by D C Young
The two women clasped hands more tightly and took a deep breath. My encounters with magic were far from virginal but I’d never witnessed a real magic spell being worked before and I found it hard to hide my reservations.
The two women began to recite the spell and it felt as if the wind immediately whipped up around us. In a few moments, it was as if we were standing in the middle of a whirlwind and then, just as quickly, the wind organized itself into a cloudy mist and set out at a fast pace towards the lights of the coast. It spread out like a thin mist and settled over the land.
At last, my part had come. I ran towards the cliff and jumped, propelling myself into the air and with a pop, I was in my bat form soaring happily over the water. I flapped my wings to gain some altitude and circled high over the group that was gathered on Long Point.
When the scream tore across the water, I wasn’t sure if it was really as loud as it seemed or if it was just my super human bat hearing. Whichever it was, the scream that came from the Terminal Island near Long Beach was horrific.
That would make sense, I thought. There’s a ton of dark, dank, unused places over there for a creature to nest undetected.
I saw the ball of light set out from the shore almost as soon as the dødehekse took flight. Scared, I descended quickly and landed in my human form to warn the others.
“She’s coming!”
“Good!” Julia cried. “Stay with us here while Marie goes up and gives us the signal.”
Because of my growing psychic abilities, Julia wanted me near the two witches in case they needed help. I would keep my link with Allison so she could call for help if things got too difficult for her and Bridget.
Meanwhile, Marie soared up into the air. She watched intently as the ball of light approached the island.
“Hold!” I heard her cry over head.
“Hold!” Julia repeated.
I looked around and noticed that the others had formed a double line of defense in front of the two witches. Marcus, Julia and Saigo had formed the first line of defense. They were heavily armed but they were also the oldest and strongest vampires in our ranks. I ran to stand behind the two witches where I could be close to them should they encounter any distress. Veronica and Bjorn were on the second line, they crouched down behind the three elders, ready to launch the support or the surprise attack, whichever the case may be.
“Ready!” Marie called from over head.
“Ready!” Julia repeated.
A few seconds later, Marie landed with a thud beside Bjorn and took her position.
“Three… two… one… fire!” Marie called.
I couldn’t believe what I saw next. Marie grabbed hold of Allison’s ankle while Bjorn grabbed Bridget’s. Veronica placed one hand on Bjorn’s shoulder and the other on Marie’s. Then Julia joined hands with Saigo and Marcus, both of whom extended a hand back for Marie and Bjorn to take hold of. It was as if they were building a cosmic spider web.
By the time Saigo and Marcus extended their free hands forward to point at the dødehekse, there was a bright glow surrounding all of us on the cliff.
I could see the witch clearly now. She was still about two miles out to sea and had transformed into the beautiful, dark-haired woman I’d seen on the street in Calabasas.
Suddenly, Julia called out to me. “Samantha, take hold of Bridget’s and Allison’s hands and hold the medallion with them, merge your mind to theirs and tell them to fire!”
So, that was what I was doing here!
While channeling the magic, the two witches had lost their consciousness of everything happening around them. They, however, were apparently the trigger for whatever power would destroy the beast. My psychic link with Allison was the only way to fire the weapon.
I grabbed hold of their hands and the medallion and closed my eyes tightly. Darkness engulfed me.
Allison! Allison! I shouted into the darkness.
Gaaaah! Christ, Moon. Keep it down will ya! I heard her reply. Damn, she’d become such a pill.
Julia says, FIRE!
Okay, great. You hear that Bridget?
I heard ya both! On my three. One… two… three… FIRE!
Epilogue
I crashed into the depths of my sofa with new-found gratitude that night. What had happened on the cliffs on Catalina had most definitely blown my mind; literally and figuratively. The headache had lasted for a solid hour and by the time I came to my senses, Bjorn and Marcus had already burnt the dødehekse’s body to ashes, stomped the rest to dust and swept her into the winds that swelled around Long Point.
On the way back to Fullerton, Julia had ensured I was adequately fed by a couple of her human donors and when the limo pulled into my driveway. I was still tired but feeling back to myself for the most part.
It was done.
Over.
And I still had two days in the house to myself.
I thought of attending to the numerous emails I had spent the last three days ignoring.
Nope.
Then I thought of giving Kingsley a call.
Nope.
Maybe see if Fang was online.
Forget it.
I decided to sit on the couch and do absolutely nothing. I hadn’t done that enough lately.
I picked up the remote and found the list of recorded programs on the DVR.
There were four episodes of Judge Judy on the list.
I smiled and thought to myself as I pulled a blanket up around my feet.
I’ll just lay here and watch someone else stick it to the bad guy for a while.
The End
The Chronicles of the Immortal Council returns in:
Vampire Sovereign
Return to the Table of Contents
VAMPIRE SOVEREIGN
The Chronicles of the Immortal Council #3
A Vampire for Hire story
by
D.C. Young
Foreward
by J.R. Rain
Hi there and welcome!
