Fang U

by Mia Archer

  I threw my hands up and the magic that’d been begging for release exploded. The air turned white hot and I looked away as a bright flash of light erupted.

  When I turned back the vampire was flying across the room, still in slow motion. Amber stared with her mouth hanging open. Ivy jumped aside. The vampire dissolved to ash as she flew across the room.

  Yuck. Vampire dust. I did not want to breathe that stuff in.

  I wheeled on Ivy. Every fiber of my being was telling me I needed to unleash the magic on her too. It begged to be let free, a seductive voice in the back of my mind telling me to kill, but I had my mission.

  I was to find the vampires and report on them. Not exact my own vengeance. Even if the magic sang to me. Called for their blood. Begged to turn them to dust.

  I blinked. No one had ever described the magic like this. What was wrong with me?

  Still, I couldn’t bring myself to kill Ivy. I couldn’t run either. Not and leave Amber behind.

  Ivy turned on me and I cried out. One moment she was at the other end of the room, and the next she stood right in front of me. Her eyes bored into mine and it felt like she was looking straight into my soul. I went weak in the knees as a tingling ran all over my body. I licked my lips and forced myself to meet her gaze.

  They were too intense. There was a fire burning behind them that would burn me to a cinder if I stared too long. This was Ivy in her full power. Not holding back as she had before.

  A hand brushed against my chin. Pulled my gaze up until our eyes met once more. The hint of a smile played across her face.

  “You were able to hold my gaze,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

  I forced myself to look at her with a confidence I didn’t feel. My legs were wobbling. Shaking under her gaze, and it had nothing to do with her vampirism and everything to do with her.

  “You killed my friend,” I hissed.

  I realized, too late, exactly what I was doing. I was talking to a vampire who’d already shown she was more than willing to kill when the mood struck her. And I was threatening her. Was I next?

  Though there was a part of me that whispered she wouldn’t do something like that. Not to me. That she wasn’t a monster. That part of me shrieked that she didn’t kill Selene, but I knew what I’d seen in Selene’s memories.

  Damn it. I was not going to be like one of those stupid girls who got all weak in the knees back in middle school reading about vampires that sparkled. Besides, this one had as much in common with the sparkling vampires as a wolf had with a chihuahua.

  After a long pause she finally spoke in a hiss. “You’ve done me a favor this evening and you don’t even know it, witch.”

  I arched an eyebrow in confusion, but before I could ask her what she meant a moan from the other end of the room pulled my attention away from Ivy .

  Diana was getting to her feet, though she looked about as wobbly as I felt. For some reason that one hadn’t gotten the full force of the magic like the other, and she was still mostly intact instead of being turned to ash.

  She looked at me with genuine fear in her eyes. Odd, that, and yet it made me feel powerful at the same time. These vampires were afraid of me. And they should be afraid of me. The magic pulsed in me. Crackled with the energy that drove the universe.

  I could unleash it and kill them all. The magic sang for it. As though that was its sole purpose as it coursed through me.

  I sighed. I wasn’t going to do that. I couldn’t do that to Ivy .

  “So what happens now?” I asked, trying to project a confidence I still didn’t quite feel.

  “I should kill you,” she said. “I have orders to kill you, you know.”

  I blinked at how matter of fact she was. She talked about killing me like someone might talk about getting rid of bugs infesting their house.

  “I’m not going to let you kill me or my friend,” I said.

  Ivy held up a hand and her claws were out. The magic had ebbed after that last attack, but something pulsed deep inside me again. My breath came in ragged gasps and it was all I could do to hold it together as panic welled up and threatened to take control. Threatened to lash out with the power building in me.

  That panic wasn’t at the thought she might not let us go. It was at the thought of what I would do to her if she wouldn’t let us go.

  “I don’t think I could keep you here if I wanted,” Ivy finally said.

  “I’d like to see you try,” I said.

  I would like to see her try. There was still a part of me that wanted her to wrap her arms around me. Keep me here. My voice cracked and the air around me seemed to crackle with the raw energy of my panic and anger.

  “You need not worry,” she said. “I’m going to see to it that you’re taken to safety.”

  “What about that poor girl?” I asked, nodding to Sadie who was barely hanging on.

  Ivy grimaced. Now there was an odd expression. I never stopped to grimace over a nice steak dinner, but then again the steak dinner couldn’t hold a conversation with me before it was chopped up.

  “That is… unfortunate. However I can give you the small comfort of knowing that very shortly you won’t remember that any of this ever happened.”

  What she said didn’t register until it was too late. I’d allowed myself to be distracted by poor Sadie bleeding out and that was all the opening Ivy needed.

  It hit me like a ton of bricks. A shade that closed in over my mind. More powerful than anything Diana had done to me. Far more powerful than what Ivy had done to me without thinking at that party.

  I swayed back and forth. The magic pulsed and tried to fight it, but she was so powerful and I was so exhausted. She deftly stepped in and took control in my moment of weakness.

