Gypsy's Blood (Page 45)

“Are you ever going to tell me how long you’ve stalked them?”

“All things come out eventually, love,” he tells me before gesturing to the cloak. “Time to pull it on. Spirits on this land are vicious, and that will protect you.”

I pause at the archway that has vines grown all over it, wedging the gates shut. It looks like I’m the first person to visit this place in decades.

“It couldn’t be a normal cemetery? Those are creepy enough,” I mutter under my breath as I pull on the cloak and tie it under my chin.

“Afraid not. This cemetery isn’t even known to exist, and it’s very important that Vance doesn’t know we’re out here, so move quickly and do exactly as I say.”

“What happens if Vance finds me?” I ask him quietly, now second-guessing this idea, since I never want to have to get on a monster hunter’s bad side.

“Stay here,” he tells me as he disappears.

I honestly don’t think I can ever kill someone I know, regardless of my mother’s strictest instructions to never let anyone live after witnessing me die.

Why would you ever let anyone who thinks they’ve killed you just walk away, Violet? Be smart, sweet girl. Life isn’t sunny-side-up. Her words always play in my head anytime I have doubts, as though she’s still instructing me from right at my side.

Ace returns, popping up in front of me.

“We have less than ten minutes before one of his obnoxious drones flies back over. If it spots motion or body heat, it will sound an alarm. Remember that Vance won’t hurt you, but that he can imprison you for trespassing on Van Helsing property. It’s a grave offense, I’m afraid.”

I exhale harshly, seeing my breath fog over in front of my face.

“Great. So I need to hurry,” I say as I pull my satchel strap tighter and start heaving myself over the vine-ridden gate, ignoring the spiders and other insects that crawl over me as I do so.

“My kind of woman,” Ace says from the ground.

I turn to look back, seeing him wink at me before he disappears again. Stupid, inappropriately-timed butterflies wreak havoc on my stomach, causing my transparent grin to spread much too easily. He knows he’s reached the point where he can say the simplest things and make me an idiot.

I land on the other side of the wall, and he turns to start quickly running through the graveyard.

He’s all ghost grace and poise, while I try not to trip over the headstones.

“Why is there a hidden cemetery back here?” I ask a little uneasily.

“It was here before Van Helsing,” he assures me, leaping over one set of really tall headstones that I elect to run around.

I’m not a very good jumper. At all.

“This town killed a lot of proposed witches in search of actual witches who were indeed slaughtering and butchering townspeople for the sake of working dangerous blood magic. They moved on after the paranoia hit full steam, and left the mortals to suffer their punishment in their stead.”

Before I can comment on the morbid share, he stops abruptly.

“It’s here,” he says, looking over his shoulder at me. “Violet, don’t get your hopes up. This is very much a longshot.”

“I spent the day buying Anna all the things she wants for what may very well be her last day,” I say as my hands shake, and I begin opening the satchel I made myself. “I’m not getting my hopes up,” I add, even though my hopes are up just a little.

Putting the bowl on the ground first, I kneel, quickly pulling out the air-tight container that holds the oranges I was worried Damien would smell.

As I unload the oranges, I look up at Ace as he kneels and smiles down at the ground.

“So now I just spill my blood over this spot?”

“Portocale blood on consecrated ground will possibly do the trick,” he says very quietly.

Before I can make any move to do anything, I hear a loud buzzing, and Ace’s eyes widen.

“Run,” he says sharply, looking back as one of the head-sized drones come soaring right toward us.

Heat and motion sensors…

I drop to the ground, letting my heartbeat drop as low as safely possible, as I absorb the cold from the snow.

My teeth chatter for just a second until my heart is too slow to allow my body to move. The drone continues right over me, never once picking up any signatures, and Ace’s head pokes over mine as a quizzical expression dons his face.

“How in the world did you manage that?”

I’m slow to sit up, and my heart is slow to speed back up to where it needs to be for me to be quick, but I languidly lay out potions exactly like the diagram I drew while he coached me.

