Vampire Bound: Book Two

by R. A. Steffan

  “I don’t want to go closer,” I realized. “What’s...? Is that some kind of magic? Can you feel it, too?”

  I started to look up at Leonides, but something warned me that if I looked away from the gate, I wouldn’t want to look back at it.

  I could hear the frown in his voice when he replied a moment later. “Yeah, that’s weird. Definitely something trying to convince my senses that there’s nothing over there I want to get close to. Or even pay attention to.”

  Snippets of conversation from my hours of magical discussion with Edward played through my memory. “I think... it’s some kind of protective spell. Something to convince visitors not to get any nearer than this.”

  Indeed, the track worn through the grass skirted the edge of the odd zone of discomfort, whereas I would have expected the foot traffic to go right up to the entrance as tourists tried to peer inside.

  “Guess that explains why there are hardly any photos online of the interior,” Leonides mused.

  “You’re both right,” Cillian said from behind us. “You’ll probably be able to force your way through the magical protections, vampire—if you’re strong enough. But if the witch is unable to defeat the spell and approach, she won’t be welcome in Dhuinne.”

  As it was, the idea of veering off the track to reach the entrance to the mound made my feet feel like they were set in concrete. Go around, my instincts insisted. There’s nothing for you there.

  But that was a lie. The answers I needed lay just beyond that dark opening.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for bringing us here, Cillian. Now please leave. I can’t concentrate with you standing around being twitchy at me.”

  I heard the rustle of clothing shifting, but no footsteps walking away.

  “You heard the lady, Gallagher,” Leonides added.

  Boots rustled through grass as Cillian left us alone. As before, the sudden absence of the strange energy surrounding him leached some of the tension from my shoulders. When I was sure we were alone, I asked, “Can you force your way through it, like he said?”

  Leonides took a step forward, and another. “Seems so. What about you?”

  My body still felt frozen when I attempted to lift my foot and move it forward. It was pretty clear that in my case, this wasn’t going to be a ‘brute force’ kind of situation.

  “Give me a minute,” I muttered.

  Despite my reluctance to look away from the metal gate blocking the entrance to the mound, I closed my eyes tightly and focused on feeling what was around me rather than seeing it. And what was around me... was a storm. Not a physical storm, but a storm of magic—like a hurricane, with the entrance to the mound at its eye.

  “Oh,” I said blankly. “Well, crap.”

  “Problem?” Leonides asked.

  I set my jaw. “What’s that saying? A problem is just a solution waiting to happen.”

  Without opening my eyes, I lifted my pendant free of my collar with my right hand, and reached toward Leonides with my left. After the shortest of hesitations, strong fingers tangled with mine and gave a brief squeeze.

  “It’s like wind,” I tried to explain, “only the wind is actually magic. I’m going to try something.”

  I focused on the garnet I was holding, picturing the imaginary mirror inside. Instead of using it to reflect my own magic back inside myself, though, I layered the mirror on the side closest to me, pointing outward. I pictured it forming a smooth, curved surface, perfect and free of defects. Then, still holding it in front of my body like a talisman, I wrenched one foot free of the paralysis with an act of will and stepped forward.

  Fae magic howled against the imaginary mirror like tornadic winds, the power staggering me back a step. I would have stumbled, if not for the hand gripping mine. Gritting my teeth, I braced and tried again, ready for the surge this time. My eyes were still closed, and with my mind’s eye, I could ‘see’ the vortex of magic hit the mirrored interior of the pendant and refract at an angle before returning to the maelstrom.

  Eddies formed where the reflected magical wind hit the main mass, forming a crosscurrent. Cautiously, I took another step forward into the relative lull... and another. I was aware of Leonides keeping pace—a blur of darker magic beside me, calm in the midst of the storm. The entrance to the mound was a disconcerting void ahead of us.

  It seemed to take an age to reach it. My right hand ached from clutching the crystal, though I couldn’t have said whether the forces howling through it were physical or not. If I let go and the pendant ripped free of the chain on my neck, would it be blown across an Irish field, or into another dimension entirely?

