In-Between Work and Play (The Jocelyn Frost Series Book 1) (23 page)

“Jocelyn?”  A
meek voice quivered from inside the doorway that led into the parlor. 

Shaking, I
turned to find Gwen standing in the doorway wearing only a ripped-up man’s
t-shirt.  Her moon-kissed skin was marred with dark purple bruises all over her
thighs, arms, and face.

Bile climbed up
into my throat. 

“I’m… I’m…” Her
pale blue eyes closed for a second as a tear ran down her bruised cheek.   “I’m
okay, Jocelyn.  But I need your help with Dex. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

Fuck!
 
Did the vampires come back?  I dropped my gift basket without even realizing
it.  Looking down at the phone, I heard the hum of the operator asking me to
state my emergency.

“I already called
for an ambulance.” More tears rolled down her cheeks.  “This is all my fault. 
I tried to find out what was going on, but I only made things worse.  I’m so
sorry.  Please don’t hate me.”

My heart sped up
faster than I ever felt it.  Rushing into the parlor, a sharp blade pressed
into my back the moment I passed over the threshold. 

“I’m so sorry,
Jocelyn,” Gwen wailed from the floor.

“Shut up, you
dirty slut.” The familiar tenor tones dripped with malice.

My entire body
shook.  On the floor in the center of the room was a large circle accented with
various symbols drawn in a deep red liquid.  A coppery scent mixed with smoke
tainted the air.   Hamish lay hog-tied just outside the circle, while Dex
looked like a broken toy propped up against a smashed up bookcase. “Carmine? 
What’s going on?”

White sparks
flew across my eyes when my head was jerked backwards into a solid, lanky body.
Hot breath scorched my scalp, sending chills down my spine. A “tsk” sound came
from his mouth.  Cold metal pressed into my exposed throat.

“Please,
Carmine, let me go.  Let’s talk about this.”  The image of Lucinda’s slit
throat consumed my thoughts.  Would I be next?

Gwen kept
shaking her head as she crawled backwards.  My phone slipped from my fingers
onto the carpet runner inside the doorway.  Since this
was
an emergency, I pushed some
tranquility in Gwen’s direction.  A slight change in her panicked expression
occurred.  She stopped shaking her head.  Our eyes locked.  I quickly looked
down and then back toward her.  I prayed to her mother, Iris, Greek goddess of
the rainbow, and also the messenger goddess, that her daughter understood the memo
I was sending her.

 “It’s time to
pay up, Frost.  All those times you whined to me about Inez, and all the advice
I gave you, has all added up.  You will do exactly as I say or…”  Carmine
muttered the words to a spell in a language I did not recognize.  Dex’s body
bucked back and forth, causing him to curl up into himself.  “Next time, I
won’t be so easy on him.”

“Enough,
Carmine, you made your point.” A deep raspy voice spoke from the corner of the
room but I had yet to see whom it belonged to.

Dex’s brow
furrowed before his eyes fluttered open for a split second.  Tension strained
through his arms.  I hoped that Carmine’s spell woke him up.

I needed to
delay them while I tried to figure something out.  Otherwise, I doubted we
could survive this.  “Who are you?”  I aimed my question at the shadowy figure
just outside my peripheral vision. 

“My name is
irrelevant.  The only thing you need to know is that I’ve waited a long time
for you.”  Icy fingers traced the line of my jaw.  I tried to move, but the
cold knife bit into my throat.  A hard yank across the back of my neck
indicated my gold chain had snapped. 

“I know you’re
going to kill me.  Please, just tell me why.” 

“You are too
young to see the full picture.” Carmine continued to pull my hair back while
bracing my body against his. 

“All I see is
the ceiling.”

“Don’t try to be
cute!” The other man ordered.  “Our time is running out.  We need to perform
the spell.”

“What spell?” 
The question popped out of my mouth before I could think of a better one to
ask.

“The one that
will reverse the side effects that each species has had to endure for creating
Erda.”

They were
freaking crazy!  Erda was created thousands of years ago.  Whatever the side
effects were, I didn’t care.  Regardless, people were getting hurt and that was
unacceptable.  “But at what cost?”  I winced as Carmine dragged me toward the
center of the room.  They wouldn’t answer me.  A second set of hands tightened
around my ankles.  They carefully lifted my feet into the air. The two men were
probably maneuvering us around the strange symbols I saw earlier.

