Daughter of Flames: A Mayhem of Magic World Story (A Girl and Her Hellhounds Book 1)

by Nicole Zoltack

  It’s not until a woman around my age pulls over that I’m willing to get in.

  “Where are you heading?” she asks.

  As I’ve been walking, I’ve been trying to get a beat on the darkness within the city.

  And I’ve located it. That’s why I got into her car. If it had been a group of young men who had pulled over just now, I would’ve gotten into their car instead.

  I smile at her. “Toward center city.”

  “Of course.”

  She gathers that I’m not from around the area, and she starts to talk about the history of the city, of its significance in the revolutionary war. I guess this land used to belong to another nation across the ocean. She keeps talking about a Liberty Bell that had been hidden here for a time.

  "What kind of a bell is it that it stands for liberty?" I ask.

  “Are you not even American?” she asks. “Oh, I couldn’t tell. Where are you from?”

  “A place you don’t want to visit,” I murmur.

  She laughs. “The Liberty Bell was a symbol—is, I should say—it’s a symbol of American independence.”

  "Of course. That makes sense."

  “It’s a huge bell. Not a tiny one that you can just shake with your hand. Thick and solid but it isn’t perfect, and honestly, I think that adds to its charm. There isn’t much at all in life that’s perfect, you know?”

  “True,” I murmur. “But how is the bell not perfect?”

  "It was brought to Philadelphia, and the very first time it was rung there, it cracked."

  "Oh, geez."

  “The crack grew and grew, but now, the bell doesn’t go on tour anymore. It was brought here, to Allentown, to be kept from the British. They melted down bells to make cannonballs. Can you believe how demoralizing it would’ve been if they had melted the Liberty Bell to fire on us?” She shakes her head emphatically. “But that didn’t happen, thankfully. Ironically enough, England is one of our strongest allies now.”

  “Wow,” I whisper.

  “Your dogs are so well behaved.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You must have trained them well.”

  “They have a mind…” Or two, I add mentally. “Of their own.”

  “I’m sure. I love dogs.”

  She chats some about her roommate, her boyfriend, her parents, on and on, not requiring much input from me, and then she slows to a halt at a stop sign.

  “We’re nearing the center of the city. Do you have a specific place in mind?”

  "Here's fine, actually. Thank you so much. Do you want…"

  “I’m fine. I appreciate the company. I’ve thought about becoming an Uber driver, actually,” she says. “How did you like the drive? Would you have been willing to pay for it?”

  “I was about to offer to.”

  “And you would like another ride from me? If you do, I can give you my cell number.”

  “I think I’ll be all right from here, but thank you. I really appreciate it, though. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome. Hey, you never said your name.”

  “Lydia.”

  “And I never said mine. It’s Maria.”

  I grin and climb out, waving for my hellhounds to follow me.

  As soon as we’re out, Maria drives away, honking her horn.

  “All right, guys. Let’s see what’s going on.”

  A fog rolls in even though there’s no reason for it to be foggy, not weather-wise, which means Clarissa’s right. Vampires are here.

  Sure enough, one materializes in front of me, either shifting from the fog into herself or else just racing up to me in her vampiric form.

  She flashes her fangs at me. “Hello, demon.”

  “Why are you here?” I ask bluntly.

  The vampire cocks her head to the side. Her eyes are a strange purple color, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s wearing colored contacts. Probably to try to hide the fact that she’s a vampire, so she can walk around the humans undetected, although can the humans really not sense that there’s anything different about her?

  “Why not?” the vampire finally answers.

  I don’t look away from her, but I can sense that we’ve been joined by five other vampires.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” the first vampire says.

  “That so?” I shrug one shoulder. “This city yours, huh?”

  “It is,” she says evenly.

  I lift my chin. “Do you know who I am?” I challenge.

  “I don’t rightly care who you are,” the vampire hisses. “Do you know who I am?”

  I motion for her to come closer to me with a crook of my finger. She leans closer, and I pretend that I’m going to whisper a secret in her ear, but instead, I press my hand to her throat and conjure my orb of energy, burning her alive and turning her into dust in seconds.

  I step back, letting the dust cloud that had been the vampire collapse at my feet, and I make a show of brushing some dust from my hands.

  “For those who don’t know,” I say, taking a step over her dust mound, my hellhounds following me, their flames higher than normal. They’re feeding off my dark energy, and I relish in our connection. “I am the daughter of flames. I am Lydia, and this city—”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done,” one of the vampires says. His eyes are flashing, and despite his colored contacts, his eyes are so red behind them that the red is leaking through. “She was the daughter of Willow.”

  I fake a yawn and cover my mouth. “Is that name supposed to mean anything to you?”

  “She’s the real leader of this city,” another vampire speaks up. He has a scar down between his eyes. Interesting. Most vampires should be able to heal entirely. Why hadn’t he? A magical attack of some kind? The vampire shudders. “You don’t want to mess with her. Her husband…” He rubs his scar.

  “A witch?” I question.

  “The darkest kind there is,” the vampire with vivid red eyes says.

