Home > Devilish Game (Shadow Guild : The Rebel #4)(3)

Devilish Game (Shadow Guild : The Rebel #4)(3)
Author: Linsey Hall

Mac was on the trail of the kidnappings. I had to take the time for this. “Let’s go.”

He nodded, his gaze lingering on me for a moment. His lips parted, as if he wanted to say something, but no words came out. I swallowed hard and moved toward the door. “Come on. No time to waste.”

“Of course.” He followed me out of his flat, and I couldn’t believe we were already on our way. How was this happening so damned fast?

I looked back at him, catching sight of the exhaustion in his eyes.

This only feels fast to me.

“You’ve been going nonstop since we parted, haven’t you?” I asked. “Looking for a cure.”

He nodded.

I reached for his hand and squeezed. “I’m glad you found one.”

He squeezed back, just briefly, then dropped the small embrace. Hurt pierced me, and I tried to shove it away. He was clearly ready to be rid of me and this bond. After the night we’d spent together, though…

It was hard to believe.

Well, believe it, cookie. Life is full of disappointments.

“Where are we going?” I asked, wanting to get my mind off the miserable train of thought.

“To Hellebore Alley, not far from my tower. There’s a blood sorceress called Cyrenthia who can help us.”

“Blood sorceress?”

“A magic that teeters on the edge of dark. The key ingredient to her magic is blood. Taken willingly, her magic falls on the right side of the law. Taken unwillingly . . .”

“Dark magic.”

“Precisely.” He nodded at Miranda as we passed, and she watched him with steely eyes. The worry that I’d seen on her face earlier was gone, hidden no doubt when he was around.

Grey led me out into the square in front of his tower. The sky had grown even more ominous, dropping lower in the sky, and taking on the shade of gunmetal. It was almost as if the weather agreed that sad shit was about to happen.

Of course I wanted to fix Grey. I’d cut open my vein right away and let the blood sorceress take whatever she wanted. But breaking our bond . . .

It felt like breaking the thing that was growing between us, and I was definitely conflicted about that. I shouldn’t fall for the tortured, ancient vampire, but I was beginning to teeter at the edge. And I was liking it.

“How is your guild tower coming along?” he asked.

His words dragged me to the present, and I looked up at him. “Fine. We’re getting there, but its slow.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it’s working out.” He approached an alley that smelled vaguely foul. Nothing overtly terrible—more like a swamp than a dumpster—but it wasn’t pleasant.

He turned down the alley, and I followed, spotting the sign on the brick wall at the corner. Hellebore Alley.

The air felt thicker, as if it were coated with smog. It was darker as well, the clouds hovering around the roofs of the buildings. The alley was so narrow that Grey and I had to walk shoulder to shoulder. On either side of the little road, the buildings rose three stories high.

In the style of Tudor buildings, the upper floors jutted out over the lower ones, the overhang creating a tunnel effect. The dark wooden beams surrounded gunmetal gray plaster. It had once been white, the usual color, but soot appeared to have coated the surface.

Grey caught me looking. “That’s the stain of dark magic. The top floors are flats. Rent is cheap in this part of town.”

No surprise. The letting advert would say something like Charming hovel in a perpetually gloomy part of town. Sun never seen.

The windows of the upper floors were all shuttered, either by wood or curtains, as if the inhabitants were constantly walking around in their knickers and couldn’t risk being spotted by the people in the windows across the road.

Given the dark magic stink in the air, however, I had a feeling that it wasn’t nakedness that kept the windows covered.

The contents of the shops were nothing like those on the other streets. Sure, they had the same magical aura that made the contents of the windows move around, but the contents . . .

I shuddered.

One window was full of weapons. Normally, I’d be entranced. I loved a good blade. But these were different. They were the sharpest, evilest looking daggers I’d ever seen. Serrated teeth and double pronged. In the window, they stabbed at the air, darting around with an aggression that was so different from the elegant, fanciful movements of weapons in the shop windows in the rest of Guild City.

Worse, the blades were speckled with a rusty brownish-red.

“Is that blood on the blades?” I asked.

“I would think so, yes.”

I shivered and looked toward the next shop. Hundreds of potion vials sat on the shelves, vibrating with a low hum that radiated through the glass, making a shudder run through me. My stomach turned, and I pressed a hand to it.

“Breathe through your mouth,” Grey said. “It helps.”

“Why does it feel like that?” I shot the vials another look, not liking the way the neon contents made my eyes burn just from looking at them.

“The nature of the potions. They’re all exceedingly unpleasant.”

My gaze riveted to the next shop window, which made the ‘unpleasant’ potions look like a sunny day in the park. It was by far the worst display I’d ever seen. Possibly the worst thing I’d ever seen.

Severed body parts floated in the air, all of them withered and wrinkled. Claws and talons tipped the hands, and the organs were unlike any I’d ever seen in diagrams or at the coroner’s office.

“What is that place?” I whispered, my stomach turning.

“Demon body parts emporium. They’re used in spells.”

I shook my head, horrified. “I don’t care if demons are the personification of evil and their souls wake back up in their hells, that seems wrong.”

“I must say that I agree.” He walked a bit faster, putting himself between me and the shops so that I couldn’t easily see what was inside.

“Thanks. I’ve definitely seen enough.” I kept my gaze glued on the cobblestone walkway that gleamed gold and dark beneath the streetlamps that burned even in daylight. The stones looked wet, though it hadn’t rained recently. In fact, this whole place appeared damp.

“We’re nearly there,” he said.

“Thank fates. I’m surprised the Council lets a place like this exist.”

“They toe the line between legal and illegal. And there are some bribes involved.”

“Do you facilitate any of those?”

“For the blood sorceress, yes. For places like the demon body parts emporium . . . definitely not.”

“Why does she live over here if she is a member of the Sorcerer’s Guild? I thought they liked to stick together—loyalty and all that.” The sorcerers were generally bastards to outsiders, but they were a fiercely loyal bunch amongst themselves. I quite admired it, actually.

“She’s not a member of that guild. Not formally, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s a member in the same way that I’m a member of the Vampire Guild. She pays dues so that the Sorcerer’s Guild will claim her, and the Council leaves her alone. But she isn’t involved with them in any way.”

“That’s possible? Could I have done that if the Shadow Guild hadn’t appeared?”

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