Witchling Wars

by Shawn Knightley

  “So you drugged me?” I said, shooting Tobias a look of disbelief. “Again?”

  Daniel groaned. “That’s a bit dramatic.”

  ‘Am I seriously the only one in the room who thinks that’s wrong?’

  “Is it?” I asked. “Even most humans are against giving someone drugs without their consent.”

  “He did permit me this though,” Tobias continued. “I must admit, I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.” Tobias held up a small vial of the potion I had brewed. Or something very similar. It was the same hue and the same bubbly texture. Which meant…

  ‘Oh god. Tobias was there. He saw everything.’

  He saw my sister treating me with vixra magic. He saw me in that fancy dress. He saw Nathaniel kiss me. And he heard everything Arthur had said.

  I was suddenly shy. I didn’t want to look at Tobias. At Daniel. At anyone. I wanted to shrink into a shell and never come out. There was no place in the world where I could get privacy anymore. I was better off not expecting it in the future.

  “Leave us,” Tobias said to Daniel.

  Daniel closed a briefcase full of various glass utensils and small vials of potions I had never seen before, all glowing in the dimly lit room in various bright colors. The human part of me was fascinated. The witchling part curious. I wanted to know what each one did. And yet, I figured I was better off not knowing. I was still a kruxa after all. Blessed and burdened by my magic.

  Daniel took the briefcase in his hand and headed for the front door.

  Tobias leaned back in the chair to examine me. He didn’t speak until Daniel was completely out of earshot.

  “You will be pleased to know that I’m not going to hold you to your end of our bargain,” he said. “I didn’t return your sister as requested, so I don’t expect anything. But understand one thing, Harper. I have very little tolerance for competition. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t thrive on it. I simply crush it.”

  ‘Is he threatening Nathaniel?’

  I could feel my cheeks turning bright red. And as much as I wanted to send a nasty look in his direction, my eyes were glued to the floor. Brian invaded my mind and made me believe I had kissed Nathaniel, awakening a desire in me I never thought I’d feel again. And when it actually happened, when Nathaniel laid his lips on mine in Eli’s home, I wasn’t alone either. Our intimate moment was shared by Tobias.

  I could sense the jealousy piercing through Tobias’s skin, radiating off his body and rushing into mine.

  “I don’t know what it is you see in me,” I mumbled. “Is it just the prospect of being able to become mortal again? Is it as simple as that? Because as much as you don’t like competition, I really don’t like the idea of being used.”

  “Turning mortal now would be a massive inconvenience,” he said. His voice was harsh. Stern. If not downright authoritarian. He was telling me exactly how things would be and leaving very little room for debate. “I need my vampire senses now more than ever if we are going to accomplish the impossible.”

  I didn’t need an explanation to know what the impossible was. Hunting down the former members of the Catach-Brayin. Trapping them. Forcing them to pledge an oath of allegiance. And if they refused, kill them.

  Tobias stood up from the chair and walked over to me. I refused to stand and meet his eyes. I refused to even look at him. I must have looked like a spoiled child being told right from wrong. Only when the thought occurred to me did I let my eyes meet his and I stood up from the couch, trying my best to hang on to any defiance I had left inside of me.

  I was a kruxa. He was a vampire. Maybe a powerful one. Maybe one that could tear my head off. But I wasn’t going to be talked down to. Not by any vampire. Never again would I allow them to manipulate me. Never again would I allow them to hold me hostage. I may have had to do what the vixra wanted but I would never be enslaved to a vampire’s will.

  He saw the defiance in my eyes. He met it with equal strength. And I knew that I would never allow myself to fear him again. I would never allow myself to feel inferior. And I would only mark him if he proved himself worthy.

  Just as the thought entered my brain he moved closer to me. He dared bring his hand up to me. My magic crept through my hands without me summoning it. Without me telling it to do what I willed. And it wasn’t warning me of a vampire being too close either.

  I gasped in horror and backed away from him. My magic wasn’t protecting me. It was trying to mark him!

