The Vampire's Spell:

by Lucy Lyons

  “It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I failed . . .”

  The walls trembled, and small stones pelted us as they fell from the ceiling. “What do we do now?” I asked, and he laughed, a wild, high-pitched sound that hurt my ears and made me more afraid than anything he’d said until then.

  “I was weak. I’d never killed anyone before, and I couldn’t make myself do it. The thing escaped and killed before we caught it again. Three of my men died to put it back in its cage, and you just released it again,” he sobbed. “I’m the last of my kind, and now there’s no one to capture the feathered serpent before he strikes again.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The arena quaked again, and the jaguar shook himself and grabbed my arm. He shoved me ahead of him into the corridor of crystals, but the earth tremors had shaken the torch loose, and the glaring flashes of light were now just pretty, dim sparkles on the walls around us. He kept pushing me ahead of him until we reached the opening. Then he elbowed me out of the way and peered out into the rainforest, looking over his head as if a hawk were going to swoop down and snatch him up.

  “It’s not here. Let’s go,” he commanded, and as smooth as water flowing over a stone, his ebony skin became a glossy black coat of fur and he leaped out of the crevice and into the sun. My body still aching from the beating he’d handed me, my own change wasn’t quite as impressive, but I made the shift and set my wolf free. In return, my broken ribs were healed, and I could run with the jaguar back to camp.

  I ran through the protective circle to find the trackers and Somayo eating breakfast and going over whatever game plan the Venatores had set out for them. I barked sharply and ran back to the edge of the circle, where the jaguar paced, waiting to be let in. I changed form, going to my knees as my legs gave out from the strain of multiple changes in such a short time.

  “We’ve got to get him to Maria and Portia,” I explained as I bent over, catching my breath.

  One of the men ran to the large tent, and Maria emerged seconds later, racing down to us as she tied the belt to hold her kimono closed. It had surprised me how Victorian the Fae were with their modesty, but she didn’t say anything about my nudity when she reached us, and I knew better than to make fun of the high-necked nightgown she wore under the silk robe.

  “Who is this?” she asked without removing the camp protections.

  “He’s the reason we’re here, Maria. He’s the Fae-kin we need to help.”

  I waited for her to lift the circle of protection and let him in then finally asked him his name.

  “I’m Jasiri,” he’d replied shyly. “Jasiri Dent.” He went through introductions, and I motioned for him to follow me back to my tent for a change of clothes so we could meet with Portia and Simi—who, for different reasons, wouldn’t be comfortable talking to a large, naked stranger. We were inside before I remembered that I’d left Ashlynn to catch up on the sleep she’d missed getting ready for the mission. When I turned to warn him back out, he was staring, his mouth agape, at her naked, sleeping form.

  “My mate’s not a prude like Maria, but I think it’s best if you wait outside and I bring you some clothes.” He didn’t move, and the beast in me rose to the surface in warning. Sensing the change in my mood, he glanced my way, slamming his mouth shut and averting his eyes.

  “My apologies, truly,” he stammered, trying not to look at Ashlynn again. I felt her tension and knew she wasn’t asleep, but she stayed still and kept her breathing deep to avoid any more undue attention from the strange shifter. Wars between packs had started because one alpha coveted another’s mate, and without hesitation I knew I’d kill the last of the jaguar people before letting him touch Ash.

  “Apology accepted, as long as you step out of this tent before I tear your throat out as a warning to any other shifters in the area,” I said, only half kidding.

  “You’re lucky to have women among your kind,” he said from outside the tent as I gathered a shirt and basketball shorts I’d bought in case I needed to sleep clothed. “My mother was the last female of our kind. I didn’t even know other shifters existed until I saw you.”

  “Which is why you have to stop saying you’re the last of your kind, Jasiri,” I shot back. “We’ve all been separated for too long. Part of our mission as a wolf pack is to bring us all back together.”

  “All of us? You know many werejaguars?”

  I stepped out of the tent clothed and handed him the shirt and shorts. “No, I can’t say that I do. But I know a couple dozen wererats. I’m alpha of a wolf pack, and we have our very own honorary member who’s a lion, so there’s a feline precedent already set for admission to our club.” I glanced at Portia and Maria who were headed our way. “No time for all the details, but you should also know fairies are real, only the little ones are nice and grant wishes, and that beautiful and cold-as-ice lady with the feathers for hair is a Cetan, which are rumored to be yet another kind of shapeshifter.”

  He watched the women approach and glanced at me in askance as I waved hello so cheerfully I thought Portia’s head might explode from sheer irritation.

  “Fairies are real?” he asked, and I nodded and grimaced at him.

  “Don’t expect them to be nice, but they’re real. Look, all I’m saying, is that you’re not alone. You have people, Jasiri. We’ll recapture the feathered serpent and help seal it away without forcing you or anyone else to murder.” I wasn’t sure if I could keep my word, but I knew with Maria and Onyxis by our sides, we had a real chance at seeing the damage undone.

  Maria gestured for us to join her at a small, wooden table the trackers had erected to use for maps. With a flick of her hand, the table doubled in length, pushing over the chair at the end and making Jasiri gasp and jump back. He started to go down to one knee, but I held him by the elbow and shook my head, directing him to a chair instead.

