She had to get out of here.
“Sterling, if you don’t want to believe Mathias is back, believe that someone has killed Thomas MacKinnett. Look at your mirror.”
The old wizard peered at it, then frowned. “His symbol. It’s black.”
“I’ve seen his body with my own eyes. All of the bodies. You can add Bram, Ice, and me to the list of the dead unless you send help here now.”
“H-help? I’m hardly in fighting shape. Magickind hasn’t needed anyone to enforce the rules really since—”
“Mathias, right?”
The old wizard sighed. “Are you certain this isn’t much ado about nothing?”
Sabelle gritted her teeth. “Locate Lucan and Caden. Ask them to come here. Right now. You are our only hope. Please . . .”
“You younger ones are so easily excitable and so certain you’ve seen a ghost.” Another sigh. “All right, then. I will find my nephews.”
“Thank you.”
Closing the lid on the mirror, she tucked it into her pack and sat it beside Bram. With wand in hand, she crept up the stairs and listened. Stomping, shuffling, shouts, some of pain—all abovestairs. The odds were against her, and she might be captured. But she had surprise on her side and she was not going to leave Ice to his doom.
Bracing her palms on the stone block in the wall, she pushed with all her might. It didn’t budge. Damn and blast! She muttered a curse, then pointed her wand at it, envisioning it wiggling free of the ice and falling to the floor below. The stone trembled in the wall, shuddered, then fell still.
The only reason her spell would fail: Ice had sealed it off, put his magic into that frozen water to make opening the little tunnel again impossible. He’d made certain she couldn’t leave the relative safety of her hiding place to help him.
Tears choked her. That big, stupid, noble, idiotic, incredible man. So willing to protect her at the cost of his own life. Didn’t he understand that she would and could have fought by his side? Yes. And despite hating her brother, he cared enough for her to ensure her safety, even at the expense of his own.
Somehow, she had to rescue him. She had to escape this tunnel and save him.
Above her, shouts erupted. Something—someone?—banged the walls. Repeatedly. More stampeding across the floor. A door slammed.
“NO!”
Sabelle’s blood froze. Ice! She’d know his voice anywhere; it was imprinted on her heart.
Whispering a prayer that her brother and the diary would be safe and remain undetected here until either she returned or Lucan and Caden arrived, Sabelle teleported to the back of the house and crept toward the kitchen door.
“Bloody fucking wankers.” Ice again. Thank God he was alive.
She peered through the glass in the door, barely peeking above the edge. What she saw jumped her heart into her throat. Blood ran in vivid crimson rivulets down his face. One ribbon dripped right between his eyes, soaking the thirsty sweater across his torso. He held his wand high and backed out of the room.
“Kill me, then. I won’t tell you where the diary is.”
The half-dozen wizards with their backs to Sabelle laughed.
One sauntered forward, his swagger infuriating her. “I’m certain Mathias will change your mind.”
Ice raised his chin, full of challenge and sneer. “He can try.”
The wizards nearest the door charged toward Ice. Sabelle’s heart jumped in her throat. He was terribly outnumbered. And agitating the other wizards to act. Was he utterly mad?
With a slash of his wand, three of the pursuing wizards stopped. Ceased completely and simply fell down. Sabelle had never been one for bloodshed, but she sincerely hoped they were dead.
Nor would she allow the remaining three to reach him, she vowed as she eased the door open behind them, determined to keep surprise on her side.
Ice’s eyes flashed when he spotted her. The swagger slipped, and terror overtook his face. “No!”
From the side door between the kitchen and the formal dining room, Zain popped out and raised his wand with malicious glee. “Thought you could kill another hundred of us again, did you? You only got eighty.”
“Because the other twenty ran like cowards.”
Zain roared, “Your bloodshed stops now!”
Sabelle cast a spell at the three heading for Ice, hoping he would take out Zain, and they would be free. Instead, he pointed his wand at her with fear and apology in his eyes. And love.
Then she felt her entire body being propelled out the open door again as if someone had grabbed her by the waist and pulled back, tossing her as if she weighed nothing. She landed moments later on the icy lawn, flat on her bum.
Hot anger and fortitude juiced her as she shot to her feet and teleported into the kitchen. The stillness of the room—of the house—assaulted her. She was too late. Instead of using his magic to kill the last few Anarki and free himself, he had spent the time getting her out of the way. Those few moments of distraction had allowed Zain to capture him.
In a tearing panic, she searched the house, every crevice, hoping against the odds. In addition to the servants and MacKinnett’s body, she found dead Anarki everywhere. Ice had wreaked havoc. But she couldn’t count, didn’t cheer. She prowled from room to room, trying to ignore the carnage, praying they’d simply moved the fighting elsewhere.
Five minutes of howling silence and eerie stillness later, she knew the Anarki had taken Ice. To almost certain death.
God, the urge to fall to her knees and cry out her grief nearly overcame her. She took a deep breath. Be strong. Magickind needed her. Bram, the Doomsday Diary, Ice … none of them could be healed, hidden, or rescued without her now.
So she sniffed back her tears and made her way to the cellar. She had to collect her pack, her brother and the diary, get into the car, find Duke and the others. She’d hoped that Lucan and Caden might arrive in time to help … But they hadn’t.
Damn, Sterling had likely not contacted them yet. He had no idea the urgency of her request. She shook her head, holding in the towering urge to rail and scream and cry. It would do no good. She was going to have to save Ice alone.
As she brought her brother and the pack upstairs, she heard the front door crash open. The back door followed, and she was suddenly surrounded by Lucan, Caden, Duke, and Tynan.
“Where—” Duke looked around the room. His eyes widened and his mouth snapped shut. “Ice did this?”