  Since it was my only defense against Fae magic, I couldn’t really afford to find out.

  When I stumbled into the calm eye at the mound’s entrance, the transition was so abrupt that my ears rang. I sucked in a wheezing gasp of damp air, only then becoming aware that I’d apparently been holding my breath the whole time. I opened my eyes and looked up at the vampire still holding my hand, to find his expression grim and a trickle of dark blood dripping down from one of his nostrils.

  He wiped it away impatiently with his free hand. “All right, there?” he asked, clearing his throat when the words emerged hoarse.

  “Yeah, great,” I replied faintly. “No, really, this is awesome.”

  I was shaking, and I felt like I’d just been run through a centrifuge. Leonides looked as if he’d been shoved out an airlock in the vacuum of space, though the burst blood vessels in the whites of his eyes and beneath the smooth skin of his face were healing even as I watched.

  When he’d apparently reassured himself that I wasn’t seriously hurt, only dazed, he turned his attention to the metal gate blocking our access to the tunnel. I followed his gaze, my heart sinking a bit when I noticed the heavy padlock at the top, securing the barrier to a ring driven directly into the rock forming the lintel.

  Rock.

  This was a situation that called for lithomancy—the elemental magic at which I was basically useless, unless you needed me to throw dirt or sand in someone’s eyes.

  “I don’t think I’ll be much help with that,” I said, trying to think of some kind of alternate approach. “I mean... maybe we could pour some of the bottled water into the keyhole, and I could try flash freezing and thawing it a few times. Try to break the mechanism?”

  Leonides reached up and grabbed the padlock with one hand, giving it a sharp yank. The anchor holding the metal ring in the stone jerked free with a scraping noise and a trickle of rock dust. The gate screeched open a few inches on rusty hinges. I took a hasty step backward in surprise, almost stumbling into the magic hurricane before I caught myself.

  “Or I guess that works, too,” I managed.

  He didn’t comment on the show of unnatural vampiric strength; instead, he merely wrenched the gate open far enough for us to slip through the gap. It was dark inside, but I could just about make out gray stone forming a rectangular corridor. It wasn’t cramped enough to make me feel truly claustrophobic, but it was too narrow for us to walk shoulder to shoulder.

  “I don’t suppose you picked up Edward’s magic floating light bulb trick,” Leonides said.

  “Sorry,” I told him. “So far, my magic is only good for destroying things. Or, y’know, making ice cubes. It’s the bartender in me, I guess.”

  He rummaged in the pocket of his long coat and pulled out a small flashlight.

  “Hmm. Still a Boy Scout, eh?” I couldn’t help teasing.

  “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said, flicking it on. “Dhuinne will fry it as soon as we get there, I gather.”

  “Maybe leave it on this side for when we come back,” I suggested, knowing that it would have been more accurate to say ‘if we come back.’

  “Good plan,” he agreed.

  The beam played over the enclosed space, briefly illuminating a dead end before he moved it to the wall next to us. The rough stone was covered in carvings. Spirals, circles, horseshoe shapes, and
something like a wiggly, sideways letter X. I tilted my head, reminded of microscope photos I’d seen of chromosomes.

  “Welcome, nightcrawler,” said a high, clear voice from the end of the passage. “Welcome, adept.”

  Quick as a flash, Leonides whipped the light toward the dead end. A woman stood there, where there had been no one mere seconds before. She was short and sharp-featured, with eyebrows that swept up like a bird’s wings. Her strawberry blonde hair was done up in complicated braids that didn’t quite cover the points of her ears, and she was wearing clothing that looked like it was made of buckskin.

  She wasn’t human.

  “Um... hello?” I said uncertainly, trying to calm my pounding heart. “I’m guessing you’re our guide?”

  “We’ve come with the promise of safe passage to speak with the Seelie Court,” Leonides stated. “Can you guarantee that?”

