“You didn’t report the missing vampire enforcer to the rest of the council. You might not have known that he’s a member of my own nest. A distant cousin, if you will. His name is Ransom.”
“No, we did not,” Valens agreed. “We heard about it, but Ransom was thought to be a case of dereliction of duty to the ODL, and given that the ODL reports to the council, we assumed you were already aware. We also didn’t want to report anything that could cast a question on the cases we’d confirmed ourselves to be kidnappings.”
“Wise, for what many assume to be a brash and violent species.” She returned her fingertips to their steepled position, staring at us so long that I was beginning to wonder why she’d bothered asking for the appointment.
“I have something I’d like to show you, based on a conversation I had with Carmine, an associate of mine. He apparently has already had some dealings with your pack mates and found you to be honorable. While I would normally ask for a blood oath to ensure your secrecy, I fear that the boundariesenacted by council law won’t allow it. Which means, if I show you what I have, I am extending a great deal of trust. Do you understand?”
Valens and I exchanged a loaded look. “We understand,” I said with a nod. “We’ll keep your secrets safe from any outside our pack.”
She flinched, the tiny movement our first sign that she was more rattled than she appeared. “I would ask that you tell no one but your pack’s leadership. No one inside this building must know what I’m about to show you.”
“We understand.”
“All right, then, but I warn you, it’s not pretty.” She rose from her seat, taking only a few paces toward the back wall of her office.
She moved a leather-bound book that probably weighed five pounds, then reached to the back of the bookcase, where she pressed something. The wall split, sliding silently back into hidden tracks, baring a silver-barred door inset into a solid-metal-walled cell.
Shocking though that was, a moment later, when a red-eyed vampire crashed against the bars with his fangs bared, I jumped out of my seat. Another, smaller creature was also inside and flew toward the bars before bouncing backward off an invisible barrier between the silver. The vampire clawed at what appeared to be nothing, fully crazed, but it was no use. Rubix had them both well and truly trapped.
It took my brain long seconds to process what I was seeing. Shock played a part, of course, because I’d never before seen a disheveled vampire. His eyes were rings of red, angry black lines tracing up from his throat across his ghost-pale complexion, as if he had a ghastly infection that put him at death’s door, if that were possible for an undead being.
Only after taking all that in, did I notice what he was wearing. A tattered ODL enforcer’s uniform, with the nameRansomstitched over the breast in stained white thread. And just above it, an engraved silver collar locked around his neck.
Lights burst in front of my eyes so quickly, I swayed on my feet. This one was different from the one we’d found at Leon’s cottage. It wasn’t destroyed, and the magical signatures clinging to it were overwhelmingly bright, almost too strong to look at directly. Pixie, lots of pixie, but instead of just dwarven magic like I’d picked up on the melted collar, I also got a subtle underpinning of gnomish magic.
“Valens, the collar… It’s the same.”
“The same as what?” Rubix’s voice was sharp enough to draw blood, her gaze pinned to my face.
I cleared my throat, needing a moment to compose myself. “We found what we presumed to be a melted collar in the missing lynx shifter’s home. It had multiple magical signatures on it, despite being destroyed by the fire. We weren’t sure, though, because it was so misshapen. Except the collar your cousin is wearing… It has the same signatures.”
Rubix closed the distance between us in the blink of an eye, and Valens growled as she stared down at me, eyes narrowed to slits even as he forced his way between us.
“What do you know about who did this? Who built this vile thing and thought to enslave my flesh and blood?”
“The pixies,” he snapped, forcing me back a step so that he could square off with the angry vampiress. He cast a glance over his shoulder at me. “Does this one also have dwarven influence?”
“Yes, but there’s more. Gnomish too. That’s what I can pick up through the barrier, so it’s possible there is more. But… do you have a pixie trapped in there with him?”
I’d only seen the smaller creature for a second, but it had the bright, pinky-purple coloring most pixies had in their natural forms.
“Yes. When my people found Ransom, the pixie ordered him to attack them. And he did. They were able to subdue them both, but we were unable to remove the collar. At our first attempt to remove the collar, the cursed thing injected him with a blood-based poison. That’s why his neck and eyes look like that.”
“So he wasn’t crazed before?” I stepped around them both, moving to stand right in front of the barred door, in case I could pick up more detail from up close.
“No. My people reported that he was cool, almost flat. They tried to reason with him, but he just kept attacking. When they tried to remove it, needles shot out from all around the inside, injecting him in at least a dozen places at once. Based on the progression, he’ll be dead inside a week if we can’t safely remove it and treat him.”
I nodded, considering. It went along with our theory that they were mind-control devices. “And the pixie? How did they capture it?”
“Her,” she spat. “If the bitch holds still, it’s evident. But they used an electrified net, shot her out of the air.”
“Aren’t those illegal?” Valens asked from right behind my shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed him walking up.
“Yes. Much like kidnapping and the vile collar still stuck on my nest mate.”
Valens inclined his head in lieu of an answer.
The pixie bashed against the invisible barrier again, mere inches from my face. Something shiny caught my eye, and colors danced before me once more.
