High Stakes (Codex Blair Book 6)

by Izzy Shows

  “You’ve got that right,” I said, flicking my gaze down to the floor for a moment before raising it back up to look him in the eye. I began to chew on the inside of my cheek, then consciously stopped myself from that particular nervous tic. I didn’t need sores. “All right, cards on the table. Your vampires are acting out.”

  His grey eyes darkened, and his upper lip twitched slightly. He stood up and walked slowly around his chair to gaze at the fireplace. “That’s a hefty accusation.”

  “I know, and you know I wouldn’t come to you without cause. And I wouldn’t admit this without good reason: I killed a vampire tonight.”

  His shoulder stiffened. “An offense punishable by death.”

  I snorted before I could stop myself. “Yeah, I get a lot of those threats.”

  “Yet you know I would follow through without hesitation.”

  “You’re hesitating just by having this conversation,” I pointed out. I wasn’t half as relaxed as I was making myself sound, but snark had always been my coping mechanism. “I killed him because he attacked me. It was self-defence, but before he attacked... Well, there were three of them, and they said your rules don’t matter anymore. That they could kill anyone in London. I’m coming to you to find out if you’ve changed your rules, or if your vampires need some reminding about those rules.”

  “My rules haven’t changed,” he said quietly, still not looking at me.

  Somehow, that was worse than learning that Dudley was declaring war on the citizens of London. Neither was a good option, but Dudley losing control was horrible.

  His vampires were going rogue. We were potentially facing a rebellion, and I didn’t know what to do about that.

  “All right.” I took a deep breath in and let it out. “So, what are we going to do?”

  “You seem to think there needs to be something done. What you are describing is impossible. The vampires you found must have been visitors. My vampires wouldn’t break my rules.”

  “Dudley, they said your rules don’t matter. That’s a huge deal.”

  He turned to me then, and I saw abject rage and hatred written all over his face. “I’m telling you that you are wrong.”

  I stood up, balling my hands into fists. “This is important. If you can’t control them, I’m going to have to, and I don’t want to do that. You’re supposed to keep your vampires in line, keep them from feeding on the innocent citizens of London. My job is to keep the citizens safe. Your job is to keep your vampires in line.”

  He snarled at me, fangs flashing. “You dare to imply that I’m not doing my job?”

  I softened my tone. “I’m saying that someone is spreading dissent. I’m bringing this to your attention so you can do something about it. Don’t you care?”

  He clearly didn’t want to hear what I was saying, but I had to get through to him. The fate of London rested on his ability to keep his vampires in line. If he couldn’t do that...

  No. I wasn’t going to go down that road, because that was simply unacceptable.

  “You’re dismissed,” he said, turning his back on me.

  “Dudley!”

  “I said get out,” he hissed.

  “You...” I let out an agitated sigh, glaring at his back. “Fine. Don’t think this is the last we’re going to speak of this.”

  I turned and stomped out of the room.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I damned well wasn’t going to sit back and wait for the blood to run freely through the streets of London.

  Someone had to do something, and somehow, that someone was always me.

  Seven

  I was sitting cross-legged in Diego’s living room, glaring down at the floor. It had been a rough rest of the night last night, and I was in a poor mood this morning. Thoughts of the potential rebellion kept running through my mind. I couldn’t focus, and that was agitating Diego.

  Good. Both of us could be in shite moods, then.

  “You aren’t trying,” he said.

  I looked up at him to see his hands on his hips. Desideria was lounging on the couch behind him. The coffee table had been moved out of the centre so we could sit and work together. Only he wasn’t sitting. He was standing above me.

  That grated on my nerves, for some reason. I didn’t like the power stance, didn’t like the idea it implied: that he was above me.

  Yet that was the truth of the matter. He was my mentor. He occupied a position of power that I had to submit to. I didn’t do well with authority figures--never had and likely never would. I liked Diego, though, which was why I was making so much of an effort to keep my snarky comebacks to myself and do as he told me.

  “Maybe you’re not as good of a teacher as you think,” I said, all but snapping at him.

  It didn’t always work, that keeping my snark to myself thing.

  “Or maybe I have a pig-headed student who doesn’t know her ass from her elbow,” he said.

  I clenched my jaw to keep my next comment to myself. See, I was working on it.

  “This is important, Blair.”

  Weylyn was across the room, but his voice inside my head sounded like he was right next to me.

  “It doesn’t feel very important, in light of recent events.”

  “It is of the utmost importance that you master all of your skills so you can attain the level of Wizard and better protect the city. You don’t want to be in the position of needing a more concentrated skill that you haven’t learned one of these days.”

  He made good points, no matter how much I wanted to ignore him right now. I didn’t want to have to do this shit. I wanted to learn combat magic and work on the things that felt important to me.

