The Vampire's Spell - Stars of The Night

by Lucy Lyons

  “Come on, Caroline. Let’s go get a nice, cold beer and sit in the sunshine. You spend so much of your time out at night, you’re starting to look a little like a vampire yourself,” Clay offered.

  I shot him a dirty look, then glanced down at my bare arms. They were already beginning to turn pink, even though the sunlight reaching them was being filtered by the lush green canopy overhead.

  “Make it a diet soda and I’ll take you up on that,” I agreed. The woods felt still around us now that my death magic had faded and I wasn’t linked to the animals I’d raised. On a whim, I lifted my hand to a tree trunk and pushed my power through the rough bark to the soft inner flesh of the big pine tree. I found the spark that made it a living thing, that part of it that knew to reach for the sunlight and push its roots deeper and wider in search of water.

  My magic had been directed to control the dead, Henny was right about that. But, it had also made me aware of the inner workings of anything that was alive, or had lived. I pushed harder, and felt the ground move under my feet when the roots of the tree I touched pushed outward and shifted the dirt above them. The pine broke new shoots and soft, verdant baby needles as I connected with it, as though it was early spring and behind me, Clayton whistled.

  “One day, Caroline, you’re going to have to do that in front of Henny and Ashlynn. You’ve got to stop letting people think you’re all about death and let them see how you create life.”

  I didn’t tell him that my place at Nicholas’ side meant creating life wasn’t a full-time option for me. It was enough to know that I could do it. It was as though God was telling me I wasn’t as tainted as I feared. Maybe there was still a place for me within the human world, even if I could never go back to my old life again.

  Chapter 2

  The soda was warm, but it was caffeinated, and came with a prime seat in a chaise on the edge of the lake. The werewolves who weren’t running around in their fur coats were splashing and playing in the water sans clothes, and I was grateful Henny had set up the lounge chairs a little way back from the water. She sat in the other lounge chair next to me, with an iced tea in her hand.

  “I know you have to go back to Nicholas tonight, but I’d like to see you again before the end of the week.”

  “I’ll come back as soon as the full moon passes. I’m not going to admit to this often, but I’ve got to agree with Ashlynn on this point. We don’t know how my vampire marks and the bond Nick and I share with Dirk will affect the pack as a whole.”

  As a matter of diplomatic ass-covering, I hadn’t seen or spoken with Dirk or his wife, Rae, since we’d returned from a weird case out in Arizona. I topped Ashlynn’s crap-list for bonding with a lesser wolf from her pack without her permission, even though he had volunteered. It made my bond with the wolves much stronger, and she worried about a possible upset to her throne.

  “Dirk and Rae are spending the full moon alone again,” Henny offered. “They’re trying to get pregnant, which is really hard for a shifter to both accomplish and maintain to a live birth.” I could tell she was more worried than she was trying to sound and I didn’t blame her.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed away so long. I could help them have a baby without hurting Rae or the child,” I offered. Dominique had taught me about magical midwifery when I was still her apprentice. It was difficult for Venatores to conceive, and giving birth to babies who could be raised in the Church as hunters was how the society kept its numbers. Orphans like me were rare, since the state had to sanction an adoption, and “vampire hunter” wasn’t exactly what most social workers wanted to see on a resume.

  I looked out over the lake, shielding my eyes with my hand as I heard a feminine shriek of mock terror. Clayton picked up a cute blonde and tossed her several feet across the water, grinning in the sunshine as she landed with a splash much bigger than her body weight accounted for.

  “Clay’s doing well, isn’t he?” Henny nodded at me and reached over to pat my hand.

  “He’s better than he would’ve been with those zealots experimenting on him. The funny thing is, they were right. With his increased strength, speed, and senses, he’d be the ultimate Venatores soldier now.” My gut clenched at her words and I remembered the night Glory, the now dead Master of Seattle, had broken into the Venatores school and attacked us, and the shifter Clay was dating had saved him by biting him.

  “But, is his new life happy enough that he’s forgiven the girl who made him a werewolf? He was always the straight arrow, you know?” He had been the null friend of our group, while I was figuring out that I had magic in me, my foster brother, our best friend, had been leaching my power off for himself without me knowing. David might have been a human warlock, but he’d used his innate abilities to become a living, breathing, psychic vampire. One who fed off the emotions and thoughts of others, instead of their blood.

  “Honestly, he doesn’t talk about it, and no one presses him to. But the time will come that he’ll need to come to terms with the clan about his loyalty to the Venatores and to you.” Henny didn’t sound worried, but my stomach did a little worried flip.

  David and I had been kidnapped by the same vampire clan while on vacation with Clay, probably because they could sense we had magical abilities. I’d fallen in love with the master vampire, David had become addicted to “the vampire’s kiss”. Once he became a blood junky, it was a short trip to torturing young women for Glory’s amusement, as her human servant.

  But Clay and I had both loved David like a brother. While I was glad we’d killed him and his master in the end, I had never worked up the courage to ask Clayton how he felt about any of it. I’d just coasted on gratitude that he had supported and protected me, whether it was out of personal loyalty or his moral code, I probably would never know.

