by Ella Summers
“Interesting? You think this is funny, Kai?”
Kai shrugged. “Your reaction sure is.”
Blackbrooke’s face went as red as a hellfire demon. “It takes a very powerful mage to fool a magic detector. I can count the number of mages in the world who have done it on one hand. You are one of them.”
“I did it just to prove I could, not because I had any nefarious purpose. What can I say? I was young and bored.”
“Did you teach her how to fool the detectors?”
“I have known Sera for all of one month.”
“Is that a denial?”
Kai’s sigh rocked his whole chest. “Yes, it’s a denial. What’s the matter with you? Did you take a shot of that fizzy blue liquor they’re serving below?”
“No…ok, yes. It has a delightful flavor, like magic dancing the samba with my tastebuds.” His eyes drifted up, a content smile settling on his lips. It lasted only a moment before he cleared his throat. “But that’s beside the point. I didn’t have enough for it to muddle my mind.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“This newfound sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Kai,” Blackbrooke said sternly. “It’s an unfortunate habit you’ve picked up since you started gallivanting around with that mercenary.”
“Do you have a point to all this, Duncan? Or are we just up here to enjoy the view?” Kai checked his watch.
Blackbrooke frowned at him. “Don’t tell me you have something more important to do than ensure the security and sanctity of the Magic Council.”
“Sera’s alleged secret, if it even exists, is not a threat to the Council,” Kai said. “And, yes, I do have something more important to do than play paranoia. I’m supposed to meet her for dinner.”
“That there is the whole problem. Don’t you see?” Blackbrooke waved his hand around, his movement clumsy and awkward. He really was drunk. “You’re a powerful Sniffer yourself, Kai. Better than those enchanted artifacts we use as magic detectors. You can detect even a weak mage from a block away.”
Kai’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And your mercenary is not a weak mage. You must have known she’s powerful from the moment you met her, no matter how good she is at hiding her magic,” he said. “You knew and didn’t tell the Magic Council.”
“I was always getting distracted by her sword.”
“You were distracted all right, but not by her sword,” he snapped. “I never would have expected such egregious behavior from you, Kai. You’ve changed.”
“You sure haven’t.”
“I should think not.” Blackbrooke straightened, as though the implication of change felt like an army of fire ants crawling across his skin. “Our order is an ancient one. Your duty to the Magic Council is far more important than your latest conquest.”
“Sera is not a conquest. She’s a person,” Kai growled, his magic buzzing in the air. “I brought her here to be tested in the Magic Games. She’s done her duty. And so have I.”
“Just see to it that you do,” Blackbrooke replied with a haughty twitch of his head.
Something in that twitch got Kai’s back up. His magic went from buzzing to electrifying. “Leave her be, Duncan. There’s no need to treat her differently than any other Magic Games participant.”
“As you said, she’s special.”
The determination in his tone should have worried Sera—someone on the Magic Council had made it his own personal project to rip her mind apart until he uncovered her secret—but she couldn’t worry about that right now. The air popped with the lust and blood of hungry minds and even hungrier magic. Vampires. A whole lot of vampires. They were close.
Sera turned, scanning the area for them, but they weren’t anywhere in sight. Realization smashed into her like a wrecking ball. They weren’t inside. They were outside, cloaked by shadows.
She sprinted up the stairs into the indoor Observation Deck, ignoring Blackbrooke’s bemused expression as she passed him and Kai. Drawing her sword as she ran, she beelined for the door that led to the outdoor deck. A vampire was already there. He looked just as bemused as Blackbrooke, so she must have surprised him while he’d been lurking there. Lurking? The thing was, common vampires didn’t lurk; they attacked in a fit of bloodlust. Someone was controlling this vampire, just like someone had controlled the gang of bloodsuckers at Macy’s yesterday. There were more vampires here too. Sera could feel them outside, also lurking.
