Blood Ties: The First (A Bane Pack Novel)

Jenna came to slowly and in a lot of pain. Her head pounded so bad it made her eyes water. Her shoulders screamed with dull fire. She struggled to move but found she couldn’t. Her arms were tied behind her back and her legs were laid out in front of her. Duct tape was wrapped around her ankles, her knees, and mid-thigh. At first, she wasn’t sure where she was or what was going on. When she looked around, she found nothing but a dim room lit only by a single hanging bulb. It swayed gently. The air in the small room was stale and the floor was a concrete slab slick with dampness. The walls looked as if they might once have been white but now they were covered with so many rust streaks, it looked like they’d been painted in blood. Pipes clanged loudly over her head and crawled across the ceiling like artificial snakes.

Her back was up against a pipe and her hands were tied behind it. The skin of her good hand was grinding against the fiberglass of her cast, adding insult to injury. She could feel another set of hands back there, but they were limp.

“Felix,” she hissed, wincing. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed a gallon of glass chips. She didn’t get a response. She swallowed against the pain and tried again. “Felix.” Her voice was louder this time, but only marginally.

“Ugghh…,” he groaned. She heard a clank. “Ow. That hurt.” He must’ve rolled his head back and hit it against the pipe they were tied to.

Jenna laughed despite their very desperate situation.

“We’ve been captured by a psycho bitch werewolf and you still laugh at me?” he asked, indignant.

“Sorry,” she said, not really sorry at all. To her, being able to laugh, even in a situation like this one, was a good thing.

“How do we get out of here?” Felix asked, almost yelling. She could tell he was panicking. If he went too far over, he would be completely useless.

“Calm down,” she whispered back. “We’ll get out.”

“I’ve been partnered with you for a year now and this is the twelfth life-threatening situation you’ve gotten me into,” he replied, almost prissily. “This is the last damned straw, Jenna. If we get out of this, I’m getting a new partner. Maybe one that works in a library. Nothing ever happens in a library. You ever watch the news and see anything about a pack of snarling werewolves attacking a library. You ever hear of a library getting so much as a pickpocket coming through their doors. I know I haven’t.”

“You’re rambling, Felix,” Jenna replied, trying to suppress a chuckle. Felix said pretty much the same thing after every life-threatening situation she got him into. Almost word for word.

“I know I’m rambling!” he whisper-shouted. “Don’t you think I know that?”

Jenna didn’t reply. Instead, she wiggled a bit, brought her bound feet up and slammed them down on the ground. She grunted as the move twisted her broken arm, sending a spike of pain travelling into her already burning shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Felix asked.

“Trying,” she said, lifting her legs again and slamming them on the ground, “to call for help. There’s an alarm I can trigger in the heel of my left boot. If I can just hit it hard enough, I can activate it. It’s got a GPS tracking system built into it.”

“What good is that going to do?” he asked. “By the time anyone gets here, we’ll be EATEN!”

“Dearest,” a woman suddenly said.

Jenna groaned with irritation but Felix let out a muffled scream from the unexpected voice.

Jenna didn’t even hear the bitch come in and she hated that the woman was able to glide inside the little room without her knowing.

“Don’t you get tired of sneaking up on us?” Jenna asked.

She looked toward the voice. The same woman that attacked her and Felix came through a door at the end of the room. She looked very stylish in a silk blue halter and black slacks. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. She walked toward them, the heels of her shoes clacking on the concrete.

“I can’t very well eat the bait.” She stopped in front of them, feet shoulder width apart. “And no, Jenna darling. I don’t get tired of sneaking. I’m a wolf. It’s what we do. Besides, it has a certain, melodramatic touch that I find…agreeable. And fun. Mustn’t forget that.”

“How do you know me?” Jenna asked.

“After our unfortunate first meeting, I decided to tap into my sources.” She tipped Jenna a between-us-girls wink. “They were very thorough with their knowledge on you and imagine my surprise when they identified you as a Bishop. It’s quite the honor to be in the presence of such a famous monster hunter.” She walked over to Felix and rubbed her hand vigorously through his hair. “And you as well. I wouldn’t want you to feel left out Felix, my little mage. Wind, if I’m not mistaken right? You were quite impressive in our fight earlier. Although, you’re still somewhat of a novice, correct?”

