by Joshua King
Copyrighted Material
Vampire Mage 5 Copyright © 2019 by Joshua King
Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by Joshua King
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Joshua King.
1st Edition
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
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About the Author
Vampire Mage 5
Book 5 in the Vampire Mage Series
Joshua King
1
This was one of those moments in life when one part of my brain thought a plan was a fantastic idea and soon after execution another part decided ‘this is bullshit’. Everything made complete sense when I climbed up on the railing of the bridge and flung myself off. Approximately a second after my feet left the metal, the previously quiet part of my brain had some reservations. It didn’t do so smoothly. My body went into that water flipping the fuck out. I instinctively puffed out my cheeks to hold my breath as the dark water swallowed me up. My arms and legs flailed desperately, each of them going in separate directions. An octopus attempting a cartwheel would probably have looked more put together and in control than I did. I tried to thrash my way back up to the surface, but the water took control. I could feel the pressure all around me. It tugged me down toward the bottom no matter how much I tried to kick against it. Some part of my mind was flashing back to a particularly ill-fated game of Marco Polo when I was in elementary school. Curling up in a ball and dropping down toward the bottom of the pool seemed like a great idea at the time. Unfortunately, I had overestimated the patience of the next-door neighbor I was playing with and by the time I almost passed out and floated my way back up to the top, he'd already gotten out and was sitting on a lawn chair several yards away, eating a popsicle. The jerk had even taken the last blue one.
No matter how long I struggled against the water though, the burning didn't come. My lungs didn't seem to have gotten the memo that I hadn’t taken a breath in a while. The realization that my lungs didn't give a damn if I was under water because I didn't need to breathe flashed through my head right about the same time I remembered the whole point of jumping off the bridge was to sink down into the water and toward the portal I knew was there.
At least, I hoped it was there. It probably should have sunk in, before my ass was what was sinking, that the information I was going off of came from a man who lived under a bridge, wore one shoe as a distinct personal fashion choice, and found his most gratifying personal entertainment in watching people fall out of the sky into the river. That probably wasn't the best choice I had ever made, but I didn't really have any other options. Especially then. I was already trying to remind myself that, as a vampire, being under the water wasn't going to kill me, and right then wasn't the time for me to start questioning the motivations of my life choices. Considering everything I've gone through in the last couple of weeks, it seemed like a fairly slippery slope to get started on. Parts of my brain were still giving it the old college try to convince me I was getting sucked down toward certain doom, but I pushed past them and clamped myself in as tightly as I could, my arms straight down by my sides and my feet pointing down toward the bottom. The pencil approach seemed to work and I shot down through the water, and, I hoped, the portal.
It was in that position, with the murky, stunningly cold water surrounding me, that it occurred to me I had no idea how deep the river was or how long that translated into pencil-sinking time. Several long seconds passed before my feet hit the sand. For a brief instant I was positive all the ramblings really had been nothing but the addled mind of a man who had inhaled too much smoke from a trash can fire, and I had potentially caused the deployment of a good portion of the emergency services in New York by flinging myself into the water was for nothing. I wasn't looking forward to the prospect of pushing myself off the floor of the river and up to the surface to face the rest of the group with my failure. That was assuming the water would actually let me get back to the surface and I wasn't forced to roam around down here for the rest of eternity. Before I had the chance to decide if that would have made me a merman or a male mermaid, the sand gave way and the portal sucked me through.
The crushing-tearing feeling only lasted a fraction of a second and I squeezed my eyes closed despite the darkness of the water around me. I didn't really want to be looking when my soggy self showed up in the elevator at Nakatomi Tower again. For all the things I didn't fully think through before putting this plan into action, that wasn't one of them. The reality that the contagious tracker embedded in Jaxxim might have already spread to me enough to take full control and transport me right back to the Tower if I tried to use a portal had been in the back of my mind from the second I told the others I'd be back and walked out of the building. Relief filled me when I felt the sensation of moving through the portal fade away and I was still in the water. Whether the tracker hadn't taken hold enough to send me back without Jaxxim there with me, or Darian hadn't risked further damage to himself by ensuring the transfer would only happen once didn't matter. It had worked. I was back in the Underworld.
And apparently the Underworld was not happy to have me back.
