elyse said, clearly uncomfortable. “I just think this is a huge risk for you for little benefit.”

Dr. Ophees scrolled through her social media feed until she lost connection and put her phone away. The ley line, though, remained secure as I knew it would. “I did an aura check before I got out of the car. There’s no one alive in the building bigger than a mouse. The undead won’t touch me. I am their last resort and they know it. I think that makes me safe enough.”

Damn… I was starting to like the prickly woman, and I eyed Elyse as if to say, See?

“Oh, I agree that this is stupid,” Dr. Ophees continued. “But I didn’t become a doctor to watch people die, even if they are already dead.” The stuff in the box shifted as she moved it to her hip. “I was put in charge of the undead after I saved the second life of someone a colleague misdiagnosed, and I work so well with the occasional survivor that they decided to keep me down there.”

It was bitter, and Elyse jumped to open the gate when the lift ground to a halt.

“At least it pays well,” Dr. Ophees muttered, and I stifled a sigh, going first into the dimly lit hallway. They probably moved her there because no one wanted to deal with her ego; the woman was smarter than them, and she knew it.

“He’s in the rare-book locker,” I said, not liking the whispers our feet were making.

“I’ve never been down here.” Dr. Ophees’s pace slowed as she noticed the books we were passing. “Can you check these out?”

“No.” Elyse flashed her a smile. “Most aren’t even supposed to be here.”

I ran my hand across the chain-link fence embedded into both the ceiling and the floor, the quick thump-thump-thump against my fingers grounding me. “The university has an annoying tendency to steal things they think should be for their eyes only,” I said sourly. “Which is why I don’t have a problem sneaking down here and availing myself when I need to.”

“Mmmm.” Dr. Ophees studied me as if considering I might not be the vampire junky in rhinestones and sequins that she was probably seeing. I didn’t really care what she thought as long as she listened. At least I wasn’t in sweats and red-stained sneakers.

“Doctor,” I said as I swung the gate to the locker open and she hesitated, waiting for Elyse to go first. I pulled the chain-link shut behind me, not surprised when the older woman ran her hand along the titles as she passed. That she could still tap a line down here was probably a relief.

“I didn’t know this existed,” she whispered as she paused at a title. “Stef, if that’s your real name, I owe you some consideration if only because you brought this to my attention.”

“Just don’t spread it around. I don’t want to come down here and find people,” I muttered, my attention going right to Kisten when the short passage opened up to the small, ugly room defined by bookracks and one cold stone wall. He hadn’t moved, and a sliver of panic iced through me. Is that good or bad?

Dr. Ophees set her box on the table. “Well, let’s see how he sits.”

I stood just inside the room, arms over my middle. Guilt swam up from a growing sense of responsibility. I should have been able to take him to the emergency department, not hidden him in the basement of the library. Vampire politics sucked.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Elyse said softly as Dr. Ophees whispered some Latin and a hazy spell sifted over him, flashing through what remained of his aura before it waned. “We have things to do tonight.”

I fidgeted as Dr. Ophees took his pulse or, at least, waited for one. It might be a while. “We can’t even be on-site until seven,” I said. “She’ll be out of here in less than an hour.”

Still waiting for a pulse, Dr. Ophees said, “What did he die of?”

That damned lump was back in my throat. “An undead threw him into a wall and snapped his neck. He was a blood gift.”

“Ah, there it is. Nice and strong,” she said, and let his wrist drop. She shifted his head, searching for marks on his neck, then checked his other wrist. “Hence him being here and not emergency. I’m not seeing any visible bite marks. Why is he languishing?”

“He, ah, bit the attacking vampire,” I said, and Dr. Ophees turned, interested. “Kisten shifted to his undead state with no downtime,” I explained. “He knew he couldn’t overpower his attacker, so he intentionally bit him to save me.”

Dr. Ophees’s expression remained rigidly professional. “You were there.”

It wasn’t a question, and I nodded, jaw clenched. “He mixed their blood to take that bastard down with him. He died to keep me and someone else safe.” And it still hurts.

She eyed him. “So where’s the attacking vampire?”

“He fled,” I said to explain why Art hadn’t shown up in her morgue, because that’s what it was. “I expect he’ll be dead in three days. Don’t look for him. He’s gone.”