  “Fae, not gods, Jasiri,” I reminded him. “They’re just people. Really strong people with cool magic and amazing stories to share with us, but people nonetheless.”

  Maria regarded me coolly but said nothing in response to my statement. Portia, on the other hand, rewarded me with one of her rare smiles and a nod. I felt like I’d inadvertently stumbled onto a Fae generation gap issue between those who had been gods and those who had no wish to be, but Maria didn’t correct me, so I sat and waved to Ashlynn and Simi, who had both come out of the tents and were talking.

  “OK,” I started once the Venatores and my mate had joined us. “First, we’re not all Fae here.” I introduced each of the members of the team in turn, with the affiliation as Fae, Venatores, or pack. Jasiri explained the nature of his people as guardians of the rainforest and how he’d been called home from Oxford when his father became ill so he could take his place at his brothers’ sides.

  “But what is the thing that’s burning people?” Portia asked, impatient and jittery. “No one cares if you killed a human trafficker, not really,” she said, rolling her eyes when Somayo started to complain. “These guys kill monsters. He was a monster.” She sighed when Jasiri didn’t seem to lighten up and shrugged at me.

  “She’s right, Jasiri. If we’d been hunting for something that was stealing girls to be sex slaves and found him, we’d have executed him after extracting all the information we could. It was a clean kill.”

  “But that’s what started all of this,” he retorted. “If I’d have been willing to kill someone who might be innocent, a good person, the prison would be sealed for another hundred years and someone else would have to worry about Quetzalcoatl.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. “We knew the day was coming. We just didn’t know exactly when. For the last several turn of the key, a hundred years became ninety, then eighty. My father had been the last to turn the key on seventy-five years before, when the lock failed again a few weeks ago.”

  I glanced at Somayo and shook my head, sighing. “At least it sounds like we didn’t cause the lock to fail.” Jasiri glanced at me, and I shook my head again. “We inadvertently o
pened a door to Fairy. Now we,” I pointed at the hunters and Ashlynn, “are trying to prepare for the day we’re attacked by an army of immortal, magical beings.” I patted his arm. “So we get how you feel, sort of.”

  “Can you tell us what it looks like?” Portia asked.

  “Do you really believe that’s what we’re going to do?” Maria asked at the same time.

  “Hold that thought, Portia,” I requested, holding up a hand and stood, facing Maria directly. “How powerful were you when you were worshipped by warriors who carried your standard into battle? You know, back in the days when you could create a giant eagle out of pure magic and ride it over their enemies to terrify them?” Maria didn’t answer, and I sat back down. “Sorry, Portia. Please continue.”

  “I was asking what the creature looks like,” she repeated, and Jasiri’s eyes went to the table in front of him. He picked at invisible wood splinters for a moment before responding.

  “I’ve never seen it. I only know that our records describe it as some sort of feathered snake or basilisk in some cases,” he confessed. “When the thing came for my brothers, I was back at the cave, trying to use my own blood to turn the key.”

  “But it didn’t work?” Ashlynn interjected, placing her hand over his.

  “It was working when the three of us were all alive. When my brothers died fighting it, I became the last guardian. The cave wouldn’t take my life. The creature was penned, but I knew it would break free of the weak bonds I’d been able to create.”

  “You’ve been guarding it for a thousand years, and you’ve never seen it?” Somayo asked, his voice incredulous.

  “Sorry, mate,” Jasiri snapped, “Ancient Aztec prisons aren’t known for their windows.”

  “Hold up,” I broke in, standing again. “Everybody calm the hell down. We’ve got a job to do, we can squabble later.”

  “Yeah? Well, I guess that’s when I’ll ask you why you ran away and didn’t fight to keep it imprisoned,” Somayo growled, and I felt the wolf rise in me to challenge him. I forced my anger down and rubbed my eyes.

  “Because it took three men and a ton of blood to get it back into a temporary prison, Soma. I came back to get help. Isn’t that why we’re all here together? To be stronger than we are alone?”

  “I’m sorry I put you all in this position,” Jasiri stood with me and addressed us all. “I was too weak to do what had to be done, and I’m responsible for releasing the creature. All I know is what I’ve been told—that it’s a serpent with feathers down its back, talons like an eagle, and scales that shine like crystals when you shine light on it, like a rainbow.” Maria gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes filling with tears, and Portia stared dumbfounded, her mouth hanging open.

  “Tell us more,” Portia demanded. “Tell us his legend.” Jasiri sat and nodded, smoothing his hands over the table as he thought before responding.

  “He was once the protector of the human Aztec priests, and they would call upon it to protect their people from enemies. They prayed to it and worshipped it with sacrifices, and the people feared it and loved it, gathering colorful feathers to make headdresses to honor it.”

  He paused, and I watched the Fae as they both leaned in to him, Maria’s face shining with tears and hope, Portia’s dark with fear. Somayo and I exchanged a glance and in that instant our stupid squabble was over. When it came to loyalty, when the Fae closed ranks, so would the mortals.