She swung her sword at the vampire. He crumpled to her feet, his head sliced right off, but another one had already taken his place. The other vampires jumped at the windows, their fists pounding like an army of synchronized hammers. The glass began to buckle and crack under the strain of their collective supernatural strength.
“Keep Blackbrooke back! Away from the windows!” she shouted to Kai. “They’ve come to finish the job!”
Her second opponent proved not quite as headless as his predecessor. He ducked the sideways slash of her sword, then kicked out, knocking her back into the room. As she touched down, the windows shattered, and a river of broken glass rained into the room. The vampires swung inside, each one landing in a crouch. There had to be a dozen of them. The wind howled at their backs, the city lights casting eerie halos around them.
Kai had pulled Blackbrooke behind him, but another batch of vampires had broken through. They were flooding into the room, their movements crisp and efficient. Before Sera could intercept, two of them had grabbed Blackbrooke. Kai was too busy fighting the others to stop them as they chomped down on the mage’s neck. She rushed in like a child on a mission to scatter some pigeons. Unfortunately, vampires weren’t pigeons. They continued to feast on Blackbrooke’s blood. Only when Sera’s sword had punctured their monstrous hearts did they finally stop drinking.
She crouched down beside Blackbrooke. “What kind of mage are you?”
He didn’t answer. His lips twitched, and panic poured out of his aura, flooding the room. The vampires paused to sniff the air. Feral smiles broke out on their lips, and they snarled in appreciation. Blackbrooke’s fear was pumping them up.
“Hey, stop that.” Sera slapped his face. “Snap out of it. We need some help.”
Blackbrooke hugged his knees, his eyes wide. He was in shock. Sera shook her head and rose to her feet.
“He’s a healer,” Kai told her, smashing the vampires with a blast of wind. One of them flew through the broken window and tumbled off the side of the building.
“In other words, not very useful in a fight.”
“Not really,” he said. “Afterwards maybe.”
So the sadistic mind behind the Magic Games—the man who tormented mages until their minds broke, then roasted their secrets on a spit—was a healer. Talk about irony. Blood dripped down Blackbrooke’s neck, but he didn’t even put up his hand to stop it. Or try to heal himself. He seemed to have forgotten he even had magic. He was the broken one now.
“Fine. He can make himself useful later by healing my sore muscles.” Sera waved her hand, putting up an ice barrier between the three of them and the vampires. “You think you can shoot more of those guys out of the building?”
“There are too many of them to worry about precision right now, Sera.” Kai hit the vampires with another gust of wind. “This is pure brute force.”
“Your favorite flavor,” she said, grinning despite the dire situation.
He looked at her, his eyes pulsing with magic. “One of them.”
She couldn’t say why, but there was something about the way he looked at her as he said it that made her blush. “Ok.” She could hear more vampires coming. She could feel their vile magic streaming down the side of the building. “Ok, so Mr. Snivels there is useless. How about some backup?”
“I’ve messaged the commandos.”
“How ever did you do that while fighting two dozen vampires?” she asked in shock.
He shrugged. “Multitasking.”
Ok, there was definitely something naughty in t
he way he looked at her that time. But rather than contemplating what other things he could multitask, she cleared her throat and asked, “When will the commandos arrive?”
“They’re five minutes out,” said Kai. “We just have to hold off the vampires for that long.”
Sera looked at the solid wall of vampires staring out from behind her ice barrier. Their fists pounded at the ice.
“Five minutes, you say?” Sera laughed weakly as the vampires shattered her wall. “No problem.”
15
Web of Magic
The vampires marched forward, moving like a group of coordinated soldiers—not like common vampires. The blank obedience in their eyes was downright eerie, far worse than their usual bloodthirsty crimson gleam.
“Any chance the mages downstairs would care to lend us a hand?” Sera asked Kai.
“Doubtful.”
“I’m getting the feeling that your fellow Magic Council members aren’t as hands-on as you are.”
