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“The other victim was dead,” Belle replied. “Totally different.”
Monty rose. “Is it though? Both victims are frozen, even if one is dead, and neither were consumed. If its sole task here is to cause mayhem, I can’t think of a better way than to leave a trail of frozen bodies behind it.”
“Even a demon needs to eat, though,” she said.
And so do vampires. I glanced past Monty for a second, studying the tree line above. Instinct stirred, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. I wasn’t going to ignore it, however. “You and Belle stay here with Rocco. I’ll head up to the top and see if there’s anything—or anyone—else.”
“You shouldn’t go alone,” Belle said.
“If the basilisk comes back, or our vampire attacks, it may well take two of you to counter her and protect Rocco and Suzanne.”
“All the more reason for you not to go alone,” Monty said.
I rolled my eyes. “Aside from the fact I have the wild magic on my side, I’ll have Belle riding my mind. Which, in case you’ve forgotten, is almost as good as her being physically by my side.”
He sniffed. It was a very unimpressed sound. I grinned, moved around our impossibly alive victim, and continued up to the crest. To say I was puffing and seriously regretting my decision by the time I reached the top would be a monumental understatement.
I stopped and bent over, my hands on my knees as I sucked air into my burning lungs. Pregnancy seemed to have made me even unfitter.
Is unfitter even a word?Belle commented, mental tones amused.
It is now. I pushed upright.
That was when I saw the woman in the shadows of the trees not twenty feet below me.
A woman with copper hair and pale, flawless skin.
A woman who looked, aside from the color of her eyes, an exact replica of Maelle.
That’s impossible, Belle said.Vampires can’t move about in daylight. It’s the one rule that can’t be broken, no matter how strong the vampire is physically or magically.
And yet, here she stands.
Are you sure she’s real? It’s not a projection of some kind?
She looks real… And yet, despite the fact she was upwind, her scent was absent on the breeze. It was, of course, totally possible she was using magic to disguise it but, this close, there should have been some indication of a spell, even if it was little more than a wisp of foul energy.
I cautiously moved closer. Belle’s tension flowed through me, as sharp as my own. I flexed my fingers, then formed a repelling spell around them.
Jaqueline didn’t react. Not in any way.
Wasshe real? Or was she simply a vision? A daytime dream that was little more than a warning of what might be?
I stopped two meters away. Even this close, she looked real, but her expression was vacant; there was no hint of life in her blue eyes. My psi senses were now suggesting that, despite the evidence of my eyes, no onephysicallystood in the shadow of the tree.
She was either a ghost or a projection of some kind.
I flexed my fingers again and felt the repelling spell expanding and contracting with the movement. “Why are you here, Jaqueline? What do you want?”
For several heartbeats there was no response, then she blinked, and her expression came to life. Her gaze swept me and came up… derisive?
“So, you are the witch who dances with the wilder magic of this place?”
My heart lurched. They knew. This was not a good development.
“Dancing with wild magic is never a wise thing,” I replied as evenly as I could. She wasn't here and couldn’t physically threaten me, but who knew what she was capable of magically. Not annoying her into retaliation was probably the best path to take, and one that had worked so far with her mother. “I repeat, why are you here?”
She waved a hand, an elegant movement that held echoes of Maelle. “I came with a warning.”
