Devious Magic (#3 Stella Mayweather Paranormal Series) Read online

When I came to, I was lying on a stone floor, my cheek pressed uncomfortably against the tiles. Cranking open one eye felt like running a marathon: enormously challenging and utterly exhausting. My hair stuck in patches to my face and the cold had made its way through my layers to my bones, chilling me to the core.

  I raised one hand, groaning as my body protested against the sudden movement, and brushed the hair out of my eyes, momentarily surprised that my hands were free. I tested my feet next, wriggling my ankles and found they weren’t tied either. As I lay there, blinking, I wondered who decided it was a good idea to leave me unbound. They must have been confident that I wasn’t going to escape.

  The air smelled damp, musty, like it didn’t have much cause to move, or anywhere to travel if it did, and it was very dark. I could barely make out the outline of anything in the room, not even where the darkness ended and the walls began, but that might have had a lot to do with the buzzing in my head.

  To make matters worse, something was licking my face in long rasps. I drew my knees up, rolling into a foetal-style ball and pushed at whatever it was. Instead of a hideous monster, I got a wet nose. My hands ran over it to find a muzzle, then fisted in coarse hair. The licking stopped, and was replaced by a short, low, whine with an impatient push of the nose into my cheek. I squinted in the darkness and could just make out the soft pink-tinged, pale fur of my best friend.

  “Annalise?” I asked, keeping my voice low, the hope evident in my voice. I had no idea where I was or who else could hear me or if we were even alone. My head hurt, my mouth was dry, and my body ached. I desperately wanted something to dull the pain.

  The wolf yapped, just once, but it was enough.

  “Why are you in wolf form?” I whispered.

  Annalise padded in a tight circle for a moment then rattled her head to and fro until I saw the thick collar around her neck. A chain clanked and rattled as the links fell back onto the floor. I could just make out a curved panel bolted to the floor, the heavy links secured to a circle that ran through and under it, ensuring Annalise couldn’t move very far at all. I hated to think how long she had been kept like this.

  I reached for her and she shuffled forwards, nuzzling into me. Normally, I’d keep my hands off the werewolves when in wolf form unless they offered permission because it seemed impolite. Simply stated, I wouldn’t run my hands through their hair when they were human, so why do it when they were wolf? But this was an exception. Running my hands over the cold hard collar, I sighed. The basic signature of the magic was clear enough, sufficient to recognise that while the collar was in place, Annalise couldn’t change back to her human form, even if she wanted to.

  “Magic,” I said, like she hadn’t already guessed. Annalise yipped and sat back on her haunches, her front paws tapping from one to the other.

  “This sucks,” I muttered and she yipped again.

  Wrapping my arm around her neck, I held on to her while I shuffled into a seated position, Annalise half pulling me upwards, as dizziness overcame me. “How long have I been down here?” I asked, reaching up to touch the back of my head. The steady hum that sounded in my skull was bad enough; but as I ran my hand around to the front, I could also feel something sticky that had dried in a trail from my forehead to my cheek and stuck my hair together in clumps. Someone had hit me hard enough to knock me out and cause damage. Peeling the hair off my face wouldn’t be too bad, but tackling the wound was going to hurt like a bitch. I unstuck a few strands, wincing, and tucked them behind my ear, almost glad for a moment that it was so dark. Seeing as I didn’t have any bandages or anything to clean the wound, I left it alone.

  Annalise twisted her head and looked at me, her eyes sad, and nudged me a couple of times with her nose, then licked my cheek. She sidled closer, pressing her body against mine and flattened her front legs to the floor, crossing them and laying her muzzle on top.

  “Right, can’t speak. Gotcha.” I puzzled it over for a moment. We needed a way to communicate, something basic at the very least. “One yap for yes, two for no?” I suggested.

  Yap.

  “Have I been here a long time?

  Yap.

  “Days?” Wow, I hoped not.

  Yap yap.

  No, less than that. “Hours?” I tried.

