Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2)

by Shawn Knightley

  I didn’t have much time to think about it.

  My attention turned back to the two balls of red light Victor was weaving in his hands. The two combined and started spinning even faster. He raised my staff in the air and directed the ball of light above both me and Tobias. He molded the lock with the key.

  I could feel my life force leaving me. Whatever energy it was that kept me alive and reincarnating all these centuries had been stripped from me.

  “Opening the bridge requires a bit of sacrifice, kruxa,” Victor said in the echoing hollow space of my mind. I was in such a daze that I could barely make sense of his words. “Several witchlings, vampires, and enough human blood to flood a river. Elements of both earth and the magical realm.”

  A smile crossed his face as he settled his body back down to the ground and thrust of the ball of light out of his hands and over the hillside opposite the highway. It crash landed into the rocks and exploded. The bright flash of light burst over the horizon. It was almost more than I could handle. I squinted my eyes as the unthinkable happened.

  A veil between realms was opening up. A bridge was forming over the hillside, rising into the sky and leading toward the unknown in a luminous array of white light.

  ‘He’s done it. He’s opened up the link between realms.’

  13

  The only good thing about that damn link being open was that it had Victor completely distracted. If not entranced.

  He turned around and went to the edge of the highway, leaping through the air to the hillside and approaching the bridge once it reached the ground and touched the earth with a thunderous crack.

  Tobias and I fell to the wet ground below us. The hole in my chest wasn’t healing. At least not fast enough. Being a vampire didn’t seem to help me out much. And Victor had drained the crowning magic from my body to open the link. I felt as helpless as I did when I was a lowly kruxa.

  I tried lifting myself up but the pain in my chest was too much. Blood started oozing from the corner of my mouth. My head fell to the side and I saw Tobias laying on the ground next to me. He was still paralyzed. And yet, his eyes were wide open and drained of all emotion. Victor still had him under his luring spell.

  “Oh, for god’s sake,” Liza whined as she walked through the puddles of water with the smack of her bare feet. Her shoes and a good portion of her clothes had burned right off her body, leaving her nearly exposed. She was healing slowly from the burns of the luxra magic. Just enough to keep her wits about her.

  She took a knife from the back pocket of one of the mercenaries and sliced her wrist with the edge of the blade. Then she pried my jaw open with her fingers and forced her blood down my throat.

  ‘Why isn’t she lured along with everyone else? How is she keeping her mind free of Victor?’

  Then it hit me. I had unlured her back inside the caverns of Mount Evans. It must have had some sort of lasting effect. But it didn’t work on Tobias. He was still lured.

  ‘Victor made Tobias a vampire. He must have some sort of special hold over him.’

  Liza’s blood soothed the rabid thirst at the back of my throat. But that wasn’t all. She had the vixra blood Tobias gave her in her body. It was running through me with wondrous and divine energy in a matter of seconds.

  I rolled over and waited as the vixra blood healed the wound on my chest and watched as Liza fed Tobias from her wrist once she was done with me, giving him some of her vixra laced blood.

  The second she was done and Tobias was able to blink an eye Liza rushed away and went right over to Lenora, smacking her across the face then pointing the rifle at her head.

  “Where is he?” Liza demanded.

  Lenora didn’t seem to know where she was let alone that she was being threatened.

  “Where’s my brother Ryker?”

  Liza smacked Lenora across the face once more and I saw Lenora starting to come around. As if something inside of her had shifted. The hold that Victor had over her was slowly fading. And when I looked back to the bridge forming against the rocky hillside I knew why. His focus was elsewhere. On his life long work of opening up the bridge between realms.

  “One of the Gandira secret locations,” Lenora answered her, slowly realizing where she was but still unable to really grasp what was happening. I could sense her panic mounting with each quickening beat of her heart.

  “Where?” Liza demanded. “Tell me!”

  “NORAD in Colorado Springs. You’ll never get in. It’s being guarded by luxra from my coven,” Lenora blurted out once she saw Tobias and I were barely moving. There was no one to help her.