Adrenaline
pumped through my veins, making my heart pound in my chest.  I so did not want
to die.  Tears rolled down my cheeks and throat, mixing with the blood that was
already trickling out of the fresh cut.  “Please don’t do this.  Carmine, we’re
friends.”

“We’ve never
been friends, Jocelyn.  You were always the means to a certain end.  There are
only two ingredients we still need in order to complete our spell: the life
force of the virgin daughter of Baldur, and a gold relic enchanted by the
ancient dwarf smiths.”  Part of me wanted to correct him, but I knew better. 
They would most likely insist on examining me for themselves, and then they
would kill me.  Who knows?  Maybe performing their spell with my non-virgin
self would screw it up.  If my friends were lucky, I’d be the only sacrifice
and the spell would backfire on the intruders, killing them in the process.

“Is that why
Lucinda was in my apartment?  She was looking for my ring?”

“We hired her to
help kidnap you.  When she realized you were our target, she tried to back out
of the operation.  I was forced to improvise.  There was no way I could get you
out of the building without drawing unwanted attention.”

He forced me
down onto my knees.  At least, I got a better view of Dex.  One of his ibis
fluttered its feathers as they formed a line in front of his chest. 

My eyes scanned
the rest of the circle.  A minotaur’s horn lay in one place, a satyr’s pelt in
another, and scales, fangs, wings and hooves of various species littered the
floor between the various symbols.

Carmine’s master
had his back toward me.  I couldn’t even see what shade of hair he possessed
since he was wearing a cape and cowl. Flames flickered from his fingertips,
lighting an array of different colored candles.  Raspy muttering caused the
symbols to float up from the floor. With each candle that was lit, the air
sparked. The veil that kept the In-Between separated from Earth seemed too
thin.  I could almost make out the furniture from an office. 

His cloak
shifted once more as he moved behind us.

“What about
Gwen?”  I hoped she was all right.  If I were lucky, she was crawling out into
the foyer and speaking to the operator on my phone. 

“Another stupid
slut.  We already sacrificed her older half-sister about fifteen years ago. 
Back then, Gwen was a still a child, so we let her live.  To think I wasted my
time and energy casting a spell to wipe her memory.  The more she stuck her
nose into my business, the more the spell faded. At first, she claimed she
wanted to switch therapists, but her emotions told me a totally different
story.” 

The
girl in his office the other day.
 
My eyes closed, realizing that must have been her.  Was that also why I
couldn’t reach her on Friday? Poor Gwen!

Carmine started
to chant in unison with his master.  I needed to do something.  Physically, he
was much stronger than I.  I tried to pry his hand from the knife when an idea
hit me.  I pushed as much tranquility into him as I could conjure.  Thoughts of
sunny, summer days spent in Cape May with my mom filled me with warmth, giving
me strength.  His voice wavered, but it did not break his concentration.

The knife slowly
sliced into my exposed neck.  As much as I loved spending time with my mother
on vacation, being away from her and having no friends brought me crashing down
into my inner darkest depths of depression and self-loathing.  I pulled my
tranquility back as fast as I possibly could.  I wanted to suck the light out
of him, and cast him into the depths of an endless, dark abyss.

Carmine gasped. 
His hand shook, sinking the knife further into my throat.  I refused to let
go.  Burning liquid clogged my esophagus.  Cracking my skull into the wall
didn’t hurt this bad.  Shock threatened to take over, but my tenacious grip
clung to the red wavelength of his light.  In that instant, I wanted nothing
more than to rip it from his soul. 

His screams
radiated off the walls.  Blood leaked down the blade and onto his wrist. I lost
my grip. Dex pushed up from the floor, knocking Carmine down with his staff.  I
saw him turn toward the master before my vision started to fade. 

In front of me,
the curtains went up in flames.   

My initial
adrenaline rush caught up to me when I realized I had a gaping gash across my
throat.  Grasping the wound, the blood quickly seeped through my fingers.  A
stale, coppery taste filled my mouth.  Bright blue and red lights bounced off
the walls, mixing with the orange hues of the fire. 

I couldn’t
scream.  I couldn’t say anything.  There was so much I wanted to do, and now I
knew I would never get to do it. 

