AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Looters, it seemed, had no interest in nickels.
“I can’t bring everyone,” I announced solemnly. “But this shouldn’t take long.”
“That’s what you said about the trip to the council,” Tyler reminded me.
I hoped it wouldn’t take long. With Calliope it was hard to know what she would or wouldn’t tell me at any given time. I had asked her for my future more than once, but she’d never told me anything like this was coming. I just wanted her to explain where I could find the Seven Sisters, and if anyone was going to be able to do that, it would be the Oracle.
She knew almost everything after all. It was only a matter of asking her the right q
uestions.
Since the bulk of the necromancers had been taken care of, most of the vampires had returned to the council, leaving only a half-dozen extra bodies with us.
“Werewolves and humans, you’ll need to wait here. Vampires too. Except Sig and Holden, you’re coming with me.”
“Me?” Sig asked, exhibiting a rare display of surprise. “If you think that’s wise, you’ve gone mad.”
Sig and Calliope went way back. All the way back to the Renaissance, when they’d been a hot-and-heavy item. He’d broken her heart in a spectacular fashion, leaving her still bitter about it hundreds of years later. He was actually banned from her mansion, and bringing him with me was a gamble.
But I needed her to understand how serious this was, and the only way I could think to do that was by including Sig. If she saw I’d brought him along, I hoped she would know I wasn’t playing games. In the grand scheme of things, a true immortal like Calliope wouldn’t care what was happening to the human world. Empires collapsed all the time—she’d seen dozens of them come and go. One more would not upset her. Like Aubrey, the goings-on of humans were a passing source of occasional amusement to Calliope.
It mattered a great deal to me though. And if Aubrey was able to understand that, I hoped Calliope could too.
If not, you burn her.
I stopped short of the door as a chill crept through me. That thought had not been my own. Never in a million years would I imagine taking revenge on Calliope if she didn’t help me. Cal was a friend. She was a complicated, strange creature who defied understanding most days, but she definitely wasn’t someone I wished ill on.
Where had such a nasty thought come from?
My skin crawled as I realized the magic was getting the best of me already. Aubrey’s warning was being realized. He’d told me the power would eat away at me from the inside out, but deep down I hadn’t believed him.
I tried to call up my wolf, as I’d done dozens of times before. She was an entity, a creature unto herself that lived inside my body. We shared an uneasy peace, and sometimes she respected me while other times she cursed her luck at being stuck with me. But she almost always came up when I called.
Now there was nothing. I felt no brush of fur, no sizzle of energy. Where once I’d felt a living, breathing creature, there was nothing but an empty pit inside me. From deep, deep within, there was a faint ringing, like a memory I couldn’t quite bring to the surface.
Aubrey told me the magic would steal my monsters, but I hadn’t thought it would happen so soon.
I had shut down my emotions so well I couldn’t feel anything over the loss of my werewolf. I had lost too much and had so many things to mourn, she was one more item on a growing list.
Taking a deep, shuddering sigh, I marched forward and took hold of the Starbucks door. It was locked, but I pulled anyway, thinking, Open. It yielded easily, swinging out and staying that way without me holding it. I stepped through, with Sig and Holden behind me, and a moment later we emerged in Calliope’s waiting room.
She was already standing there, wearing a vibrant red dress, with her long black hair streaming over her shoulders. Her red lipstick and wild eyes made her look like a fierce goddess of war, or a really scary version of Wonder Woman. She did not seem pleased to see me.
“What have you done?” Her voice was deep and serious.
“I know you don’t want him here, but—”
“I couldn’t care less about Sigvard. What have you done?” She grabbed me by both arms and shook me hard, my head bobbing back and forth.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you take me for a fool, Secret? I can smell his power all over you. You reek of magic, and I can see him looking out at me.” Calliope grabbed my face and forced me to meet her angry gaze.
“If you already know, why are you asking?”
“You don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what?”