“Cold snow and still girl,” I tell him absently.

“Far too simple,” he says with narrowing eyes.

His gaze darts over my head, distracted by the retreating drone, as I finish placing all the very volatile vials in their places.

Turning my head to guard my eyes from the blinding flash, I strike one, and feel the vibrations of them all going off at once.

The light flashes from behind me, and a cracking, creaking, and groan sound behind it.

Fortunately, that’s as loud as it gets, and I turn back around to see the snowy fog before me as I close my hand over a blade and hiss out a breath when I feel the burn of pain.

“I still don’t know what part the oranges play,” I tell him as I let my blood drip.

“Strong, sweet scents such as that can have a sort of guiding power for the lost and a soothing effect on the restless. Plenty of restless spirits in the area who will need calming once you do this,” he says as he lowers himself next to me, eyes riveted to the blood steadily running from my hand in a thin stream.

“That should be plenty, love. Wrap your hand before you lose too much blood,” he tells me when I get a little dizzy.

I quickly reach into the bag, hiding my hand as I feel the satin stitches from the inner pocket of the satchel start lacing my hand together. His attention is on the ground before us.

The ground is broken up in a rectangle, and the oranges have toppled off and into the large crevices the exploding vials have made.

“Last step, love,” he coaches as he absently reaches over like he’s patting my arm.

I wrap up my hand in the gauze I brought, hiding the fresh satin stitches, before pulling out the last vial.

“You’re sure that’s the most potent acid you could create?” he asks me, eyes moving back to mine.

“Well, I may be terrible at some things, but creating destructive potions by mistake when trying to create something else happens to my specialty.”

His lips twitch. “Very well.”

“Here’s to hoping for a miracle,” I say under my breath as I toss the vial into the deepest spot I can find.

The second I hear the glass break, I pull my head back, because I also feel my nose hair melting. I think. My nose is on fire because that shit burns.

Coughing, I push to my feet, grab the satchel, and take off running back to the gate to get away.

I glance back, not spotting Ace, but I don’t have the luxury of slowing down when I see the green fog climbing its way out of the newly made hole.

It slithers across the ground, melting every bit of snow and blackening each inch of the earth it touches.

My gaze swings forward just before I collide with the wall, and I scramble back over it with even less finesse than I entered.

Landing on the ground hard, I grunt as I peer through the archway gates what little bit I can, seeing a huge, blackened spot of death and decay.

But I have no idea if it actually worked.

The green fog hovers but doesn’t continue spreading, as the ground around the main concentration of the potion begins to collapse in on itself.

I pull out the last orange from my satchel and put it down on the ground, just like I’m supposed to. Stepping back, eyes on the gate in front of me, I wait to feel any cosmic sign that I’ve somehow broken the curse.

What happens instead leads to me screaming and stumbling back as true horror seizes my lungs and almost freezes my muscles.

A gnarled, sizzling, mummified hand shoots from the earth.

I almost fall as I watch in horror.

Sharp claws stab into the ground as a second hand joins it, and the creature’s sickly arms start flexing as it heaves itself up. Its back is to me, and a dark cloak shrouds the rest of its body as it continues to rise, and I remain trembling in place as my eyes only grow wider.

A hissing, clicking noise permeates the otherwise silent air as snow sizzles on all the charred pieces of ground it tries to land on.

My breaths fog so quickly in front of my face that it almost obstructs the visibility of whatever catastrophe I’ve just created.

I catch a flash of red eyes under the dark hood as the figure turns its gaze toward me, and my stomach plummets to the ground when it just stares, the face hidden from view inside the cloak’s shadows.

My trembling hands fumble, and my gaze drops to my bra as I start pulling out vials from my arsenal, searching for anything that could stop it.

“Ace! What’s going on?” I shout, but hear no answer as I continue to search.

Just as I pull up one possibly nasty little emergency potion, my eyes snap back, and the cloaked figure is gone.

I whirl around, constantly feeling a tickle at my back, but nothing, a little more nothing, and even more nothingness is all that surrounds me.