Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

45

Keeping my eyes resolutely forward, I focused on Emily, who was sat at a ridiculously ornate desk. Oh wait, no, not a desk. The DPA thought it appropriate to use an actual altar for a judge's bench.

My hand itched to face-palm.

Only a tiny thread of self-preservation stopped me from mocking the court before the trial had even begun.

Wonder what Brother Jerome thought of this?

My eyes darted around to see if the cassock-wearing, ancient cherub-faced maniac was anywhere to be found. I couldn't locate the ancient vamp through sight or magic.

Emily's straight-line mouth and furrowed brow told me that she, for one, was not enjoying her current role of hybrid priest-magistrate. Her straight back and rigid shoulders gave away her discomfort at being perched behind one of the most famous alters in the country.

I, on the other hand, didn't bother to suppress the smile that stretched out my face. My grin pulled just a little wider when I realised that Roger Bingham, Thomas Knyvet and Kev might have made it inside the makeshift courtroom in the Quire, but they'd all been relegated to the most obscure seats, like the lesser canons pushed to the back of the ornate wooden benches. Those guys were not nearly as important to the DPA as they thought they were.

Dudes would not have liked that.

To the right of Emily was Edward Turner, head of the DPA's vampire think tank. He was a short man, probably due to the period of his changing. When we'd last met at Roger Bingham's Annual Gala, Edward's flamboyant knee-length coat and breeches suggested that his human life ended in the eighteenth century. More unfortunate than his fashion choices was his syphilis-ravaged face, covered over with heavy makeup.

His outfit was much more subdued today, although the waistcoat under his dark grey jacket was still embroidered with tiny white flowers. You could take the man out of the eighteenth century...

He also sported the heavy makeup necessary to hide his condition from the humans. Since the use of penicillin, nobody would succumb to disease like they had back then. Edward had actual pieces of flesh missing from his face. But the vampire had kind eyes, and that saddened me, because I knew a secret that he probably didn't even know himself.

Edward Turner was dying.

Vampires had a huge dose of magical energy, but it was different in every way from the life-force of a witch. Witches drew their power from the Earth. Vamp power was heavy, dead and other. As far as I could tell, vampire existence hovered on the line between supernatural; phenomenon above nature, and preternatural; within the laws of nature but outside of human understanding. Because of this, whatever the difference in the magic between vamp and witch, its source was the same, and according to my new divine friends, the well was running dry.

Edward Turner's vampire power reached me in fits and starts, like disrupted waves hitting the shore out of time. And that felt as off to me as an interruption in the natural rhythm of the sea would be to all of Earth's creation. Soon Edward would cease to exist and I could only imagine what that meant for vampire culture. Without their immortality, they were just like the rest of us. Human, but for a few little extras like speed and strength.

Trying not to linger on the ailing vampire's decimated face, I let my eyes travel past Emily to the individual on her left.

Now this one I had never been introduced to.

Luscious long red hair cascaded round her shoulders in artful waves that looked natural rather than the result of hours of primping with a curling iron. Creamy skin, with an adorable dusting of freckles over her nose, and beautiful large dark eyes that practically called for you to ravish their owner immediately.

She wasn't a vampire.

She wasn't a shifter or a witch.

But I knew one thing that she was. She was the bitch who had been screwing Thomas when I followed my magic to find him last night.

A low rumbling growl travelled up from deep in my chest, out of my windpipe, and into the silent Minster before I could stop it. The noise echoed around the cavernous building, seeming to increase in volume instead of fading away. With it, the energy of my silver magic rushed forwards, through my blood, around my organs, making them dense and heavy, filling me up. The first pin-pricks of silver emerged on my skin at the same time as the sweet chimes of silver leaves sang in my head.

The red-haired woman's beautiful bedroom eyes widened. It wasn't fear as such, rather alarm that the defendant whose case she was to hear was growling at her. In front of a load of witnesses. Good job she couldn't see the silver magic that was spinning into the air from every place that my skin was exposed.

The image of her voluptuous body riding Thomas, moaning and undulating in a perfect rhythm played out in HD on the back of my eyelids every time I blinked.

Fucking Thomas.

My Thomas.

Every time that my eyes reopened, there she was, ready to decide my fate. As if she had the right to judge me. Did she know who I was to him? Was this just a way to get rid of her love rival, or did the two of them laugh together about how he'd made me listen to that ridiculous tale of predestined love?

Either way, she could hardly be impartial.

Then it hit me. I was so insignificant to Thomas that he didn't even tell her about me. I was just a job for him, a way for James Device to keep tabs on potential new test subjects.

My stomach sank into the very depths of my gut at the thought that I'd been fooled again. Another man had tricked me for their job. Heat burnt my face and I had to grab the desk to stop myself from falling.

All that unspent magic lay dense and heavy inside me, engorging my organs, making me sluggish and dim. My brain told my eyes that it was a bad idea, but that didn't stop them from slanting to the side of the room where I felt the stark absence of natural energy that meant vampires.

The tendrils of his dark desire wrapped around me as my magic responded to Thomas's severe dead magic. My body heated with lust as though it was disconnected from the fury that riddled my brain. I'd shut the bond off somehow back in the guesthouse, but now it was back in full force. Energy agitated my flesh, my insides pounding with magic-infused blood like my organs were trying to break through my skin to get to him.

My magic wanted him despite his treachery, or maybe because of it, wanting what it couldn't have, what was never meant for me in the first place.

And even yet, I couldn't quite accept it.

Despite having seen with my own eyes Jonathan being tortured in vamp custody and Thomas shagging Ms Killer-Boobs, I was still desperate for some sign that it wasn't true. I could feel the plea shining out of every pore of my skin, every molecule of my body.

My heartbeat quickened as I took in his silky dark hair brushing the collar of his crisp white shirt. Longer than usual, it didn't detract from his beauty, but rather softened the sharp angles of his perfect bone-structure, making him look younger, innocent.

My lip caught between my teeth as I got lost in the admiration of his beauty like I had so many times before. The smooth olive complexion so unusual in an English man, hair so dark it could almost be black except for the hint of red when it caught the light. Large, almond shaped eyes with thick long lashes that stood out as his head tilted my way.

And then Thomas's blank, impassive eyes met mine and my heart stuttered despite everything that had passed between us.

The chimes in my head quickened until they reached a cacophony of frenzied sounds. The energy of my silver magic buzzed and hummed begging for release. As my anger built at the sight of those empty eyes, my head turned back to the conniving slut who thought she could decide my fate, the silver particles multiplied out, building a bridge from me to her. Just a few seconds more and I would show that insignificant bitch who was really in charge here.

Don't lose it now Alice! That's what the DPA want!