  The woman eyed him up and down. “I can guarantee you passage. For a human—even a magically adept one—I cannot guarantee that it will be safe.”

  I licked dry lips and swallowed. “You mean I might go mad.”

  She tilted her head in agreement. “Just so,” Then, her expression grew curious. “You are clearly aware of the danger. What errand could be so important that you would choose to risk your sanity?”

  I straightened my spine. “My son has been taken.”

  Her expression flickered with something that was there and gone so fast I almost missed it. Sympathy? Regret?

  “I see,” she said. “In that case, come. Extinguish your torch, nightcrawler. We both know you can see perfectly well without it, and soon enough, the adept will see far too much.”

  I frowned, not much liking the sound of that. The fingers wrapped in mine gave a light squeeze, and I realized with a jolt that I was still holding Leonides’ hand. I became grateful enough for the solid point of contact when he flicked off the flashlight a moment later and leaned down, placing it on the floor next to the wall on our left.

  “If she can’t handle the other side,” Leonides said, “we’ll need to come right back through. Do you agree to that?”

  “I have no wish to see a magical being broken unnecessarily,” said the Fae woman. Which... was a bit ambiguous, to be honest—but at least she didn’t seem to be cut from the same cruel mold as Teague and his ilk.

  The tunnel was not pitch black. Not quite. Light from the outside world didn’t reach us directly back here, but there was enough to make out the gray shapes of my two companions. A moment later, a new glow erupted from the blank stone wall at the end of the tunnel. Our Fae escort stood silhouetted before it, her hand pressed flat to a carved spiral. Light emanated from the curling shape, outlining her fingers—spreading outward and growing stronger as I watched with fascination.

  It followed the ancient lines chiseled into the rock until every symbol on the wall was glowing, the yellow lines of light becoming brighter and brighter until looking at the wall was like trying to look directly at a welding torch. I raised my hand defensively, trying to shield my eyes, but it didn’t help. They watered, and I blinked away the tears, peering through the gaps in my fingers.

  My other hand clenched Leonides’ convulsively.

  “The gate is open,” our guide told us. “Follow.”

  With that, she stepped into the light.

  Leonides stood unmoving next to me, and I gathered he was waiting for me to make the decision whether or not to go through. I stared at the strange new world beyond the gate, where I might find answers to some of the questions plaguing me. Clinging to my companion’s hand like a lifeline, I sucked in a deep breath... and stepped into a different realm.

  TWENTY-TWO

  DHUINNE HIT ME like a runaway freight train. Stepping through the gate had been like stepping off a cliff, leaving my stomach in freefall and my head spinning. I managed to lock my knees in place and stay upright on the other side, thanks mostly to Leonides’ supporting hand. But my thoughts were still reeling. It was as though I was standing inside the sun, but the brightness had nothing to do with my sense of sight.

  There was... too much of everything. I slammed my eyes closed, only to discover that it made no difference. The overwhelming life of the place still battered at my awareness, threatening to send me to my knees.

  My chest hurt. It took me a moment to realize that I was hyperventilating. A moment more to realize that I was also crying, and strong hands were pressed to my cheeks. A voice called my name—maybe not for the first time.

  “Vonnie!”

  I scrabbled for a hold on something, anything, and ended up clasping a pair of sinewy wrists—my fingernails digging into skin. Fresh pain flared between my breasts, joining the steel band squeezing around my lungs.

  There was... a still spot in front of me. Cool darkness forming an oasis in the burning cauldron of Dhuinne’s magic. I tried to focus on that peaceful blur of calm, pushing everything else to the side. A violet glow broke through the smear of darkness before me, and I became aware that I was seeing with my eyes again, rather than my mind. Leonides’ worried gaze pinned mine, lit from within by a vampiric glow.

  “... need to take us back, right now,” he was saying. “I’ll make sure she’s all right and come back later, alone.”

  The sense of the words penetrated a moment later. “No!” I gasped.