  He snickered at me. “When the time is right, Harper, I don’t think your blood will give you a choice in the matter. But by all means, keep believing you have one if it helps you sleep better at night. Just remember what I said. I don’t take kindly to competition. I will always crush it.”

  “You need Nathaniel! You wanted him to lead the-” I stopped mid-sentence, realizing my error too late. The Catach-Brayin was no more. They had disbanded. Ragna and Brian were both dead. And the vampire coven would only exist if we succeeded in rounding up the remaining vampires who didn’t turn to ash in the cavern. Unless… Tobias no longer wished for him to lead. Unless… Tobias killed Nathaniel.

  “I don’t need anyone, Harper. Least of all Nathaniel. I pursue women because I want to. I turn vampires into my personal assassins because I want to. I even allow kruxa to live because I want to. And I can always change my mind.”

  With that, he turned away from me and walked out of the living room.

  “Get some rest, Harper. Tomorrow you will start to learn how to hunt vampires. A skill I’m sure kruxa over the centuries would have appreciated. Make your ancestors proud.”

  Then he was gone. And I was left in a state of stunned silence.

  I knew when Nathaniel was angry at me that I wouldn’t be on the receiving end of his frustrations. Especially after I learned the truth. That Nathaniel had watched over my family for years and wouldn’t ever harm me. Tobias wasn’t like that. And it was foolish of me to think for even a moment that I shouldn’t fear him.

  For whatever reason, my magic wanted to mark him. More than Nathaniel. More than anyone. And when the time was right or maybe even before it wouldn’t give me the option. I would be his and he would be mine. But not before I helped him. Not before I did the will of the vixra.

  My life was no longer my own. Hunting down vampires would be the only sense of control I might have for years to come. And if being one of the hunted for so many centuries taught my kind anything, it’s that freedom is earned. Not given. If a bunch of vampires had to die so I could have some sense of control over my life again, I would give Arthur and the rest of the vixra what they wanted. But make no mistake. I would do it for me and me only. I did what was best for Madison. For Emily. For Eli. Now I had to look out for myself. If I was going to survive this, I had to think of my own well-being for once. Everyone else be damned.

  THE END OF BOOK THREE

  DEATH HUNT

  BOOK IV

  Chapter 1

  A light breeze wafted through the alleyways of each building, flowing through the loose strands of my hair that came loose from the long braid cascading down my back. The wind was just enough to let me know that I wasn’t entirely there. At least physically. My body was stationary. My consciousness, however, was about half a mile away. Weaving through the streets and searching for my target.

  Nathaniel watched me from a few feet away, allowing his eyes to linger over my body as I released all the tension gathering in my shoulders and focused as hard as I could. He wasn’t exactly making it easy on me. I could sense his hunger. And I wasn’t entirely sure it was for blood. Or even the thrill of the hunt. Not with him watching me like he was. There was a desire there that he desperately tried to keep hidden and under very strict control. But I could feel it. It was faint under his invisible armor but it was still tangible.

  ‘Good way to keep a girl distracted, Nathaniel.’

  My sight began to change. There was a young man running away from me. A teenager around the age of fourteen. A scar
ed kid trying to get away from something terrifying. Or so anyone else might think if they were up at this crazy hour of the night.

  I knew better.

  He was at least one hundred years old. A vampire who had been absorbed into the Catach-Brayin. He was fortunate enough to gain an audience with Tobias Vallas who saw him as somewhat worthy of a place inside the most powerful coven in the Western world. I first saw him when I descended down the secret steel funnel passageway through the Library of Congress right before I was presented to Tobias Vallas. He told me to follow him. Now I was chasing him.

  ‘I remember you. It’s hard to forget the face of a young man that wanted to drain me dry.’

  “Well?” an impatient voice asked from a few feet away.

  “Shh!” I hushed him.

