Witchcraft (#2 Witchblood Series) (21 page)

‘
Alex run, run down the road and
find someone human. Don’t tell them who you are and don’t tell the
police, but get them to tell you where Brixton centre is. Find
Luke. He’ll be there to meet me at two fifteen. Just get away from
here, please. Run, now.’

She paused momentarily, unsure what to
do, before finally her common sense took over and she ran. I had
seconds to try and cover her escape. I concentrated all my energy
onto her window, reached out with my magic as I pulled it back
together. Then I thought back to my old lessons in telekinesis.
This time it was easy, as since my initiation I only had to tell
things to move and they did. I picked up the old blankets and
pillow and manoeuvred them into a person shaped lump on her bed. I
couldn’t do anything about the bars lying on the floor of her cell,
because the door at the top of the stairs creaked open, but maybe,
just maybe this would buy her precious minutes.

I watched as a pair of smart black shoes
descended down the stone stairwell and Cole’s body came into view.
His witch girlfriend was just behind. Neither hurried, as both were
secure in the knowledge that her magic would put an end to my
escape.

‘
Well, well, well, so my
estimations of your magic were accurate then, Miss Jessica. You
see, that is why I have done so well for myself, and from such a
young age,’ he smiled, as I scowled at his perfect teenage face. ‘I
never take anyone for granted, and I
always
over-accommodate for their potential
skills. It never lets me down.’

Shame you didn’t think
to ward Alex’s cell then, isn’t it?
I thought to
myself, allowing a small smile to escape.

‘
You’re smiling? Do you like a
challenge? You didn’t expect me to put the girl who is supposedly
the most powerful magical girl in the UK in an un-warded cell did
you?’ he smirked.

I wasn’t playing his games, so I glanced
at the girl and shrugged.

‘
So, have you had a chance to
reconnect with your friend yet, or has she been sleeping the whole
time? I’m afraid her fresh, sweet blood was almost too much for
some of my staff last night. We shall have to wake her for you,’ he
said with a smile. ‘I am so looking forward to seeing her face,
when she realises we have been telling her the truth, that you are
indeed one of
us
, whom she
despises so much, almost as much as your poor old boyfriend. You
can see the regret in that angel’s eyes, every time he thinks about
you.’

Whoever said that girls were bitchy, had
yet to see the male supernatural community in full flow. It seemed
these men had spent centuries perfecting their cattiness and they
seemed to take pleasure in verbally assaulting each other. It was
tiring to say the least.

‘
You can of course wake her for
me, if you wish,’ I said, knowing that asking him not to, would be
a sure way to speed up his discovery, ‘but I thought it was me you
wanted here and now you’ve got me, what do you intend to do to me,
because I have many things I intend to do to you?’ I glared at him,
staring him down, refusing to play victim.

‘
Well that sounds very appealing,’
he said, his eyes roaming the length of my body, lingering on my
chest, then slowly drifting down over my hard stomach to the tops
of my thighs. How very boring. I decided to shake things up a
little. They may have warded my cell but his witch clearly didn’t
have the power to bind my magic. I planted my feet on the floor and
drew up more energy from the ground until I could feel it tingling
in my veins and surging like an electrical storm. I threw
everything I had at them both. I didn’t want them dead, just
disabled and out of my way. I wanted out.

Cole was instantly flung across the
room, his eyes wide with shock, hair standing on end as the
electrical energy ran through his undead body. He smacked into the
stone walling with a crack that resounded round the cellar, and I
watched as a crack snaked its way up the wall from where his head
had landed. If only he wasn’t a five hundred year old vampire I
might have got somewhere, but as it was he picked himself up,
dusted himself down and smiled at me.

‘
I like a girl with a bit of fight
in her,’ he said. ‘Next time I would appreciate it if you extended
your protection to cover your boss, as well as your lovely self,’
he added, casting a cold glance towards the witch, who had remained
in the same spot. ‘I fear we will have to tame your spirits a
little, before we continue our discussion. Bind her Brit,’ he
said.