  That pain between my breasts—it was my pendant, burning its frantic warning into my skin. I’d forgotten to untangle the magical flow around me, too swept up in Dhuinne’s overwhelming power. I focused inward instead of outward, feeling out what was happening.

  Leonides’ hands still cradled my face. There was a barrier surrounding him, something about his undead vampiric nature holding the out-of-control life of the Fae realm at bay. I needed a barrier like that. My magic was elemental magic—destructive, and boosted by vampire blood. It was different than Dhuinne’s life magic. There should be a boundary where the two forces met.

  I could never overpower the Fae realm with my paltry human abilities. But I didn’t need to. I just needed to divert the flow around me. I needed a bubble of space where I could survive. Grasping the burning pendant, I concentrated on making a tiny version of the vortex surrounding the entrance to the mound in Ireland. I fed my magic through the pendant and sent it whirling around me, feeding endlessly through the crystal focus until it formed a swirling storm barricading my awareness.

  I was on the inside. Dhuinne was on the outside. I just had to keep it that way.

  “Vonnie.” Leonides’ voice was tight with worry. “Talk to me, or we’re going straight back to Earth.”

  “She has devised a shield,” said the female Fae, from a few steps away.

  “I need to hear it from her,” Leonides snapped.

  “We’re not going back,” I rasped, my throat feeling like sandpaper. “M’okay.”

  His brows drew together. “Jesus. You’re not ‘okay.’” He sighed. “But I guess you’re not catatonic either. What did you do, and are you going to be able to keep doing it long-term?”

  “Made a... made a... barrier,” I managed. “Need to get Jace back. We’re not leaving.”

  Cautiously, Leonides let his hands slide away from my skin. I had to consciously unclench the fingers of the hand I still held wrapped around his wrist. The muscles ached from the strain of gripping so tightly. So did the other hand, clasping the now-cool crystal. I let the necklace fall into place against my chest, flinching when it settled against burned skin.

  I blinked several times, finally able to take in my surroundings on a physical level rather than a metaphysical one. We were on a brilliantly sunny hillside, and it was either just past sunrise or just before sunset. Everything was subtly... wrong. The sky was the wrong color; the light was the wrong color; the burgeoning plant life choking the area was the wrong color.

  And we weren’t alone.

  Fully two dozen armed Fae stood watching us warily, hands resting on sword hilts and crossbows. Like our guide, they could not b
e mistaken for human. Not as I had briefly mistaken Teague for human. I wondered if Teague’s veneer of humanity was some sort of magical disguise he wore like a mask.

  Leonides was still standing close enough to steady me if I needed it, but his attention wavered between me, and the ground beneath our feet. I looked down, following his gaze.

  My breath caught.

  “What’s happening?” I asked hoarsely. “What’s wrong with the grass?”

  Beneath us, a slowly spreading circle of blackness was growing, with Leonides at its epicenter. The leaves wilted and withered as though burned without heat, or perhaps taken by some kind of blight.

  “You really are new at this, aren’t you?” our Fae guide asked. “Your companion is a night creature—a void in the world that sucks in light and animus from the living. His presence is anathema to Dhuinne’s magic.”

  I thought I detected a slight flinch from Leonides, quickly covered.

  “And me?” I asked. “Dhuinne doesn’t seem to think much of me, either.”

  “Your magic is not anathema,” she said. “Merely... twisted from its original source.”

  At any other time, I might have found the conversation fascinating. What source? And twisted how? As it was, I didn’t have much attention to devote to the exchange, since there was still a real question about whether or not I’d fall over the moment I tried to take a step.

  “Guess I’ll just have to take your word on that,” I said. “So, now what? Do we go and meet with the Court?”

  But the female Fae shook her head. “Tomorrow. It is growing late. The Court will have adjourned for the day. I was to bring you to the City when you arrived, and arrange for you to stay there overnight. However, perhaps it would be best for you to stay here at the garrison instead—close to the gate, should you find yourself overwhelmed during the night and need to return to Earth.”