by Ella Summers
Before he had time to jump in after it, though, Kai snapped his lightning magic out like a whip. The electrified cord latched around the man’s leg, and Kai tugged, tripping him to the ground. The portal flickered out.
“Can we go through?” Kai asked as Sera kicked the ground where the glyphs had just been.
“No, this portal was different. Shorter. We can’t reopen it.”
“Then we’ll have to get what we need from him,” said Kai.
Their mastermind was flapping against the lightning rope, trying to get it off his ankle. As Kai walked toward him in slow, deliberate steps, Sera circled around and cut him off from the other side.
“The Convictionites stole the Blood Orb. Why is a mage working with an organization that wants to wipe out his own people?” she called down to the man at her feet.
His head snapped up, and he met her eyes. “You are not my people,” he growled, his magic lathered with hate. And crazy. There was a lot of that going around lately.
Kai gave the lightning whip a tug, tightening the noose, and stopped beside Sera. “I know him. He works in one of my labs.”
The ruffled mage gave Kai a defiant—if not scared shitless—glare.
“Let me guess,” Sera said. “The lab with the magic-proof armor.”
“Yes.”
“Well, at least we know now where those disagreeable vampires who interrupted my shopping trip got their accessories.” She looked at their traitor. “What did you do, make a copy of the schematics?”
He lifted his chin in the air. “I don’t have to answer your questions.”
“But you do have to answer mine.”
It wasn’t the volume of Kai’s voice that made the mage cringe. It was the way his magic amplified it, bouncing it off the massive body of water behind them. Flocks of panicked birds took to the air and fled the scene.
“Unless, that is, you would like me to give you a firsthand demonstration of how I deal with traitors.”
“I know all about your reputation for demon magic, Drachenburg,” he spat. “And you can’t hurt me.” The nervous tinkle of his magic betrayed his false fortitude. “I am chosen. I was born of magic, evil and monstrous, but I shall be redeemed. I will kill the other monsters. All the other monsters.”
Kai remained unimpressed. “What else did you steal from me?”
“The heavens will open up and rain down death upon your kind!”
“If you don’t stop spewing nonsense and start answering my questions, I will rain down a thing or two on you.”
“Death first!”
“That can be arranged,” Kai assured him, stepping forward.
Sera caught his arm. The look he gave her could have wilted metal, but she only smiled right back at him. “There’s no point, Kai. He’s one of them. A Convictionite. Can’t you see that he’s been completely brainwashed?”
“I don’t care what they washed.” Sparks shot out from the lightning whip, sending the mage into convulsions. “I’ll wash it right out of him.”
“I think it’s too late for that. This…hatred, whatever it is, it’s a part of him. I can feel it pulsing through his magic. It’s decades old. You can’t separate out something that’s always been there.”
Kai killed the light show. “You’re saying he was born this way?”
“I’m saying he was raised this way. The Convictionites must have gotten him early, when he was just a young boy. A baby maybe. He is as much a Convictionite as the rest of them are.”
“Except he’s a mage. And they hate mages.”
She shrugged. “Since when did people make sense? Maybe you should let me talk to him.” But when she tried to approach the mage, Kai moved to block her way. “Honestly, Kai. What do you think he can do to me? You have him pinned down. And I’m not a delicate snowflake.”
“More like a snow beast,” he grunted.
She showed him her teeth. “Keep talking, dragon.”
He met her stare. “Fine. Talk to him. But if he doesn’t behave, I’m going to eat him.”
“You don’t eat people, Kai.”
“No, I don’t.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Fine, I’ll just think of some other way to kill him.”
“You can’t kill him,” she said. “He might know something we can use against the Convictionites. We need to take him back for questioning.”
“I thought you weren’t amenable to my method of questioning.”
“I’m not. You have anger management issues.”
“I’m managing my anger just fine, sweetheart,” he told her, a hard grin cutting across his face.