Hooded and robed Anarki bodies lay strewn all over the foyer. At least fifty of them, some pinned permanently into the wall, with the collection of swords that used to decorate the room. The undead dripped black blood in oily rivers down their warped faces. Another stack of Anarki had been piled shoulder-high when Ice ripped off the handrail from the wrought iron staircase, then shoved them on the up-thrust rails. The black blood of the undead mixed with the red wizard blood, creating a murky pool that slowly spread across the floor as the bodies continued to drain. The rest of the undead had met untimely ends at the business end of an ax. The wizards looked stricken where they fell.
How on earth had he killed this many this quickly all by himself? It was terrible and horrific, but Sabelle was struck by the amazing skill such a feat must have taken. Marrok would be proud.
“Zain said Ice killed eighty of them.”
“I’ll be damned,” Caden murmured. “The Marines would love him.”
Lucan shot his younger brother a cross look, then turned to Sabelle. “And they have him now?”
“Yes. We have to get him back.” Her voice trembled, and it took all her strength to hold in her emotions and tears.
Now wasn’t the time for the rest of the Doomsday Brethren to ask questions about her attachment to Ice. The clock was ticking, and every second could be the difference between his life and death. She needed to persuade Lucan and Caden that they couldn’t do without this fierce warrior. Because the cause needed him. So, she feared, did she.
“We will.” Lucan wrapped a gentle arm around her shoulder, and it was all Sabelle could do not to push him and his unwelcome touch away. “They won’t kill him, at least not right away. They need the information he has too badly.”
Which meant they would torture the big, brave wizard. Her heart wept for Ice.
“I see Bram’s condition is unchanged,” Duke commented. “The Doomsday Diary?”
“In my pack. What will we do about Ice? We can’t leave him at Mathias’s mercy!”
Duke and Lucan exchanged a glance. Already, they were wondering what emotions lay between her and Ice, and clearly they disapproved. She didn’t care. They should be worried about saving one of their own.
But they likely didn’t see Ice as one of their own, being Deprived, and therefore expendable. Sabelle wanted to scream.
“We need a plan.” Duke approached her, the self-appointed voice of reason. “Come with us back to my uncle’s and—”
“I can’t.” She explained that one of Mathias’s witches had placed a spell on the book that allowed it to be tracked whenever its owner teleported. “I must travel by human means. Car, train, plane . . .”
Astonishment transformed all four warriors’ faces.
“That makes our trip vastly more difficult,” Duke mused.
Tynan snorted. “You mean fucked up.”
“It’s a miracle Ice by himself managed to keep you from being captured.” Lucan squeezed her shoulder.
Sabelle stormed away, unable to stand his touch. “We need a plan now! I’ve got an auto outside. I’m going to drive—”
“I’m going with you,” Lucan said immediately. “You need protection. My uncle has a veritable fortress near Birmingham. We can travel there and devise a plan.”
A glance told her that he was low on energy, as well. Sa-belle thrust the thought aside. Wondering if he needed her body was more than she could bear now.
“Lucan, you teleport to your uncle’s and ready him to have the rest of us invade his home. I hate to impose, but—”
“No. Everything now is difficult. There’s safety in numbers.” Lucan turned to his brother. “Caden?”
The youngest wizard sent Sabelle a curious stare, then nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
Tynan raised a hand to lift Bram from the ground. “The car out front?”
“Yes.” Sabelle raced for the door, then stopped. One more thing, in case Sterling MacTavish was still reluctant to believe Mathias and the Anarki were back. She extracted MacKinnett’s mirror from her pack, flipped it open and chose Sterling’s crest again.
“You again?” he grumbled. “I sent my nephews. They’ve just returned and told me they found you. I’ve agreed to open up my home, though this is nonsense, I’m sure and—”
Sabelle turned the mirror to display the carnage Ice left in his wake—all the bloody Anarki robes skewered and hacked up everywhere. The last sounds she heard from Sterling were a gasp and something that sounded suspiciously like retching.
“If you think this is still nonsense, someone should bury you deep in Bedlam.” She snapped the mirror shut, then turned to Duke. “Let’s go.”
Hard, measured footsteps against the chilled concrete alerted Ice that he was no longer alone. With his wand snapped in two at his feet and his hands clamped behind his back, secured with something that prevented him from moving at all, he’d lost all ability to perform the sort of magic that would allow him to escape—or at least turn to face the new threat.
Not that Mathias would let him leave this dungeon alive. The pain of being hoisted off the ground and hung by his bound wrists, his shoulders dislocating from their sockets, was a bitch. But not the worst of what they could or would do. Since Zain had failed at extracting the diary’s location, he figured it was only a matter of time before someone more brutal put in an appearance.
Right on schedule, he thought as the footsteps drew closer.
“Mr. Rykard.”
Mathias himself. Ice supposed the evil wizard’s patience must be running thin, to appear so quickly. The thought made him smile.
“Mr. D’Arc,” he shot back.
“I understand you killed eighty-one of my best. Impressive. But it quite puts me out … after your friend Caden MacTavish destroyed my means to quickly convert strong humans to Anarki, you understand why I’m so reluctant to lose new recruits.”
“A thousand pardons. They tried to capture me, you see, so I defended myself. I felt certain allowing them to take me would lead to my death. Am I wrong?”
“Not at all,” Mathias said lightly. “Unless … you reconsider your loyalties. It’s a disgrace to Deprived everywhere that the head of one of their most established families is openly supporting a Privileged cause. And why? Are you still hoping to curry favor with Bram so he’ll give you a modicum of power?”
“No. Mostly hoping to kill murderous, scum-sucking shitholes like you.”