“True. And even if they wished to help, it wouldn’t be a very good idea. They might all be the vampires’ targets.”
“So are you,” she reminded him.
A dangerous look gleamed in his eyes. “I can take care of myself.”
“Just try not to take out the whole building. I hear skyscrapers are expensive,” she teased.
His lips curled up in a deliciously feral grin. The look in his eyes went from dangerous to deadly. “I’ll try to remember that.”
Sera looked back at Blackbrooke, who was still sitting on the ground, muttering to himself as he rocked. He was so out of it that Sera didn’t think he’d noticed the magic she’d performed earlier. And he certainly wasn’t in any condition to go spelunking through her mind.
“Can you put up a fire barrier to stop them?” Sera asked Kai, pointing at the encroaching vampires. Sure, Blackbrooke was off in his own world, but there wasn’t any need to tempt fate. Her magic was about as reliable as an old car engine.
Kai arched a single eyebrow at her but performed the spell anyway. A wall of flames burst out of the floor in front of the vampires. Vampires had a mortal fear of fire. Any other ones would have at least recoiled. These vampires walked right through the fire. The flames slid off their bodies.
“That’s new. Isn’t that spell supposed to burn them all to a blackened crisp?” Sera asked Kai.
He frowned. “Yes.”
“They’re not even wearing armor,” she commented, looking out at the vampires. They were dressed in normal street clothes, not the fancy armor the vampires from yesterday had been wearing.
“A mage is protecting them from the flames,” Kai said. “Probably the same one who’s controlling them.”
Sera looked at him, surprised.
“I’m not blind, sweetheart. Anyone can see that those vampires are not acting normal. They are being controlled. By a mage. It takes a mage to use any of the Orbs. The only way for a human to use them is if the Orbs have already been saturated with magic.”
“You can see the magic controlling them?” Sera asked, looking at the web of crimson sparkling strands that coated each vampire.
“No, I can’t.” He looked from the vampires to her. “Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Can you break it?” he asked.
“Maybe, if I can get in close enough.”
The last of the vampires had stepped through the flames. They weren’t moving very fast, but they didn’t look like they’d be easy to stop either.
“Their targets are you and Blackbrooke,” Sera told Kai. “You could turn into a dragon and fly away with him while I distract them.”
“That would be contrary to your earlier request.”
“Which one?”
“The one not to break the building. There’s not enough space in here for me to shift into anything large enough to carry Blackbrooke. And,” he added with a growl. “I’m not leaving you here to fight off several dozen vampires alone.”
She shrugged. “They don’t want me. They’ll probably just run off after you fly away with Blackbrooke.”
“But not before they tear you to pieces.”
“I’m offended at how little faith you have in my monster-slaying skills,” she joked. “I’ve fought at least as many giant caterpillars as there are vampires here.”
“This isn’t the same, and you know it. These vampires are controlled and protected by magic. And I’m not amused by your ill-advised attempt at humor, Sera,” he added with a scowl.
Before she could answer that scowl with snark, the vampires finally charged. They ran toward Blackbrooke, but Kai pushed out his hands, blasting them with a gust of wind that sent them back through the fire barrier. So the spell protected against fire but not wind. Interesting. Sera supposed it made sense. The amount of magic required to protect a few dozen vampires against fire was enormous; the amount needed to protect them against all the elements was probably impossible.
One of the vampires had dodged the windy shockwave. As he tried to jump over Kai, Sera caught hold of his ankle and yanked. The vampire smacked against the floor. Still holding onto him, Sera extended her magic, tugging at the protective film coating his body. The spell ripped with a resounding snap. She pulled him up and kicked him into the fire. This time, he did burn. The magic controlling the vampire popped, and screams poured out of his mouth.
Sera wrinkled her nose, trying not to inhale the smell. “Kai, throw another one at me.”
Kai shoved one of the vampires he was fighting in her direction. She shattered the protection spell and hurled him into the fire too.
