Once Bitten (Shadow Guild: The Rebel 1)

“No. But you’re an open book, and I’ve been in your spot before.”

“Oh.” I felt weird but didn’t know how to describe it.

“I’ve got your back.”

“Well, thanks?” Making a friend so quickly was weird, but she just felt right.

“No problem.” She collapsed on the couch. “So, what’s your plan?”

I sighed and sank into the armchair. “I need answers, ASAP. So I figure I should go talk to this Devil.”

“Even if he’s the killer?”

“He doesn’t know that I think he’s the killer.” But… “He can probably see me in the visions where I see him. So going undercover is unlikely to help.”

“He’s going to be suspicious.” She frowned. “Almost no one has the guts to go right to his office.”

“I do.” Not that I was particularly brave, but I didn’t have great options. “And he wouldn’t kill me where people would see him, right? So the office is perfect.”

“Sorta perfect. They’re loyal to him there, so it will be dangerous. But it’s also a bar, so even if he is a murderer, he’s highly unlikely to kill you there. Bad for business.”

“That’s it, then. I take the risk. I need to know why he was at the scene.”

“Well, if you insist on going, we can get you some potions to protect yourself. He wouldn’t see that coming, and you’d be pretty safe.” She looked me up and down. “And we’ve got to get you ready.”

“Ready?”

“When I say the guilds provide protection, I mean that they also protect us from ourselves,” Mac said, her voice slightly bitter. “Not that we need it. Sometimes, I think they’re too heavy-handed.”

“How so?”

“Remember those magical signatures I talked about? How we can smell or hear each other’s magic?”

“Yeah…”

“Keep yours on the down-low if you can. Try to control them so others can’t sense what you are.”

“I’m not doing that already?”

“No, you let them all hang out.”

I laughed. “So, how do I do control it?”

“You practice, which you don’t have time for now. A potion will help conceal your power from the Devil.”

“Is he really a vampire? Like, drinks blood and can’t walk in the sun?”

“Yeah. A powerful one. He does drink blood, but he can also walk in the sun. The sun thing is a myth made up by humans to comfort themselves.” She stood. “And, ah…he can compel people to do his bidding.”

“He can what?”

“Yeah. He’s got some kind of crazy ability to make folks do stuff. It’s his voice or something. It’s how he’s accumulated so much power in Guild City.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Of course.”

“Just…be careful. It’s impossible to fight it, and there’s no potion that protects against it. Your only option would be to incapacitate him. Stay alert. If you think he’s going to use that power against you, you’ll feel it in your mind. You’ll have a few seconds to throw a potion bomb and run.”

“Oh, man. This is just getting creepier.”