  Yap

  That I could deal with a bit better. It was just past dusk when we’d trampled around the perimeter of the estate and we were there for a little more than an hour when it all went wrong. It could be evening, or the early hours of the morning now. Without any clue from the moon or sun, I couldn’t be sure. “Do you know what is going on?” I asked her.

  A whine.

  “That a maybe?”

  Yap. Then she edged forwards and nuzzled at my wrist, pushing the cuff back to show the slim silver bracelet that had been Gage’s Christmas present to me, a match to the star-shaped pendant Annalise bought. It was quite plain with four little discs hanging from the catch, each one representing a stage of the moon. I thought it was enchanting.

  “Gage is here?”

  Yap.

  “Can you communicate with him?”

  Yap yap.

  No. That sounded slightly less promising. Gage once explained that they were able to communicate telepathically as wolves, but it could be the magic, or the distance interfering. All the same, she knew he was here, and that was reassuring. I hoped Evan was close behind. Letting out an exasperated breath, I asked, “Are we completely and totally screwed?”

  Whine.

  That sounded like a definite maybe.

  “Talking like this is going to take freaking hours. Is it safe for me to look around?” I hadn’t moved since I sat up and I was starting to feel aches running up my legs and into my back. My left calf was starting to seize like I had a cramp.

  Annalise just nodded this time. After stretching my leg, I massaged it until the pain was gone, then scrambled to my feet. I made a vague, pointless attempt at dusting my clothes with dirty hands and walked the few paces of our small cell, feeling my way around the edges, trying not to jump when something ran across my foot.

  I expected to find something in the room, something to sleep on, a mattress roll or maybe some blankets, or some kind of bench or chair but the room was absolutely stripped bare. Or had never been furnished in the first place. I could just about reach the ceiling if I stretched my hand and stood on tiptoes and, from running my hands over the walls, I could tell that they were bare brick, some of the mortar crumbling under my probing fingertips. There weren’t any water pipes or cables for electricity, nothing that could be broken, or torn apart, or used as weapon.

  There weren’t any outside windows that weren’t concealed by shutters, and the only apparent opening was a thick wooden door set into the wall. It had a slim viewing hole that let in a sliver of light, just enough that we weren’t in absolute darkness. By pressing my head against the opening and rolling to either side, I could just see another room and a slim passageway extending from that. Both appeared empty. From the cold, and the musty smell, I figured we had to be somewhere under the house, perhaps in the vaults or a wine cellar of some sort – they hadn’t been on the plans but Anders mentioned them – and it figured this would be where they would hold us. With only one entrance/exit, it was easy to keep us prisoner and away from prying eyes.

  Holding out my hand, I willed light to flow from it. I couldn’t summon anything. I tried again, this time trying to create a little fire. Still nothing. Something was blocking my magic. I didn’t know whether to hope it was something to do with the head injury I’d sustained. If that were the case, I didn’t know if it were irreversible or if my magic would even return. No, that wasn’t right; I could feel it inside me. It just wasn’t coming out.

  I tried the door by pulling on the bars embedded in the viewing hole – there wasn’t a handle on the inside – but it was obviously locked. I ran my hand over the keyhole, in case I could somehow trip the lock, but my magic stayed firmly within, dormant for now.<
br />
  The irony struck me again. For people who professed to hate magic, they sure used a lot of it. I had no doubt that whatever was suppressing my magic now was a direct result of something they had done.

  “How come they’re using magic?” I asked Annalise as I turned back to her. She sat up, then lay down again, her tail thumping against the floor. “Sorry, forgot. Can’t talk, gotcha.” As I moved back to her, I stooped to one knee and ran my hand over her collar again. It didn’t seem right that the Brotherhood would employ magic, especially not in their home. I couldn’t understand it. Magic was everything they hated, everything they stood against, everything that united them in their crusade; at least, that’s what I thought until now. Why they would use magic for their own purposes was altogether puzzling. Over the past year, I assumed that because they hunted witches, they didn’t have any of their own. They shouldn’t even be able to perform magic, certainly not want to. I was going to have to revaluate everything I’d ever thought, or assumed, about the Brotherhood.

