enough confidence in myself to know that no one can hide from me forever. I would know Barnabas’s taint anywhere now. As many times as we have merged, he could not hide that from me.”
“We need to get rid of the spell and make certain there are no others lurking to harm you. Once the book is brought to the surface, we will have to either go to ground with it in a safe location, or destroy it, depending on how much of the night we have.”
“Vampires sleep during the day,” Julija reminded. “Mages do not.”
“Even should they find our resting place, they would not be able to enter. We will have the time we need if we can make it back there.”
Julija wasn’t going to think that maybe that was far too big of an “if.” “If I cast a revealing spell, would you be able to describe to me what you see from inside my throat?”
“Of course.”
The wind shifted just the slightest, and Isai stiffened. His blue eyes stared down into hers. “Look only at me, Julija. We have someone watching us. We knew this would happen. I want you to keep looking at me. I’m going to put my arms around you. You are very small in comparison to me and my body will shield you. Reach out very cautiously, masking your energy, and let me know if you recognize our enemy.”
Julija went gladly into his arms. She knew she was trembling, remembering that her brothers had come with other mages and those mages carried weapons. Rifles. Bullets that could reach them from great distances.
“They want the book and they cannot find it without us. Keep that in mind. We will learn who our enemy is and then we will rid you of all spells. When you cast the revealing spell, make certain it encompasses your entire body.”
He pressed a kiss on her forehead, his arms enfolding her gently. She took a deep breath and let her mind expand. She sent herself seeking into the cold, crisp air. It took a moment to find the trail. It led back toward the campsite where Crina had set up her tent. All along Julija had been so certain Crina and Barnabas had come looking for her, Crina bent on killing Isai for him, but this wasn’t Barnabas.
Julija wasn’t that surprised. He wasn’t going to be that easy for them to find. He had a way of blending in with the surroundings, spreading his energy so he was extremely difficult to find. She wasn’t easy to hide from, yet on more than one occasion, Barnabas had come to her without her knowledge.
“It is Anatolie. He is the one who deserted Crina, when we confronted her, not Barnabas. I don’t understand any of them, Isai. Why would he encourage her to come and then not protect her? There was no protection spell. Nothing.”
“Had there been you would have known.”
“They weren’t in love, I know that, but she gave him two sons. They lived together for centuries.”
“But she was not loyal to him. You said she conspired with her sons to get rid of him.”
“She did.”
“He had to have known. Anatolie may not have the need for cruelty in the way Barnabas does, but he can be extremely cruel when he does not get his way. Or he wants to punish someone. Anatolie is Xavier’s son, and Xavier was very much that way. Cruelty was in his blood, but he did not, for want of a better way to put it, derive sexual pleasure from it. Seeing others suffer might make him happy, especially if he considered them an enemy, but mostly Xavier used torture for information and experiments. His brother, Xaviero, needed to be cruel. By all accounts, he did derive sexual pleasure from watching others suffer. Clearly, his son Barnabas is the same.”
She sighed and shook her head. “They have these amazing long lives and yet what do they have to show for them?”
“Anatolie left Crina by herself because he knew you would defeat her or I would. She was of no more use to him and he was not going to take a chance on her getting her hands on the book. It was that simple. Now, he has to wait for you to bring the book out into the open.” He caught her face between his hands. “You remember that, my little mage. You can do what he cannot. You have always been able to. You were just