“Go to hell,” Felix said, but his voice didn’t carry much weight. It was cracking, like a boy going through puberty. Jenna realized that the werewolf bitch was still stroking his head and if she wasn’t mistaken, Felix was sort of enjoying it.

“So you know our names and a little bit of info on us. So what?” Jenna scoffed.

“Dear,” the woman replied, laughing a little. She knelt in front of Jenna to where the two women could look each other in the eyes. “I know so much more. And to ensure that you don’t try anything foolish...” She leaned in close and whispered something into Jenna’s ear.

Jenna’s eyes widened in shock. Then the woman whipped out a slim blade and flicked it at Jenna’s arm, slicing into the skin there. It wasn’t deep, but it hurt like hell. Jenna gasped slightly from the pain. Felix screamed something angrily. Next, the woman took the blade to a section of Jenna’s shirt and cut out a small piece. She placed this on the wound she’d made and let the blood soak it up for a minute. When she was done, she turned and walked away, taking the bit of bloodied shirt with her.

Jenna struggled against her bonds, trying to get loose but she couldn’t get out. The woman just watched her captive prisoners. Then she eyed the pink cast and a slow smile crept over her lips.

“Pink looks good on you.”

She was almost at the door when she stopped. She turned an ear back at them and turned around. She walked back over and knelt down at the end of Jenna’s feet and ripped her boots off.

“The tracking chip you activated in your boot emits a high frequency sound that you probably never noticed. I, on the other hand, can. You won’t need that, Jenna.”

She curled the boots under one arm, turned and walked out the door.

“What do we do now?” Felix asked.

“Well, mage…,” Jenna responded. “I was really hoping you could help with that part. Can you make with the magic and cut through the duck tape?”

She could feel the thick tape wrapped around her wrist and pulling painfully at her skin.

“Not unless you want me to cut off your legs and hands while I’m at it,” Felix said, ashamed. “I’m still new at this, remember?”

“It’s been over a year now,” Jenna replied. “What exactly is that master or adviser or whatever he is of yours teaching you?”

“Shut up!” Felix replied. “It’s not exactly easy to control.”

“This sucks!” Jenna yelled back.

Felix could feel her struggling behind him, but the tape wouldn’t give, no matter how hard she tried.

“Stop!” Felix cried. “Just stop, Jenna. It’s not working and you’re only making yourself angrier. Anger is useless right now.”

“No. Anger is not useless. It’s all I have,” she told him. “Look around. Is there anything you see that might be useful?”

Felix did as requested and he could feel Jenna jostling around too, looking herself. Neither one found anything. She let out an exasperated breath.

“The thing that irritates me the most is that I let that bitch get the best of me again,” Jenna spoke. She was talking just to talk now. To keep herself sane, Felix guessed. “I hate her.”

Felix sighed. He looked down at his own bound legs and feet. He couldn’t stay here like this. It was bad enough that he was scared out of his mind that he was going to die but listening to Jenna rant and rave was somehow worse. She was the calmest, most collected person he’d ever known. To hear her like that scared the shit out of him. He had to do something. He had to try.

He calmed every part of his mind. He calmed the fear. He calmed the frayed nerves that felt like severed power lines flipping madly about inside his body. He calmed the pounding rush of his own heart. He took deep breaths, focusing on them until the world around him dropped away. When nothing was left, he reached inside for the magic. He’d never been able to describe the feeling of tapping into that kind of power, except to say it was like sucking in the world’s biggest cyclone. It felt like the same kind of devastating, destructive power.

He honed the magic like a knife, layering it upon itself again and again until he had what he needed. He opened his eyes. Hovering in front of him was a ball of soft, blue light. Tendrils of electricity thrashed and cracked in the air like little whips. Felix focused on the ball, on one of the whips. Suddenly, it crackled loudly, once. He heard Jenna ask what was going on and then the arc of blue light sliced cleanly through the tape securing his legs. He spread them apart and flexed them experimentally. They were a little sore. He sent the ball drifting lazily past the left side of his head. He stopped it between himself and Jenna and sent another arc whipping into the tape there.

