Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

22

The road was as dry as my mouth. Nothing had passed my lips for the sun's full cycle.

My body was weightless, but my feet, they were heavy blocks halting my progress as I stumbled on the rocks jutting up on the crag path.

Nowell's child was still and heavy in my belly. It was moving down now, slowly splitting me open. It wouldn't be long. The pains were lasting and often, but I couldn't submit to them. Not until I'd found him.

The monk had said that his dwelling was cut into the crag's rough limestone. That if I fasted and walked up here, he would show himself.

But as my thoughts drifted around my spinning head, I wondered if he'd tricked me. If after all of it, a crooked monk had pointed me to my death.

"No, my child," a beautiful voice said, "I have not forsaken you. You have come to me, and I will heal you."

My arms were bound tight against my body when a jolt in the road slammed my head against the SUV's back seat, bringing me out of Jennet Device's memory. Neck aching like the world's worst migraine, I rolled my head around my shoulders a couple of times to try and loosen the muscles.

I wasn't worried, well, not much. This wasn't an abduction. This was custody.

Becca was the only other occupant of the vehicle and she would be taking me to the DPA holding cells. I'd given myself away without the need for torture.

I was an idiot, but at least I was in one piece.

"You've done it now," Becca said, catching my eye in the rear-view mirror. She finished with a low whistle and a crinkle of her beautiful almond shaped eyes, as if I needed more confirmation of my screw up.

"No need to sound so jolly about it," I snapped, even though I knew she was right.

"Don't beat yourself up," Becca said, a hint of what might be sympathy softening her grin into a smile of encouragement. "That guy's been interrogating witches for longer than you can even comprehend."

"But why?" I asked, remembering the question that had been bothering me before I'd given myself away like a fool.

"Who knows why vamps do anything? Boredom? A pure and unabated love of torture?"

"No, that's not it. There's something driving that guy. Some purpose beyond his role of inquisitor."

Becca looked at me, quiet, waiting.

"I'll figure it out, I just need some time."

"That's one thing you don't have. The trial starts this time tomorrow and you'll be confined to your cell until then. There's no getting out of it this time. Orders from above."
Becca swung the car into the narrow access road and hauled me out and into the Precentor's Court offices.

The quaint town houses were stark and lifeless on the inside. Grey paint and bare floorboards stripped the building of the charm of its period features.

"Ouch," I hissed, as she dragged me by my elbow through the entrance corridor and down some steps. Judging by the large hollowed out space under an exposed chimney breast, we were in the original kitchen. Now it was just another empty room with disused furniture.

"Sorry," Becca murmured, eyes darting to and fro as she hurried me through the building. Her grip loosened on my upper arm, but she continued to drag me along behind her.

"What's the hurry? I'll just be waiting until the trial begins."

"We don't want to linger here, trust me. You don't need educating on the power of old buildings, I've read your file. And there are creatures here, old creatures. I can smell them. My cat wants out of here and if she's worried, you should be too."

The house was dark, despite being midday. But that shouldn't matter. If magical energy was present, I usually didn't need to seek it out, it came to me, and only my own silver life-force was visible in the still air of the old building. I tried to reach out with my senses as Becca pulled me down the basement stairs, but the only foreign magic I could feel was her hot shifter energy buzzing around her form and warming my skin where she touched me.

Whatever made the panther in Becca skittish was flying below my radar, and I didn't like that one little bit. One last glace before Becca pulled me through the basement door showed only swirls of dust, dancing in the thin beams of light shining in between the gaps in the blinds.

In the basement there were two sealed rooms with a thin corridor that ran between. Bright white interiors with three plaster walls and one glass side, which faced the central walkway. A hard shove sent me stumbling into one. I turned to see Becca locking the door.

"You'll be safer in there," she mouthed, all sound in the outside world having been cut off by the sealed cell door.

I watched her lithe figure speed away without another glance in my direction.

Don't believe her Alice! Not sure any prison is safe...