I was trying to figure out how to do a celebratory dance underwater when something knocked my body to the side. It felt like a solid form had slammed into me, but when I looked around in the dim underwater light, I didn't see anything. Swishing my arms and legs around, I tried to find whatever it was, and only found water. I really wanted that to be comforting. It should have made me feel better but it seemed like I was alone in the water, but not being able to find what hit me was somehow more terrifying. A solid creature that could send me tumbling through the dark water was one thing. Something that had the ability to bounce me around like that but was invisible had a whole new level of what-the-fuck to it. Gaining more control of myself, I twirled around and felt another impact on my back. It sent me somersaulting forward and I was suddenly surrounded by slimy tendrils. I had never thought about what it might sound like for someone to try to scream underwater, but in that moment, I found out. In retrospect, I should have brought more supplies along with me. I had left my bags and larger weapons behind, not wanting to ha
ul them around with me, but now I wished I had something that might provide some light or allow me to fight off whatever had its hold on me.
Something dark and fast flickered past my field of vision. Another moved in my peripheral vision to one side and I sensed something else behind me. Whatever tangled around my arms and legs tightened the more I thrashed against it and the inexplicable shapes moving around me made me extremely aware of the time ticking past. The women, Bex, and Jaxxim were back at Nakatomi Tower, and I had no idea how long they had before the Shades or Darian swarmed them. The longer it took me to get back, the more likely it was they would have to face a fight without me, and that the tracker would continue to spread through the rest of the group.
A flash of light to one side snapped my attention to it, but it didn't last long enough for me to see what was around me. Another to the opposite side gave me a second of illumination that glinted off the blade at my hip and I reached for it. Still not knowing what had me, I used the knife to slash at the gradually tightening bands. There was no sound as I sliced away at what held me captive, but the flashes of light came faster, giving me glimpses of my surroundings. It was only enough to see slices of green, blue, and red around me, but not enough to give me a full view of what the colors were. The streaks of color moved too fast to be in the same place each time the light flashed, until one glimmer of purple seemed to pause, halting in front of me so I could see what looked like wide eyes staring at me.
That couldn't possibly be what I saw. No one ever mentioned the river having anything living in it when they were telling me about the Underworld, and that seemed like a detail they wouldn't have neglected. I had to be imagining it. Maybe there were parts of my brain still hadn't fully come to terms with the idea that I didn't need oxygen and they had decided to start hallucinating. No matter how much I tried to convince myself of that, the movement didn't stop and even when I succeeded in cutting myself away from the binds that held me, I could sense the soundless slithering on all sides. Holding my dagger tightly, I swam into the near-blackness, letting the movements of my arm drag the blade through the water. It seemed to have calmed somewhat and I was able to push up toward the surface. Hints of sunlight glowed down, confirming just how long I had been splashing around, and I strained up toward it. Only a few feet from the surface, the river got the upper hand again and the dagger fell from my hand as I tumbled through the water. This was getting really old. I had never felt the urge to connect on a personal level with the plight of my laundry, but my time spent rolling and tossing around in the water had given me the experience. The spin cycle was enough, and I was hoping there was no need for me to tumble dry as well.
Finally, my head broke the surface, but it only lasted a second before the water sucked me down again. Forcing energy through my body, I used it to push me up and shouted as soon as my mouth was in the air. Three shouts and one misdirected jump that sent my feet up toward the sky rather than my head later, I felt something grab me. Panic and frustration shot through me and I thrashed around, swallowing far more river water than I thought would find its way into my body. Rather than unidentifiable tendrils, it was hands that were grasping my shoulders, pulling at my shirt. It took a few seconds to realize the hands were coming at me from above the water rather than in it, and that those hands were attached to the garbled, water-muted voice coming at me. I couldn't understand what it was saying, but the voice reassured me I was actually getting closer to being out of the water. I stopped fighting and the hands tightened on me, dragging me out of the river and onto the rough, uneven rocks on the bank.
Not having to thrash around gasping for air was another stark reminder of the tremendous changes I'd undergone since coming to the Underworld. It was a strange realization that these small, unexpected reminders were much more impactful in forcing me to note the differences in my life than the intense shifts that should have knocked me over like the unseen creature in the dark water. As it was, those massive changes rolled over me, slight stumbling blocks that gave me a moment of pause before I continued on. Not being out of breath when dragged out of the water after being under for what could have been hours...that left me feeling like my brain had melted and was working on re-congealing so it could actually process what happened and what it meant.