  “Well, he’s always been one to keep his feelings to himself,” I admitted. “But I’m sure you know without me saying it, that there’s no one more loyal to his friends than Clay.”

  “I know, Caroline. The pack will want him to bind himself to them eventually though. Especially the females. He’s not really dateable until they know he’s going to accept some responsibility for the pack.” I gaped at her for a moment.

  “Well, crap. Why the hell hasn’t he taken the oath? Does he have to kill somebody to do it?”

  Henny laughed at my outburst, and a couple of the closer wolves glanced over in amusement. It was difficult sometimes to remember that their preternatural abilities included super senses. I’d started leaving the perfume at home for their benefit, but had yet to figure out how to keep a conversation private without expending the energy to speak telepathically.

  “I think he’s waiting until the pack accepts you.” I snorted.

  “Well good luck with that, then.” I pursed my lips and sulked while I watched him play in the sun, his skin already a deep golden from getting to spend his days topside, instead of only going out at night to hunt and patrol the Venatores compound. I, on the other hand, was paler than ever, only seeing the sun as it rose and set unless I was training with the pack.

  “You’re upset that he’s remaining loyal to you?” Henny scoffed at me.

  “No. But I am getting pretty irritated that the lives of more and more people seem to revolve around my choices. Has the whole underworld forgotten that I’m not even twenty-two years old yet?” I turned on my side and faced her. “Did you have the lives of entire clans riding on you never making a mistake at twenty-one?”

  Henny shook her head and reached out again, resting her fingers lightly on my arm. Her touch was warm and healing, and in a moment, I was feeling less overwhelmed. She’d made me feel better, but also made me miss Nick and Rachel and my vampire clan.

  “I understand that you feel afraid of making mistakes and worried about all your people. It can’t be easy loving two families who hate each other.”

  “Well, the people I love don’t hate anyone, they simply have a job to do. I’m not sure I would stretch the truth so
far as to say I love Lady Sophia or Vladikk Agnarrson.” I countered. Just thinking about the manipulative sorceress and the zealot who had actively sought to destroy my reputation and my life sent my pulse back through the roof. I feared Sophia’s power, because I’d never fought her one on one, and had no idea what she was capable of, other than destroying her cousin’s whole world.

  Sophia’s cousin, Dominique, had been with the Venatores since its inception. She had enough friends in the Vatican to keep her safe from her cousin, the betrayer, if she stayed out of sight. But there was no papal edict of protection for me. If Sophia and I ever met face to face, only one of us would emerge alive, let alone victorious, and she had about fifteen hundred years more of practicing magic than I did.

  I hardly knew Vladikk Agnarrson at all, either, other than to know he was unpredictable when it came to my life. He’d been all too happy to participate in an attempt on my life. But, when I helped to save our people, he was the first to stand by me and admit that I’d done my part as a Venatores. Listening to the few friends I still had inside, I’d begun to paint a picture of a man fierce in his belief that the vampires were a scourge to be removed from the earth for the safety of mankind, but wary of taking what he considered human lives to reach his goals. Too bad I had long since crossed the line from human, to something else, in his eyes.

  Sophie had no such compunctions. She was a sorceress and an assassin of the house of Borgia. A day where no one died was a sad one for our Lady of the Cross. Her sadism was surpassed by her hunger for power, and as the new headmistress of the Venatores hunters’ school, she was able to feed both appetites at once.

  As always, when I thought about the people who scared me the most, my mind automatically reached out to Nicholas, not just my lover or the leader of my new clan, but my touchstone. He was everything I’d been missing in family, since the night my parents had been killed. But, as a vampire he was trapped inside, preferably underground, during daylight hours.

  “I love most of my life with Nick, but I sure wish he could come out and play with me on pretty days like today,” I said aloud before I realized I probably shouldn’t. Henrietta smiled sadly at me and sighed as she watched her pack play in the water like children, instead of the supernaturally endowed adults they were.

  “You know, even if you hadn’t bonded with your sweetheart, you would have begun to notice that you didn’t age like the people around you eventually. There are conflicting theories as to why witches or sorceresses as you know them, have such a long lifespan. But, having an immortal boyfriend might be worth a few sacrifices,” she pointed out.

  “I know it’s a small price to pay to have him forever,” I admitted. “But, I thought witches just preserved themselves with magic,” I continued, and Henny nodded.

  “They do that as well, especially such well-preserved specimens as your mentor, Dominique de Borgia.” She touched her own face, and the faint crow’s feet that gathered at the corners of her eyes. “The rest of us just age slower.”

  “Is this where I get to ask how old you are without getting slapped?” I pretended to flinch when she shifted in her seat and she laughed.

  “I was born in 1766, in Boston, Massachusetts.”

  “Okay,” I drawled. “Well, damn. Then I guess I don’t have much excuse for not accepting your advice.”

  Nothing is less romantic than having a partner who reminds you of your own mortality every time you look at them.”