J.R. Rain here, and I’m so excited to introduce you to my “Vampire for Hire World”! As you might have guessed, these are written by writers other than me. Fair warning, these stories are non-canon (as in, unofficial) but they’re still a ton of fun. I’m excited to see the Samantha Moon world grow, and I’m equally excited to see all these wonderful writers exploring her world with me.
So, sit back and enjoy Vampire Sovereign!
—J.R.
Vampire Sovereign
Chapter One
Samantha Moon was out on a late night flight over Los Angeles.
She was headed north over the Pacific Coast Highway; away from the lights and the smog in search of the cold, crisper air in the north.
In recent weeks, Sam had found that the cold air streaming from the water off the coast was as refreshing and calming to her mind as anything else she could find these days.
Vampire weather, she thought and immediately Allison Lopez and their freaky trip to Seattle, Washington came to her mind.
Sam smiled.
There’d been far too much unrest in her life lately. More and more, she had been feeling the pull and tug of the dark entity inside her and the fight to overcome the disturbing urges she’d been feeling of late was becoming increasingly difficult. From a moral standpoint, the whole affair was aggravating Sam. The feelings and thoughts that the dark master inside her vampire body was giving her were unsettling at best.
She glided nimbly into the currents of cool air and soared higher. The possibility of being seen soaring above the clouds no longer worried her. It was as a friend had once said, “Let those with eyes see. Let those with ears hear.” Anyone standing on the ground below who happened to look up and see her dark bat-like silhouette dashing across the sky would most certainly come up with a plausible explanation for it; because their good sense would never allow their eyes to see the truth or their minds to fathom the unexplainable.
It had been Archibald Maximus who’d said those words to her. Thinking of
him now, Sam knew she would soon have to go see her librarian friend who ruled over the Occult Reading Room at Cal State Fullerton. He would be able to offer some insight into her recent experiences and the sooner she did that the better. But a week after they had dealt with the dead witch creature, Sam had gone to Cal State and for the first time, she couldn’t find the reading room. She’d arrived at the place where the door always had been with its little sign over head and there was nothing there but wall. A picture hung where the door once stood with a plaque over it announcing that the person in the portrait was the benefactor of that wing of the building.
Dazed and confused, she’d gone back down to the lobby and asked the person behind the desk for directions.
“Hmmm, I’m new here but I don’t recall any mention of an Occult Reading Room during my orientation,” the young man said. “Let me look it up in the directory.”
He’d punched the keys on his computer keyboard furiously for a moment making Samantha roll her eyes in descent.
No one types that quickly, she thought. But the kid was already scrolling through a list that his keyboard jibber-jabber had evidently produced.
“Ahh,” he said thoughtfully, then turned and went to a sort of document bin that stood in a row of five similar bins on the credenza behind him. “Apparently, this was left for anyone who came asking for such a room. Must be directions to wherever they’ve moved the material to. Probably microfiche or a server.”
Sam thanked him, took the envelope and left. Outside in the parking lot, she sat behind the steering wheel of her minivan and tore the document open.
It was a letter from Max.
He had to attend to some very urgent business and was unsure how long he would be away. He knew she would understand that the reading room would have to remain closed in his absence but promised he would be back as soon as he was able.
That had been five weeks ago and still he hadn’t returned. Sam was beginning to worry about him.
The last few times she had visited the campus, the wall and its portrait had still been there staring at her with dead eyes as she’d wondered what had happened to her friend. She was growing increasingly anxious at his absence.
However, that night she had managed to find a little peace in the sky and as she glided on her huge bat-like wings over the cliffs of Monterrey and took deep breaths of the icy breeze, she was already beginning to feel calmer and more centered.
Sam remembered the first conversation she’d had with Archibald about the old, sinister spirit… no, call it what it was, a demon… that inhabited her and generated her immortality. The story had been fantastical. It had all the elements of a great TV series… if only there wasn’t already one airing on the CW network… and Sam had mentioned as much during their talk.
Sam had just brought the diamond medallion, the same one she’d recovered off Detective Hanner’s dead body, for Max to take a look at. They’d been discussing her streak of luck at having all four medallions come into her possession when they had sort of gone off on a tangent. Sam remembered him saying:
“Back to the medallion… as I’d been saying, it needed to find its way into the world.”
“Yes, I got that. But my question is, why did we have to go through all that?”
“Haven’t you figured it out by now, Sam?”
“Figured out what?”
“All this had to happen, exactly as it did, so that it could find you. On its own.”
“You do realize that you could have just given it to me, right?” she said. “It could have saved us both a lot of time.”
“Yes, I guess I could have done that. But what fun would that have been? Furthermore, that’s not quite the way it works, Sam. For starters, there was no real way for me to know it was meant for you. Not until I’d met you anyway and certainly not until it was clear that there was something particularly uncanny about how you managed to keep gathering the medallions.”
“So, it’s not surprising to you that I have this one, is it?”
“No, Sam, not in the least. What I would have found surprising is if our Detective Hanner had figured out how to unlock it.”