Before I had time throw a protection
spell around myself, I was hit sideways, the blast knocking me off
my feet, so I landed on my butt. Within seconds I was back on my
feet throwing my hands out, trying to lift her off her feet and
slam her head on the stone ground. If I knocked her out, her magic
would be disabled, but her wards held. She lifted her hands and
chanted, magic pouring out of her fingers and slithering through
the bars, settling on me, around me, tightening my chest, wrapping
around my throat, my wrists, my ankles. I was held fast, and then
slowly, excruciatingly pushed backwards where I fell onto the
bed.

‘
Now then my dear, I can do all
those things to you, that you talked about,’ Cole said, his eyes
sparkling with desire. ‘I have developed quite a taste for witch
blood recently,’ he said, glancing back at the witch. ‘But I have
heard mixed blood is a taste quite unlike anything else.’ The witch
frowned, her eyes flashing with jealousy as she watched Cole move
towards my cell, retrieving the keys from his jeans
pocket.

‘
You may go now Brittany, but I
may need you later on to set up some camouflage wards around the
club, to protect us from any prying eyes that come in search of my
little conquest.’

Chapter Sixteen

Brittany scowled at me one last
time, as if I was the lucky one, stealing her prize.
Weird!
As far as I was concerned, she
was welcome to him. I scowled back and couldn’t resist one last try
of my magic. As she turned her back on me I tried to trip her up. I
wanted to see her on her ass, but alas nothing. Her magical bonds
squeezed tighter around my aura, an invisible anaconda holding me
fast in its coils. Terror now began to edge in, creeping around the
edges of my confidence, tearing down my walls. I was helpless, but
luckily for me Cole appeared to be hesitating at my
door.

‘
Hmm, I do think maybe a little
three-way might make things a little more interesting,’ he said,
casting a quick glance at Alex’s cell, and then grinning back at
me. ‘Not that she has much left to give, but it might make things a
little more exciting, don’t you think?’

I shuddered, he was truly despicable. My
heart jumped as I realised what he was about to uncover, but I knew
that Alex had hopefully had enough time to get somewhere safe.

‘
You wake her,’ I said
smiling.

This clearly wasn’t the answer he
expected, so he stared at me a moment longer, obviously wondering
if I was bluffing. I grinned some more, feeling true happiness that
I had at least succeeded in foiling a part of his plan.

‘
I will, and you will now pay for
your attitude by watching as I gorge myself on the last remaining
drop of her blood.’

‘
I’d like to see you try,’ I
said.

At that moment, his eyes swept across
the wall of Alex’s cell and alighted on the space left by the
missing iron bars. I watched as he did a comical double take, then
scanned the cell, taking in the bars on the floor and the crumpled
blankets, before letting out a yell, unlocking the door and
charging across to her bed.

‘
You...little....Urh!
You
did this,’ he yelled at me, as he
stretched up and stared through the window at the empty garden,
before turning back to me.

‘
I’m a witch, what did you expect?
Me to sit pretty and not try and get my friend out. That’s what I
came to do,’ I said.

‘
But she was just bait, nothing
more than a disposable human girl, plenty more of them! But you!
You are a rare gem, and now you are mine. You played right into my
hands, Jessica.’

‘
Maybe, but I always intended to
get her out. I intended to get me out too, and I will. I’m not
yours and I never will be. If you want me to be any use to you, you
will have to release these bonds, otherwise what is the point?’ I
said.

‘
There are other ways to break a
person Jessica, and I intend to demonstrate one of them right now,’
he said, unlocking my cell and stepping through the door. I watched
carefully as he pocketed the key. I would need that, and if these
magical bonds slipped just a fraction, I had to be
ready.

He sauntered across the cell and sat
down next to me on the bed. I struggled in my magical bonds but
they had no give in them. My legs were stiff and immobile,
stretched out ahead of me on the bed, my arms pinned to my sides,
paralysed. I watched with increasing horror as he reached out and
trailed a hand up my leg. Thank God I was wearing jeans, skinny
ones at that, so they didn’t give much room for unwanted access and
were as difficult to get off as they had been to get on. As his
hand reached my thigh I cringed, his fingers rubbed my inner thigh
as his eyes sparkled. He leaned over me and pushed his other hand
up and under my sweatshirt.