Nearby, a gust of wind rocked a tree, stripping it of all its leaves. A pair of lovers out for a walk jumped back in alarm as they were nearly buried beneath the leafy waterfall pouring down from the tree.
Sera gave Kai her best mega-bored look. “A little early in the year for fall, isn’t it?”
He said nothing.
“Ok, then.” Sera crouched down beside the mage. “Hi, what’s your name?”
“Die, demon bitch!”
“That’s a nice one. Shall I call you ‘Mr. Demon Bitch’ or just ‘Die’ for short?”
Shockingly, the mage didn’t burst into laughter. From the way Kai was glaring at him, though, she didn’t have long before he burst into flames.
“You’ve been planning this for a long time,” she said.
“Huh?” the mage asked, clearly puzzled.
“This undercover operation. Drachenburg Industries doesn’t hire just anyone. You needed an in. Connections. Those take years to forge.”
“I went to school with Finn Drachenburg, dragon boy’s cousin. He got me the job as a lab researcher in exchange for me agreeing to spy for him.”
Sera didn’t press him further. As long as she didn’t ask him direct questions, he seemed to get around to spilling the details anyway. It might be part of his mental conditioning. Maybe the Convictionites had programmed him not to answer questions in case he was ever captured.
“So you’re a double agent,” she said. “That must have been difficult, fooling your coworkers in the lab. Fooling Finn.”
He snorted. “Supernaturals are stupid and arrogant. None of you ever suspected a thing.”
“I’m curious how you made it through the Magic Games without the Council ever learning your secret.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I’m going through the Games right now, you see.”
“I never went through the Games. I’m a non-combative mage,” he said. “But even if I had gone through them, I wouldn’t have cracked.”
“You sound so sure of yourself. The Game Architect prides himself on his ability to crack anyone.”
“Duncan Blackbrooke?” He sneered. “A spineless and spent old man. Did you see how he fell to pieces when I sent the vampires after him? Pathetic,” he added with disgust.
“The other Council members were equally frightened when you sent vampires after them.”
“Yes. They’re all pathetic. They will fall easily.” He glared at Kai, hatred pouring over his eyes. “That one we’re saving for last. The great dragon.” He sneered. “He will fall. They will all fall. And when they do, the tight control they’ve woven around the supernatural factions will break. Mages, vampires, fairies, even the otherworldly…they will begin to fight one another. And humans will be caught in the middle.”
“Humans will die.”
“By the millions,” he said with relish. “And then the survivors will turn to us, begging us to fix the problem they cannot. And we will.” Magic, sick and twisted, raged in his eyes. “We will.”
“He’s insane,” Kai said. “Clearly. Let’s get him back to Duncan. After what this traitor has put him through, I’m sure he’d be more than delighted at the prospect of scraping his mind for secrets.”
The mage closed his eyes and began to mutter.
“What’s he saying?” Kai asked.
“Um…magic and blood, something-something…” She leaned in closer. �
�…flame to fire, earth to stone—”
Kai jerked on her hand, yanking her away from the muttering mage. And not a second too soon. Blood burst out of Mr. Crazy’s chest in a hundred tiny sprinklers, hissing against the lightning web holding him.
“Death to abominations,” he gurgled out. His chest heaved, then he went completely limp.
Sera gaped down at the fresh corpse, trying hard not to dwell on his final words. Death to abominations. She knew he meant supernaturals in general, not her—and that he was insane anyway. But that didn’t change the fact that according to the laws of the Magic Council, she was just that. An abomination.
“That wasn’t a recipe for cookies, I take it,” she said.
“No.” Kai came up behind her and folded his arms around her. “That was the Dying Blood spell. A kamikaze spell. It uses the caster’s magic to turn his own blood poisonous. If a single drop had gotten onto your skin…” He was holding her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, reaching up to squeeze his arms.
“I’m not.” His magic quaked. “He killed himself and tried to take you with him, Sera.”
