No Witch Way Out (Maeren Series Book 2)

by Mercedes Jade

  The vampires looked a little undecided with all of the racket both of the illusions were making.

  Elizabeth purposely let her illusion run too close to the nearest vampire.

  He was an overweight, middle aged male who had probably started balding in his thirties. He only had a couple wings of greyed-out, brown hair covering his ears, like furry ear muffs.

  She was reminded of an old bulldog, picked for the strength of his bulk, but sagging past his prime.

  He still had reflexes enough to reach out and snag the illusion of a screaming girl that Elizabeth sent running by him.

  He choked off her fearful noise with a heavy hand, cupped over her nose and mouth.

  If the illusion had to breathe, she would have been suffocating, very soon.

  “Get the other one,” the heavy handed vampire whispered to his buddies.

  Elizabeth made her illusion bite her captor.

  She used her lightning to fake the sharp pain of her teeth, even if she couldn’t use magic to bruise and tear his skin as she wanted.

  The injury was all in his mind. Maybe she could add a few real bruises to his beating, before she staked him.

  For now, he was busy enough for her to take care of the others.

  The first of the two vampires left, still stalking Victoria, started climbing the rock wall, leading up to the slide.

  What a moron. There were perfectly good stairs on the playground and he wasn’t exactly being very sneaky, his heavily booted feet slipping clumsily on the tiny footholds meant for children.

  His thinner frame was even more off putting than that of the fatter vampire. This one was almost skeletal, with long, bony fingers and knobby knees, banging on the wall as he climbed.

  Jack Skellington may have gotten away with it in his debonair suit, but this guy looked more like he crawled out of the grave after lying in it for years, shabbily dressed in what appeared to be a tattered army uniform.

  The last vampire was making his way for the stairs, in a simple black shirt and pants combo that had been washed this century, at least.

  He could be Victoria’s to stake, but this other creepy character was going to get a birch in the back to even the odds.

  Jill would approve.

  “If there is no talking you out of this act of stupid bravery, sparks, I humbly suggest you stake that idiot in the back, before he figures out where the staircase is located,” Geer, ground out, bitterly accepting his inability to change her mind.

  It was good advice. She just was annoyed that he had given it to her. She didn’t need anyone to teach her how to slay.

  “Hurry up,” the vampire holding Elizabeth’s illusion hissed.

  He choked the girl, with one beefy arm hooked around her neck, as he kept her against his chest and licked at the bite Elizabeth had made with illusion on his other wrist.

  What a weasel, able to dish it out but not take it from a kid.

  She turned the illusion into a little spitfire, deciding he needed a bit more distraction.

  Even if the blows weren’t real, they still hurt. The pain was in his head, for now.

  Palming the thin stake Jill had chosen, Elizabeth decided to demonstrate to her sister that she could be very flexible when the situation called for it.

  Bonus, if it also impressed Geer into believing her capable of fighting without his advice.

  “You ready?” Elizabeth asked her sister.

  Jill hummed agreement, biting into an apple.

  Just like old times.

  Elizabeth ran at the monkey bars, grabbing the thick sidebar and swinging herself up, then curling her legs and somersaulting right on top.

  Nobody but Geer got the chance to appreciate her smooth moves.

  Jill had gotten distracted by an untimely knock on the break room door. Victoria was busy hiding.

  Using a little air to cushion the sound of her landing, Elizabeth leaped onto the roof of the slide, coming face-to-face with Victoria.

  The other witch seemed almost disappointed that Elizabeth had come to help.

  “No poaching, remember?” Victoria said, peering at her from the playground roof.

  “I know, I know,” Elizabeth replied, rolling her eyes as she looked up.“Where are your knives?”

  Victoria flipped her hands, palms up, where she already had both knives locked and loaded, their handles glittering with frost.

  Kim had modified some of her best daggers, so Victoria would have water-core weapons, again.

