by Jack Knight
“Yeah, I did, and I told Magnus everything I knew.”
Ezra didn’t nod, or even blink. He just continued staring at me, like he was trying to see into my soul.
“You heard about this from a vampire and his ghoul?”
“Very good,” I confirmed in a sarcastic tone.
“You didn’t hear this from the Hunter you were partnered with before you left? Matt, I believe, correct?”
My heart skipped a beat, but I made sure to keep my mind focused only on Ezra. I would not let it wander for even a second, in case he was able to read my mind.
“No, I didn’t.”
“He was there, at that cafe, though?”
“Yeah, and?”
Ezra finally blinked, then he put his hands on his desk and leaned back a little. “You understand that we cannot talk to the Hunters, don’t you? You see how that could be bad for our entire group, especially since we have so few members?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, not even caring if I got blood all over my shirt because of it. “Nope, I’m a fucking moron, please explain.”
Ezra sighed. “We are looking into the vampire factory, but we are going to have to go about it very carefully. I suspect the Hunters are looking into it as well.”
Well, he was right about that. Ezra may be a douchebag, but he was smart. That actually made it worse, stupid douchebags were easier to deal with.
Ezra leaned forward again and pulled a drawer out, I couldn’t see it or what was inside, but after a few seconds of looking down, Ezra pulled out a folder and set it on the desk.
“I know your history, and I know your skillset,” Ezra said. Apparently, he didn’t feel the need to let me know he was changing topics. “So, I was hoping you might introduce Asher to the more violent side of an organization like this.”
“You want me to kill something?” I asked.
Ezra didn’t answer, he just pushed the file across the desk. I still had to lean forward to pick it up, which is probably what Ezra was going for, always making subtle hints that he was in charge. Like a jackass.
I picked the folder up off the desk and leaned back as I asked, “He teaches me magic, I teach him how to kill shit, seems fair.”
“I also need to see if you’re still up to the standard you were when you were still with the Hunters,” Ezra explained. “All we’ve seen of you recently is the leftovers. And, it appears you were injured in your fight with the shifter in the alley.”
I had been about to open the file and take a look at what I would be killing, but I heard what Ezra said. More importantly, I understood what he meant. When I looked up at him, I gave him the most angry glare I could muster.
“I wasn’t hurt, and the thing is dead.”
“You used magic, did you not?” Ezra asked.
“So what?”
“What was the sacrifice that you paid? For someone with no practice or training, that would’ve taken a rather large payment.”
I honestly didn’t know about sacrifices back then, thinking about it now, I realized I must have already been bleeding before I pinned the shifter down.
“Or, I’m just awesome,” I hedged.
Ezra gave me a small smile. “There is that possibility.” He gestured toward the door and added, “I guess we shall see.”
He wanted me to leave, but I was just pissed off enough to disobey just to be a bitch. I kept eye contact with him as I flipped the file open on my lap and gave him a fake smile before I looked down and started to read.
I quickly skimmed the first page, it was a profile on several murders that had happened over the course of a couple of days. It was actually a lot more information than I was used to getting, even when I had been with the Hunters. It looked like the Reapers actually cared about making sure the person deserved to die before sending people out to kill them.
“This is in Sac,” I said as I raised my gaze to Ezra again. “I don’t have a car, and I’m not walking that far.”
Ezra nodded. “I almost forgot.”
He closed the drawer that he had gotten the file out of and pulled open another one. He lifted a stack of cash out of the drawer and dropped it onto the desk, right where the file had been.
“Asher has a vehicle, this is enough money to cover any expenses you should incur.”
I rolled my eyes as I stood up and grabbed the cash. I wasn’t about to say no to some more money. “Guess I’ll get Asher then.”
“Please do,” Ezra replied absently, as if he didn’t care either way.
I wrenched open the office door and slammed it a bit harder than necessary as I walked back into the library. With the stack of cash and the file, I walked back through the church, hoping that Asher would be in the same room that I had seen him last. I didn’t want to wander through the building, knocking on every door until I could figure out where he had gone to.
Luck was almost never on my side. This time, however, I caught a break. I opened the door to the room I had cast the fireball in, and Asher looked up from the table of powders.
“That was fast. Back for more?” Asher asked before going back to whatever he was doing before.
I closed the door behind me and walked across the room. Asher was reading from the book we had cast the spell from, so I dropped the file on top of it.
“Actually, Ezra wants us to go kill something,” I said briskly.
Asher gave a nervous laugh as he flipped open the file. “I figured that was going to happen soon. I’m not actually all that practiced at killing.”
I leaned against the table with my hip and said, “Yeah, just getting people to hurt themselves,” as I held out my hand. It had stopped bleeding, but the wound was still fresh.
Asher looked up from the file, placed his hand in mine, and said, “Meus spiritus tuus veneris sanat.”
There was a warm feeling in the palm of my hand, and not just because Asher was holding it. The warmth traced the cut perfectly and then it slowly subsided. Asher took his hand away and my palm was perfectly healed, there wasn’t even a scar.
