by Petra Landon
Duncan shot him a glance. That look told Raoul everything. Having Duncan escort the witchling through the woods, with his senses blinded, was too risky. They had to stick together. The two of them would have a better shot at defending her, with their powers weakened.
“Anything else I should know?” He directed at her, his question making it clear what he was asking.
“No.” She shook her head, her eyes darting away from him.
His eyes promised retribution. They were not done yet with this, not by far. But Tasia could not regret it. She had stopped him from pursuing a path she deemed too risky for him.
“Duncan and I will handle this” the Alpha bit out, not bothering to hide his fury. “You will merely use your power to warn us if you sense the leeches or other Chosen in the vicinity. That is the only magic you will use. Is that clear?”
“Crystal” she muttered, imagining what she would like to do to a particular arrogant Shifter one day. Here she was, baring her soul to him, and he was back to being an unfeeling ogre. Didn’t know how to ask for help or even acknowledge it when anyone offered it to him, she mused mutinously.
The Alpha muttered something to Duncan, before striding away.
“Come, Tasia” Duncan said to her. “We’ll retrace our steps back towards the mansion. Just let us know if you sense anyone.”
Although Duncan said nothing else, Tasia thought she detected approval deep in the depths of the brown eyes. She had done the right thing. Duncan had not been keen to have the Alpha hare off into the woods without backup either, she realized. Buoyed by the realization, she fell into step beside him.
The forest teemed with sound, the morning sun flashing through the branches of the trees to show them the way. A far cry from last night when she had struggled in the dark and the rain. Until he had helped her, reminded the voice in her head. As they followed the Alpha, with the sun beating down on them and the songs of birds echoing around them, it was hard to imagine that somewhere in the forest was a girl desperate to escape the horde of leeches hunting her. This nightmarish scenario pricked at Tasia — it mirrored her own terror of the Clan hunting her down in a pack. There had to be a way to help Nandini, she mused, without blindly stumbling around in the dark, hoping to come across her. Her feet followed the Alpha mechanically, her sixth sense on alert for magic in the air, while Tasia’s mind pondered the knotty problem. She might not be able to fight like the Shifters, but there were other ways to help Nandini.
The Alpha had led them nearly a quarter of the way back towards the mansion when Tasia hailed him. He glanced back, eyes simmering with temper, clearly still furious with her.
“Just hear me out” she appealed to him. “The woods are spread out and every second we spend looking for her puts Nandini in more danger.”
Her last statement got through to him, as she had known it would. He directed a sharp glance at her before striding back to where she waited with a silent Duncan beside her.
“Our best bet is to neutralize the Vampire enchantment” Tasia said. “It would unblock your Shifter senses.”
“And Nandini’s” Duncan agreed. That would give the Ancient girl a fair chance. And, with Raoul and him back to full power, she’d have more than a fair chance of escaping these woods.
“I’ve been thinking about it” Tasia explained. “If Duncan is right and the strong enchantment is a result of the Vampires pooling together their individual spells, that means they’re traveling in groups. I don’t see how else they might link their enchantments collectively together.”
“Hmm.” Duncan looked thoughtful, catching on to her. “With our senses blinded, we have a better shot at tracking a large group of leeches in the woods than one Ancient girl.”
“I’m always game to hunt leeches, but we’d need to take a mini army out to undo an enchantment spell so powerful it blinds Wyr senses” the Alpha countered. He didn’t disagree that tracking a group of leeches would be easier in the woods, but time was of the essence here. “Meanwhile, Nandini would still be in the woods, struggling to outrun her mother’s guards.”
“You won’t have to take them out” Tasia offered. “I can break the Blutsaugers’ links to one another. Once that’s gone, so will the collective enchantment blocking you.”
Raoul’s eyes narrowed on her face as Duncan trained a thoughtful eye on her.
For a moment, he was silent, his mind musing on her words.
“I’m guessing you’ve never attempted anything like this before” he said evenly, the temper gone from him.
“I can do it.” Tasia was confident, meeting the gold eyes head on. She had very little experience with Blutsaugers. Her encounters with them had terrified her, more than anything else. But this time, she was determined to do better. With the Shifters’ powers blunted, it was time to step up to the plate. And she was confident that her powers would work spectacularly against the Clan — they were always most effective when deployed on a Blutsauger. She just had to be smart about how she used her magic.
“What makes you so sure, Tasia?” Duncan asked her, in his thoughtful way. He knew she was not one to overpromise on something she could not deliver.
She hesitated, trying to articulate something she did not quite understand herself. Her sixth sense was all about intuition for her — experience and intuition.
“When I sense magic in the air, for me, it’s almost a physical manifestation of it. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like an aura. A living and breathing one. Every Chosen has a unique aura. I sense pulsing colors, brightness and dim spots — that is what helps me gauge the type and power of the magic, as well as identify a Chosen by his magic signature, if you will.”
She shot a sidelong glance at the Alpha but he remained silent, intent on her answer.
“They must have some kind of connection tying their enchantment spells together.” She glanced at Duncan, looking for confirmation. “I should be able to find the link on their magic aura.”