My lip twitched as I stifled a surge of anger. Art had hidden himself in the tunnels with his scion. Both died horribly, as Art had drained his scion in a desperate attempt to stave off death. It didn’t seem like enough.

“I’m sorry.” Dr. Ophees set Kisten’s hand atop his chest. “The amount of virus he received from his attacker was slight, but it was enough. He’s fading. Sunrise, perhaps, when his aura runs out. Maybe longer.”

“You want to see the spell?” I ground out. “Or would you rather browse the racks for the next forty minutes?”

Dr. Ophees lifted her gaze to take in the ugly room and sighed. “Sure,” she said flatly, her back to Kisten as she pulled out one of the rolling chairs and sat before the table. “Impress me.”

She obviously thought this was a waste of time, and maybe it was. The spell would create smut. I knew Dr. Ophees wouldn’t go for that, so I’d take it, using the collective to handle the exchange if she would give, say, ten percent of every aura she gathered to Kisten. If I registered the curse with a fee-for-use, I wouldn’t even have to monitor it.

Motions rough, I unpacked the box, my anger easing when I used the ion-repelling scarf I had borrowed from Sylvia to prep the area and Dr. Ophees began to take an interest, either at the high-end spell-prep precaution or the tinkling of the bells or, most likely, the sudden scent of burnt amber. Regardless, she was paying attention, and I decided to go all the way and shimmied into the robe. I was working with auras…sort of.

“You want some help?” Elyse asked, her gaze going to her robe jammed into that round hat.

“No, but thanks.” Head down, I retied the sleeves up past my elbows. “I know the original curse, and I saw the pentagram she used. I should be able to figure it out.”

Elyse shifted to stand between me and the doctor. “Ah…I thought…you don’t…”

“Just sit down,” I griped, stifling a flash of worry. “Let me know if I get close to violating the coven’s precious double standard,” I added bitterly, and Elyse frowned, giving the second chair a tug to roll it halfway across the room before she dropped into it, a scowl on her face and her arms over her chest.

Do the charm, register it as a fee-for-use curse, link the payment to Kisten. Easy said, easy done.

Right…

“Okay.” My eyes went to the unlit candle as I thought out loud. “The original curse is illicit not simply because it’s taking someone else’s aura and leaving them vulnerable but because it requires a hard linkage by blood, bone, hair, and three passions indicated by the first three auratic shells of the, ah, donor. Earth, stone, and water are handled by the hair, bone, and blood, and the last three aspects of fire, air, and ether are more spiritual. A six-themed curse or spell is complicated but necessary when dealing with stealing someone’s aura.”

Dr. Ophees’s lips parted in surprise. “You have taught before?”

“Not often, and not well, but I have a good instructor,” I said. “He rarely tells me everything unless I chatter my way through a lesson, so it’s kind of habit.” I hesitated, thinking of Al. He was out to abduct me at the moment, and I missed him. “We don’t need the precision of a six-themed curse, since the donor and recipient linkages are more or less voluntary here and can be worked right into the spell.” I lit the candle with a thought and set it aside. “A standard pentagram using the cave as a connection point will be enough.”

“You’ve never done this.”

I glanced up at Dr. Ophees, deciding to ignore that. “The parent curse utilizes a phrase to invoke aura movement,” I said. “I will keep that intact, seeing as the phraseology dictates where the aura goes. Once the link is made between the two pentagrams, the aura shift could go either way. A morally corrupt curse can be made into one that is less so if it leans to helping another voluntarily.” I turned to Elyse. “Good?”

Elyse shifted her chair back and forth, appearing bored. “Good.”

Dr. Ophees gave Elyse a sidelong look as if wondering why I cared what she thought. “There is no voluntary here,” Dr. Ophees said. “It’s a sack of blood and a jar.”

I bobbed my head, intent on cleaning both scrying mirrors of free ions. “I’m simply pointing out that in the original curse, apart from the less savory ingredients, intent plays a role in determining if it’s illicit or not.” Again I turned to Elyse. “Right?”