“You’ve gotta teach me that one,” I said in astonishment.
“First, you gotta tell me what it is we’re killing,” Asher replied.
I leaned closer to the file, not understanding what he could be missing.
“It’s a vampire,” I said slowly, as if explaining it to a child. I pointed to a few lines on the first page. “Victims drained of blood, not hard to figure out.”
Asher shook his head and flipped a few pages. “Look, this is a witness statement. It says the creature grew claws. It also says they shot the thing with a gun and it didn’t even pierce the skin.”
I shrugged. “So some human saw a vampire heal from a gunshot and didn’t understand.”
Asher looked up at me and said, “Maddi, the witness was a shifter. They’re not going to miss something like that.”
Asher was right, that was weird. Vampire could heal from gunshot wounds in a matter of seconds, but there was no way they could just not be hurt by a bullet. Vampires were just humans with some added benefits and a few drawbacks. This was strange.
Just like the vampire that could supposedly use magic. Something weird was going on, and it only left one explanation.
“The vampire factory you talked about,” Asher said as he straightened himself up. “What if they aren’t just Turning a bunch of people. What if someone is creating a new kind of vampire?”
I sighed and nodded, he had said what I was just thinking.
“Let’s just hope they die the same. It’s our job to kill it.”
Chapter 15
“WE HAVE A PLAN ON HOW to kill superpowered vamps, yet?” I asked as I threw my bag into the trunk of Asher’s car.
Unlike Magnus, Asher had gone for style over utility. He had a sleek, expensive, grey sports car. The trunk could barely hold my tiny backpack that was full to bursting with two days worth of clothes and Asher’s pile of shirts and pants he hadn’t even bothered to stuff into a bag.
I slammed the trunk shut and walked around to fall into the passenger seat, which was much closer to the ground than I was comfortable with. Asher got into the driver seat a few seconds later and closed the door as I was buckling myself in.
“I asked Gen about it,” Asher answered as he started the car.
He looked over his shoulder and backed up a little so he’d have room to drive around the church. It wasn’t until he started driving forward that he continued.
“She can only guess, but it’s Gen, so she’s probably right.”
I looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, but he was pulling onto the street and wasn’t paying any attention to me.
“Who’s Gen?”
Asher glanced over at me for about half a second, utter confusion on his face. “Have you not talked to any of the Reapers except Ezra and me?” he asked with a chuckle.
“No, why would I?”
We stopped at a stoplight and Asher took the opportunity to look at me and shake his head in disbelief. “Geez, those Hunters really messed you up.”
The light turned green and Asher started driving again, which was great, because I didn’t like being judged for not being all warm and fuzzy.
“Gen is the smartest person I’ve ever met. She can do things with a computer that I didn’t know were possible. I’m also pretty sure they’re not legal.” He glanced at me again with a big smile. “You ever seen The Arrow?”
I shrugged. I didn’t watch a lot of TV, but a dude who goes around at night and kicks the shit out of bad guys was cool, even to me.
“Yeah, why?”
“Gen is like our own Felicity Smoak.”
I had to suppress a groan. I liked the character on TV, but she talked way too much for my taste. I hoped I would never have the misfortune of meeting this Gen.
“What did she say about killing the vampires?”
Asher took a second as he merged onto the freeway. It was still early morning, but this was San Francisco, there was barely enough space for one more car. Asher had to floor it to be able to wedge himself between two cars before the on-ramp disappeared.
“Well, most things will die if you decapitate them. She said they’ve only been seen at night, which means fire and sunlight will probably still hurt them, even if it doesn’t kill them. That’s pretty much all we’ve got so far.”
“Any clue how someone is making new ultra-powerful vampires?” I asked.
“Nope,” Asher answered cheerily.
I waited for more, but he didn’t say anything else. For a while, we just drove along in the crowd of cars. Asher’s car didn’t seem to have a radio, so the only sound was the hum of the engine. When we passed all the exits that led into San Francisco, the herd of cars around us melted away and Asher started driving faster.
When we did, he finally spoke again.
“Oh, hey, I brought my grimoire for you to practice,” he said as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Backseat, grab that and the marker and paper back there.”
I turned around and saw that his car didn’t really have a backseat, only children would be able to sit there comfortably, because the seats were so close to ours there was essentially no leg room.
On the seat was the same old book I had read out of when I made the fireball. There was a stack of paper on top of it, I grabbed both of those, a little awkwardly because I refused to unbuckle my seatbelt. When I pulled the grimoire and paper to the front seat with me, I saw the marker that Asher had mentioned and reached back for that too.
“I marked the page, the spell is in there,” he said without looking at me when I sat forward again.
There was a single sheet of paper that just barely stuck out of the pages of the center of the book. I flipped it open to a page with a strange symbol and a lot of words in Latin.
“This is helpful. You know I haven’t learned Latin since yesterday, right?”
Asher chuckled. “I’ll tell you the incantation. I need you to draw that symbol exactly, then say the words. You won’t be able to see the difference, but I’ll be able to tell you if you did it right.”
