Fangs and Fennel (The Venom Trilogy #2)(72)

“I don’t like it,” Remo said. “I’ll hold to the shadows and follow you. But I won’t come into the courthouse unless I hear a ruckus.” He took my face in his hands and kissed me softly. “Be careful.”

I smiled, though it was wobbly, and kissed him back. “You too.”

Without another word, I slid from the car and strode toward the courthouse. I strained my ears and picked up nothing. Not a single heartbeat between me and the courthouse. Which did nothing to soothe me. I could be surrounded by vampires and not know it. Breathing through my mouth, I tasted the air and caught a faint hint of blood on it, the coppery tang zinging along the back of my mouth. I clutched the papers harder and hurried my feet.

The front doors of the courthouse beckoned, and I knew that I’d soon be truly on my own. No, that wasn’t true; Remo was here. And Yaya had said she would meet me here too. Though it didn’t make me feel any better to think of her somehow in the middle of a trap set for me.

The halls of the courthouse were empty, devoid of life on the surface. I listened and picked up several heartbeats at the end of the hall, behind the final set of doors.

I jogged toward them and stopped in front, listening. I leaned close and pressed my ear against the wood paneling.

“I don’t really want to kill her, Tim,” Beth said. “I just don’t want to live with her anymore. I want her to move out so you can move in and we can be together. That’s all.”

“The only way she is going to leave,” Theseus said, enunciating every word, “is if we kill her. She loves me, and I can’t keep her away from me. I bet, even now, she’s on her way here to stop us.”

Beth sucked in a sharp breath. “But she won’t. We’ll be married, and she won’t come between us.”

Married? Great gobs of rotten peach pie, this was beyond crazy. Sure, Ernie had said the arrow caused obsession, but to marry Theseus? Fear clutched at me. If Beth was that far under the spell, how was I going to help her escape?

“That’s why we have to end her life,” Theseus all but cooed.

A laugh rumbled through the air. “She won’t survive, boss. Between the fennel oil and my vampires, she won’t be leaving here with her skin intact.”

The Drakaina in me didn’t like that at all, and all the rest of me had to agree. I stepped back, lifted a foot, and booted the door open. It swung so hard it crashed open, and I got a glimpse of shocked faces before the momentum swung the door back shut with a thud.

“Honey puffs!” I kicked the door again, hard enough this time to blow it off its hinges so it dangled by only a few shattered pieces of metal.

The room held Theseus, Beth and Sandy, Santos, and several vampires I didn’t recognize. I didn’t see Dahlia or Tad. Or Yaya.

“I like my skin the way it is, dingle nuts,” I snapped.

Santos moved like buttered-up lightning. In his hand he held a flask I knew all too well. He unscrewed the cap and flung the contents at me. I backpedaled, scrambling on the floor, hitting the far wall of the hallway with the flat of my back.

Theseus laughed as the oil splattered me in a few spots, my left hand and thigh. Two drops, and within seconds they’d already eaten through my clothes and skin and into the diamond-patterned snakeskin below. The pain was instant, more intense than I remembered, scattering my thoughts like flour blowing in a fan. This was the oil undiluted, and it sent me into sheer survival mode. There was nothing but pain rippling through me and the white noise of my own heart and heavy breathing.

Theseus’s voice cut through it all. “Drive her to the main courtroom.” My instinct to run screamed at me. If I was going to get back outside, it was now or never. I spun and moved to run back the way I’d come. Beth stood in my way, her blue eyes hard but her bottom lip trembling. She was a nurse, and despite Theseus’s spell holding her in its thrall, she was a healer, not a killer.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Alena.”

“Beth, please, don’t do this. I saved you from Merlin,” I whispered through the pain. “Please, you’re my friend.”

For just a second I thought she heard me. Her eyes softened, and a tear gathered in one, then slid down her face. Theseus stepped up next to her and put a hand on the back of her neck, squeezing.

“She lies. Even now she’s trying to manipulate you.” He kissed her cheek, and her eyes frosted like overchurned ice cream.

“Bullshit, Alena. Merlin turned me for Tim. You aren’t my friend.” The way her eyes glittered, I could see she believed the warped words.

She didn’t shift but instead reached for a sword hanging from one hip, a sword that had Athena’s symbol on it. Call it a hunch, but I suspected that sword would cut me. She pointed it at me. “Go on, the other way.”

The drops of oil seared my mind, reminding me that I had more than one problem. The Drakaina in me went crazy, writhing and twisting to be released. To fight, to battle our way out, to shift and thrash the building to the ground. But it wasn’t time. Not yet. And I couldn’t be sure that Yaya and the others weren’t in here somewhere. I wasn’t going to destroy a building knowing innocent lives could be lost.

I would have only one shot at this, and I knew it. With my mouth pressed in a tight, thin line, I bit back on the whimpers that filled my mouth.

I let Beth drive me down the hall and into the main courtroom with towering ceilings and enough seating for three hundred people. Not that there were that many people in it, but there were enough. Mostly vampires, but I saw Tad and Yaya up at the front, confirming my worst fears. Dahlia sat to one side of Tad, and their eyes . . . they glared at me before looking away. As if I truly were the monster. Shaking, I tried to get their attention, staring hard at them. But they wouldn’t meet my eyes.