“Pretty much.” Elyse crossed one leg over the other, foot bobbing. “It’s still going to create smut, especially if you need hair, bone, and nail samples from the original blood donors to link the donation pentagram to the transfer pentagram.”

I set the mirrors down and arranged them just so. “I’m going to pare that part down. Connect them another way.”

“My God,” Dr. Ophees whispered. “You’re making this up as you go along.”

My brow furrowed as I met her horrified gaze. “If it doesn’t work, all you lose is your two-hour lunch break. I’ll buy you a bowl of Skyline chili you can take back to your desk.”

“You gave me the impression you had a working spell!” she exclaimed. “How much smut is this going to leave on my aura?”

“None,” I snapped. “I’ll take the smut, but ten percent of every aura you gather will go into the demon collective for my use. Or is your ego going to get in the way of me giving you a shovel to dig yourself out of the basement?”

“No smut makes it very legal,” Elyse said when Dr. Ophees hesitated, the thought to walk out almost visible on her.

“Yeah, remember you said that,” I muttered. The candle had warmed enough that there was melted wax, and I began to spill it into an even pentagram on the first mirror.

“Ten percent goes to you?” Dr. Ophees’s attention flicked to Kisten and back again.

A drop of wax threatened to drip onto my first finished pentagram, and I caught it, feeling the hot liquid burn for a telling second. “Consider it a royalty. You want me to stop?”

“No.” Her gaze went to Kisten, and then she gestured. “Go on.”

Yeah, I’d give ten percent to get out of that basement, too, I thought dryly as I scribed the second pentagram, finishing it with an ease and perfection that I would have envied two years ago. I blew the candle out, watching the smoke curl as I wondered if making a permanent connection between the two mirrors instead of the pentagrams might streamline the process. The mirrors couldn’t be used for anything else, but the link would be ironclad. That, though, was for another day, and I turned to Dr. Ophees. “Is there a way to take a sample from a blood bag for testing? I need a drop in the jar.”

“To link it to the pentagram,” she said, and I bobbed my head. “Sure. There’s a port. You can decant what you want with a syringe.” She hesitated. “You didn’t ask me to bring one.”

“I have one.” Thank you, Ivy, I thought as I shuffled in my bag, glad that she had put it in there so I could fill my splat balls. The rasp of the protective paper seemed loud, and Dr. Ophees checked her phone as I settled the bag of blood in the cave of the first pentagram and fiddled with it to figure out how the port worked. Easy-peasy. Quick from practice filling splat balls, I pulled a cc out, then unfocused my attention to see if the aura was still present.

A haze of brown and green swirled like stardust against the darker blood. It was fresh, perhaps only a few hours out of a body. “If you don’t want to use the syringe, a yew stylus will work,” I said, mostly to pull Dr. Ophees’s attention from her phone.

I set the waiting jar in the cave of the second pentagram with a loud thump. Breath held, I decanted a drop halfway between the wall of the jar and the middle. “Juncta in uno,” I whispered, using the words to place-set the blood and join the jar to the pentagram. Yeah, joining the two mirrors would make this faster.

“What’s that?” Dr. Ophees scooted forward, probably thinking I was trying to hide something from her.

“Joined in one,” I said, translating the Latin. “Make a spiral of six dots for the aura to follow.”

She nodded, expression empty. Six dots linked it to the original curse, but I thought it important, and I set the last five with the same word. Each utterance in my mind brought a stronger connection to the ley lines, and I ran a hand over my hair when I was done, feeling it spark from mystics.

“Kind of loose, isn’t it?” Elyse asked, and I blinked to bring my thoughts back from the Goddess. Invoking her presence seemed like overkill. The insane deity and her mystics didn’t recognize me anymore, but why take chances?

“It’s fine.” I didn’t like spiral magic, but auras did.

Dr. Ophees inched even closer. “Sympathetic magic is forgiving as long as your mind is not.”

That was a nice way to put it, and I started, almost dropping the syringe, when Kisten took a slow breath. This has to work, I thought as I glanced at him. Sunrise. I might not even be here at sunrise if Trent caught us.

“You should feel a growing connection to the ley lines with each drop,” I said, and Dr. Ophees frowned.

“Obviously,” she said, her gaze on my staticky hair. “What did you use to join the blood to its associated pentagram?”