Duncan nodded in answer to her silent query. “Yes, there’s no other way to combine spells that I know of.”
Now, the Alpha spoke up. “You want to sever the links that tie together the spell enchanting the woods. But to do it, we have to get you close enough to the leeches?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I’ve never done anything like this before but I know I can do it.”
Her confidence came through, loud and clear, as she addressed him directly, now that he seemed willing to hear her out. Duncan said nothing, his eyes on the Alpha as he waited for him to make the call.
Raoul did not hesitate this time.
“It’s a good idea” he agreed. “And worth a try.”
“Agreed.” Duncan made it clear that he concurred.
“But I’m not sure how to locate the Vampires …” Tasia’s voice trailed away.
“You leave that to Duncan and me” Raoul said easily. “We can still track them in the woods, even without our senses jacked-up.”
“They’ll be congregated away from the water, some place where the cover is dense, so little sunlight penetrates” Duncan explained. “Shouldn’t be hard, Tasia. And with your ability, we won’t have to search too hard. You’ll sense them the moment we get close.”
“Yes” she agreed.
Raoul contemplated her, his mind churning through the options.
“Now that we’re going after the leeches, the game changes for you” he said to Tasia. “Stay between Duncan and me, at all times. And make sure you never let the leeches distract you or separate you from us.”
Tasia nodded mutely, her expressive eyes huge. She was going to do this, she realized, as his words hit home. She was going hunting for Blutsaugers. Not alone, but she was going to run full tilt towards that which she had run from her whole life.
He watched her closely, sensing the mix of fear and determination in her. Fear was a good emotion — it would keep her vigilant and alert. But being careful was not enough. Not for this venture.
�
��The first time we met, you blocked the leeches with a kind of magic net.” That was when he’d first had an inkling of the power she could wield.
Tasia looked startled. “Yes, a variation of magic armor.”
“Can you shield yourself behind something similar, if the need arises?” he asked, deadly serious now.
“Yes.”
Tasia hesitated, before taking the plunge. “I can build one that insulates all three of us, if we need it.”
Duncan smiled and the Alpha’s eyebrow arched. “Protecting yourself will suffice, witchling” he said blandly. “Duncan and I will try and muddle our way through on our own.
The gold eyes, unaccountably sober, met her gaze.
“If it even looks like the leeches might break through, I want you to barricade yourself.”
I’m to use my power.
“Do I have your word, witchling?”
“Yes.”
Immense relief coursed through her. She wasn’t going up against the Blutsaugers unarmed.
“Time to find us some leeches” Raoul said.
As Tasia turned to follow him, he glanced back, the gold eyes intent.
“Remember, witchling, I’ve restored your powers” he reminded her.
Tasia nodded, a tad surprised by his reminder. This wasn’t something she was likely to forget, especially when facing a throng of Blutsaugers.
“There’ll be hell to pay if you let a leech touch you.” His eyes narrowed.
She looked puzzled. Of course, there would be hell to pay. The Blutsaugers would discover her secret.
“I don’t mean your secret — your blood will take out any leech that tastes it. And Duncan and I will ensure their friends don’t leave the forest with the knowledge.”
Tasia was relieved to hear this. It gave her some margin for error. But his next statement shot her relief to bits.
“I wanted you away from this. Instead, you got what you asked for. Now, hold the Blutsaugers at bay.” He threw her own words back at her. “You held off a nestful of leeches while just a hair short of a fatal injury. If you let one touch you now, there will be a reckoning.”
He shot her a gold-eyed look, an undercurrent of fury simmering in their depths. “For you. Remember that.”
The Alpha strode away, without a backward glance.
Tasia gaped after him. He meant it, she realized. A slow burn coursed through her.
Gave me what I want, did he? I’ll show him.
That man!
Like I’m some idiot who has no clue what she’s doing.
Tasia followed, seething silently. Beside her, Duncan worked to keep a straight face. If they weren’t readying to walk Tasia into a field of her personal kryptonite, Duncan would enjoy this a lot more. These two, as he had suspected, were an absolute hoot together.
For the next twenty minutes, the Shifters led her deeper and deeper into the woods, until the sunlight was a mere hint high above the tree tops. Here, the vegetation was thick and the light poor, the ground strewn with overgrown roots and a thick cover of leaves. The Alpha scouted ahead for darker patches, taking his cues from small clues around him, tracking the Vampires steadily into the heart of the forest. Duncan walked with Tasia, his watchful eyes on her. Eventually, when they were so deep in the woods that the light made it seem like twilight, Tasia sensed her first Blutsaugers. She raised her hand to alert the two men, and the Alpha came loping back to her with his easy stride.
He gestured, pointing towards another section of the woods where the sun barely made it through, asking silently if he should lead them deeper.
Tasia shook her head. She could sense the Blutsaugers very clearly right here.
“How many?” the Alpha mouthed.