  “Weird, huh?” I said to Annalise. I crouched next to her and put my arms around her, feeling dejected. I couldn’t see any way out of this mess. She nuzzled my face. I guess she felt the same way. “I’m, we’re, going to get you out of this,” I promised her. I hated the idea of her being held prisoner down here since she’d been kidnapped a few days ago. Her fur didn’t have that light, fluffy feel that I’d felt before when she was out running, not that I made a habit of petting her. Instead, it had taken on a dry, coarse feel and was matted in places. I rubbed the matted part and raised my fingers to my nose, inhaling it. Blood. They’d beaten her.

  Putting my hand over her collar, I felt around for a catch. After a moment, I found it and let out the breath I hadn’t realised I had been holding. I was afraid there would be a padlock holding the collar closed but instead, there was a simple catch closure held together with some kind of pin. I worked the pin backwards and forwards until it loosened, falling to the floor with a little clink.

  I pulled the collar apart and carefully placed both pieces on the floor next to the wall, just in case anyone was listening. Days of wearing the collar had forced Annalise’s fur apart and her skin felt bare and sore from the rubbing, so I smoothed the fur gently back into place. It occurred to me that this was possibly the longest time she’d ever maintained this form and I wondered how tiring that was on her.

  There was nothing else to do but sit down and rest my back against the wall. Annalise snuggled up to me so I put my arm round her and hugged her and there we waited, cold and frightened, trying to keep each other warm, wondering who was going to come for us... and even worse, if they ever would.

  Since she couldn’t talk, I told her about what happened since she’d been kidnapped; about Evan’s swift removal of Étoile and me to his home and my mixed feelings on that. Still, I thought he probably made the right choice, given the circumstances. I told her how I had come to England alone – I mentioned we were in Hawkscroft, just in case she didn’t know – and how Étoile had just shown up, like a good guardian fairy. Annalise snuffled at that. I told her that we made plans to find her and rescue her, plans that had obviously come undone. “I can’t believe I tripped on a damned root,” I said, disappointed in myself. After that, we were quiet.

  It’s easy to lose track of time when you’ve lost all relativity to it in the first place. My phone had been confiscated and I wasn’t wearing a watch. Plus, with the artificial light beyond the door, it was impossible to know whether it was minutes or hours that slipped by in our dark little cell. It felt like we’d been waiting an awfully long time when there was a scraping noise and the door suddenly opened a little bit, just enough to slide in a tray. I didn’t even see who it was, just a hand as I blinked against the sudden light. The door slammed shut again.

  We both sat there and watched the tray like it was something ominous. We looked at each other. “Fine, seeing as I’m the one with hands, I’ll get it.”

  Annalise made a little huffing noise that sounded like a laugh.

  I crawled over and reached for the tray. When my fingers connected with the plastic, I dragged it towards us. A couple of plastic bottles of water lay on their sides and there was a triangular shaped package. Sandwiches. There was a tin of something, too, with a ring pull top. I held it up to my face, squinting. Oh. Dog food. Yuck. That answered my question of how long she’d been kept wolf.

  “You want to go human and share a sandwich?” I suggested, snapping the cap off a bottle of water. Annalise shook her head, her tongue lolling out one side of her mouth. I tipped the water close to her mouth and she lapped it up. When she finished, I capped it again and set it at her feet. Then I unwrapped the plastic packaging of the sandwich, offering her half. After I finished swallowing the sandwich, which felt like cardboard in my mouth, I took a sip of water from the other bottle in a vague attempt at washing it down before shoving the tray away.

  We dozed a while longer, huddled in the furthest corner of the room, propped against each other for warmth. I was deeply uncomfortable sitting on the cold floor and couldn’t imagine how Annalise had endured it alone. Aside from the sounds of our breathing, quiet filled the small room, punctuated every so often with the squeak of a small mammal. Once I thought I saw a mouse run over the tray.

  I was too tired to stay awake, and too frightened to go to sleep, so I tried to relax into a half-state of being neither one nor the other, anything for some rest. There was no telling what would happen later so it was sensible to conserve our energy. I said as much to Annalise.