  Liza’s gaze shifted from Lenora to Victor. Then she shook her head and slowly started backing away. “We’ll see about that. It always comes down to me.”

  With one good clean sweep, she thrust the hilt of the rifle into Lenora’s head and knocked her completely unconscious before dashing away. She was gone before I could even guess which direction she went. Not that it mattered. I knew exactly where she was going.

  ‘You are the definition of a reckless vampire. Even when Victor isn’t luring you.’

  Tobias was right about one thing. Vampires share a strange bond. But ultimately they’re most guided by where their next meal comes from. In Liza’s case, I gathered it was most likely whoever was guarding her brother inside NORAD.

  I finally managed to get my energy back and rose to my feet. In the distance, I saw Victor on top of the hillside. He lifted my staff in the air and wielded the crowning magic toward the sky, forcing the bridge to widen enough for him to enter. Something was stopping him from passing through. He tried to take a single step forward onto the bridge, to cross over the link between realms and go back to where he assumed he belonged.

  He was blocked. His hand touched an invisible wall, stopping him from taking even a single step farther.

  His fury consumed his senses. I stood on the highway, watching him grow furious as he tried to force his way onto the bridge and pointing my staff at it. The crowning magic struck the invisible wall before him and dissolved into nothing. And I knew why.

  He failed to kill Tobias and me. He may have managed to kill the soldiers and mercenaries. Even a few members of the Catach-Brayin. But Tobias and I didn’t die.

  Tobias was still healing from the paralysis. The vixra blood hadn’t finished the job. Lenora was unlured but unconscious. And a fair number of witchlings from her coven were dying from their burns.

  No one else could possibly stop Victor.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong Liza. Somehow it always comes down to me. Not you.’

  Kitty awoke from the side of the highway and flapped her wings. With a shake of her head, she was back to life. Lenora never got the chance to cast the spell ending her immortality. I wanted to reach for her. To stroke her wings and tell that stupid bird that I was so thrilled she was still alive. I restrained myself. There wasn’t enough time for such indulgences.

  “Kitty,” I spoke softly. “Follow Liza. Keep me informed of where she goes.”

  She flew into the air and did as I asked just before Victor turned away from the hillside, realizing exactly what had gone wrong.

  This man had cast a spell on me and Tobias for centuries, hiding away his lock and key to open the link between realms. He forced Tobias and me apart. He ruined each and every life I lived. He even killed me in a few.

  It had to end. Here and now.

  I let the vixra magic inside my body flow through me. I had used it enough over the years to know exactly how to summon it, channel it, and use it to my advantage. But I always used it as a kruxa. Not a vampire. I placed my hand delicately on the ground beneath me and tried doing exactly what Christophe showed me. Then I let out the elemental magic inside me. This time, I used a gust of air. One that was strong enough to lift me off the ground and let me land right alongside the hill where Victor stood. Only when I came down I took him by surprise. He expected me to land as I descended back to the earth. But I waited in the
air a few seconds longer and pulled my arm back, ripping the staff right out of his hands and into mine.

  ‘Now it’s a fair fight.’

  “You think so, kruxa? You know how old I am. You know I’m always inside your mind. I always have been. Yet you stand before me with such arrogance.”

  “Not arrogance,” I hissed. “Rage.”

  I let the vixra magic inside me stir out of my palm as the wind picked up all around us. It was the only thing I could think of to distract him. I knew the odds were against me. He had crowning magic and years of being a vampire to rely on. I hadn’t been a vampire even a week. And my vixra magic could easily drain from my body. I needed to fix that.

  With one large jolt of the vixra magic from the staff, I pointed it directly at him, striking him directly in the chest. And with every fiber of my being, I pulled out all the crowning magic that I could, channeling it into the staff. To my shock, it came back to me. It abandoned his body as if it had been waiting for me to possess it once more. Or perhaps it found me a more worthy vessel.