  Carlton wasn’t a patient man, as I quickly learned the more I was around him. But he proved a quick study when it came to hunting down other vampires. The man had a fire to him that made me understand why Tobias thought he could propel him into the White House. Only Carlton’s ambitions weren’t for politics anymore. They were for vengeance. His eagerness for the chase, the fight, and the final kill was so potent to my senses that it could have knocked me over if I wasn’t already trying so hard to concentrate.

  Between the two of them, I had to use my magic just to stay on task and not let their emotions take over me completely.

  “Be quiet and let her focus,” Nathaniel barked at him. And good thing too. Nathaniel was the only man Carlton would listen to. I was starting to wonder if there was some sort of bond between a newly made vampire and the vampire who turned him because Carlton was usually quick to obey him.

  ‘Seriously? Now? Of all times?’

  I couldn’t try manipulating my visions anymore without Emily making her presence known and distracting me. She brought so much emotional transference that my vision started to blur. The vampire running from me only appeared in flashes. I dug my feet into the ground, refusing to let Emily ruin tonight’s hunt.

  ‘Don’t you dare. Not right now.’

  She was there. I could sense her. Lurking behind me and dying to take a slash at my body just like she had when I was on the witness stand at Carlton’s trial.

  ‘You can haunt me all you want later. I’m trying to save lives here.’

  I slowly let the vision retake control of my senses. It had been three weeks since Tobias started giving me lessons on how to navigate them. Since I agreed to let him teach me and make use of what little witchling magic I had in my veins.

  He hadn’t been lying. He knew how to navigate kruxa visions and see things I never knew were possible. In ways that I really needed. Especially for hunting.

  The young man, no, the vampire, ran as fast as his vampire speed would allow him. He raced from street corner to street corner. Taking a few seconds to hide where ever possible, assess where he was, then run again. When he dared look back he didn’t see anyone following him. Not Nathaniel. Not Carlton. Not even me.

  Little did he know that they weren’t his immediate problem. I was.

  “I see him,” I said quietly.

  “And?” Nathaniel asked.

  “He ran down passed Ford’s Theatre. No, wait! He turned,” I hesitated. He was moving so fast I could hardly see the street signs. “Now he’s down 9th Street headed northwest. We have to move!”

  Nathaniel didn’t waste any time. He grabbed me by the arm and ran as fast as he could with Carlton not far behind. I was used to moving at vampire speed now. Mostly because I closed my eyes and stiffened my neck to avoid whiplash. He turned around the same street corners. The same alleys. The same place where I knew the vampire would be.

  “Now!” Nathaniel shouted.

  In the darkness of the street, I shot my magic through my hand and opened up a vixra tunnel. We ran straight through. I didn’t give my eyes the opportunity to get used to the brightness or the long drop off on either side before I launched out of the other end.

  We were in front of a Greek restaurant with tall windows scaling the sides. And the vampire was running right toward me, peering back to see if anyone was following him.

  I thrust my magic high in the air creating a dark gray cloud of smoke, casting a shadow over any cameras in the area. Washington D.C. was full of them. You couldn’t blow your nose without someone watching. It was honestly a brilliant place for a vampire to hide. In plain sight. But not with witchlings around. Particularly one with a secret weapon provided by a very old and powerful vixra.

  ‘Think fast, asshole!’

  The vampire was running right in our direction. We were ahead of him in a way he could never see coming.

  Carlton didn’t waste a single second. He spotted the vampire the moment he came out the other end of the vixra tunnel behind me and collided with him, ramming their bodies into a building and causing glass on both sides to shatter in sharp shards to the ground. I could swear that I heard a rumble from the foundations shaking as the glass came crashing into to the concrete outside.

  ‘So much for subtlety.’

  Carlton pinned him to the beams with the vampire desperately trying to fight his way out. It was no use. Nathaniel had been training Carlton with very small amounts of vixra blood to make him stronger, faster, and more powerful than he ever imagined possible. To say Carlton enjoyed it would be an understatement.

  There are few things in this world that I hate to see so much as a vampire in their wildest state. A state where they snarl and hiss and try slashing anything in their path. It was only magnified once they realized they had been caught and might not live to see another moon-rise.