  “What happened to make him a prisoner instead?” Ashlynn prodded our guest, and he sighed.

  “According to the story, one day another god came and challenged Quetzalcoatl. They say that the new god was more powerful, that he clothed himself in ‘light and shadow,’ whatever that meant.” Portia gave a low growl, and Maria cursed quietly as she took the younger woman’s hand. “Anyway, they fought, and the white devil won by cheating somehow. The story isn’t clear on how after all these centuries.” He cleared his throat. “He drove the feathered serpent insane and set him loose on our people, killing a hundred in the first day and more each day for a week until the priests and a witch built a spell together and trapped it in the crystal cave then created the first werejaguar to guard it, giving my people the responsibility to preserve the blood rituals every time the crystals sang, indicating that the spell was falling out of resonance. I never saw the creature, but I swear as a child I wandered too close to the cave and I heard a man’s voice screaming in a language I couldn’t recognize.”

  “I found him,” Maria whispered. “After all these years, I finally found him.”

  Portia made a sound of disapproval and shook her head, saying “We don’t know that. You don’t know it’s him.”

  “Driven insane by a white devil who clothed himself in shadows and light? That doesn’t prove it to you? I knew your father was evil, but to go so far . . .” Her voice broke and Maria hung her head, weeping.

  “Portia, please, just tell us what’s going on. Who are you talking about? Is it the creature? Do you know what it is?” I fired the questions at her, cold to my core with fear.

  “What he is, well, you’re dimmer than I thought if you can’t answer that for yourself with what you’ve heard,” she scoffed.

  “He’s a Cetan,” I replied. “He’s like you.

  “Yes, and yet again a resounding no,” she countered. “He’s High Fae . . . and that’s all you need to know.”

  “No, it isn’t,” sniffed Maria. “Portia is correct, though. He is like her and yet not. He’s Fae-kin, and he’s my son.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  No one spoke for a long time after Maria’s revelation. It was Simi who broke the silence after placing a hand on Maria’s shoulder to comfort her.

  “How did the white devil make Quetzalcoatl insane?” she asked, stroking Maria’s back.

  Jarisi shrugged. “The story tells us they fought for the whole day and through the night with the white devil razing mountains and swelling rivers while the Quetzalcoatl picked up our village in his venomous talons and transported it to the safety of Mount Roraima, where the gods prevented the white devil from harming the Aztec people.”

  “Why was this happening?” I asked, not meaning to say it aloud.

  “They say the white god wanted our people to worship him. That he felt betrayed by the feathered serpent for not staying and serving him,” Jarisi continued. “But who really knows?”

  “Oh, I think we have the answer to that sitting at this table,” Ashlynn suggested with a pointed glance toward the Fae.

  “They were right,” Portia finally answered when Maria wouldn’t. “The white one is called Lordaron. He’s the high king of all Fae and his throne is in the court of light.”

  “His own son,” Maria murmured. “He used the mirror on his own son . . .” Her voice trailed off, and the table went quiet again.

  “Maria, or rather Shedu-Maira, is the queen of all the Fae?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Well, that explains just about everything except why this Quetzalcoatl looks like Portia and not Maria or this white devil dude, from the sound of it.”

  “Oh, Lordaron has his feathers. He simply hides them with glamour and makes the other Fae forget his inauspicious beginnings as a lesser Fae,” Portia drawled. “He’s the reason I’m in this godforsaken world to begin with and the reason the Red Daggers exist.”

  “And he’s your husband,” I added, turning to Maria. She nodded, and I followed my train of thought. “And the feathered serpent? What’s his name?”

  “Vash,” Maria murmured. “His name is Vash.”

  “And what is he to you, Portia?” Ashlynn asked. I arched an eyebrow at her, and she winked.

  “You ask that like you know the answer.”

  “I’d still like you to answer it, please,” Ashlynn cajoled the Fae. Portia’s face grew dark, and the feathers that ran from her crown down her back to her ankles, rustled in warning.

  “He’s my twin brother,” Portia finally answered when Maria cleared her t
hroat. “Now you know my whole life story. Does it make you feel superior, Clay, knowing I have a crazy despot for a father, my brother’s gone native, and my half-sister is a traitor? What a family, right?”

  “Wait. You’re a princess, and your mother is the greatest Fae warrior of her age?” I coughed. Portia blinked slowly but didn’t answer me. “Wait a second. Do you breathe fire?”

  “No, and neither does Vash. It’s called the hand of flame. It’s his special power.” She looked sad as she answered me. “He was such a warrior, greatest who ever lived, as far as we know. He only ever had to use his power once. After that, reminding people he had the hand of flame was enough to stop any challenge.”

  “Then how did he lose to his father?” Somayo asked. “How does a father fight his son for going his own way?”

  “I understand,” I broke in. “The Venatores would’ve killed me if they’d had a chance, and that was for following their directives. Some people in power confuse that with having control over others.”

  Portia nodded and sniffed. “Vash was supposed to enslave the people we found when we opened the doors to the Fairy mound and realized we weren’t in our homeland anymore. It does that, you know—move around,” she added, and I nodded.