“Taking them out one at a time sure is tedious,” she told Kai after the sixth time.
His hands were full fighting off four vampires, but he managed an amused snort.
“Are you having fun?” she asked.
“I always have fun fighting with you, Sera.” He froze a vampire into an icy pillar, then swung around to strike another in the arm. Bone cracked and snapped. The vampire’s arm hung limply at his side.
“You snapped that vampire’s arm like a twig,” she gasped, incredulous. Vampires were too strong to break like that. At least, she’d always thought they were.
“There’s a trick to it,” he said, rolling his shoulders back. He pushed his hands out, frying another vampire on a bolt of lightning. “I can show it to you sometime.”
“Somehow, I don’t think it would work as well if I tried it,” she said.
He was wearing one of his trademark black t-shirts, the fabric so taut that it showed off every muscle in his chest. His arms, exposed by his short shirt sleeves, weren’t bad to look at either. The muscles were defined but flexible. Maybe he did werewolf-curls with his biceps. She quickly averted her eyes, before this little fantasy went any further. Drooling wasn’t particularly useful in a fight. Neither was being distracted.
“Sera?” he said. Something in his tone told her this wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get her attention. So much for not getting distracted.
“Hmm?” she asked.
“You said you can see the magic controlling them. Do you think you could break the spell?”
“I’d need to touch them to do it.” She grabbed a vampire, shattered his protection, then fed him to the flames. “Which means going through them one by one, just like I’ve been doing with the fire protection spell on them.”
“It has to be one spell that connects them all,” said Kai.
She concentrated on the vampires—and on the magic controlling them. “Yes, it is,” she said, looking out at the field of glistening crimson strands that connected the vampires together. “Even if I can break it, I’m not sure that I should. We’ll be surrounded by a bunch of blood-crazy vampires in a rage.”
“They won’t be working as a team,” Kai said, evading two vampires’ coordinated punches. “That’s easier.”
Three more vampires rushed forward, tackling him to the ground. Five more followed. He was being overrun. She couldn’t even see
him anymore.
Panic pulsing through her, Sera grabbed the nearest vampire. Magic shot out of her. It smashed against him, blasting apart the protection spell. Her magic hit him so hard that it broke the force controlling him too. It pulsed through the web of gold and crimson strings connecting the vampires, melting the magic. The web snapped, and the magic unraveled. The vampires stopped. For a few seconds they didn’t move…then several dozen eyes turned toward her, blazing red. Beads of saliva dripped from their fangs.
Drenched in bloodlust, they rushed her. They’d be on her in seconds. Sera didn’t have time to worry about consequences. She had no choice. She had to risk bigger magic. She reached for her magic, drawing on the power of fire.
Nothing happened.
The vampires were getting closer. At the last moment, they turned, running for Kai instead. They ran over him like a swarm of beetles. Sera screamed out, fear and rage igniting her magic. Every single vampire caught on fire at once—then they exploded.
“What was that?” Blackbrooke gasped. He stumbled to his feet, gaping at Sera.
She pushed past him, throwing vampire parts aside on her way to Kai. He was on the ground—unconscious, bloody, and torn. And he wasn’t breathing.
16
Healing Magic
Sera’s heart was crashing inside her chest. She slapped Kai’s face, trying to wake him. He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t. Tanks had shot at him, and he’d said it only tickled. First tier mages had thrown their worst at him, and he’d merely sneezed.
She pounded her fists against his chest. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Magic boiled inside of her, melding with despair.
“You’re not getting out of our deal so easily,” she told him, pounding his chest again. “I killed dozens of monsters for you. You’re going to help get me through the Magic Games.” She pounded him a third time, tears streaming down her cheeks, lightning exploding out of her hands.
Kai’s body spasmed. His eyes shot open, and he jumped to his feet, shaking beads of lightning off of his body. “Are you trying to kill me?! Don’t you ever do that again,” he growled.