  “Wait until the one in the suit grabs for your illusion. No fancy tricks, just stab him in the heart!” Elizabeth ordered.

  Victoria rolled her eyes this time. Although Elizabeth couldn’t see it that well in the dark, she could feel it, through their connected minds.

  Great, she was getting payback after all of the years hassling her mother. Possibly, she had been even more of a brat than Victoria when learning to slay. Geer would probably agree.

  The skeleton vampire climbing the wall wasn’t going to wait much longer for their girl chat to finish.

  He was getting frustrated with his fruitless ascent and had dropped back to the ground.

  Waving ‘bye-bye’ to the real Victoria, she told Geer to ‘watch this’ and proceeded to do a backward flip off of the roof.

  She planned to land just behind the skeleton vampire to stab him through the back with the birch stake.

  “No, Elizabeth!”

  Geer screamed her name as loudly as she had his name, when he fell from the sky.

  She had already committed to the cocky stunt, swallowing back her fear.

  Suddenly, all the street lamps dimmed once more, looking like the soft floor lights lining the aisle at a theatre, from her upside-down position.

  They exploded in a shadowy line leading from the forest.

  Jill’s apple fell from her hand.

  Everything went black.

  Broadsided by Regret

  Something slammed into Elizabeth from the side. She went tumbling, her sputtering air magic barely able to slow her crash into the sand.

  Ribs had to have been broken, her entire left side feeling on fire as she sucked in a whistling breath, blinking away the unconsciousness that pulled her down.

  “Eliz—”

  Geer’s voice sounded so far . . . and she couldn’t see anything.

  In another blink, she felt him slip away from her, the comforting blanket of his presence gone.

  Her concentration was wavering, a concussion ringing in her ears.

  The connection to everyone else’s minds had flickered, just before she saw what hit her.

  Although her illusions were toast as well, the vampires had realized there was a much bigger predator suddenly wanting a turn, too.

  “DRAGON!” one of the vampires screamed.

  Victoria’s fear paralyzed her.

  Elizabeth could feel it, even though she couldn’t do anything about it, unable to focus her lightning to send a signal.

  She only passively received Victoria’s horror and Jill’s panic at the sudden radio silence.

  “Circle,” Elizabeth tried to yell, but it came out like a croak, her damaged body refusing to cooperate.

  Victoria’s vampire found her hanging, upside down, from the roof. She had been ready to attack, when the dragon hit Elizabeth, knocking out Elizabeth’s illusions as well and giving away Victoria’s position.

  The vampire grabbed Victoria’s shirt and yanked her inside with him, into the playhouse on top of the slide.

  Maybe he was hiding from the dragon, but it was doubtful he was trying to save Victoria for anything more than a snack later.

  The wooden play structure wouldn’t hold against a dragon.

  Thankfully, the beast didn’t immediately light it on fire, swooping down to snap his teeth at the skeletal vampire still trying to scramble back up the wall, with sufficient motivation now.

  Elizabeth had to get up.

  Victoria needed her. She hadn’t broken anything t
hat Jill and their mother would have difficulty healing,

  Her magic might be on the fritz, but her muscles had physical attachments that she could push into action.

  Rolling onto all fours, she made her limbs work. She needed another stake, patting her jacket for her reliable oak and wondering if it was even possible to stake a dragon.

  She was ripped off of the ground by her hair.

  “There’s a witch here,” the bulldog vampire yelled.

  “Another one up here,” came down from the playhouse.

  All this yelling was barely audible with the ringing in her ears, but that didn’t mean Elizabeth was going to hang by her hair and take it.

  Getting her feet under her through sheer determination, she raised the oak stake she’d pulled from her jacket, while the vampire holding her was distracted with shouting up at his buddies.

  “Kill them. The dragon wants the witches,” the chivalrous male suggested before she staked him.

  She immediately dropped hard on all fours again, and got a mouthful of dust for her trouble. She vomited it back up.

