Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [112]
Had I been that stupid? That naïve?
I opened my mouth to speak, but paused, considering the implications of what I was about to say. If I was right, my relationship with Mallory would never be the same.
But if I was right, my relationship with Mallory hadn’t been the same in two months.
“I think the magic has changed her. I think whatever she’s doing for these exams—or whatever she’s been doing in her apprenticeship—have changed her.” I offered up my evidence, and then got to the most damning part.
“When I visited her earlier in the week, she was perusing a book.”
“A sorceress with a book?” Frank dryly asked. “How surprising.”
This time, Malik didn’t bother hiding his eye roll. “What did the book look like?”
“It was big.” I closed my eyes, imagining myself in Mallory’s basement beside her table. “Red leather,” I said, “with a gold symbol on the cover.”
As if I’d just confirmed his worst fear, Malik rubbed his temples with a hand, and then he pulled a square key on a metal chain from beneath his button-up shirt.
“I hope to God that you are wrong,” he said. “But we do not survive on hope. We survive on facing our problems square on. Let’s check the vault.”
“This is unprecedented,” Frank said, “and highly inappropriate. The ashes of a Master vampire are contained there. You will not open the House vault.”
Malik skewered him with a look. “You are a representative of the GP and a guest in this House. But you are not a Master, and you are certainly not Master of this House. You may review the protocols and data as you will, and you may test these vampires as the GP sees fit. But you will not, under any circumstances, issue dictates to me. You are not my Master, Mr. Cabot, and I recommend you not forget it.”
With that, Malik turned on his heel and headed for the door.
One by one the rest of us followed.
The trip down the basement hallway to the vault had all the levity of a funeral procession. There was a possibility the sanctity of the House had been violated, and by a woman I’d believed was my best friend—and who’d been my virtual sister for years.
Malik slid the key into the vault, then turned it forty-five degrees. The lock disengaged with an audible click. He lifted a hand to the door, but paused for a moment before gripping the handle, steadying himself. After a moment, his fingers were on the latch and the door was open.
Malik stood before it, blocking the view inside, and then stepped to the side, his gaze on me.
My heart beating wildly, I looked inside.
Hope and fear simultaneously blossomed.
The Maleficium wasn’t the only thing missing.
The vault was empty.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WHICH WITCH IS WHICH?
Ten silent minutes later, we’d reconvened in the Ops Room. All except Frank, who’d gone upstairs to make a phone call, undoubtedly to the GP.
The Maleficium was gone.
The ashes were gone. No—Ethan’s ashes were gone.
“How could she have done this?” Luc quietly asked. “Not only to take the Maleficium, but to steal the ashes? Such a thing isn’t done. It’s not right. It’s sacrilege.”
“It is what it is,” Malik calmly said. “However horrendous the act, we shouldn’t convict her of the crime without facts. We don’t have any evidence she’s done it. Most important, why? Why would a burgeoning sorceress do such a thing?”
“I can’t tell you why she did it,” Lindsey said, turning back from her computer station, her face unusually pale. “But I can confirm that she did it.”
We all moved to her computer, where Lindsey had pulled up two segments of security video. “We don’t actively monitor the basement camera because it’s right beside the Ops Room,” she said, “but we record the video. It’s motion activated, so it didn’t take long to find what we were looking for.”
The video was black and white and grainy, but there was no mistaking Mallory Delancey Carmichael, ad exec turned sorceress, taking the Maleficium from the vault.
“How did she get the vault open?” I quietly asked.
“Magic,” Lindsey said. “I fast-forwarded through that part. It gives me the willies.”
“She only has the