  A moment of weakness that made me shiver as she leaned in closer. So very close. Close enough that I could feel the heat of her breath on my skin, which caused goose bumps to trail up and down my body.

  Odd. she was undead. I wouldn’t have thought her breath would be warm considering she wasn’t alive.

  Her head moved to the side and panic hit me as I realized she was moving closer and closer to my neck. As I realized I was completely at her mercy. I pushed against the compulsion on my mind.

  I wondered if it would hurt when she bit, but I never got my answer. Instead I felt her breath caressing my ear as she whispered.

  “It’s a shame it’s come to this. I won’t forget you, Lisa, but I’m afraid you can’t remember me.”

  “What are you…”

  “Sleep,” she said. “All of this was a bad dream that never happened.”

  That darkness that had threatened when Diana tried to get me to do her bidding came back, but it was overwhelmingly powerful coming from Ivy.

  And I wasn’t going to let it happen. I floated in that void again. Dark clouds moved in to separate me from the magic. I knew that to be the compulsion moving in.

  No. I pushed. Harder than I ever had before. The magic that’d been moving away suddenly surged into me again, and when I opened my eyes Ivy was skidding across the floor. Lights went out all around me, but I could still see just fine in the darkness.

  Because there wasn’t darkness with the glow of the magic surrounding me.

  30

  Lisa

  Ivy stared up at me, and she looked terrified. Just as terrified as Diana had been.

  Diana. I’d almost forgotten Diana in my desire to escape. I looked over to her, and she scrambled away from me as well.

  That didn’t matter. I could see the darkness in her soul. I could see everything about her because the magic was with me, and there was no denying the force that controlled the world.

  I held a hand up and Diana rose on eddies of magic. Her eyes went wider as she realized what I was doing, but it’s not like there was anything she could do to stop me.

  I gestured for her to come to me. She moved her hands and legs like that was the last thing she wanted to do, but of course there was no denying
the magic as it dragged her across the room. I made another gesture and she flew up. I stared at her in disgust.

  “You’ve made my short time at this school miserable,” I growled. “And I think you’re the whole reason I came here in the first place. I’ll have the truth from you.”

  Her mouth worked, but for once she was the one who was terrified instead of the other way around. It was a pleasant change of circumstances, for all that it felt a little wrong to be using the magic like this.

  Still, the magic sang around me. It clearly didn’t have any trouble doing terrible things. As long as those terrible things were being done to a vampire.

  “I had a friend,” I said. “Dark hair. She was killed in the woods to the north of campus. Tell me about that night.”

  Diana’s eyes darted to the side. Towards Ivy. As though she expected her salvation to come from that direction. Ivy had pulled herself up, but she wasn’t moving any closer to me.

  “Tell her the truth, Diana,” she said. “Tell her what you did that night. Tell her what I’ve been forced to deal with for the past few months because of your idiocy.”

  Diana glared at me. Okay then. If she wasn’t going to talk then I was going to give her a little bit of encouragement.

  The magic started working down at her feet. I wasn’t like some other girl coming to the magic for the first time. I’d spent my entire childhood poring through the books in my mom’s shop. Books about spells. About how to do them. Incantations and motions.

  And I’d gone through them, knowing in my heart that the magic would come to me someday and I would be able to use those spells. Only it turns out that I was using those spells in a way I never would’ve imagined back when I was practicing them so long ago.

  The fire started slow, at first. So slowly that she didn’t seem to know what was happening at first. Ivy actually giggled, a reminder that for as pretty as she was she was also a dangerous bloodsucking vampire, and then Diana started to scream.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  Diana looked down to the spot where her feet were on fire.

  “I learned this from books about modern history,” I said. “We’re talking getting burnt at the stake from the bottom up. Do you want to know what that felt like? Something tells me I can keep you alive for a hell of a lot longer than some of those poor women the world thought were witches lasted with your immortality.

  She threw her head back and screamed as I made a little motion and then the magic hit her in the hands as well. The fire started moving up, blackening her skin, but I stopped the flames down at her feet. Her shoes had burned away, but sure enough her feet started to heal up.

  “Looks like you’re healing up nicely,” I said. “So why don’t you tell me what I want to know before I start hurting you and healing you.”

  Diana turned to Ivy. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I probably should’ve felt bad for her, but it was difficult since I still had the fresh memory of what had happened to poor Selene when she was killed.

  This bitch hadn’t shown my friend any mercy when she killed her, so why the hell should I show her any?

  “Say it,” I said.

  “I’m not going to save your ass,” Ivy said. “The orders I’m under say I’m not supposed to kill your ass. They don’t say anything about someone else killing you.”

  Diana struggled. She kicked and she tried to grab at something, anything, but of course it wasn’t going to do anything to save her ass because she was grasping at the stuff that made her. The stuff that made everything.

  There was no denying the magic or fighting it. Even for a bloodsucking vampire piece of shit.

  “Fine,” she growled. “I did it. I killed the girl!”