  Victoria screamed. It was better than being frozen with fear, but Elizabeth only hoped it wasn’t too late.

  “Circle,” Elizabeth tried to call out from her raw throat. Tried to ‘think it’ to her through the ringing.

  The dragon ripped the roof off of the playhouse, exposing Victoria to his fiery gaze. He was huge, easily identifiable as the dragon that had bitten Victoria in the caves, with his mottled-grey hide that blended so well into the background.

  The last dragon prince.

  Damn it. Geer could have warned her earlier.

  The vampire who had climbed up the wall, leapt back down again. He just missed being burned to a crisp.

  Elizabeth was lucky the fire missed her as well, feeling the heat that baked the sand beside her.

  “Kill them. Kill them!” the skinny coward screamed, coming for Elizabeth.

  She grabbed for another oak stake, looking up at the vampire’s fear crazy eyes from her position on the ground.

  She could hear the scuffles of Victoria’s fight on top of the slide, and cursing from the other vampire as he discovered Victoria’s skill with daggers. Then, the snapping sound of the dragon’s big teeth, trying to catch Victoria’s vampire as he danced around.

  Elizabeth’s body didn’t have much left in it, so she crouched. She knew she looked helpless, no illusion necessary this time.

  She didn’t need magic to stake a vampire. It was all muscle memory and fearless strength.

  Another pair of boots ran in front of her, blocking her line of sight.

  Elizabeth watched as the new male attacked the vampire that had threatened her, running him through the chest with his sword. The quick, brutal end shocked her.

  It wasn’t a fair fight, not a fight at all. He had simply eliminated the threat.

  Sword still dripping blood and coated in ash, he marched up to the slide.

  The body of the vampire in front of her may have transported back to Maeren when his chi was stabbed with the sword, but George’s bigger weapon had done worse damage than her usual stakes. She popped the chi only, not actually entering the heart itself. A fatal wound through his heart would carry through to Maeren.

  The victim would be just as dead when the magic reformed his shell on the other side, his corpse all that would transport.

  A deadly wound was fatal, no matter what dimension it occurred. All chi staking did was cause the magic to get sucked back into Maeren, the body following.

  George had killed her attacker without showing any remorse.

  Shock froze Elizabeth as hard as Victoria, moments ago.

  “Get yourself in a circle!”

  The command in her head, so similar to what she had tried to tell Victoria, broke through her horror.

  It wasn’t her magic back to provide the telepathy or Geer this time. The new sword-swinging male had sent the mental command, and she knew his voice, looking him back over again.

  He had thick, black hair in a samurai-knot, fastened with a thin, red ribbon. His shoulders were so broad that he looked like a Mongolian warrior, even without plated-armour over his chest and arms.

  The massive ego that she had clashed with in the castle didn’t give her another look as he moved towards the slide and the dragon pillaging the playhouse, with Victoria and the last vampire fighting inside.

  Victoria hit the vampire she had been fighting with a simple but effective sidekick, sending him flying out of the now roofless structure and right on top of George.

  Her brother twisted his body out of the way, leaping up to grab the airborne vampire by his far shoulder.

  Riding the body down, George delivered the killing blow with his sword, straight through the chest again. His sword vibrated as it hit the ground, underneath the body.

  George rose before the dust settled, pulling an even larger sword from his back sheath.

  This massive blade looked too big for his body, heavy with thick steel and curved so wide, it could take out a huge swath of soldiers in one swipe, or maybe, one big dragon.

  Jill would probably give up chocolate eclairs for a month to see this.

  Fear probably was the normal response.

  Elizabeth was half dead on her knees and there was a dragon breathing fire and looking mighty threatening.

  Instead, her brain latched onto how awesome George looked as he brought his swords overhead and spoke complex Maerenian that would do Victoria proud.

  Strangely nothing happened that Elizabeth could see, but she felt the power radiating off of George when he finished.