  Nathaniel and I walked up behind Carlton as he held the vampire down. He only got more desperate once he saw Nathaniel beside me.

  “Make room,” I told Carlton. He moved his body slightly to the right, giving me just enough space to get a clean shot.

  I took Caleb’s gun out from my belt and aimed it directly at the vampire’s stomach. The gun went off with hardly even a sound thanks to the silencer Tobias provided. The bullet soared through the air and lodged right into the vampire’s side. He screamed bloody murder before Carlton moved back into place and held him down until he was too weak to continue fighting.

  The vampire didn’t heal and regain his strength. He fell to the ground and slammed onto his back with his hands clawing at the bullet wound, only to realize that his hands would never heal what was taking place inside his body.

  “What magic is this?” he shouted at me as Nathaniel and I stared down at him.

  “The bullets are full of a potion brewed by a powerful luxra,” said Nathaniel as he knelt down next to the helpless vampire. There was something stoic about the way he watched the vampire beneath him. He was detached. Not a shred of empathy passed through his body. The vampire beneath him was nothing more than a man who refused to better himself. And Nathaniel didn’t mind showcasing his dominance as he stared down at him with dispassionate eyes.

  I watched the vampire on the ground as he thrashed from right to left. I could see the potion running through his veins inside his deathly pale skin. It was bright blue and coursing faster than human blood, completely paralyzing him.

  Nathaniel watched as he struggled in vain. “The bullets burst open inside the body and make one a bit…uncomfortable. But then again, I’m sure you know that by now.”

  Nathaniel was downright frightening when he wanted to be. I didn’t want to imagine what it felt like to be the vampire on the ground at that moment with a Viking god-like figure peering down at him as if he was some sort of rat. A rat who couldn’t possibly be worthy of the presence of a man who wore pristine suits and spent ages practicing discipline over his vampire urges. And even with a lowly kruxa like me watching, I knew it was true.

  I already knew what it felt like to have Nathaniel threaten me with a knife. Not knowing if he meant to kill me and shaking to my core. It was a fear I never wanted to feel again.

  He continued to grunt as his limbs lost
more and more strength. It wasn’t a pleasant sight to watch. And yet, there was a certain satisfaction I got from it. For all I knew this vampire might have killed my kind over the years. As well as countless humans. It was a small shred of justice considering he probably deserved much worse.

  “I’m going to give you a choice, Alexander,” Nathaniel said with both his hands atop his knee, as though he were kneeling to inspect some mold on the ground. I didn’t know Nathaniel knew him by name. But when I saw their eyes meet, it was obvious they knew one another. And that they were never particularly fond of each other. The coven forced them to comply, behave, and be civil to one another. All that was gone now. “I’m the new coven master of the Catach-Brayin. I want nothing more than to restore it to its former glory and bring it even more prestige in the coming centuries ahead. I’m offering you the chance to be a part of that. If you refuse, I will have no choice but to end your pitiful life.”

  “That’s not a choice,” Alex snapped at him.

  “It’s a choice of life or death. And one you’re not entirely worthy of given you’ve murdered four people in the last three weeks. I am well within my rights as coven master to end you. But I’m offering you an opportunity to better yourself. To become something greater.”

  “Like you?” Alex laughed. “The coven always laughed at you behind your back. Nathaniel Stapleton, the man who was so determined to not be a vampire that he abandoned his true nature.”

  “Did you feel less like yourself under the leadership of Tobias Vallas?”

  The vampire beneath him made a face that couldn’t be described as anything other than pure disgust. He felt betrayed by Tobias. He couldn’t believe Nathaniel would utter his name. I could feel the defiance permeating from his skin and lashing out at Nathaniel.

  “Very well,” said Nathaniel. Without so much as another word, Nathaniel placed both his hands around Alexander’s neck and severed his head from his body with one loud crack of the bones breaking and his flesh being torn in two.