“But she couldn’t?”
“No. Despite her very valiant efforts to do so.”
“I take it there’s more to it than just wearing it?”
“A tad bit more.”
As usual, the over-sized, ancient-looking books that filled the nearby shelves were freaking her out. They looked dark and felt dark… the fact was, they were dark. And evil. Some infinitely worse than others.
“Why me?” she asked suddenly. “Why is it that I’m finding all these medallions? I mean… I’m just me, I’m no one special. I’m just a mom who took a jog at the wrong time, to the wrong place and got attacked a long time ago.”
As she spoke, Sam couldn’t help but notice the Librarian’s demeanor softening. He set the medallion down on the desk, near her drumming fingers and took a deep breath. For the first time ever, she saw the young man who wasn’t young express real emotions. And the emotion that Sam saw in his face was heartbreak.
She looked at the medallion, and then, looked him in the eyes. Sam couldn’t read his mind, but it was easy to sense that there was something big going on there. She sensed it from deep inside her, it was instinctual, almost visceral. In fact, Sam was certain it was coming from her... the demon that lived inside her.
A cold shiver ran up and down her spine. “The demon inside me...” she began, but Sam was unable to find the words to explain with Archibald looking at her the way he was. There was so much emotion there that it was breaking her heart for reasons she didn’t know.
“She wasn’t always a demon,” he finished. “She was my mother… once upon a time.”
The revelation had blown Sam’s mind and even after everything that had happened since that conversation, it was still game changing.
Chapter Two
It was very difficult to be a witch in the twenty-first century, much less to be a necromancer who’d been cast out of her coven of two-and-a-half centuries. But it seemed that after so many years of looking past her short comings, the other witches of the Citadel Coven had finally had all that they would take of Catalina Caruso.
To Catalina, they were weak and on the road to extinction. She was sure she would outlive them all. They were too soft and too eager to resign themselves to a life of fitting in and eeking out a modest living from a population of regular people who grew more and more skeptical of the existence of magic as each day passed by.
They had become tea leaf and palm readers, fortune tellers, potion makers and house blessers… weaklings! As far as Catalina was concerned, they were a disgrace to the very magic they were born to wield and had the power to use. In addition to all that, they had turned their backs on her, all because she had dared to bring their attention to the truth.
Things grew even more complicated when meteorologists began to talk about the same rare and prophetic planetary alignment that Catalina had warned the coven members was coming soon. For thirty days between January and February, seven of the brightest planets in our Solar System would align and appear brightly in the sky for the whole world to see. Not many on Earth knew the significance of the cosmic event and it angered the witch that those around her who should have known better, had decided to watch it with equally as blind eyes as everyone else.
“Let’s those with eyes see and those with ears hear,” Catalina mumbled to herself as she stood at the crafting table in her new coven’s lycée. It wasn’t a fancy space but it was well equipped the twelve girls had seen diligently to that.
She’d attached herself to a small group of wiccans in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district and managed to organize them into a rather eager and potent group of casters. They were inquisitive and impressionable and excited to learn that something big was going to happen, that things meant something, that they had a purpose and a role to play.
Oh, the angst! Catalina thought grinning to
herself.
They had brought mortars and pestles and crystals, bowls, books and furniture and filled the place with everything that would make it functional. The postage stamp sized garden in the tiny backyard had been weeded and replenished with all the staple herbs and plants needed to make good spells and the shelves of the little downstairs kitchen had been stocked with jars of various other ingredients and objects. The screened in porch outside the kitchen door was full of the plants from Catalina’s private collection. They hung in baskets, clung to tree stumps, flourished in vessels of enriched water and some even twined their Viney stems up the wooden columns of the structure and looped themselves through the eaves to hang languidly.
The lycée was beautiful and together the thirteen witches it housed would make it a resounding success; especially when they brought the spirit of the witch queen back.
Ever since she was a child, she’d been told the stories about Himiko, the witch queen of Wa. Most importantly, she’d been told of a prophecy that revealed Himiko’s return to earth to rule over the true witch covens. When the time was right, a brave caster—a gifted necromancer— would harness the power of a supernatural being and resurrect the witch queen.
The legend had grown to be just that… a legend… a bedtime story that wiccans told their children and the faith dedicated to the belief in Himiko and her return to power was lost with the passing of time. But Catalina believed that she had seen the signs that heralded the return of the queen. When she had brought the grimoires to Harriet, the grand witch of her coven, the old woman had laughed Catalina to scorn.
“Fairy tales, Catalina!” Harriet scoffed. “Utter and complete nonsense. There is no mystical witch who is going to be brought back from the dead to raise all the witches on earth back to their power and status and all that hogwash.” Harriet paused for effect as she extended her arms and spun around the center of the coven’s meeting room slowly. “This is all there is Catalina and that’s the fact of it. Put your head down, pay attention to your lessons and turn your studies to something more useful than that rubbish. Then maybe we can finally see some of that potential we all saw in you a few years ago.”