“Yeah, that’s because he’s nuts.”
His deep chuckle buzzed against her neck. Sera could have stayed there forever, snuggling up to the dragon, but unfortunately…well, life happened. She took Kai’s hand, kissing it once before putting her big girl pants on again.
“So, then,” she said, looking down at the corpse. “Do you want to carry the body or shall I?”
23
Magic Burgers
There weren’t many sure-fire ways to get New Yorkers to stop and stare, but carrying a dead and bleeding mage to the street curb was one of them. And they didn’t just stare; they gawked. There was a good amount of finger-pointing too.
“There isn’t some regulation against carrying corpses in public, is there?” Sera whispered to Kai as she watched one of the nearby pedestrians tap out something on his phone that looked suspiciously like ‘911’.
“Shouldn’t you know something like that? I figured that was your area of expertise as a monster hunter.”
“Are you teasing me?” she asked as a black van stopped in front of them. Their ride had arrived.
Kai opened the trunk and pushed the dead mage inside. “Of course not. That would be unprofessional.”
She smirked at him as they took their seats. “So is the blood on your shirt.”
“His chest is full of holes. It’s basically impossible to transport someone in that state without spilling at least a little blood.”
They’d waited the necessary fifteen minutes for his poisonous blood to go inert again before trying to move him. Deadly or not, the mage’s blood was still messy.
“Or without spilling a lot of blood.” Sera hitched her thumb back toward the trunk. “He’s bleeding out all over.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sending the cleaning bill to the mages we rescued from the vampires,” Kai said.
“Wow, you’re sure storing up a lot of favors.”
“Yes.”
“I fought the monsters and helped take down the bad guy too. You get a gazillion favors. What do I get?”
“I’m buying you lunch.”
“You were going to do that already.”
“Then I’ll just have to think of something.” The look in his eyes promised massages—well, massages and a whole lot of other things that she wasn’t going to think about with Kai’s people in the front seat.
A few minutes later, the van slid to a stop. Kai hopped out, lifted the body out of the trunk, and headed toward the entrance to Madison Square Garden. Sera followed him. Everyone gave them a wide berth.
“It’s not over, you know,” she said as they walked inside. “The Convictionites still have the Blood Orb.”
“Isn’t your sister working on the Convictionite problem?”
“Apparently.”
“Then I think the problem is in good hands.”
“But you don’t even know Alex. How can you say that?”
“I know you,” he said. “And Riley. Tenacity obviously runs in your family.”
They’d reached the Games lobby again, so the time for small talk was over. Blackbrooke was there, snooty and dignified in his custom-cut suit. The mages Sera and Kai had saved from death by vampire were there too, standing in a cluster surrounded by Magic Games security personnel. Their clothes ruffled and singed by fire—oops—they looked considerably less dignified than the Game Architect.
“Pass me the body,” Sera muttered to Kai as they crossed the lobby.
He raised a quizzical eyebrow but did as she’d asked. Sera carried the body, which was a lot heavier than the mage’s scrawny figure suggested, over to Blackbrooke and dumped it at his feet.
“What is that?” Blackbrooke asked, turning up his nose at the bloody body.
Sera snatched the white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to wipe the blood from her hands. “That there is your criminal mastermind, the mage who was controlling the vampires using the Blood Orb.” She tossed the handkerchief back to Kai, so he could use it too. “It turns out he’s a brainwashed Convictionite agent who planned to murder the Magic Council in the hopes of starting a war between supernaturals and humans. We thought you could scrape his mind for secrets.”
Blackbrooke blinked.
“Yeah, that was the plan anyway before he committed magic suicide,” she said. “Now we’ve just brought him here so you can clean up the mess.”
Appalled, Blackbrooke’s eyes shifted from her to Kai. “Is she always this impudent?”
“She saves it for special people.”
Blackbrooke frowned at him. “You have blood on your shirt.”