  The first I knew that someone was in the passageway was when I heard the key in the lock and the heavy bar slide free. My eyes shot open as the door opened a crack and Annalise and I huddled further together, away from the sudden burst of light that penetrated the anteroom beyond and was now flowing into our light-starved eyes. For the first time, I saw Annalise’s sorry state; she was dirty and bloody. Then the door was fully open; a man filled the doorframe, blocking the light. Extending a hand, he indicated to me with one finger. “Get up,” he said, his voice gruff. I smelled the heavy odour of cigarette smoke on him; he was clearly a heavy smoker.

  I felt Annalise tense, then rock back on her haunches. With a snarl, she leapt at him, knocking him backwards to the ground, snapping at his neck. A swat from her claws had him bleeding from a wound to his cheek and she kept up a relentless snapping, biting him. I kept low and made ready to run the moment the man gave up.

  “Get it off me!” he shrieked, his hands flailing at Annalise’s brute strength.

  Another man appeared in the doorway, his eyes darting over the scene of his fallen comrade. There was a brief flash of blue light and, with a howl, Annalise fell back, falling into a shaking heap on the ground. Her eyes were open but glazed over and I realised she’d been hit with a taser, the shocks still ricocheting through her body.

  Just as I was about to scramble towards her, the second man rushed into the room, stepping over Annalise’s shaking body before grabbing me by my shoulder.

  “Step back or I’ll tase you too,” he said, his voice emotionless, “and the master won’t like that.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and carried me kicking and screaming out of the room. The bleeding man had already scrambled into the anteroom, a wad of paper towel pressed against a cut on his face. As we cleared the door, the bleeding man stepped past us to slam the door shut and turned the key, turning slowly to face me.

  “She’ll be fine. Now stop kicking or I’ll have to knock you out,” the man holding me murmured into my ear. He was dressed much nicer than the first, in black trousers and a polo shirt, and he smelled like mints and bread dough, fresh and warm. It was a strange contrast to the first man, who was looking at me with undisguised disgust.

  “Pretty thing, ain’t she?” The first man looked me over slowly. “Bit scruffy, but definitely a pretty lass. Wonder if she’s got some magic in the bedroom, eh, Pete?” He stepped closer, a toothy grin on his face and stroked a c
alloused hand over my cheek.

  I landed a kick firmly in his groin and watched him drop to his knees, howling, before the man holding me, Pete, hauled me back.

  “The master said she wasn’t to be hurt,” Pete warned him. “And getting nasty with women isn’t my bag, my friend, so I reckon you deserved that.”

  I continued struggling, but his arms were firmly hooked under my shoulders, forcing them upwards and pushing my shoulders to painfully over extend. I managed to stamp on his instep and he let go, smoothly grabbing my wrists behind my back with one hand, and pushing my arms upwards. “Despite what the master said,” Pete hissed in my ear, “I will knock you out if you do that again.”

  I stopped struggling, falling limp. There was no point; I couldn’t get free from his tight grip and getting knocked out twice in one day seemed a little excessive, even for me. He waited until I calmed down before gripping each wrist and moving my arms down so that my wrists rested on the small of my back, his one, mitt-like hand wrapped around them both.

  The nasty man in front of me straightened up, glowering, but he didn’t approach me again. Instead, he put his face to the door and looked through, nodding to himself. Stepping to the right, he hung the key on a hook above the door. Now that I wasn’t flailing, I could see a corridor that stretched far into the distance, but it was too dark for me to make anything out.

  Pete gave me a little push towards the open archway. “That way,” he instructed, adding, “Mind your step!” as I tripped on a flagstone. I winced as the ankle I’d twisted previously sent a jarring shock through me. He caught me, helping me upright, without relaxing his grip once. I heard a small click and a light flicked on; long florescent tubes flashing on one by one. It was basic and austere and everything looked sinister in the unnatural glow. We faced a long corridor that seemed to pass through a number of interconnecting rooms via a series of archways.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked, a small shove in my back making me move forwards, my captor propelling me along. From the looks of it, we were definitely in the cellar of Hawkscroft and it was a long winding path from our cell to wherever our destination lay.