“What do you want of me?” Izabela asked.
“I don’t know.” Dropping back down on the sofa, he stared at the floor, his hands balled into fists. “Heaven help me, I don’t know. A spell, a potion, a talisman, something that will calm the monster that’s inside of me fighting to get out.”
Rising, the witch reached into the pocket of her robe and withdrew a small glass vial.
Frowning, Saintcrow looked up, his eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me?”
“This one is not for services rendered,” she said with a wry smile. “I need to examine your blood for possible impurities or anomalies.”
With a curt nod, Saintcrow bit into his left wrist and held it over the bottle. His blood was dark and thick.
When the vial was filled, Izabela corked it and set it on the mantel. “How is Kincaid?”
Saintcrow shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in a few months. You’ll let me know if you find anything...unusual,” he said, gaining his feet.
“Of course,” she replied. And smiled. “The usual payment will be due at that time.”
He nodded. Her usual price for services rendered was a vial of blood. He had visited her many times through the years. Each visit had cost him. He had asked her once what she did with his blood, but she had refused to answer. But he was certain she drank it. Vampire blood had long been known to heal sickness and injury and prolong life.
Izabela walked him to the door. “Try not to worry, vampire,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “I have grown rather fond of you over the years. You have been most...entertaining.”
With a shake of his head, Saintcrow left the house.Entertaining,he thought with wry amusement. He had been called a lot of things through the centuries, but never that.
~ * ~
Izabela stared at the bottle of dark-red blood. Saintcrow’s blood. She drank it from time to time. As any witch worth her salt knew, vampire blood slowed the aging process and extended life. It was also capable of healing the sick. She knew of three dark witches who hunted vampires and killed them for their blood. She understood why, but she didn’t condone such a practice. She knew of another dark witch who kept a vampire imprisoned in a box made of silver. She bled him whenever she needed blood. And brought him prey when he needed to feed. Again, Izabela found that reprehensible. Thus far, thanks to Saintcrow and Kincaid, she had never had to stoop to such despicable behavior.
Odd that Saintcrow felt he was losing control after so many centuries. Generally, vampires hunted less the longer they survived.
Going up to the room where she practiced her craft, she pulled her favorite grimoire from the shelf. Settling into the chair by the window, she opened the heavy tome and thumbed through page after page of spells and enchantments, nostrums and poisons.
Two hours later, she frowned as she put the book aside and glanced at her bookcase. She had dozens of spellbooks. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh, then rose and plucked another volume from the shelf.
If what she was looking for wasn’t in one of her books, then it probably didn’t exist.
~ * ~
Saintcrow stood on the witch’s porch, debating whether to go back home, when an old memory took him to the site of the last battle he had fought during the Crusades. That had been a bloody time. He had been one of the many who had made the long journey to the Holy Land to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim rule. He had been on the field of battle when he sustained a mortal wound, though he hadn’t known it at the time. When he roused, his armor was gone, his clothing was filthy and blood-stained. And he was ravenous. But not for food.
Even now, centuries later, he remembered the excruciating pain, the confusion of not knowing what he hungered for, until he found three men hunkered around a campfire. One whiff of their blood and he knew what he wanted. When they saw him up close, they drew their weapons, but they were no match for his rage or his strength. He killed them all and satisfied his unholy hunger. He killed dozens, perhaps hundreds of people, before he learned to control his hunger and his preternatural power.
Centuries passed before he learned the name of the vampire who had turned him. Centuries before he saw her again. Eleni.She had threatened Kadie’s life. And he had destroyed her. He still felt a faint bit of regret for that. If Eleni had not turned him on the field of battle, he would have died of his wounds centuries before Kadie was born. Kadie, Kadie. She was the best thing in his life.
The only thing that mattered.
His only reason for living.
Chapter Two
Izabela frowned as she studied the faint plume of ghastly, dark-purple smoke rising from the old cauldron. It held a spoonful of Saintcrow’s blood mixed with a few rare herbs and a dash of earth from the Holy Land where he had died and been reborn. Normally, the smoke should have been gray or black. She had no idea why it was purple. Had he ingested poison from someone he had preyed on? Eaten mortal food or drink? Both seemed unlikely. And at his vast age, neither was likely to do him any harm. Was he changing? Transforming? And if so, into what? And why?
Puzzled and curious, she took the vial of his blood from her skirt pocket. Was it darker than usual? Vampires found witch blood decidedly bitter and unpleasant. Contrarily, witches – especially dark witches – quickly became addicted to the blood of the Undead.
Removing the cork from the bottle, she took a sip. And gagged. Stars above, in all her long life, she had never tasted anything so vile. Ordinarily, his blood had a dark, bitter-sweet taste that was quite pleasant. Odd. Very odd.
Replacing the cork, she set the bottle on a shelf, pulled a silver flask from another shelf and rinsed the taste from her mouth with a swig of double-bonded bourbon.
There was definitely something wrong with her favorite vampire, but she had no idea what it could be. Vampires didn’t get sick. Poison, viruses, the common cold, disease, none of them had any effect on the Undead, especially those as old as Saintcrow . To her knowledge, the only thing that had ever affected vampires – and then only the young ones – had been a spell cast by Luca Sasan, an evil necromancer.