  "So, is he the one really in charge?" I ask.

  “No, Willow is. Soran worships the ground she walks on,” the vampire says with a shudder. “He’ll lash out at you and kill you for Willow in the blink of an eye. You don’t stand a chance.”

  “That so. And what does Willow do here? Doesn’t this town have a human mayor?”

  “Yes, but Willow has that mayor in her back pocket.”

  “Miniaturized?” I ask, baffled.

  The vampires glance at one another, baffled by my confusion.

  “No, ah… She compels the mayor to do what she wants. She has the entire city under her control. Willow does what she wants, and she’s already killed twenty other vampires. There are still more who need to die, though.”

  The one with the scar is still rubbing the puckered skin. “Maybe if we blame the death of Claudia on the Viper Riders.”

  “The Viper Riders?” I ask, even more baffled. “Do you mean that vampires truly ride on vipers throughout the city? This city is a human city, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I mean no. No one rides vipers. Yes, it’s a human city, but not for much longer. Not if Willow has her way, but the Viper Riders, they only come out at night. They’re in their mist form more than they are vampires, and they’ve threatened Claudia before.”

  “It’s not nighttime,” I say dryly.

  “Yes, but they would have had to have been bold to kill Claudia. A threat is one thing.”

  “Yes! We’ll blame it on the Viper Riders, but you need to get out of here, Daughter of Flames,” Red Eyes says.

  “We’ll keep you safe,” Scar says.

  I glance at the silent ones. They’re anxious, worried, on edge.

  Now, I shift my gaze to the talkative ones. “Why do you want me to leave so badly?”

  “If you don’t…” Scar exchanges a frightened look with Red Eyes.

  I stalk toward them. “Didn’t you see what I just did?”

  “Y-Yes…” Scar says with a gulp. He takes a few steps bac
k.

  “I can do that to any of you, including Willow. And her witch husband. Don’t you want that? You seem as terrified about her and her husband as the Viper Riders should be. Let me guess…” I eye them all, noticing that they all have on silver chokers, male and females alike. “Willow is the head of her own mob, right? Silver something? Ivory? She’s been at war with the Viper Riders for a bit now, am I right?”

  Scar nods. “Yes,” he admits.

  “Shut up,” one of the other snaps. “You two have told her too much.”

  “You want to take me on?” I ask Snappy. I grin at him. “You’re more than welcome to try or…” I point to Scar. “Will you do me a favor? Arrange for a meeting between the leaders of the two mobs?”

  Scar gulps. “Y-Yes.”

  “Wait,” I spit out before he can leave. “Are there any other mobs here?”

  Scar shakes his head several times. He’s practically trembling, and he rushes away.

  "You're going to get yourself killed," one of the vampires who hadn't spoken before finally says

  I just give him a wide smile. “We’ll see who lives and who dies.”

  It takes an hour, but finally, Scar is walking me along, guiding myself and my hellhounds to the meeting place. He’s still trembling, a leaf fluttering about with two legs, ready to collapse at any second.

  “Willow had her husband give you that scar,” I suppose. “Why do you stay by her side? Why are you loyal to her?”

  “She’s the strongest vampire I know, and her husband is just as strong and powerful, and you do not want to cross them.”

  “Yet, here you are…”

  Scar abruptly stops. “I trust you over them. You want to end them both, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but you shouldn’t trust me.”

  "It's too late for that," he says. "You came here, and yes, you… did what you did… but now you want to see the leaders. You want to take over the city, or at the very least, you want to wipe out the leaders, and that's more than fine with me. If you need me to—"

  “Stay out of my way.”

  “I can do that. No problem.”

  Scar's no longer trembling now. He lifts his chin up, and he's moving faster than the rather human pace he had been maintaining. For a vampire, he had been dragging his feet, but now, he urges me along, and we head to what looks like an abandoned hospital of some kind. Behind it, in a massive parking lot, are vampires on one side and a cluster of vampires behind a couple who must be Willow and Soran.

  Willow turns to look at me. “Who is this?” she snaps.

  I teleport in front of her. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? I’m not here for you. They killed my daughter, and—”

  I put my hand over her lips and do the same to Soran. In seconds, I burn them alive.

  Most of the vampires scatter, but I stare down Scar. He points to two vampires who are trying to kill some of the fleeing vampires, and I burn them as well.

  “Those the leaders of the Viper Riders?” I ask Scar.

  He nods a few times.

  Scar and I are the only ones still here. The others have all left, and as far as I can tell from the traces of their signature darkness, they’re fleeing the city.

  “The city is yours,” he murmurs.

  “It will be once all vampires have left its ground,” I remark coolly.

  “Just who are you?” he begs. “I’ll leave, but…”

  “I told you.”

  “The daughter of flames,” he murmurs. “The daughter of… of…”

  “Flames,” I repeat. “Now go.”

  And he leaves without having to be told a second time.