“What exactly am I doing?” I asked.
“You’re trying to recreate fae glamour.”
That halted me in my tracks. “Like fairies?”
Asher chuckled, “Didn’t know they were real? Yeah, how do you think people started learning magic? Now, come on try.”
And, that is how we spent the next hour. I would slice my hand open, say “Quid reuiro videtur,” and draw the symbol. Every time I would show it to Asher, he would give me more tips about what to think about so the spell would work properly.
Finally, I held up the slip of paper and Asher burst out laughing. I couldn’t help but smile myself. Apparently, it had worked.
Asher had to struggle to keep his hands on the wheel and his eyes open for a full minute before he could breathe enough to ask, “Why exactly did you decide to go with a meme?”
I looked at the piece of paper in my hand and still just saw the strange black glyph that I had drawn. When I did the spell, I had been thinking about the distracted boyfriend meme. Over the girlfriend’s head I wanted it to say “This spell” and over the other girl I wanted it to say “Literally anything else”.
“I’ve seen the meme a lot,” I answered, fighting the convulsions in my chest as my body tried to laugh. “It was easy to picture.”
Asher chuckled a few more times and then held out his hand. Every time I cut myself, he had healed it before I tried again. I took his hand, for what felt like the millionth time, he said the same words as always, and my hand warmed up as the wound sealed itself.
“We’re good for a while,” Asher told me.
I moved the grimoire, paper, and marker to the floor of the car, right in front of me, and sat back. The spell had probably been so hard because my mind had been focused on something else the entire time.
Asher seemed trustworthy enough. Maybe the Reapers as a whole were okay. My father was still a mystery, but that was another matter entirely. In fact, that’s what I wanted to know about.
“Hey, Asher?”
“What’s up?”
“Do you know why my father’s a sorcerer? Like, what my bloodline is?”
Asher shook his head. “Nope, why?”
“Because, neither do I.”
Asher nodded and fell silent for a few minutes. The hum of the car was the only sound between us again. I looked out the window, watched the big expanse of nothingness pass by for a while, and waited for Asher to speak first.
For a moment, I got distracted by my hatred for California. As if the angry, shortsighted murders that made up all drivers in the state weren’t enough, there wasn’t much else. California had maybe ten actual cities. Most of the state was farmland or open space. You could literally drive down the freeway for hours and not see a single thing, if you took the right route.
It was way too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, it never rained, all the people were either hipsters or hippies, gun toting rednecks or party girls. Half the state thought they were country folk, even the ones that had never seen a horse. It was a mishmash of the most annoying people ever, and none of them were very intelligent.
I couldn’t stand this place. I needed out. I just had too many questions, too many things I needed to know before I could leave. Most important of all them, figuring out how I could possibly be a sorcerer. Next was learning Latin so I didn’t need a translator for my grimoire.
The landscape suddenly changed. More cars started appearing around us, and I could see a city in the distance. We were almost to Sacramento.
“My father was a vampire,” Asher said suddenly, catching me off guard.
I looked at him in surprise and froze. I had no idea how to respond to that.
“Technically,” he continued, “I was supposed to be born a dhampir, half vampire, half human. But, my mother knew a witch who did a spell so I would come out like a normal human. It worked, bu
t the vampire magic didn’t actually leave me, so I was a sorcerer. I didn’t even know it until I was eighteen.” He looked over at me as we pulled off the freeway and started making our way through town. “Maybe Ezra was the same way. He might not know what he is.”
“The source of your bloodline affects your magic, though, right?” I asked. I hadn’t known many sorcerers, but the Hunters had taught us the basics.
“Yeah,” Asher shrugged, “a little. It mainly affects what you can specialize in. Like, I could never be a pyromancer. Every time I try to cast fire spell, my magic resists, like it’s afraid I’ll burn up. So, they come out really weak.”
I had absolutely no idea what “specialize” meant, but I didn’t get a chance to ask. At that moment, Asher pulled into a parking lot.
“Where are we?”
“Velvet Rose,” Asher answered casually as he parked in front of a dingy old bar. “Hot spot for the supernatural in Sacramento. If anyone knows anything about the super vamp, they’ll be in here.”
I had to assume the supernatural part of the bar was hidden, like Mr. O’Grady’s shop. This place had a sign that was so weather worn and faded I couldn’t even read it. There didn’t seem to be any lights on inside, and the windows were all broken.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and reclined in my seat before I noticed that Asher was getting out of the car. For a split second, I panicked.
When I threw the door open and jumped out of the car, I could feel my heart beating so hard I thought it was going to break one of my ribs.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, refusing to close the car door when Asher did, because I fully intended to get back in.
Asher looked at me like he was confused. “Going inside? We need to know if anyone knows about the super-vamp.”
I shook my head and glared at him. “We’re here to find and kill, not walk around and chat.”
Asher laughed and shook his head. “You’re not a Hunter anymore, we’re cool with being seen. Nobody knows the Shadow Reapers exist.”