‘
Is this the only way you get to
have sex, Cole? Such a shame no-one actually
wants
you. I always wondered why men get off on
forcing a woman, but then I guess it comes down to being so
pathetically desperate for it, you don’t have another choice,’ I
said, clenching my teeth.

Cole looked up at me and snarled, as his
eyes darkened. ‘I have plenty of women begging me to make love to
them, but after several hundred years it gets boring. I shall enjoy
breaking you in.’

‘
Well, I hope you’re feeling
confident. You’ve got a lot to live up to, you know. Luke was my
ex-boyfriend, and angels are exceptional, and Wow! Daniel was
something else!’ I raved, hoping to put him under pressure that I
knew men didn’t handle well.

His hand whipped out from under my top
and smacked into my face with such force, it pushed the top half of
my body off the bed. The lower half of my body was still pinned
underneath Cole, otherwise I would have been on the floor. At least
his hand was off my breast, for the time being, but my cheek burned
and my eye watered. In my head I flailed around, but in reality I
was hanging off the bed, paralysed, waiting for him to pull me back
on, which he did.

‘
First lesson, you need to learn
how to keep your mouth shut,’ he said.

‘
Oh, I’m sorry, did I touch a
nerve? Do we have performance issues in the bedroom?’ I stared him
in the eye, refusing to back down.

His eyes narrowed and he pulled back
slightly. I wondered if he was going to swing at me again, from the
other side, but instead his mouth curled up in an imitation of a
smile. Seconds later my heart sank as he reached forward and went
for my jeans button, opening it and tugging at the material
clinging to my hips.

‘
Let’s find out, shall we?’ He
said, pulling harder at the material.

I tried to wriggle, squirm. I tried to
ground and draw in energy. I tried to levitate him off me, and
throw him across the cell, like I had done with Aaron all those
months ago, but nothing worked. I was frozen. However, after a few
minutes I realised that being frozen was actually hindering him in
his current mission. The witch, Brittany had evidently frozen me so
well as to allow no movement of my limbs, making it impossible for
Cole to remove my tight jeans. He grunted with frustration as he
tried to prise my legs apart, but he got as far as I did, nowhere!
After a few more minutes, I think even he realised that even if he
succeeded in ripping my jeans off, he would never manage to pull my
legs apart. Maybe that was exactly what Brittany had intended. I
sent her silent thanks and smiled up at Cole.

‘
Having problems, Cole? It might
be easier if you got your little witch friend to break the magical
bonds she’s tied me up with so well, but then again, maybe she
doesn’t want to share,’ I said.

For a minute he scowled at me, his
youthful face the picture of a sulky teenage schoolboy, but then
the dangerous, ancient vampire reappeared and he smiled.

‘
I think you’re right Jessica,
that’s just what I’ll do, but this playing has made me hungry and
like I said, there are many ways to break a witch.’

Before I even had time to think about
what he meant, he had grabbed me and flung me from the bed and
across the cell. I landed like a ragdoll, my limbs remained
immobile and outstretched like a Barbie doll, my head cracked
against the bars. I closed my eyes knowing what was coming next as
I saw his body gracefully flying across the space and land on top
of me. His fangs protruding fully from his gums, his dark eyes
shone red, as he lunged towards my neck.

If I had let him in, if I’d
accepted my fate, it wouldn’t have hurt so much, but I refused. My
mental walls were up, I sealed my eyes and felt every agonising
second as he leeched the blood from my body. With my eyes shut, I
couldn’t help think about Daniel. Where was he? So much had
happened in the last hour that it hadn’t occurred to me to try and
contact him again. I wasn’t sure whether I should now, as he would
feel my pain, and I didn’t want him to know what I was going
through, yet I desperately needed him to know where I was. I needed
him to find me, and quick. Even if he was still incarcerated, he
could send help… and that’s when it hit me. I knew
exactly
who was responsible for the
Manchester girls’ deaths. I opened my eyes.