Wild magic book four, p.1
Wild Magic Book Four, page 1
Wild Magic Book Four
Odette C. Bell
www.odettecbell.com
Copyright
All characters in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Wild Magic Book Four
Copyright © 2024 Odette C Bell
Cover art stock photos licensed from Depositphotos.
www.odettecbell.com
Wild Magic Book Four Blurb
Nightmares aren’t real, but that doesn’t mean Fairbridge isn’t worse. When Lillian is involved in a dangerous jail break and encounters a powerful new foe, she flounders. Just not for long.
William can’t let her. The pressure mounts on him to save the city. The White Knights can’t be stopped. And soon they pull William and Lillian further into the plot as dragons rise from the past.
Lillian will have to learn new skills to fight them – and cross old bridges to grow. It’s just once she’s crossed one specific Rubicon, she can’t return. As her attraction for William flares, she gives in. But that way trouble lies.
Wild Magic Book Four
Title Page
Copyright
Blurb
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Newsletter
About The Author
Reading Order
Guide
Front Matter
Start of Content
Back Matter
Chapter 1
Jacob leaned close, muscled arms pressing against the blue prison wall beside him. “You sure you’re up for this?” His flashing eyes shot me a severe look. It didn’t last. He didn’t assess me from my feet to my head. He already knew I could do this.
I leaned past and knocked on the door.
A stiff-lipped gargoyle guard opened it. The guy’s blue woolen jumper rippled at the seams, and his tactical vest bulged, not just with weapons, but with the hard lines of his pecs beneath.
He didn’t flash a smile. His stony lips didn’t know how. “This way, ma’am. It will only be one of you in the interrogation room, right?”
I nodded.
The interrogation rooms of Fairbridge’s primary magical prison were coded for two individuals.
It was a hard rule – minus guards, of course. It was there to stop prisoners from escaping and congregating and from anyone else coming to help them.
It meant I wouldn’t have Jacob’s backup. Did I need it?
I didn’t slip my hand behind my back and start pumping it into a fist, didn’t call on my magic in a raging torrent. I knew how. In truly stressful circumstances, I could now connect a sub-gate to my bridge root.
I’d done it a month ago when I defeated Luigi.
The memory was raw. If I closed my eyes, I could step back into that dark magic room, Luigi’s chants filling my ears.
Mirabella was fine. The murders had stopped. Had the White Knights gone away? Oh, hell no.
We followed the guard out of the modern prison into the old area.
My nostrils expanded like someone shoved bellows up them. I wasn’t smelling muck or anything. The building might be old. The plumbing was thankfully new. The prisoners washed every day, too. Rotting food wasn’t piled against the iron-framed doors and metal gangways. It was magic. It reeked. Had I mentioned that? I could smell magic since opening a gate to my bridge root. Not consistently. Not with enough acuity to track it. But it could still drive me mad – especially in this place.
This prison was over 200 years old. They’d moved it from Europe. The Romans had crafted it over 2000 years ago. Then the Spaniards and Moors had perfected it.
Every stone was crafted to maximize magical control. The prisoners probably lived in the oldest piece of architecture anywhere in Fairbridge.
I could bet they didn’t appreciate it.
I reached out and patted one of the magical bricks, shivering hard.
The guard grunted, “You can touch, but I wouldn’t walk inside. The second you do, your magic will be repressed.” He said will as a promise, like someone laying down the law by slapping your face with it.
I wasn’t so sure. I finally squeezed that hand behind my back, opened it, and contracted it hard. My knuckles pressed together, and I concentrated. I swept away my worries – all 10,000 of them – and felt my bridge magic.
Since defeating Luigi, I hadn’t opened a sub-gate back to my root. I knew I could, though. If you shoved me in one of those cells – even if it was solitary confinement – I’d eventually access my magic. Because it was indomitable. Apparently, so was I.
I didn’t hasten my pace as we walked along the gangway, even as prisoners plucked themselves up from single beds, shrugged over to the iron doors, and hung their arms out of them. They pressed their faces against the rusted metal and glowered, not at the gargoyle and Jacob, but at me. Maybe they thought I was the weak link.
Good luck to them.
I made eye contact with no one. I’d requested to see the main body of the prison and the cells – I needed to get an idea of where they were keeping Matthew.
We strode past prisoners. Anyone who got rowdy soon went quiet when the gargoyle guard loomed and rattled one of the cage doors.
The human prison was kept off the side of this one. Armed with modern doors, proper security, and round-the-clock observation, it barely had any prison guards. They kept all the meaty gargoyles for the magical side.
A few prisoners tried to hurl insults my way. I didn’t pay any attention. I had a distraction. My ebony-haired Thor-like vampire. He could distract me at any moment of any day. He could snap into my head, and even if I was driving, I’d close my eyes thinking about him.
A month was a long time. Had anything happened between us? Did I need to answer that question? Of course it hadn’t. William was repressed. Sorry, William was controlled. He needed to be. If he ever broke, and his true vampiric curse claimed him, bathing his eyes in yellow, he’d….