  Victor roared in anger as the magic tore from his body and went right into the staff. Then it trailed out of it and soaked through to my skin and limbs. I could feel the crowning magic taking over my senses and giving me back the power he stripped away. Whatever he had done when he first gave me crowning magic ensured that he didn’t have as much control over it as he once did. Magic is strange in that way. It bonds with us. Like a child bonds to its mother. It lives and breathes inside of us like an extra limb that depends on our survival to thrive. And for whatever reason, it was no longer thriving inside of Victor. At least the portion he had given to me only to take it away.

  I let the magic stir from my skin and spiral out of the staff, pointing it directly at him and readying myself for whatever would come.

  He didn’t hesitate before slamming his hands together and throwing an energy force of his magic directly at me like a guided missile. It crashed into the magic flaring between us, sending sparks flying all over the rocky hillside and lighting up the morning sky as the sun started to climb over the horizon.

  The bridge glowed in an array of light behind us. I could feel its pull drawing me in closer, wanting me to feel what it was like to pass through it. To go home to our realm where witchlings belonged. Where we originally came from. I wanted to see it. To feel it and know the answers to all the questions about my kind that I had longed to have answered for so many years.

  I resisted it. I had to. The bridge couldn’t remain open. It was too dangerous. For humans and witchlings alike. If I didn’t know what was between realms then that meant I couldn’t protect against anything that might wish harm. And I wasn’t about to risk something from the in-between getting through.

  That didn’t stop whatever was there from tempting me.

  “You feel that, kruxa?” Victor screamed at me inside my mind. “That’s your home calling. Our home. We can go back. The two of us. We can be with our own kind again.”

  I kept struggling to keep my magic up, like a shield and a weapon all at once trying to defend me.

  I was using too much of the vixra blood at once. It was starting to leave me. I couldn’t hold onto it forever.

  Victor created a circle with his scarlet red magic and let it funnel around me, closing in and getting closer with each second. He was stronger. And more experienced. He saw me struggling. He sensed the vixra blood inside me weakening. Only he didn’t know how much practice I already had with using crowning magic.

  “You know I can’t pass through,” I shouted at him. “Neither can you. We’re not worthy.”

  He scowled at me. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. “I was born a vixra!” His voice echoed over the hillside. “I’m worthier than you ever will be.”

  “And yet, you will die a lowly vampire.” Tobias stood behind me weaving elemental magic in his hand. He threw it directly at the circle of magic closing in on me and destroyed it. It fell with a clatter to the ground and evaporated into nothing more than a few sparks on the rocks. “Now Lenora!” He screamed.

  A stream of blue light left Lenora’s wand. All her magic burst from her wand and shot through the air like a bolt of lightning.

  The combination of Lenora’s magic, Tobias’s elemental magic, and mine struck Victor all at once with tremendous force. It was only then that I realized just how powerful crowning magic was. Victor was trying to channel their magic once more and lure them into submission.

  He extended his focus to Tobias and Lenora along with the vampires recovering from the fire, desperately trying to hold us all off while regaining control over them. He was trying to lure them all over again. To bend them to his will and get them to do what he pleased. All to conquer me and Tobias. He needed us dead if he was going to find a way to get over the bridge linking our worlds. Two worlds that were never meant to be linked. And it didn’t matter how much a part of me that still felt like a witchling wanted to cross over that bridge and be among my own, I knew I couldn’t allow it to happen.

  This was my home. My coven was in danger. And I had to protect it.

  I shut my eyes as the sparks between our magic continued to shoot out everywhere. I was losing the edge I had over him. But it didn’t matter. Unluring the others was more important.

  I forced my magic into Tobias and down to Lenora and our warriors, doing everything I could to break them free of Victor’s luring ability.

  Blood was seeping out of my nose. I was overextending myself. I didn’t have the skills to hold off Victor. Even with crowning magic.

  “Stop!” Tobias shouted.

  At first, I thought it was at Victor. But it wasn’t. He was shouting at me.

