Tears streamed down her cheek as she tried to muffle her screams. Finally her knees buckled from the pain. Viggo kept her on her feet.
“It wasn’t her fault,” I said. “You had her busy trying to break spells she can’t break.”
A wicked smile touched Viggo’s lips. “You’re right, Sofie. It was your fault. Much like every problem around here is. But—” With a flick of his wrist, Viggo forced Ileana’s face to turn. He shifted the poker to her other cheek. “Since you obviously take some sort of masochistic pleasure in being beaten, I thought punishing someone else would be more effective.”
“Please!” Ileana managed to sputter between sobs.
I glanced over at Mortimer to see him staring at Veronique’s face, as if he couldn’t hear Ileana’s pained cries—or he was blocking them out. He was good at that. I was not. I so desperately wanted to level Viggo with my magic, but now was not the time to start a physical battle with him.
“When you’re finished your pathetic display of dominance, we’d like to discuss the impending war outside,” Mage said, her normally serene voice carrying a cutting edge. Her words made Viggo release his grip on Ileana’s chin. She tumbled to the hardwood floor, her hair falling forward to hide the burned flesh marring both her cheeks.
“What are you talking about?” Mortimer asked, his tone doubtful. “My spies have said nothing about any signs of an army.”
“Your spies are probably the Sentinel, working undercover to feed you lies,” Mage spat.
Mortimer snorted. “Do you think I’m stupid? I checked their hands. No tattoos.”
She cackled. “Did you check their entire bodies?”
“No, why would I?” Mortimer’s face twisted with doubt. “They tattoo their hands. That’s what they do. That’s what they’ve always done.”
Mage offered him a condescending smirk. “Near the end, before the war on Ratheus, we discovered they began marking their kind elsewhere on their bodies, so they could act as double agents with the vampires.”
I turned to stare at her. You neglected to tell me that, Mage. That meant those eight suicidal zombies in the club could in fact have been the Sentinel.
She continued without batting an eye at me. “The witches would break the vampire compulsion spells and cast their own to protect the spies, so they couldn’t give anything up if caught and interrogated.”
“Well, that’s your world, not ours.”
“Are you so sure?” Mage taunted, smug in knowing what neither of them knew; what none of Evangeline’s friends, standing quietly behind me, knew.
“What does she mean?” Mortimer asked slowly. “Sofie?”
I shrugged. Let them chew on that.
“Sofie?” Amelie’s raspy voice called. I turned to see four sets of confused, scared eyes staring back at me. “What does she mean?”
I sighed, not so content with leaving them hanging. I looked to Mage. With a nod, Mage explained the seer and how she’d single-handedly retrained every vampire remaining into believing that the world they lived in was called Ratheus and not Earth. Six sets of wide, disbelieving eyes bored into Mage by the time she was finished. I didn’t know how they would react.
Mage did, though, so she was prepared when Viggo attacked. In a split second, the two of them squared off against each other, Mage’s hand firmly on the poker that Viggo had intended to drive directly through her skull. She laughed. “Don’t worry, your suspicion was enough to protect you from being compelled—I’ve already tried.” Viggo sneered. “Believe me, I can’t!” Mage exclaimed in mock innocence. “If I could, you’d be lying in the Merth spell next to Rachel by now. I’m curious, though . . . do I look nothing like the original vampire from this Earth?”
Viggo’s mouth twisted as he decided what to say. “No, I can’t say you do.”
So he knew the original, after all . . .
She released her grip on the poker and stepped away, unworried that Viggo might take another swing. “I don’t think any vampire has ever disgusted me as much as you have. Bravo. Fine effort.” Keeping her black eyes locked on Viggo, she said over her shoulder to me, “Explain to me again why this one needs to remain. Because unless there is a good reason, I’d very much like to be done with his melodrama.”
Mortimer quietly observed the scene, clearly as unaware of Mage’s abilities as I was, and likely wondering the same thing I had—had Mage influenced his thoughts?
Amelie and the others were unfazed by the power struggle, still in shock over Mage’s confession. “It can’t be! Everything I remember . . . ” Fiona murmured.