Angel Falls (Cassandra Bick Chronicles Book 3) by Tracey Sinclair Read Free Book Online Page A

wall behind her with a thud.
    ‘Meds!’ Katie screamed, rushing to her aid, but I was frozen, sprawled where I was, staring in horror as the pillowcase sparked into flame and burned its way to ashes in a matter of seconds, disappearing into nothingness before my very eyes. I hauled myself up, and went to Medea, who was cradled in Katie’s arms, clinging to her, face streaked with tears.
    ‘I can’t do it,’ she sobbed, anguished, as Katie looked at me in despair. ‘It’s gone. It’s left me. My magic has gone.’
     
    ***
     
    While I was keen to offer my help, it was obvious that there was nothing I could do. Katie was as shocked as I was, but I could tell that she thought the best thing would be for her and Medea to deal with this in private. Close as we’d all become over the last couple of years, there are times when you just want your partner, and so I helped her get a distraught Medea upstairs, and I prepped a hot water bottle and some hot chocolate to take up to her, giving her a big hug and leaving her with assurances that everything would be OK that sounded fake even to me. I’d never seen Medea so shaken – hell, I’d seen her survive a collapsing building and look better than this – but she seemed completely drained, as if something had reached inside her and torn out a part of her soul. She barely managed a nod of acknowledgement to me, though she squeezed my hand tightly as I said my goodbyes. Katie kissed her gently on the top of the head before showing me out.
    ‘We can fix this though, right?’ she asked me, her voice low, as she opened the front door. ‘It can’t be a new spell from Celice, we’ve been so careful…’
    I shrugged, not sure I could offer any reassurance. The magic shop where Celice had been based had been closed since our showdown, one of Leon’s people watching it, and there had been no sign of life. We had beaten the witch and her cronies, foiled her plan to revenge herself on what she saw as Medea’s abandonment by delivering Katie to the angry Weres who had wanted to kill her. But in our final confrontation with the Weres and their other ally, the vampire Sebastian, Celice had managed to escape, and we had no idea where she had gone. We had hoped that her defeat would have sent her into exile, but had no proof that was what had happened. Besides, I wasn’t certain which was better; the prospect of an enemy we could find and defeat again, or something else, something organic in Medea that had caused this, some weird side effect that meant we could only wait it out and hope.
    ‘It’s probably just exhaustion, or stress,’ I offered, slightly uselessly, but Katie seized on the explanation gratefully.
    ‘I’ll make sure she gets lots of rest,’ she nodded, glad to have a task. I hugged her, tightly, our earlier snippiness forgotten, and kept my doubts to myself. They couldn’t help, and could only make them both more worried. Then I headed back towards the Tube station, and home. I still had a vampire to catch.
     

Chapter 5
     
    ‘I hate to say it, but I think she’s screwed.’
    This was not the verdict I had been hoping for from Cain, though he sounded genuinely sad when he said it, or at least as sad as a man can sound when he’s mid-way through demolishing a pile of bacon sandwiches between sips of builder’s tea. Clearly he hadn’t been kidding about food being helpful to his recovery. Despite having stuffed my face at Medea’s, the smell of bacon made my mouth water, so I stole a couple of pieces myself. It was delicious, but since my kitchen had been decidedly bacon-free when I left that morning, it was also evidence that Cain had not, as we agreed, stayed home and rested. Somehow I suspected he hadn’t limited his activities to a supplies run to Tesco. But one thing at a time.
    ‘But you don’t think it’s Celice?’
    ‘I think she’d pick up on it if it was. Or your Sense would. I suspect it’s a more… internal reaction.’
    ‘To what,