Embrace the Mystery (The Blood Rose 3)

A soft, feminine voice called to her from behind. “Batya, what’s going on?”

Batya turned toward the doorway that led to the back rooms and her assistant’s apartment. Lorelei had been her solid right-arm for two years now, helping her run both the gallery and the free-clinic. “I don’t know, but I think Mastyr Quinlan’s in trouble.”

Lorelei drew close. She stood just slightly shorter than Batya as she stared out at the strange golden light and the massive wraith-pairs that looked ready to eat Quinlan alive.

“He’ll never stand against her.”

“Against who?” Batya could vaguely make out a woman’s shape.

“She’s the one, the ancient fae.”

A serious shock ripped through Batya’s body. “Holy shit. You mean the one that caused all those problems in Bergisson, at Sweet Gorge?”

Lorelei nodded. “I know her.”

Batya felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. “What the hell do you mean you know her? You know the ancient fae?”

Lorelei sighed heavily. “Yes. I can see her plainly, too. Can you?”

“No. I see a female figure. That’s all.”

“Mastyr Quinlan won’t survive this attack. She has too much power.”

Batya didn’t know what to do. She could sense Quinlan’s battle frequency gearing up, but she could also feel the other vampires, that they were super-charged. She understood then that Quinlan showed nothing but bravado, that he knew he was going to die.

“We only want the woman.” The ancient fae’s voice sounded rough.

“You can’t have her.” Quinlan’s deep voice roared along the street, easily breaching the gallery window.

“I have to do something. He can’t die. I can’t let this happen.”

“But what can you do?” Lorelei asked. “We’re lost. All of us. No one can withstand the ancient fae. Even now, her power ripples over my skin.”

Batya turned to Lorelei and saw that tears tracked her pale cheeks. She trembled head-to-foot. Fear reeked from her as well, but not a sudden kind of panic, something that tasted metallic on the air like she’d lived with it for decades.

She didn’t know very much about Lorelei. She’d shown up a couple of years ago and stayed to help, but Batya didn’t ask questions, one of her rules in the ex-pat community. She believed it was important for all ex-patriots, those realm-folk who chose to live in the U.S apart from their birth-realms, to feel like they could start over without having their histories made public.

Suddenly, the air outside the gallery lit up and streams of killing energy passed from Quinlan to the hovering wraith-pairs. Quinlan rose into the air as well, at least three feet off the ground.

He looked magnificent, even from behind, because he held his arms wide and flung impossible arrays of battle energy at the enemy, something that would have destroyed a normal wraith-pair with the first blow.

Yet the Invictus couples barely moved as they slowly advanced on him, pressing their joined energy hard at him in brilliant streams of alternating red and blue light.

The golden aura of the ancient fae grew brighter as the battle raged. Maybe she gained energy from the sight of destruction.

Probably.

The woman was evil.

Batya heard Lorelei’s soft sobs, but her own inclination leaned away from sadness or even pity in this moment. She’d grown up with the destruction that the Invictus pairs could inflict, which was one of the reasons she’d left Grochaire in the first place. She’d had enough of the war.

The other reason began to forge a heavy vibration through her body, the part of her that was monumentally and powerfully fae. For a moment, she even wondered if she could pull this off, because she’d kept her power dormant for the past century.

Yet with one man’s life hanging by a couple of blue streams of energy, she gathered her power. Quinlan belonged to her, not to these vile, wraith-vampire Invictus pairs and he sure as hell didn’t belong to an ancient fae who even she could detect smelled like rotting garbage.

“Stay back, Lorelei. But don’t worry, this won’t hurt you.”

Batya moved forward and began accessing one of her powers, a realm frequency that many fae shared that made use of enthrallment in many different forms. The canvases and easels all around her began to vibrate and shake as she gathered her power. Some of them even fell to the floor.

Damn the Invictus anyway and if this ancient fae had charge of them, damn her as well.

Everything happened at once.

Both massive wraith-pairs charged Quinlan. A brief flash of red and blue light flew into the air on impact, then Quinlan crashed through the window.

“There she is,” the ancient fae called out. “Get her.”

But without giving it too much thought, Batya sent her enthrallment power outward and wrapped her gallery up inside a shield, like she’d just set a hard cement wall all around the perimeter of the entire building.

Beyond the shield, the woman ensconced in the golden light writhed. “Where is she? What happened? Where did everything go? What the hell is this?”

“Mistress we don’t know. But we hit Mastyr Quinlan with everything. Wherever he is, he’s probably dead.”

“Do you think that’s any consolation? I don’t give a ripe fig about his ass. I wanted the woman.” Her voice vibrated with rage.

Lorelei joined her. “What did you do, Mistress Batya?”

Normally, Batya didn’t allow anyone to address her in the ancient realm way, but she let it pass for now since she had a bigger problem. She had one half-dead mastyr vampire lying on a bed of shattered glass.

She dropped to her knees beside Quinlan. He had burns all over his body and most of his heavy battle leathers and Guardsman coat were gone. His long, thick, black hair remained intact, but she wasn’t sure how.

“Will you help me, Lorelei? I need to get him to the healing room.”

“Of course, but will your shield hold?”

“Yes.”

Lorelei glanced toward the broken window. “But how are you maintaining it?”

Batya met her gaze, staring at her hard. “The same way, I think, that you were able to see that bitch out there.”

A blush crawled up Lorelei’s cheeks. Batya had suspected for a long time that Lorelei had many secrets and tonight she’d put a spotlight on at least one of them.

Lorelei merely nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Now do you, or do you not, have levitation powers here?” Batya’s own abilities in that area, much to her dismay, left a lot to be desired. Many powerful fae could fly, but even with her three-hundred-plus years, she still couldn’t lift her feet off the ground. But she could raise other things for short bursts, like near-dead vampires.