“Ow,” Jenna yelled suddenly. “Son of a bitch that hurt!”

“Sorry, but I did warn you,” Felix snapped back.

The ball faded, winking out of existence. They pulled their arms apart. Felix got cautiously off the ground. He went around to Jenna’s legs and pulled the tape apart. Then he inspected her hands and found nothing but a thin slice into the pink cast. It was pretty deep though. He looked at her.

“No blood. The cast took the brunt.”

“It still hurt,” Jenna replied, miffed. “It felt like my arm got hit by a metal bat.”

“At least I didn’t cut it off,” he told her. He sounded offended. “You could be a little more grateful. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked, restraining the urge to punch him in the face. She slugged him on the arm instead. The blow was only marginally pulled back.

“Ow,” Felix cried out.

“You deserved that,” Jenna replied. She turned away from him and faced the rusted metal door. “Let’s get the hell out of here before that bitch comes back. Can you get us out?”

Felix grabbed her hand and concentrated. He pictured the alley beside Jenna’s apartment building. His power surged forward at his command…..and then just drained away like someone pulled a plug. Confused, he tried again. And the same thing happened. He opened his eyes and found Jenna staring back at him.

“What’s going on?”

“My magic’s not working.”

He turned away from her and studied the room they were in, this time really looking at it. What he finally saw made his heart sink. Sigils and runes were worked into the rust-stained, dirty walls. They were cleverly camouflaged so that they weren’t readily identifiable. When he finished, he spotted nearly a hundred and fifty runes and twice as many sigils. They were all meant to redirect any magical energy inside the room away from the person building it up. Each time someone focused on their magic, the runes and sigils sucked the energy up like vacuums. He’d gotten lucky with his little ball. The only thing he could think was that the runes and sigils hadn’t been activated beforehand. They must’ve done that after they got out of the duck tape. Which also meant…

He looked up at the ceiling and searched. It didn’t take him long to find the ball-shaped video camera that was watching them with its glass eye. It was also hidden but unlike the runes and sigils, whoever put it there wasn’t tried that hard to conceal it. Felix tapped Jenna on the shoulder and pointed to it.

“They’re watching,” he told her.

“So, you’re saying you can’t get us out of here?” Jenna asked.

He slowly shook his head, his eyes downcast.

“No. Whoever they are, they’ve dealt with mages before,” he responded. He pointed out a couple of sigils and runes to make his point. “Those things are sucking in my power as soon as I try to draw it in. We’re stuck here.”

“If it’s any consolation, Felix, I don’t think they want us dead,” she told him, trying to smile. “They would’ve killed us a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t help much,” Felix replied, dryly.

He sat on the floor with his back to the dirty wall. Just to feel like he was doing something, he rubbed at one of the cleverly hidden sigils, trying to erase it. Sigil and rune magic was more like a chain than anything else, if you could mess up enough of them, the chain would break. But it wouldn’t work. The sigils refused to smudge even a little. A frustrated sigh exploded out of him.

“What now?” he asked.

Jenna didn’t have an answer.

| | | | |

“You know what to do, Ms. Shade?” a man asked. She looked at him now. His back was turned to her and he was watching the video monitor closely. Jenna Bishop and Felix Covas could be seen on it, both of them looking extremely frustrated.

She smiled to herself, enjoying their…dis-pleasure.

“Yes. I know exactly what to do,” she replied. The man turned toward her, his eyes flashing red. It was unsettling, but her face remained cold and emotionless. “Just remember your part in this deal and everything will go smoothly,” she reminded him.

He turned back to the monitor, waving his hand at her in a clear dismissal.

She controlled her urge to shift and tear into the arrogant bastard. Instead, she retrieved the bloody piece of Jenna’s shirt and her boots.

She left a rundown building and entered the woods.