I chased the thought away.
We stopped in front of a larger prison cell. The walls were thicker. The gap between this cell and those hugging it suggested the walls were over a meter wide. Which meant a lot of magical stone controlling the individual within.
Matthew lay on his flimsy blue bed, arms under his head, legs crossed.
Until he smelled something or just heard the gargoyle grumbling. He leapt up in a smooth, vampiric move. He went from lying to standing with no blood pressure effects, with no slipping, without a breath.
With a few languid steps, he reached the bars, leaned against them, and finally spied me. A charming if sycophantic smile spread his mouth. At the sight of me, it froze and shattered. His canines sliced out of his mouth, pinning his bottom lip hard, even drawing a few specks of blood. “You,” he hissed. “You killed my grandfather.”
I stared at him impassively while inside, a part of me withered. Not at the thought Luigi was dead. I would’ve preferred to strip him of his powers and dump him in a prison like this, but I couldn’t deny reality. I had dispatched Luigi with William’s help.
Except that hadn’t stopped anything, had it? No one had been murdered recently. The White Knight plot remained.
I nodded at Matthew and stared right into his eyes. I was communicating with the gargoyle, but Matthew didn’t know that.
A sneer snapped across his lips, and he laughed. It was guttural, like a fish glugging after you threw it back into the sea. He drummed his hands on the bars, a musical accompaniment to his raspy chuckle. “You’ve become ballsy, haven’t you, little mouse?”
I frowned. You know who else called me little mouse? Arnold Peacock. Kai had run after him in Luigi’s maze. But Arnold had disappeared. As for Kai, he was fine. We met up occasionally. I always ignored him whenever he begged that I should go see Ace. Ace was the leader of the South Pack, and we… look, maybe one day I would gather the gumption to see him. But for now, we were avoiding each other.
Or I was just too busy with work, and he was probably far too busy protecting his pack.
“I can see the fear in your eyes, little mouse,” Matthew hissed through his words. I only just understood them. He usually spoke with either casual ease or clipped efficiency, suggesting someone who’d grown up in a family with manners. Sorry, rules.
Now his predatory force leaked out of every breath. His nostrils contracted. “I can smell it, too, no matter how hard you try to hide your scent from me.”
That was a lie. He couldn’t smell me. You see… William had tried.
I shouldn’t think that here in front of a highly trained gargoyle, my colleague, and one of my worst enemies.
I’d asked William to see if he could scent me. I needed to know if I could be tracked in the spirit realm and the real world.
He’d complied. He’d drawn pretty close, too. I could remember it now, the way he’d loomed, my stomach had shaken, his breath had caught, and—
My heart was beating way, way too hard. And Matthew could definitely sense that. The point was he could not smell me. If William couldn’t, I was confiden t Matthew didn’t have a chance.
Matthew tilted his head high, his nostrils expanding wide. “You’re full of fear, little mouse—”
“Enough of that,” Jacob said in a long-suffering tone. He crossed his arms, his go-to move. “Nobody cares about your posturing now, Matthew. You’re in jail. And we are investigating the Lombard family.”
Matthew tipped his head down as the gargoyle growled at him to step back.
Matthew complied. The gargoyle clenched his hand in and out, showing real magic. Some of the only true force that could be practiced in the prison.
Matthew was either trained enough to know you didn’t mess with it, or the gargoyle wasn’t his target.
Matthew couldn’t hurt me. Unless it was with his words. “Why should I stop? And are you out of your mind? Do you really think the council’s gonna break up the Lombard family? I’m in jail, dear grandfather’s dead,” his voice faltered with something suspiciously like real emotion, “but that doesn’t matter. The family continues. You really think Lombard Estate is going anywhere? It’s a beacon for the community.”
Beacon? Sure. If the light you shone was dark magic.
I ignored him, took a leaf from Jacob’s book, crossed my arms, and stepped back, giving the gargoyle room. He didn’t need it.
With a click of his fingers, a compulsion spell wrapped around Matthew as the door opened. The iron creaked ominously, revealing its age.
It was so rusted, it must be well over 200 years old. Heck, it could be older, could be the original iron the Romans used. You’d surely hope the prison had upgraded it. A powerful enough species – like a vamp – should be able to break right through it.
It didn’t work like that. This iron was spelled to become stronger with age.
The compulsion spell would control Matthew until we reached the discussion room.
It was a bright yellow. You knew what it reminded me of.
My stomach twitched with this sick tingle. Whenever I was away from William for too long, my thoughts rotated around him like Earth to the sun. What if something made him snap? What if he turned—
“You will get yours,” Matthew growled to no one. He flashed his gaze up to me.
I steadily met his eyes. I’d get mine, ha? Statistically, he was right. It wouldn’t come from the Lombard family. It would come from Bella.
Who was still out there, by the way. Now, that could chill my blood and rattle my bones.
Matthew continued to taunt me as we walked through the prison, reached a large, heavy iron door, and stepped through. We entered the modern area. As soon as my feet hit polished concrete, I didn’t relax. I felt safer in the ancient part, frankly.