  I moved my hand just so. Her neck snapped. I didn’t think that was going to be enough to kill her, but it was satisfying.

  “That’s not going to kill her, you know,” Ivy said. “You have to do it right here.”

  She pointed to her chest. More specifically to the spot where her heart resided. At least I was pretty sure her heart was still there. I honestly wasn’t sure how the fuck any of that worked with vampires, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  But I found myself stepping forward anyway. I put my hand over that spot and locked eyes with Ivy. This time I didn’t pull away from that gaze. This time she was the one who couldn’t hold my gaze.

  I put my hand to her cheek. My hand still glowed with the magic. It seemed to char her skin where my fingers made contact, but she didn’t mind and it healed up as soon as I drew my hands along.

  “Sorry,” I whispered, and the glow diminished.

  I wasn’t sure how I did it. That wasn’t something that was covered in any of the books in my mom’s store. Doing spells once the magic came to you was on thing, but talking about how to get the magic to come to you was something that couldn’t be taught in any book.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said.

  Her eyes darted back and forth now that I was forcing her to hold my gaze.

  “It wasn’t you,” I said. “It was never you.”

  “It was never me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have hurt that girl if I could’ve avoided it. I didn’t know she was a witch until after Diana killed her.”

  “I know,” I said. “I knew it all along, because you were always there. In my dreams. For so long.”

  Odd. She actually seemed surprised at that. She blinked a couple of times and looked to Diana. Like she was trying to focus on anything in the room but the thought of what it meant that she’d been in my dreams.

  “Dream magic,” she muttered. “Very dangerous. You never know when…”

  I stopped whatever she was about to say by pressing my lips against hers. Sure I knew I was kissing a mouth that was full of fangs and might’ve been attached to more than a few human necks as they were being drained, but I didn’t care.

  This was love. This was the girl of my dreams. Literally. That meant that it didn’t have to make sense or necessarily be the right idea. It was the right thing to do, and I didn’t care what the Coven Mother or other vampires or anyone else had to say about it.

  My toes curled under that kiss. She seemed hesitant at first, but only for a moment. Then she melted into me, wrapping her arms around me and pressing that body against mine.

  Oh magic I’d known that would feel incredible, but actually having her pressing against me was still amazing. I gasped, and it was only the sound of something shuffling along behind us that pulled me away from that incredible kiss.

  I wheeled around in time to see Diana lurching towards me. She started on the ground where she’d been dragging herself along, I guess she’d healed up just enough that her nerve endings were making all the right connections, and then she pulled herself up and threw herself at me.

  I moved my hands up without really thinking. I used whatever the hell spell I’d used on the last vampire without knowing what I was doing. It wasn’t like any spell I’d ever heard of before, but it seemed pretty damned effective considering it turned that bitch to dust.

  With the unfortunate side effect being that dust kept moving until it slammed into my face. I was coughing up Diana dust and trying to spit it out and get it out of my eyes.

  “That’s disgusting,” I said.

  “Is it?” Ivy asked.

  I wheeled around to see her standing on the other end of the room with a grin on her face and her arms crossed under a very distracting set of breasts.

  “How did you…”

  “I figured you were going to do something, and I didn’t want to be in between the two of you when whatever that is finally happened,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to need a shower after all this.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Either way you need to get out of here, and now. I’m going to have a hard enough time explaining all of this even if you’re not down here.”

  “But…”

  She was across the room in an instant. Dangerously close t
o me. She looked like she was about to lean in and kiss me again, but then her eyes took in the Diana ash all over me and she seemed to think better of it.

  “We’ll have time again. I promise,” she said. “You need to get out of here alive, though.”

  “This isn’t close to being over, is it?” I asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said, running a clawed thumb along my cheek. “But a part of the story is over, and that’s all you can hope for sometimes.”

  I sighed. Turned to look at Amber who was staring at me with something approaching terror.

  “This isn’t going to be easy with her staring at me like that,” I said. “Not to mention it’s usually not a good idea to have one of the mortals knowing about the whole magic thing.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes. “One of them sees something they aren’t supposed to and all of a sudden it’s nothing but work all day long trying to take care of business. I think I can help you with this, though.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  She smiled. “The whole compulsion thing might not work on you, but I can make Amber forget this terrible night ever happened.”

  I looked at my roommate. She was almost catatonic. Yeah, maybe that would be for the best. I knew I’d want to forget this night if it weren’t for the magic coming to me and that perfect kiss at the end.

  Somehow, despite all the horrible things that’d happened, that made it almost seem worth it. Almost. A girl had died, after all, and on balance getting to suck face with a hot vampire didn’t seem like it was worth the price of a life.

  “Let’s do this,” I said, not quite believing that I was actually working in league with a vampire.

  But oh what a vampire to work with!

  She reached out and took my hand. That felt good. That was something I could get used to. I looked at her and smiled.

  Yeah, this was weird, this was different, but it could work. Maybe. With a little luck and assuming we could somehow avoid an all out war between vampires and witches that could still very much destroy both of our societies.