Thump-thump.
His not-so-innocent smile pressed into my skin, and my heart galloped.
“No open wounds when entering a room full of vampires, okay?” His thumb glided over my palm as he examined the perfect new skin. “Even if they are my family.”
The edge of my mouth twitched. “Okay.” For the briefest moment, I almost forgot about everything that had happened tonight.
The paintings in the wallpaper whispered, warning me to stay clear of the monsters residing here, telling me of the horrors they’d witnessed in this house.
I ignored them and strode into the room.
My plan was too dangerous to involve any of my friends, but the Medici were immortal.
This was their feud, and I was certain they’d want to see it through to the end.
Nicco’s hand drew to my shoulder as we approached his siblings standing around the dining room table. A gentle touch, but a strong signal to his family that he was trusting them with me. “Adele’s here,” he announced.
Unfazed by my presence, they barely looked up from their debate, almost as if they’d been expecting me.
It ignited a warmth from within.
The room was exactly how I remembered it from his dream. On the far end, an ornate buffet displayed crystal decanters, long velvet curtains draped the windows, and an exquisite Venetian chandelier hung overhead, its colored glass casting fairy-tale-like shadows on the occupants beneath. Only now, instead of Callis’s roaring-twenties-clad coven bound in the fourteen seats, the chairs had been pushed away and Nicco’s family of vampires were poring over stacks of maps and old engineering drawings, shifting chess pieces around on them as if staking out battlegrounds.
Despite the swirling doom of the city, there was no sense of panic, no injuries being tended to. They were all practically glowing. Hair shinier, skin dewier, lips wettened, pursing into devilish smiles. Lisette’s forehead pinched with concentration as the boys furiously pointed, speaking in rushed Italian, and Martine yelled at them in French. While the witches panicked, the vampires were enlivened by the attack.
I looked straight at Emilio, and my voice rose, steady as the river on a scorching summer afternoon. “I wish you’d killed them all in 1930.”
Their conversation halted. The delicate Ingénue was gone forever. I wasn’t sure yet who the girl was in her place, but I knew she was going to save her father, and her city, and stop a centuries-old bloodbath.
Emilio tossed down a black bishop and looked up. “If you know any Astral witches with a proclivity for the past, I’m up for causing a ripple in the time continuum.”
“I’ll be on the lookout.”
Gabriel’s mouth pursed deviantly. “Benvenuta, bellissima.”
As we took our places at the table, Nicco didn’t insert himself between me and his brother, just stood steadfast at my other side. I set my bag down, scouring an architectural drawing. Gabriel turned it toward me. It was the plantation across the river. “Where did you get this?”
“Société historique de la Nouvelle Orleans.” His French was more fluid than his English. I could only imagine how eloquent he was in Italian. “The one advantage to Callisto’s coven occupying a château protected for its historical significance.”
“Two whole centuries,” Nicco snickered. “I have hats that are older.”
A laugh slipped from Martine.
Emilio exchanged a look with Gabe. “Niccolò making jokes? The end really is nigh.”
“We’re dangerously outnumbered,” Nicco told me en français with his usual seriousness, as I fought a smile, “so we’re determining the best way to infiltrate undetected.” He nodded to a stack of engineering drawings, unrolled and weighed down by heavy candlesticks. The top one showed a grid of tunnels—a sewerage map, if I was reading the title correctly. “With a hostage involved, there is only one shot.”
Hostage.
My father is a prisoner of magical war.
Emilio pointed to a single road that led to a Storm desolate area. “We use the river to our advantage and create a choke point here. As they leave the property to ghost-hunt, we can pick them off until they’re weak enough to overpower.”
“You saw how many ghosts they drank at D-MORT.” Nicco gripped the edge of the table. “We don’t have time to starve them out. We have to be more aggressive.”
The Medici glint brightened in Emilio’s eyes, like he’d been waiting the last hundred years for this part of his brother to reawaken.
“Plus,” I said. “Callis can fly now.”
“Callisto Salazar cannot fly,” Emilio balked.
“He flew over the river with my father.”
Gabriel crossed his arms. “Whatever we do, we need to do it now. If the Salazar magic allows Callisto to steal other witches’ Spektral magic, the longer we wait, the more powerful he’ll become.”
“We can’t let that happen,” I said. “If their headquarters are too fortified, and we’re too outnumbered, and Callis has too much power, there’s only one other option.”
They all turned to me.
“We have to take away his power.” Nervousness engulfed me as the reality of leaving this world came just a little bit closer.
“Unbind his coven?” Gabriel asked. “He will have their grimoire even more guarded than your father.”
Lisette’s eyes pulsed. I assumed Gabriel still didn’t know about her connection to the Monvoisin book of magic. “Maybe Adele should take back her Fire! Isn’t that how they became so powerful in the first place?”
Nicco hissed.
“Is such a thing even possible?” Emilio’s tone dripped with doubt.
“There’s another way,” I said, the anxiety morphing into a thrill. “We can take away Callisto’s power—all of the Salazars’ power—without ever stepping foot on the property.”
Lisette’s hair fell across her shoulders as she crossed her arms. “Pray tell.”
“We break their magical line. If Callisto is impenetrable, then we go up one branch of the family tree. If we take out Jakome, they’ll all lose their magic. I get my father back. You get your family’s mortal—well, immortal—enemy.”
All three sets of Medici brows tightened, and my confidence eroded. The plan, now spoken aloud, did sound ludicrous.
“Jakome Salazar was a brilliant witch,” Emilio said. “One of the most powerful of our time. He’s not some simpleton to be summoned by a witchling.”
“Or even a high priestess,” Gabriel added, trying to soften the blow.
“Who said anything about summoning him? The last thing we need in New Orleans is more Salazars.”
Nicco leaned closer. “Are you suggesting—?”
“Sì. We go to him. We go to the Afterworld.”
CHAPTER 4
Recoil
White light flashed behind my eyelids just as it always did right before I went down. I braced myself on the wall of the dark hallway, trying to be casual, trying to fight through it and ignore the incessant energy of the witches buzzing all throughout the house. Ritha had warned me not to heal the Lafayette Water witch, but she was one of Codi’s relatives who’d gone head to head with a Ghost Drinker looting Palermo’s. I couldn’t say no. She’d nearly lost an eye.