  Tobias withstood the pain of the crowning magic streaming from my body and latched onto me. He dragged me down to the ground and held on tight, refusing to let go even though my magic was hurting him. The power of Victor’s magic shot right over me as I huddled on the ground. Tobias refused to move or let me go. He was protecting me. And to my shock, he wasn’t under Victor’s spell. He wasn’t being lured by him anymore. Something had changed.

  I heard Victor scream at the top of his lungs. Lenora’s magic bolted straight through him as Tobias raised his arm away from me and summoned the vixra magic in his blood. When he did I saw his warriors below on the highway doing the same, channeling their elemental magic in one giant force. A gust of air burst from Tobias’s palm. The air around me swirled in a wave of energy once his warriors magic and his own combined. It hit Victor with a giant gust of wind that nearly took Tobias and me right off the ground. Victor launched through the air over the bridge and into the sky. I could see Lenora’s magic continuing to strike him as he shook uncontrollably. Until he stopped. He was deathly still as his body started free falling. But he didn’t hit the rocks below on the other side of the hill. He disappeared in thin air. Victor fell straight over the bridge and landed between realms. He was trapped inside the in-between. Not in the realm of the living or the realm of the dead. And definitely not in the witchling realm he coveted for over a thousand years. He was where he belonged. Where nothing could grow or thrive.

  I let my crowning magic back into my body. My hand was still latched onto my staff underneath me when Tobias regained his strength from the shock of my magic and stood up.

  “What did I tell you, G?” he said triumphantly. “I wanted the privilege of killing him myself.”

  “You had help,” I insisted.

  He cocked his head as he slowly stood up. “Did I though?”

  ‘Arrogant prick.’

  He extended his hand down to me and I took it, barely managing to get up on my own two feet without his help. The crowning magic helped my body to recover but it wasn’t as fast as I had grown used to. I had just used more of it than I ever thought I would need.

  Tobias took my face into his hands, looking deep inside me and asking without speaking if I was alright. I gave a simple nod. He let go of me, allowing the armor I was so use
d to seeing back up, shutting the doorway that allowed me to see inside of him once more.

  When I looked back down the hillside toward the highway I saw Lenora standing there in her long gown, watching us.

  Her eyes slowly took in the sight around her. The luxra Victor managed to lure from her coven were dead. She was horrified. And scared. I wanted to reach out to her. To thank her and tell her that they didn’t die in vain. If there was ever a worthy cause, I believed taking down Victor was it.

  “I can’t stay here,” she said. Even from the height of the hillside, I could hear her. “He lured other members of my coven. I need to recover and find them.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Home,” she answered quietly. I could hear her voice breaking.

  “Let her go. I will find her in due time. She has a different life now and she needs time to adjust.”

  “How so?”

  “Victor restored her youth to make her magic more powerful. She’ll need to move away and find a safe place where no one will recognize her. I’ll help her with that but she needs time.”

  I shook my head solemnly. “Another victim of Victor’s scheming.”

  “Lenora’s tough. She always has been.”

  “I have no doubt,” I said with a smile. “She endured the likes of you.”

  Lenora lifted her arm in the air above her. A dash of blue light engulfed her and she slowly disappeared right before our eyes.

  “What is she doing?” I asked.

  “Traveling in style isn’t solely restricted to the vixra,” he said with a grin.

  I saw a vampire stirring near one of the tanks. Christophe moved his leg. Then his arm. Then in one swoop he stood up and had a quick look around.

  “I have enough curiosity to wonder but enough sense not to ask,” he said as he took a look at the river of bodies laid out over the highway. The mercenaries were no more. And it didn’t matter that Denver was on lockdown or that it was still early morning. Someone would see.

  I threw up a new shadow charm over the highway and stood there in silence, trying to decide what to do. My thoughts went to Edmund and how he had disposed of unwanted bodies in my vision. And how I turned around to find the mess of the Gandira facility along with Richard Foster’s body had completely disappeared. I shut my eyes and let my magic drift over the ground like a rolling fog. I wasn’t sure what to do other than envision the highway as I once found it. Empty. Before the tanks and armored trucks rolled in and before the battle started.