  Chapter 24

  I head to a proper restaurant, an elegant, fancy one. The host turns his nose up at me, probably because of my clothes, but when I explain to him that I wish to order three steaks to go and pay in cash, he’s more than willing to accommodate me, and I wait rather impatiently but far more tolerantly than my hellhounds who are stuck waiting outside for me.

  Finally, I’m given the food, and I curtsey just to see how he’ll react. His eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets, and I wink at him before leaving, my duster flying out behind me.

  "Come on, boys," I call to my hellhounds, and I direct them to the darkest alley I can find so they can devour their portions in peace. The man hadn't given us a knife, of course, and I shift one of my fingers into a claw so I can cut my steak with it and then use the claw as a fork as well. The steak is delicious, juice dripping down my hand, the meat tender and falling apart in my mouth. I should've made a note of the restaurant because I wouldn't mind coming back.

  Alas, I have more work to do, and once we’re finished eating—I don’t take much longer than the hellhounds to swallow my last bite—I teleport us outside of Allentown, to a bit of rural land.

  I call Clarissa.

  “Do you know what time it is?” she asks.

  "No. I'm not really paying attention to the time," I say. "Been a bit busy. I handled Allentown. There were two vampire mobs there. One was headed by a vampire and a witch. I killed them both."

  Clarissa says nothing.

  “I also killed the leader of the other mob. The followers all fled.”

  “They might come back.”

  “If you want me to return to Allentown to clear out vampires if they come back another day, fine. Consider me on retainer.”

  “But you aren’t going to hunt them all down now.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” she asks bluntly.

  “Maybe because there’s no need? They saw what I could do. They consider the city mine. Now, when I’m not there physically for a while, might they come back? Maybe once they forgot how easily I took down their mob leaders, but for now… eh.”

  “You aren’t just about killing.”

  “No! Did you forget why I came to you in the first place?”

  “You really weren’t lying,” she murmurs.

  “No, I wasn’t. I want to hurt my father, and this is the best way how.”

  “You’re only doing good to hurt him? Not because you want—”

  “I’m barely any valkyrie at all,” I snap. “I’m not doing this because of a tiny bit of angel in me. I’m doing this for a terrible reason, okay? I’m not a good person.”

  “Yes, yes. Well, anyone who calls someone at ten-thirty should be shot.”

  “It’s that late?”

  “Yes.”

  I glance at my boys, who are glowing bright enough that I can see everything around me as if the sun still shone down on me.

  “Sorry. I’ll call you back in the morning.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know Earth all that well.”

  “Find a hotel to stay at.”

  I burst out laughing. “You don’t think I should go to Hell, huh?”

  “Do you?”

  “Fine. I’ll call you in the morning.” I hesitate. “You don’t have a list of names you can just give me now? You didn’t think I would clear out Allentown that quickly, did you?”

  She says nothing.

  “Or you thought I would fail. Did you really think I couldn’t handle some vampires?”

  “Two vamp mobs?”

  “Yes.”

  She mutters a curse. “Diego, go back to sleep.”

  “You go to bed this early?”

  “When you’re old—”

  “You aren’t old.”

  "I'm thirty-five."

  “Not old.”

  “Yes, well, age is relative, I suppose, but you eventually want more sleep and can’t handle surviving on only three or four hours anymore.”

  "Not without a ton of coffee, you mean."

  “You drink coffee? Let me guess, you like it as black as your soul.”

  “Haha. So original. Wow. You should do stand up. Actually, I’m not a coffee drinker much myself.”

  There’s some rustling, and Clarissa groans.

&nbs
p; "Were you really sleeping?" I ask. "I mean, isn't there that expression about how crime never sleeps?

  “Yes, well, that’s why there are more than two cops in all of Bethlehem,” she says dryly. “Yes. I was really sleeping. I’ve been exhausted lately. No matter how much sleep I get, I’m always fatigued.”

  “Maybe you should get your blood checked.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think I want scientists checking out my labs.”

  “You don’t know of any scientists who are demons or angels or vampires or…”

  “I don’t have any vamp friends,” she says dryly.

  “Ah. So you’re all high and mighty up there on your pedestal, looking down on all the demons and vampires as if we’re so far beneath you, only you’re half demon too. Don’t forget that.”

  “Vamps need blood to survive!”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “They kill people!”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Are you really trying to defend them? Is that why you didn’t just go in and wipe out all of the vamps in Allentown?”

  “You do realize that you wanting me to go there specifically to slaughter them all when they did nothing directly to you or me is rather demonic of you, right?”

  She’s silent a moment. “Jake Baxter, Anna Norris, Connor Fischer, and Bailey Rutledge.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They’re all high-ranking members of Congress who are a bit… Let’s just say they’re corrupt.”

  “Hmm. Are they human?”

  “Actually, I have no idea if they’re human or otherwise,” she murmurs. “If you look at their track records, though, it’s clear that big corporations have them in their pockets.”

  “They’ve accepted bribes?”

  “They don’t have the best interests of the people at heart. Maybe they’re too out of touch for what it’s like for the people working paycheck to paycheck, but they need to consider other people’s bottom lines.”

  I nod even though I’m not exactly sure what she’s getting at.