Tasia closed her eyes to focus her magic senses, counting the auras clearly, before holding up her fingers to indicate thirteen. There was something different about these auras, she realized immediately. But that mystery would have to wait for later. Right now, she had to find the links connecting them and break them before the leeches detected their presence and swarmed them. She reached for the biggest and brightest of the auras, scrutinizing its shimmering edges carefully until she detected a thin line that connected it to another aura. Tasia examined the second aura carefully, allowing the woods and the two Shifters watching her to fade away into the background. Yes, she confirmed triumphantly, the auras were all connected in a chain. The thirteen Vampires had linked their magic in a daisy-chain to combine their inherent enchantments and blanket the woods with their collective spell. One of the auras, she noted absently, had another link, similar to the others, that led somewhere else, away from this group of leeches here.
Time to test her magic, she decided. Tasia chose one link to follow it carefully until she reached the midpoint between two auras. She coursed some raw power through it. These were Blutsaugers — unlike other Chosen, her magic needed no finesse to work on them. The connection stretched like an elastic band but did not break. More confident now, she directed a little more power at it and it did the trick. The connection snapped, the two auras seemingly bouncing way from one another until they went still again, in the eerie way she had noted before.
She studied the two auras, waiting for them to show signs of life as the leeches detected the broken link. But there was no reaction. Puzzled, Tasia decided to make sure nonetheless. She pulsed raw power at the two auras the broken link had once connected. The auras seemed to dim subtly in response, their brightness fading. Without missing a beat, she reached for the next link. Half way through disrupting the Vampire enchantments, lightning struck her. Tasia knew why these auras felt different.
She opened her eyes to find the two Shifters studying her watchfully.
“Any luck?” the Alpha inquired, not bothering to whisper anymore. The leeches had had ample time to confront them. But they had not.
“They’re connected in a chain. I’ve destroyed seven of the links. But there’s something weird about the magic signatures.”
He frowned. “In what way?”
“I think the Blutsaugers are unconscious” she said slowly.
“Probably hibernating, like when they put themselves in deep sleep to conserve their powers” Duncan chimed in thoughtfully. “I’ve been wondering why they haven’t come after us. We’ve been here long enough. And if Tasia can sense them, you bet they know we’re here.”
“Hmm.” Raoul thought furiously. “Maybe, hibernation was the only way to combine their enchantments.”
“Or, to make their combined enchantment potent enough to cover the woods” Tasia suggested.
“It’s plausible” Duncan assented. “Whatever it is, it certainly worked.”
“But if this lot is sleeping, it implies their friends are combing the woods for Nandini” Raoul warned. “I don’t like the odds for her.”
“Thirteen leeches are not enough to enchant a wood this size, Raoul” Duncan pointed out quietly. “Not by far.”
“So, there’re more hibernating leeches in the woods.”
“Many more” Duncan reiterated.
Raoul cursed under his breath. This was getting complicated by the minute and more dangerous for both the witching and the Ancient girl in the woods. Combing the woods for more hibernating leeches would take away precious seconds Nandini might not have.
“There’s a link from one of the Vampires here connecting to something outside his group” Tasia said slowly. “It’s similar to the ones I severed. I can follow the link to see where it leads.”
The Alpha frowned. “This is uncharted territory, witchling. You’re going in blind.”
“I’ll just follow the link to see where it leads” she assured him. “I’m not even sure I can follow it, if the Chosen at other end is too far for me to sense.”
“And what’s to stop these leeches from waking up and messing with you, while you’re otherwise distracted?” His eyes narrowed. “They’re hibernating, not dead.”
“I … uh … made sure they’d be out
for a bit longer.”
“How?” The gold eyes pinned her, his expression unreadable.
“I shoved them deeper into whatever state they’re in” she admitted.
He said nothing but Duncan looked pleased.
“Good thinking, Tasia.” Duncan’s voice was laced with approval.
“Watch yourself” the Alpha warned her.
“I will” she assured him before closing her eyes again to bring the auras back into focus. Asundering the remaining links was easy, now that she knew what to look for and how much magic to use to sever it. It took her a few seconds to find the link she intended to follow, thicker than the silvery thin ones before. This link seemed to strain as her magic touched it. She followed the meandering silvery connection in her mind’s eye, until it ended at another set of auras similarly connected like the ones she had just asundered. More Blutsaugers, hibernating in their quest to enchant the woods, she realized triumphantly.
“I see them” she muttered, without opening her eyes. “They look like the first set. I’m going to break it up.”
Tasia went to work methodically, severing and unclipping the links like a pro, while the Vampire auras seemed to dim subtly as their cooperative magic operation was shut down, link by link. Here too was a thicker silvery connection like before that led the way to another, similar, group of hibernating Vampires. Tasia followed the links, unclipping the sleeping Vampire magic from one another, her mind focused on the task at hand. A sense of exhilaration buoyed her, to keep her going. To use her power to help her friends was a high she embraced easily. It helped that the Vampire teams had not been physically separated by much. Perhaps, she mused, proximity had been essential to allow linking between the disparate groups. Nothing she knew about the Blutsaugers would allow them to link with one another. The only link a Vampire possessed was the one that tied him to the Chosen that created him. Tasia worked fast — diligent and efficient, ever conscious of Nandini’s plight. A girl she had never met but felt such affinity for.