Finally, I dragged my eyelids open and looked up at the face hovering over mine so close it was blurry.
"Well, damn, Hayden. I could have given you some swimming lessons so you didn't have to go flopping around out there like that."
2
Murky water sputtered out of my mouth when I opened it to respond. Bugs pulled his head back to wait for the tiny geyser to stop, then leaned right back in again.
"I like the new look you've got going. Was the seaweed a recent addition, or did you go into the water wearing it?"
One hand gingerly took hold of a slimy green length of seaweed clinging to my shirt and pulled it off. The edge of it slid across my neck and even though every inch of me was soaked and coated in a fine film from the river, the feeling made a shiver run across my skin. Looking down, I noticed the lengths of green tangled around my body and squished into my clothes, bleeding out their creepy neon insides. It was better than the disturbingly plural-legged octopus I had been certain had caught me and tried to drag me into his lair, but only just.
"There isn't such a thing as a multi-pus in the Underworld, is there?" I asked.
My question was greeted by narrowed eyes.
"How much of that river water did you swallow, Hayden?"
He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me up. More of the water trickled from my mouth.
"A lot."
"I can't say I've heard of a multi-pus, but I don't really do much exploring outside of Final View. Don't really need to. Did you stumble on one while you were doing your laps out there?"
"I don't think so."
We stared at each other for a few awkward seconds.
"What brings you to Final View tonight? You don't usually show up from that direction. Is there something wrong with the rest of the city?"
I knew what he was asking, and it was more appropriate than he thought.
"You could say that. I didn't even know if it was actually going to get me here, but I needed to get from the other world fast."
"Trying to sneak up on Malakan? Because he's still missing. I've been watching out for him. I've even tried to surprise the tunnel by throwing the door open super-fast just in case it's there sometimes but it's been hiding when it knows people are looking at it. It hasn't worked yet. I'm pretty sure it's not there."
I jumped into the conversation before Bugs had a chance to spiral out of control.
"Actually, I'm here looking for you."
His face lit up and he gave a big, toothy grin. That was the first moment I realized just how many teeth the man had. It was probably the same number of teeth as everyone else, but somehow in his long, thin face, it seemed like he had crammed several more than the average quota in, making his smile both engaging and a little terrifying.
"Me? Really? That's nice. People don't come around here looking for me very often." His face fell. "It's always Malakan. They're always wanting the big powerful wizard, never the hacker."
Now we were getting somewhere.
"Yes. I need help and I think you're the one who can give it to me. Is there somewhere we can talk?"
Bugs blinked a couple times, then tilted his head back and looked around for a few seconds before meeting my eyes again. He leaned toward me slightly.
"Have we not already been talking? Did I imagine all this? Because it wouldn't be the first time."
And we detoured again.
"Nope. No, you're not imagining it. Definitely been talking. I just need to talk more and thought we might do it somewhere other than the edge of the river."
A breeze picked up and a chill followed as it swirled around me.
"You should warm up. Let's get you to one of the fires. That will knock the chill
right off you."
The somewhat aggressive imagery aside, that sounded great and I nodded. He slung an arm around my shoulders, seemingly unfazed by the wet and the slime, and led me up the bank toward the rest of the community. Like they always were, the fires were burning in the trash cans and the others who called the area under the bridge home were gathered around them. Bugs made a dramatic gesture toward one of the fires and the four people who had been around it scattered.
"They really respect you around here," I said.
Bugs shrugged as we took over the spots next to the trash can and I leaned close to the flames.
"They don't even know I'm here most of the time."
"They just ran, and you didn't even say a word to them."
"When I wave my arms up in the air like that, my shadow scares the hell out of them."
I looked down at the ground at my feet and watched the dancing of the flames take hold of our shadows. They stretched and morphed, transforming into monstrous shapes even without us moving from our positions. If my relatively clear and balanced mind was starting to feel unnerved by the dark patches and the life of their own they seemed to have, I couldn't imagine the effect on the less-than balanced people who called Final View home. As that thought went through my mind, it occurred to me that I might be seeing them in the wrong way. Automatically assuming they were unbalanced because of the way they lived or how they interacted might have been a natural inclination, but that didn't mean it was accurate. I didn't know how they had gotten here or what compelled them to live the way they did. The rest of the Underworld hadn't exactly proven itself to be the most stable and safe environment. Maybe staying under the bridge and avoiding everyone else was the better choice.
