Asylum (Causal Enchantment #2)(32)
“What can I say, Sofie? You’re the one who gave me the idea when you said I’d have to pry it from your head!” Viggo replied with a smug grin. “So, you’ve been keeping close ties to Evangeline through that bastard traitor.”
Fool, I silently admonished myself. But there was nothing I could do about it now, except not allow it to happen again. “Lucky I caught on so quickly,” I murmured.
Viggo’s mouth twisted with displeasure. “Yes, well . . . I guess you’ll have to cut all communication to Leo now, won’t you?”
I struggled to keep my expression calm as panic hit me. He was right. I had to sever my link with Leo, which meant with Evangeline. I would have no way of checking up on her, of knowing how she was doing. And Leo wouldn’t send any messages my way now. He would have sensed me shutting down that connection so abruptly, and I had strictly instructed him not to reach out if he sensed anything “off.” How long before I could connect with him again?
Viggo and I squared off, his smug smile of satisfaction inciting in me the urge to claw off his face. He needed to pay. I wanted him to hurt. I never could punish him before, on account of Evangeline. That wasn’t an issue anymore.
I didn’t have a vampire’s strength that would match the two thousand-year-old vampire, but I had my magic. Magic that could shatter every bone in his body at a steady rhythm that gave them enough time to almost heal properly before rebreaking—over and over again. I felt the evil grin stretch across my face as I glared at him. His cobalt eyes grew cautious, likely glimpsing my intentions, wondering if he had pushed me past my breaking point.
But first, I needed to establish the pecking order. I turned to regard Ileana. “Rest assured, you won’t have another opportunity. And if you try anything on me again, you will die a painful death.”
“I don’t think you are in any position to threaten such a powerful sorceress,” Viggo began, adding sarcastically, “especially with our iron-clad truce.”
But Mage isn’t here right now, is she. I met his warning with a sadistic smile. “You want to see powerful?” I murmured. I had always been a powerful sorceress, even before transforming. Since then, though, my magic had compounded a hundredfold. These two idiots had no idea what I was capable of. It was time they found out.
I raised my hands and thousands of bolts of purple magic shot out of me in every direction with a ferocity I had, until now, hidden from them. Glass exploded from every window and door. Five stories of balconies came crashing down, the concrete and brick pounding the cobblestones and gardens into dusty heaps, sending the Ratheus vampires scuttling for cover. Every plant and flower previously untouched now shriveled. With a flip of my wrists, entire rows of cobblestones tore themselves out of the ground and spun in a tornado-like funnel before torpedoing in all directions. In only seconds, I transformed Viggo’s cherished atrium into a war zone. Only Veronique’s statue and the glass ceiling enclosing the atrium remained unscathed.
Viggo and Mortimer may not have understood the power behind the apocalyptic destruction, but Ileana certainly did; her face paled to a corpse-like pallor. Let that be a warning to you, little girl. “I am in exactly the position I need to be,” I said evenly, then focused on my sister’s vying suitors, “and while I can’t kill you two for my sister’s sake, I can certainly make every day you wait for her a living hell. And those days will stretch for a long, long time if you get in my way again.”
Mortimer had the decency to remain quiet. But Viggo tutted and added, “Temper, temper.”
Strangling a cry of fury, I whirled and stalked off toward the red doors, before I burned him where he stood. Mage was waiting for me in the doorway. Damn it! Of course my destruction of the atrium wouldn’t go unnoticed. I held my hand up as I walked past her. “I know! I’m sorry. It was an exception. None of it was directed at anyone. I needed to prove a point. There will be no more.” I hoped my brush-off would be enough to mollify her. No such luck.
“It’s unsettling, wouldn’t you say?” she observed, her voice soft. “Someone probing your brain, looking for information?” Clearly she had heard the entire confrontation.
“Can you blame me?” I continued up the stairs.
She said nothing in response.
“If she does it again, she’s dead,” I warned with conviction as I threw open the red doors, adding stubbornly, “And no truce will hold me back. I don’t care what you do.”
“I would help you.”
Her words stopped me, not so much because they came as a surprise as because they seemed suspiciously truthful. They left me believing I could trust her, something I knew I most certainly could not. I turned to face her, towering over her petite frame even though I was of average height. “Is there something else you need?”
My tone didn’t seem to bother her. “You had troubles getting the blood?”
Troubles . . . I groaned as my palm flew up to my forehead. With the witchling and the tap into my head, I had forgotten about that disaster. I was dealing with so many different messes, my head spun. “Yes, yes. Of course.” Mage needed to know. I wondered if the attack was on the news already. She joined me and we walked side by side into the building, me detailing the grim reality that was unfolding to my untrustworthy new ally.
4. Enemies and Allies
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,” Leo recited in a startlingly authentic American accent as we watched the movie credits roll on the flat screen, the reflection glinting off the window glass against the backdrop of night. It was after eleven now, but darkness had fallen many hours ago. “Casablanca is my favorite movie, you know,” he added with the excitement of a child arriving at a fair.