“Ah, same word as with the other,” I said, touching the bag in question with an unsaid Juncta in uno. “Okay. Pentagrams are scribed. Jar is linked to receiving pentagram, blood is linked to the giving.” I looked at Elyse. “Anything yet that would kick this into illicit?”

Elyse bobbed her foot. “Not as long as the blood was freely donated.”

Again Dr. Ophees frowned at the clearly younger woman as if wondering why I was asking her.

My pulse quickened. I had modified curses before, but not in front of anyone as ego-ridden as Dr. Ophees, and I’d once spelled in front of the entire body of demons. “Then let’s see if it works with the original invocation phrase.” Because if it didn’t connect to the demon collective properly, I was going to have to show my work and do it the long way. Yuck…

Power fizzed from my toes to my fingertips as I strengthened my hold on the lines, and I stifled a pleasant shudder. “You want to write this down?” I said, stalling, and Dr. Ophees made a rude laugh.

“Go,” she said, attention on her phone again. Clearly she thought this a waste of time.

Why did you even come down here? I thought as I steadied my grip on the lines, feeling them hum through me like a second sun. Exhaling, I settled a protection circle about the two pentagrams, glancing at Dr. Ophees to see what she thought about the hint of smut decorating my aura’s gold and red. Please work, please…

“Du ut des,” I intoned, and a slip of air left me when a trill of connection tripped down my spine. It had connected to the collective. It was going to work.

“I give so you may give,” Dr. Ophees said as if surprised. “Huh.”

“Whoa!” Elyse’s chair rattled as she stood. “It’s working.”

My annoyance that she had doubted me vanished as an odd pulling sensation tripped through me. Again I opened my second sight, relieved at the hint of a brown and green aura within the bag of blood swirling in a diminishing spiral.

“Don’t touch it,” I warned when Elyse moved to take a closer look. Brow furrowed in annoyance, she crouched to put the jar at eye level.

“This is not my first spell,” she griped. But I could see why she was fascinated. A soft upwelling of glow was filling the jar. I could feel the aura funneling through me, tasting of the memories of the man it had come from. He liked cats, and bitter chocolate, and the smell of pine trees, and the touch of wind at sunrise. His emotions swirled, connecting me to the All, making me a larger part of the universe.

Is this what a vampire feels? I wondered as the last of it trickled through me and was gone. Loss remained in its wake, a lack that I’d never known I had. This, I realized, was what kept the undead alive. The emotions were stolen but no less sweet, and my throat closed as I touched Kisten. If he woke, he wouldn’t remember what it felt like to love, to exist, to be a part of the whole. That’s why he hungered, and what he hungered for: the connection to the world, our collective past experiences, our joy. That’s what he took with blood. The lack of memory and emotion was the payment for life never ending.

It had been a poor exchange on the vampires’ part, in my opinion.

“So you what? Open the jar and pour the aura on the, ah, patient?”

Dr. Ophees’s voice jerked my thoughts back to the present, and I rubbed my fingertips together, needing the sensation. The older woman was frowning at me. She knew something unexpected had happened. Either she would do the spell right and find out for herself, or she wouldn’t. She might understand what had passed through me better than I could.

“Sort of.” I picked up the jar, feeling it tingle against me. You will not die of starvation, Kisten. I took a steadying breath. Rhombus.

“Ah, Stef?” Dr. Ophees cautioned as a circle formed around me and Kisten.

I licked my lips, nervous. “You’re right. I’ve never done this before. I don’t want the aura to escape if I don’t get the binding part right the first time.”

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” the woman muttered. “I don’t even know whose blood that is.”

But I did. Sort of. He had been kind, and loving, and I opened the jar with no fear. Besides, auras had no power. They were the expression of the soul, cast like shadows to act as the connective fluid between mind and body, linking them to each other and the soul both. Auras were simply conduits. It was the soul that could act, not this sparkling memory of existence that tricked the undead into thinking they were still alive.

My stomach knotted as I poured the aura onto Kisten, and for a moment, elation filled me as it settled into the thin patches of his waning aura…

…and then with a sparkling haze of discontent, began to dissipate, thinning as it expanded and drifted away as if seeking its owner.