Declan

“Daddy! 
Don’t come inside!”
Vespa’s panicked
voice rang in my ears.

“Finley,
DON’T!”  I tried to stop him, but he was already airborne.  I didn’t even get
to see him crash.  My body was whipped through the air so fast, the pain was
almost instantaneous.  Darkness consumed me until another wave of pain jarred
me out of my coma-like state. 

“Next time, I
won’t be so easy on him,” a stranger hissed.  Through my eyelashes, I got a
glimpse of a ruby-red light elf holding a knife to Jocelyn’s throat.

My instincts
urged me to try to jump to her aid, but the combat training that was hammered
into me while at Ironwall University took over instead. 

Jocelyn spoke
calmly to her attacker.  May Isis bless her—she was actually trying to buy some
time. 

A second man drew
my attention.  He wore a tattered, blood-splattered cloak with symbols
representing one of the highest ancient covens sewn into its fabric.   This was
not good; as far as I could recall, that family turned into warlocks thousands
of years ago.  They should all have been dead.  Slight movement from the
doorway caught my attention.  Hamish’s girlfriend was slowly backing out of the
room while holding something in her hand.

Reaching with my
mind, I tried to locate my flock of ibis. 
“Lone
Starr?  Vespa? Dot?  Barf? Helmet?  Where are you?”

“Daddy?”
they all answered at once.

“Thank
Thoth you are all still alive.  Where are you?”

“Hiding
from the bad men,”
Vespa whispered.

“Daddy,
they hurt me,”
Dot whimpered.
  “They pulled out my feathers.”

“Dot,
can you get outside?”

“Yes,
I’m in the kitchen.”

“What
about the rest of you?”

“I’m
behind the curtains with Barf and Helmet,”
Lone
Starr murmured.
“I can smell you.”

“I’m
under the couch,”
Vespa whispered.
“I can see you.  Daddy, the bad men are
hurting our new mommy.” 

“I
know, baby. Look, I need your help to hide my movements.  Can you come out and
stand in front of me? ”

“I…
I think so.” 
Vespa waddled
out from her hiding space. 

Lone Starr,
Helmet, and Barf began to emerge from the curtains.

I returned my
focus to what was going on around me.  All I could see of the second man was
his back.  He chanted in an unfamiliar language.  Peculiar.  The air chilled
and crackled.  Power flowed freely from the fabric that held the In-between
together. It radiated through the air the same way light disperses as it
refracts through water. It rushed into the circle.  Sparks of light busted and
cracked as the molecules of magic ripped apart.

Ripping open my
shirtsleeve, I pulled out my staff.  My eyes locked onto the light elf.  His
eyes widened in surprise.  Just one touch of my staff and I knew he would die. 

My arm was
already mid-swing as the light elf’s screams halted the spell.  The rush of
power erupted in pulses so strong, it shattered the windows.

Aiming for his
head, I knocked the end of my staff into his temple.  My attention turned
toward the next threat.  The warlock. 

A ball of
negative energy flew from his fingertips.  The first one was deflected with my
staff, but the second one came at me too fast.  Spinning through the air, I
landed hard on the ground.

I rolled to the
side, expecting another attack, but when I looked up, all I could see were the
tails of his cloak through the door that led to the back of the house. 

“Dex!”  A voice
drew my attention away from the warlock.  “Jocelyn’s hurt!”

My heart stopped
in my chest.  Dropping my staff, I rushed over to her side.  “No, don’t do
this.  Joce.” Tears welled up in my eyes as I cradled her in my arms.  “Stay
with me.”  I pressed my hand to her open wound. 

Her eyes widened
as her life force seemed to drain away.

“Help!  HELP! 
PLEASE SOMEONE!”

Joce’s lips
moved, but no words came out. 

“Apollo?” Gwen
sounded confused, “Ointment?”  Her hand gripped my shoulder.  “Do you have any
of that?”

“The gift
basket!  Gwen!  Find it!” 

Smoke filled the
air as sirens blared in the background.  But none of it meant anything to me as
Joce’s eyes closed.  

“Got it!”  With the cap unscrewed, she poured the bottle over Jocelyn’s wound. 
A bright, white light sealed the cut, but Joce was cold to the touch.