  “I told you to get in a circle, little one. Do it, now,” George demanded, still talking—impossibly—in her mind like her other mates.

  Nope, No. Not even contemplating that connection.

  She couldn’t circle, either.

  Too bad for mister bossy pants that she was magically tapped out. That’s what happened when her magic depended on her brain and she got her bell rung by a dragon.

  “Bossy pants?” George repeated, obviously picking it up from her thoughts.

  Wait! How did he—?

  Was he using lightning on her? It felt like the mate bond, but how could it be when he read her thoughts?

  George didn’t stick around to bicker or explain.

  He told Victoria to duck.

  He threw a bolt of lightning at the dragon. At that wingspan and the few feet between them, George couldn’t miss.

  Victoria didn’t duck. She screamed one word.

  Only after Elizabeth saw a green tiger fly out from Victoria’s chest, did she realize, it was the name of Victoria’s familiar.

  Victoria wasn’t supposed to be able to call it without a fire-sword or a complex Maerenian spell, but Elizabeth had seen Victoria painstakingly painting glyphs on her skin, like Kim.

  She could have compressed the spell into one word, if she wrote and prepped the rest of the magic on her skin. It still would take an incredible amount of magic to activate, especially in the human realm.

  Kim didn’t do anything at this level and she had so much more practice.

  No sooner had Victoria’s tiger leapt out, then it was hit by George’s lightning, sparing the big, grey dragon.

  The crack and boom of impact probably had humans, nearby, checking outside for the sudden storm, if they hadn’t already overheard the dragon.

  The beast may not have roared yet, at least, but his wings sounded like a hundred bats, flapping at once, as he lifted up.

  Just like that, Victoria’s tiger disappeared.

  It had been a one-shot deal, and by the infuriated look George threw her, he was unable to give a repeat performance, as well.

  Nothing to be ashamed of there, using high-level magic was very difficult in the human realm.

  Dragons seemed to really bend the rules, however. The beast looked ready to breathe fire again, flapping his massive wings to give him the advantage of position.
/>   George shielded black-armour, his swords out, and not giving an inch in the face of the angry beast.

  They were going to kill each other.

  Victoria had protected the dragon at the last minute, despite her terror, and she looked ready to try to leap between her brother and the dragon again.

  George was a bastard, and he deserved pain for what he had done to Victoria, but not death, not while trying to protect her from a beast that he had seen attacking her.

  Fighting past the pain and confusion binding her magic, Elizabeth stood up.

  The dragon saw her tiny body in his line of attack as it dove towards George, knowing his fire would hit her, too.

  She felt his internal strife as he neared George, without using his ultimate weapon.

  Her lightning was able to touch his surface thoughts. Just as in the dragon cave, she couldn’t manipulate the dragon’s thoughts as easily as most vampires, especially when he was in beast form.

  Elizabeth hoped she hadn’t spelled George’s doom, and her own, when she released the dragon’s mind.

  She grabbed George’s mind with all her magic.

  If George had been expecting it and shielding, she would never have broken through his mind in her weakened state.

  He was focused on killing the dragon, aiming his earth sword at cutting through its scaly, shielded hide and hitting its centre chi in one, fatal blow.

  He had never taken a dragon before, but the older earth generals had explained how it was done. Few of them had been around that had survived the attempt.

  Her magic couldn’t stop their clash, but she was able to modify it enough to spare the dragon death.

  She controlled George’s arm muscles to twitch his sword out of the path of the dragon’s heart.

  The heavy sword sliced through the dragon’s right side, catching its chest wall instead, all the way down its flank.

  Victoria leapt down as the dragon’s wounded body flashed, George’s sword still inside it, and George himself, underneath the massive weight.

  Elizabeth could feel George expending the last of his earth strength to keep the dragon from crushing him.

  The flash blinded them all, and then, the dragon was gone. In its place was a naked male, his body curled up around his injured side.