“Do I?” Kai looked down. He dabbed the bloody handkerchief once against his sleeve, then tucked it back inside Blackbrooke’s pocket.
“This isn’t funny,” Blackbrooke said, his magic freckled with indignation.
“Sure it is. You just haven’t figured it out yet.” Sera turned to Kai. “Lunch?”
He nodded. “What would you like?”
“At this point, as long as I don’t have to kill my lunch myself, I don’t really care.”
Kai picked hamburgers for lunch. It was a cute place around the corner called Magic Burgers. It was clean, colorful, and didn’t smell like vampires. What more could a girl ask for?
“This is good food for replenishing magic,” Kai said as they waited for their food to come.
“Pizza is plenty good for that,” she teased, raising her voice to be heard over the lunch-hour bustle. The sizzle of grilling meat. The pop of deep-fried potatoes. The hum of the milkshake machine. The clink of plates and glasses.
He shook his head. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Oh?” She leaned against him.
They were sitting side by side at the booth rather than across from each other. That was because neither one of them could stand to have their back to the door. Yes, that was totally messed up—and yet comforting. It was nice to be with someone who understood. Someone who was just as paranoid as she was.
“Between the fighting pit and the vampires, you’ve expended massive amounts of magic today,” he said. “You need to trust my experience in this area. I know the most efficient means to recharge.”
“Let me guess. Meat.”
“Yes.”
She laughed. She was still laughing when the waitress came to their table, her arms stacked with plates. Most of them were for Kai. Magic Burgers had a legendary burger called ‘the Emperor’, two thick beef patties on a kaiser roll stuffed with grilled onions, honey pickles, sliced cherry tomatoes, and spinach. It was so big that half the people who ordered it couldn’t even finish it. Kai had ordered three. Crazy dragon.
Next to the parade that was Kai’s lunch, Sera’s single plate of a standard burger with fries felt…small. On the other hand, she had a milkshake, which was worth at least two b
urgers.
“That’s a lot of food,” she commented, nodding at his burgers.
“That’s a big milkshake.”
“Yes.”
She picked up a fry and dipped it into the thick, liquid ice cream. The shake was lumpy—just as it should be.
“There are two straws,” she told Kai. “The waitress must have thought we’re on a date.”
“We are.”
Hmm. “Do dates with you always involve killing monsters before sitting down to eat?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Sometimes the monster-killing happens after the meal,” he said.
She snorted. “Well, as long as it doesn’t happen during the meal.” She rolled the second straw across the table to him. “Want to share?”
“You’re offering to share your milkshake with me?” Kai asked, picking up his second burger. Wow, he was fast.
“Yeah, it’s a big deal to me too,” she teased.
He peered over the top of the tall glass. “It’s liquid dessert.”
“Yummy.”
“I don’t know, Sera. A milkshake? Drinking that might ruin my image.”
“As a badass dragon?”
“Yes.”
“If any stuffy mages make fun of you, I’ll show them my sword,” she promised.
“You’d show them your sword anyway. You enjoy making them uncomfortable.”
“Who me? No, you must have me confused with some other mercenary. I am always completely professional.”
“Oh, really?” He snatched one of her fries and ate it. “Before the end of the first day I’d hired you, you hit me in the head.”
In retaliation for the fry theft, she stole an onion from his plate. “That says more about you than it does about me. And, besides, you were being a first class jerk.”
“Which is why you then kissed me?”
“I suffer from chronic poor judgment.”
But not poor taste. She slid her hand up his arm, following the rigid contours of his muscles. One of Kai’s people had been ready and waiting at Madison Square Garden with fresh shopping bags of pristine clothes. Her excessive wardrobe changes were starting to become something of a joke amongst the commandos. This time, Kai had needed one too, but no one dared tease him about it. Sera had been almost disappointed when he’d returned from the bathroom wearing a new shirt. The old one had been so damaged that she’d kind of hoped he’d go around without one for a while.