I strode behind Matthew. That didn’t stop him from constantly straining to stare at me. His teeth kept protruding, disappearing, then protruding again. I got the message.
So did Jacob. “Stare ahead, vampire. Focus on what you’re gonna say in your interview. Maybe if you share some useful information, you’ll get out of here… I dunno, 200 years early?”
That referenced Matthew’s epically long prison sentence.
I didn’t know if it was fair. I wasn’t privy to every one of his criminal acts, but most of them had come from his grandfather. His grandfather was dead, and the magical community wanted revenge on someone, though.
Sorry, the magical community wanted a scapegoat.
I didn’t want to think that through.
If the magical community wanted revenge, they would break up Lombard Estate.
They hadn’t. They wouldn’t. Worse, they wouldn’t let William investigate it.
I woke up in a cold sweat at least twice a week thinking of the true Lombard Crypt. The hundred coffins, with perfectly preserved ancient vampires all armed, all waiting to wake.
I kicked myself repeatedly for not disarming more of them at the time. Then again, if I’d hesitated, I wouldn’t have saved Mirabella.
It felt like this epic task permanently hanging over my head.
Wrong thing to think about. I became distracted only to tune in and feel Matthew’s eyes searching me. We reached the discussion room.
“If you need anything, ma’am, I’m at the door. One scream. One grunt. Any abrupt noise, and I’ll come in,” the gargoyle said professionally.
I nodded.
Matthew snickered. “All she needs is a set of vampire fangs—”
The gargoyle patted Matthew on the back. Technically.
It’s just that when a shifter who could transform into living stone touched you, your bones could break. Even a vampire’s.
Matthew lurched forward, almost swan-diving into the discussion room. I followed. I didn’t want to act nervous, which meant leaving my hands sweaty even as they prickled uncomfortably. I walked in. I didn’t need to control Matthew. The compulsion magic did it for me.
A simple plastic white table stood in the middle of the room, and two black plastic chairs sat tucked beneath. I slipped into one. The compulsion magic spun around Matthew, forcing him to sit in the other. It scooted him in.
His hands locked together and dropped against the table’s edge. It was plastic, right? He was a vampire, wasn’t he? With a single breath, he could crack it in half. But it was plastic in the state’s most secure magical prison.
As his hands clunked against it, magic groaned within the white melamine, activating hidden gears.
Matthew strained, but with even his considerable force, he couldn’t shift it. So his shoulders hunched forward, and he growled at me. “You are gonna get yours real soon, little witch. The end is coming. You mark my words.”
I froze as end echoed through the room. When Luigi had died, as his face had cracked with black magic, he’d promised the end was nigh.
It hadn’t come in a month. It couldn’t be that nigh. But I shouldn’t be facetious, either. The White Knights remained. Worse, I kept hearing rumors of poisonings. Not just with C9R. They’d deployed small batches of C9R Omega, too. It was hard to separate fact from fiction, but it was confronting enough that I had yet another reason not to sleep at night.
I revealed nothing of this to the sycophantic vampire. I leaned forward. I’d been to a couple of interrogations with Jacob now. I knew how to control my expression, how to sit comfortably and adopt the right posture.
I wasn’t here to intimidate. I just had to show Matthew he couldn’t scare me. It had a remarkably pacifying effect on him. As he tracked me and realized I wasn’t freaking out, sweating, or shaking, he receded back. As much as the compulsion chains would let him.
I wouldn’t tell him they reminded me of what Luigi had done in his dark magic room. With a simple flick of his fingers and his family book in his hand, he’d chained me to the floor.
“Matthew, I’m here because you will tell me useful information. Because it’s your only chance to divide or at least reduce your considerable sentence,” I hissed that.
He glowered at me. Now he knew his threats wouldn’t work, he defaulted to his simple gaze. Yellow magic infected his irises. It just couldn’t go anywhere and do anything.
I didn’t like it, though. I had to control myself down to my last breath. The sight of yellow vampire magic infecting someone’s eyes was my number one nightmare.
I’d once thought magic scared me the most. God, I’d been a fool. Magic was nothing. Sorry, it was my lifeblood. But losing William to vampirism….
“You’re rattled, Lillian. And you have every reason to be. You know we’re coming, don’t you?” He leaned forward casually as best as he could while chained to the desk. He didn’t look like John, his brother. He didn’t share the same nonchalance. Matthew was an acting kid who desperately needed people’s approval. John had gone beyond that long ago. Rather than seek his grandfather’s respect, he’d struck out and started his own drug dealing business. Or as far as I knew that was the case. We’d never discovered what transpired between John and his grandfather.
“Tell me more.” If I couldn’t get Matthew to divulge any information, it was time to bait him. I leaned back as casually as I could, channeling John. That vamp didn’t care about a darn thing. Compassion, decency, family. John only wanted power. He’d use me to get it. Now he was a patron of this here jail. Just not of the magical creature’s wing. He was on the normal side. John had lost all his magic. And it would never return.
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