  I heard the keen ache in her voice. She missed her husband. She probably grieved for the lovers and husbands she’d had over the centuries before. I was the lucky one. I’d met and fallen in love with the man of my dreams, and fortunately for me, he was immortal. I’d never have to say goodbye to him, unless we got tired of eternal life and chose to fade.

  Nick, I reached out to him over our special telepathic bond. Nick, I miss you, are you busy?” I waited for a response, but none came. The sun was at its apex in the sky, and I knew that he might have gone to sleep, as this was the time of day he was weakest. I reached out to him with an image of myself in his favorite dress, a rich red that he said made my skin look like porcelain. If he was asleep, I’d be in his dreams and he’d know I was thinking of him.

  The sun glinted on the water and made everything sparkle, but the cloudless sky only made me miss the starlit night sky and Nick’s arms around me. The sensation of missing him grew to an almost physical discomfort and I realized I’d caught a bit of Nick’s sleep thoughts. It made me smile to know that he missed me too, and seeing the darkness from his perspective made it seem more inviting than the brightest summer day.

  “I have to go, Henny. I’m needed back home, and Ashlynn’s right to wonder what the bond between Nick and Dirk will do to the wolves. When I get more acclimated to the level of earth-based power I have now, and less likely to reach for my so called ‘necromancy’, I’ll stick around for a moon ritual.” I swung my legs over the edge of the sun-warmed rattan chaise and sighed.

  “Don’t be a stranger, Caroline.” Henny mimicked my posture and folded her hands in her lap. “You are working with a set of magical variables not seen since ancient times, and none of the creatures who were around then were particularly forthcoming with their information. Plainly stated, I just don’t have a whole lot to go on,” she sighed. I stood and she hugged me tight, lifting me onto my toes as she squeezed.

  “Okay, okay, I get it, I’m short.”

  “You are,” she giggled. “You’re also in a unique position, but you aren’t alone, you hear me? I know what it’s like to be forced away from everything you know. Even if where you go is good, even better than what you had, you always wonder what might have been.”

  “I chose to leave the Venatores,” I reminded her and she smiled.

  “So did I. I remember it like it was yesterday, and a hundred more years will go by before I forget.”

  I let her enfold me in her arms and press me against her warmth. It was one of the little things I missed, living with a bunch of bloodless vampires, the simple warmth of a hug from another human.

  Clay waved from the water and I grinned at him and waved back. He was forced from his life too, but he seemed to be handling it without much of a backward glance.

  “Hey, Henny, I’ll talk to Clay about making his oath. He deserves to feel like he really belongs. He’s too much of an asset for the wolves not to be able to let him serve the pack.” I spared one last glance at my friend, splashing and goofing off the way I always thought he should’ve been when he was working his butt off, wasting his youth on the best grades, test scores, and combat rankings.

  I hiked back to my car wondering if maybe he wasn’t better off for leaving the Venatores just like I was. Not because of the infighting, that would go away some day when a new faction came out on top. No, he was better off because he was a wolf, still a hunter, but free and wild, constrained only by his own power and the pull of the moon.

  If only I had the same self-assurance he seemed to, about where I was. I loved my clan and felt fiercely protective of them. But there were growing pains I hadn’t expected. I’d gone from being considered a freak among the Venatores for having special abilities, to being the weak link among the vampires because I was the ‘boss’ girlfriend’.

  We were working it out, but it came with a whole new set of problems and enemies. Still, I was resolute when it came to Nick. Even when we argued, every moment with him was ten times better than my happiest time before him. I wouldn’t have given him up even if leaving him wouldn’t have harmed either of us. Now we just needed a break from all the strife and our enemies, so we could take some time to enjoy the new stage in our relationship. Maybe then one day he would get the chance to be my fiancé.

  Chapter 3

  The club was quiet when I walked in just before sunset. The human bartenders waved as I walked in, and I took a few minutes to go over my newest duties as the Master’s human girlfriend, to check stock, approve a few schedule changes, and general man
aging.

  Not surprising, the humans who worked for us fell into two groups, those who were fang junkies, and those who were freaked out to learn that vampires existed outside horror movies. Both types had to sign nondisclosures to work for Pulse, so the general public thought the vampires were humans in costume.

  As the most human resident of the fortress below the club, it fell to me to keep the human side of the business happy, and make sure that the vampires in our charge weren’t victimizing the human patrons. Dirk and a couple of other wolves from the pack worked as bouncers, and Jeremy’s rats all did turns in club security. They were every bit as fast and strong as our vampires, and could easily subdue any human who decided to make trouble. In the end, shifters who needed work came to work for us, and we could maintain the human front we needed to avoid breaking Venatores decrees.

  Still doing the work of the Venatores, I thought to myself as I listened to my new bar-back complain about unwanted advances from a female vampire. When I asked for a name, he couldn’t remember, and with a sudden look of confusion, he stood up from the table and walked away.

  Fortunately for him, the effect of the vampire’s glamor was only temporary, and there were only two female vampires who had worked the shifts in question with Paul. One was my lieutenant, my second in command, Colette. I discounted her immediately, because Colette preferred girls. The other one, Sasha, was one of Glory’s vamps, and she had a big chip on her shoulder when it came to Nicholas and my clan.