“Crap on toast,” I whispered. It wasn’t sticking, and panicking, I invoked a second circle to catch it. The bright haze sparkled as it hit the edge of my circle, and I condensed the globe down until it was no bigger than a basketball.

“It didn’t stick,” Elyse said, stating the obvious.

“You should have told me you hadn’t done this before,” Dr. Ophees said as she stood beside my circle. “I might have had an idea to adhere it to him.”

I couldn’t take my eyes from Kisten. “I’m all ears,” I said, feeling overdressed in my spelling robe.

“Perhaps…”

I followed her gaze to the syringe on the table. There was a little blood left in it, and I bobbed my head, hands shaking when I decanted a drop onto my finger.

“Utraque unum,” I whispered as I touched it to Kisten’s lips, sure Dr. Ophees heard me when she didn’t say anything. Both into one.

“That should do it,” Dr. Ophees said, and I broke the circle holding the aura. It was a simple spell, and slowly, like bees into a hive following their queen, the aura settled onto him, coating him in a veil that would fool his mind into thinking his soul was still there. The aura would do nothing to help him fight Art’s virus—but he would not starve to his second death in front of me or alone in some forgotten tunnel, and with that demon stasis curse, he wouldn’t decay in front of me after he died from Art’s virus, either.

A ragged gasp for air startled me, but it was only Kisten taking another breath. He had not woken. He wouldn’t.

“Dude.” Elyse came closer and poked at him. “It worked.”

“Don’t,” I said, pulling her hand away when it threatened to pull his borrowed aura from him.

“Sloppy, but it’s holding.” Dr. Ophees’s gaze was unfocused. “Ten percent? It is acceptable. I lose thirty percent of my patients from simple starvation as their body repairs itself. A few more days of aura will make a huge difference.”

Oh, yeah. I renewed my grip on the lines. Evulgo, Jariathjackjunisjumoke, I thought, laying a hand on Kisten’s chest as I opened a more certain link to the demon collective. I take the smut for the use of this fee-for-use curse, in return for ten percent of the aura gathered, to be stored under my name and given to this vampire at need. I shivered as I felt the curse slip into the public domain. I was being noticed. I had to get out of here. Ut omnes unum sint, I added to seal it, then dropped the collective from my thoughts before the rising buzz of inquiries could zero in on me.

The curse was registered. As long as Dr. Ophees used it reasonably often, Kisten wouldn’t starve.

“I give him three additional days.” Dr. Ophees squinted at me as if looking for the smut I’d just taken on. It was about the same as lighting a candle. I’d made out like a bandit. “He will still die,” she added as she saw my smirk. “Two versions of the vamp virus can’t exist in one body.”

My eye twitched. “I know. But with your sponsorship, the spell will clear FCSA and maybe save someone else.” I lifted my hand from Kisten’s chest. “You still have fifteen minutes left of your lunch hour. You want me to write it down?”

Oblivious to my sarcasm, she went to the table, inspecting the waxed scrying mirrors before carefully putting them in the box. “No, I’ve got it. I’ll scrape the pentagrams when I get back to my office.”

She didn’t care about Kisten. She didn’t care about the vampires she could save. All she wanted was to get out of that basement, and an ugly feeling knotted about my chest. “You’re welcome,” I said, ignored but for Elyse watching with wide eyes, silent as she shifted her attention between me and the doctor. “Why don’t you escort her upstairs?” I asked Elyse, wanting to be alone.

Elyse pushed away from the bookcase, her brow furrowed. “Sure. I’ll walk you up.”

Dr. Ophees tucked the box of supplies under her arm and strode out without another word, her head down over her phone as she texted someone.

I watched her go, sure she was going to spend the rest of the day—hell, the rest of her life—perfecting it. She’d be saving the undead by the end of the week, get her upgraded lab by the end of the month. I’d given the ego-driven woman more than a spell. It was an escape from her personal hell and a shot at redemption, payment for the elixir to soothe the pain of Kisten’s passing.

And as I gave Kisten a kiss on his forehead and dragged Elyse’s chair closer so I could sit beside him and hold his hand, I decided it had been worth it.