Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

53

A wave of hot fury washed over me at the mention of Baron Knyvet, but it didn't originate from him, or me. It came from Brad, the ridiculously attractive celestial being. Brad, my so-called defence lawyer who was sat next to me making absolutely no effort to get me off the hook.

I peeked up at him, only to be caught in the spectacular frenzy of his magical energy. The rainbow particles were zipping around faster than my eyes could track, the colours flickering from one shade to the next.

I knew why Knyvet pissed me off, but why did he make Brad so angry?

Baron Knyvet took the witness stand, all the while glowering his hatred at me. That's when it hit me. Or didn't hit me. I'd almost forgotten the absence of vamp power that made the Baron so vulnerable despite his age and status.

He was older than both James Device and Thomas. He'd been their maker, so he should have been throwing some serious magic in my direction. But the heavy dead energy that was pressing in from all sides was coming from his vampire children, James and Thomas.

As a human, Knyvet had been the lowest of the low; a predator, abusing the innocent and hiding behind his unassailable reputation. The night when he caught Guy Fawkes in the basement of the Houses of Parliament on the fifth of November, sixteen hundred and five, the King had been saved. But the fate of countless young boys had also been sealed.

Hundreds of boys disappeared into that household never to be seen again. Poor boys who had been glad of a warm bed. Boys who had nobody to ask after them when they didn't emerge from that great man's establishment. A man who had become untouchable when he saved the King's life.

Baron Knyvet plucked James Device down from the Lancaster Gallows just before the last spark of life fled from his fragile body. He thought that he was claiming a new toy, a pliable half-destroyed boy that he could turn and then control.

He got more than he had bargained for.

James's witch blood corrupted the turning process, making him far more powerful a vampire than his maker, or even his maker's maker, the Baroness. Little did they realise the full extent of James's difference.

James Device still had magic. And with it he had taken leadership of the London vamps for himself.

And yet, as that dense, heavy power thickened the air like before a thunderstorm, it was plain that for James and Thomas it was not punishment enough. Anger and fear threaded through the heavy air, an uncomfortable contradiction of bitter and rich that set me on edge and reminded me what horrors they must have suffered before finally overthrowing their abuser.

Oh yes, there were plenty of reasons to hate Baron Knyvet, and plenty of people that did. But it was not the unsettling flavour of the vamp power coming from James and Thomas that concerned me. I'd been expecting that.

It was the pure fury that zipped through the air around Brad making the colours of his life-force impossibly bright and hot. Brad believed himself above the concerns of Earth dwellers, human and paranormal alike. It had to be something big to provoke this reaction. Like cosmic big.

That worried me. But what concerned me more, that much energy had to be unstable, and I was the one sat right next to him if he blew.

Crap.

"Baron Knyvet, I understand that it is difficult for you to be here after the great loss of your wife." Edward Turner took over the line of questioning, presumably because vamps responded better to each other than to their food.

Knyvet lowered his head in recognition, his dark eyes dropped in an expression of deep mourning that matched the formal black suit that he wore.

This guy was obviously missing his wife, and even though he was a monster, I couldn't quite supress the pang of guilt that reverberated through me as I took in his lost demeanour. I was the one who killed her, after all.

"Can you tell the court what your wife was doing in Sheffield General Cemetery on the night that she was killed," Edward asked, his voice so full of compassion that it seemed to drip from his mouth.

Knyvet's midnight eyes zoomed to mine as Edward said his last word. "She was there to see the coven leader. They had an arrangement."

"What kind of arrangement," Edward asked, his voice far too casual for the momentous importance of the question.

"They needed my wife for a working. They needed her for her blood."

Oh dear what new nonsense is this? Alice needs to get her side of the story over quick!