The Compelled (Page 26)

“Who is the witch?” Lavinia asked.

“Seaver. He’s the groundskeeper at the Magdalene Asylum.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Lavinia said with a derisive wave. “Stefan, you can take him on. He’s not as powerful as you. Al you need to do, if he appears, is simply kil him. A knife to the heart wil do the trick.”

“Al right.” I nodded. I’d kil ed before. I could kil again.

“And now, on to the most important thing. Protecting Mary Jane,” Lady Alice prodded.

“Should we do praesidium?” the middle-aged witch suggested.

“Not a bad idea,” the man next to her said.

“Praesidium is ideal,” Lady Alice agreed. “Of course it’s not foolproof, and it’s putting Mary Jane right on the front line. As her guardian, I wonder…”

“You’re not my guardian,” Mary Jane said. “I’m a grown woman. I can make my own decision. What exactly is praesidium?”

“A protection spel ,” Lavinia said. “It wil make Mary Jane’s body impenetrable to a vampire’s touch. It’s like a shield, but one that causes tremendous pain to a vampire if he touches it. The pain isn’t fatal, but it wil momentarily stun or surprise the vampire. That way, the spel is twofold. It wil protect Mary Jane from Samuel’s clutches, and it wil —”

“Al ow us to attack,” I finished. “That sounds perfect.” Lady Alice nodded. “It seems the best spel under the circumstances.”

“I’l do it,” Mary Jane said resolutely.

“Good.” I nodded at her. “Damon wil let Samuel know he has Mary Jane. He’l tel Samuel to come to us two nights from now, sending him right into the trap. We’l meet at five at Mil er’s Court and perform the spel before he comes.

And then we’l be waiting for him.”

The blond witch waved her hand up at me as though she were a schoolgirl and I were the teacher. “Al of us?” she asked.

I glanced around the group. It was smal , but the room was tiny. “Do we need everyone for the spel ?” I asked.

Lady Alice shook her head. “It’s very simple.”

“Good. Then no, not everyone should be there. Just Mary Jane, Lady Alice, and Lavinia in the house, and the rest in the al ey, waiting as backup if the plan doesn’t work. But it wil ,” I said, reassuring myself as much as the witches.

Ten stories above, I heard the lone, singular caw of a raven. The sound echoed in my ears, and I knew it was foreshadowing something. I only wished I knew what.

“I’l be there, vampire,” Lavinia said final y.

I locked eyes with Lavinia. “Good,” I said. I meant it.

Whether we liked it or not, we were bound to the witches.

And they were bound to us.

9

The next night, I was hiding in the bushes that surrounded the fence of Samuel’s Lansdowne House estate. A few hundred paces away, Damon hunched in the shadows of one of the large portico columns of the Georgian mansion.

Damon turned toward me and I nodded to him. I was ready in case things went sour and he needed backup.

Damon knocked on the door and was unsurprised when, seconds later, Samuel himself answered. His eyes were bloodshot, and his pale skin was almost white.

The wind had picked up and was blowing toward me, making it sound like the conversation was taking place only inches away.

“Listen. I’m here to offer you a deal,” Damon said stiffly, before Samuel could say anything—or stake him. “A business transaction. From one vampyr to another,” he said, using the ancient, foreign-sounding term for one of our kind.

“A deal,” Samuel repeated. An inscrutable expression—

was it amusement? Curiousity? Anger?—flickered across Samuel’s face. “You kil ed my brother. I ruined you. And yet, now you come to me to try to negotiate. Why?” I held my breath, lest Samuel should hear me. Watching my brother talk calmly with a man hel -bent on destroying our lives, it was al I could do to sit back on my heels and stay quiet. Maybe it was the eleuthro from several days prior or Lady Alice’s blood, but something had changed within me. My nerves were on edge and I was ready to spring into battle at a second’s notice. After al , the next few hours wouldn’t merely determine Damon’s and my fates—

they would determine the fate of the entire city. In the words of my brother when he had a particularly good hand of poker: We were al -in. But right now, there was nothing I could do but watch the scene unfold.

Damon shifted back and forth on his feet, and I knew he was exercising every ounce of his self-control not to lash out and attack Samuel.

Say it. Damon’s head jerked back to glance in my direction, even though I hadn’t even said the words out loud.

Admit he’s won.

“When I was a human, I was a soldier in the Confederate Army,” Damon said through gritted teeth. “I know the difference between victory and defeat, and I know when to wave the white flag. I’m done fighting. I just want to make a deal, one man to another. Give me my life, my freedom, and I’l give you something you want,” Damon said, bowing slightly.

Samuel threw back his head and laughed, looking like a wolf baying at the moon. “What could you possibly have that I want?”

“Your purebred witch,” Damon responded.

Samuel stepped toward Damon, slamming him against a column. I cringed as Damon’s skul hit the wood, leaving a lightning bolt–shaped crack in the plaster. “How do you know about that?” Samuel asked, emphasizing each word.