  I glared down at my hands and swallowed, let out a frustrated breath and settled my shoulders back. “Fine. I’ll try again.”

  “Good,” Diego said.

  I closed my eyes and reached for the magic inside me. I pictured it as the cool blue power that imbued my ice magic, the magic I was best at, though I wouldn’t be using it just now. We were working on a spell for invisibility. I was supposed to disappear.

  But maybe if I thought of it along the lines of my strongest magic, I’d be able to get it to work.

  I gritted my teeth against the sensation of my nerves sizzling and frying, at the pain that wrenched my stomach, and pictured the magic flowing from my centre of gravity up into my arms. Down into my fingers.

  Pictured it taking my fingers and turning them to nothingness so they would fade from the world in front of them. Pictured that effect spreading throughout the rest of my body and taking my clothes with it so I wouldn’t be visible to anyone. I saw myself as a translucent outline that would be hard to focus on.

  I opened my eyes and saw that my hands had disappeared, but my clothes were very much still there.

  I let out a groan. “It didn’t work, did it?”

  “Well, now you have no hands, but your head’s still there, and so are your clothes, at least. So, no, I’d say it didn’t work.”

  Glaring down at where my hands should be, I clenched them into fists. They shimmered and the spell broke, revealing my hands once more. Not only could I not do the spell, I couldn’t even get it to hold.

  “What the fuck is the point of this, anyway?” I leaned forward and put my head in my hands. “I don’t understand why this is so hard. I can throw fireballs and ice bolts with the best of them. I can craft a focus easily. Why can’t I get this?”

  Diego walked over and sat in front of me. “Because this is a different kind of magic,” he said, his voice gentle. “It’s harder and requires more focus. This kind of magic requires concentration and finesse. You can’t accomplish it with brute force alone, unlike combat magic.”

  I threw myself backwards to lie on the floor with my legs still crossed. “I hate it.”

  “You hate failing at things,” he said.

  “Oh, so now I’m a failure.”

  “Well, I didn’t say that.”

  I moved my
hands and glared at him, particularly at the teasing smile on his lips. “Are you enjoying seeing me screw things up?”

  “I’m enjoying watching you put your mind to good use,” he said with a shrug. He sobered a moment later. “All jokes aside, I’m glad that you’re at least trying. You’ve learned some bad habits, focusing on combat magic alone, and we need to work to change that. As long as you keep trying, we’re making progress.”

  “It doesn’t feel like progress,” I said, flexing my core muscles and sitting up. I liked combat magic because it required all of my body. It allowed me to revel in the power that I had on my own. I liked it because it was easy, something I could grasp in a matter of minutes, although sometimes it took a little longer. It was something I understood in concept, whereas this magic was beyond me. “Why am I going to need to know this, anyway?”

  “Your job is to protect the city, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And while patrolling and beating things up is a part of that, so is investigation. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you said that on your very first mission, you were detected and placed yourself in danger.”

  “No, you’re right.” I sighed. I knew where this was going.

  “If you had known how to make yourself invisible, you wouldn’t have been in danger like that. You could have snuck right into that warehouse and listened to the entire conversation. Once you’ve mastered invisibility, I’ll teach you how to hide your aura, your scent, and your sounds so you don’t have to worry about other supernaturals picking up on you, either.”

  I perked up at that. “You can teach me to hide the sound of my heart beating?”

  “And the smell of your blood,” he said, clearly knowing exactly where my thoughts were. “You can hide yourself from vampires.”

  I felt a rush of excitement and anticipation. “Oh, Gods, that would be so useful.”

  He grinned. “Exactly. But first, you need to master invisibility. It has all the principles that will lead into the other spellwork.”

  I slumped a bit. “I’m never going to get this invisibility thing. It’s too hard.”

  “Would you rather go back to books?”

  “No!” I shuddered. “No books.”

  His smile was wicked. “It’s too easy to motivate you. Let’s give it another try. This time, try picturing things like the wind that you know exist but you can’t see. Picture yourself becoming one with the element. It might help.”

  I nodded and closed my eyes again, reaching for the well of magic inside me automatically. I remembered how hard it had been to find it those first few times when I was training with Aidan, but now it was second nature to grasp it. I imagined it curling out from within me and swirling around me to wrap me in its power.

  It was a larger and more expansive use of my magic, so it hurt a hell of a lot more than it would have if it had just threaded through my body, but maybe I had been going about it the wrong way before. I swayed in place, imagining the scent of the wind and the sound of it whistling by.

  Become one with the wind.

  Diego had been right to give me that direction. I had a much easier time tapping into elements than I did pure spellwork, for some reason.

  I pictured my body fading slowly into invisibility, disappearing from the world at large. More than that, though; I pictured Diego’s eyes hunting for me and the frustration he would feel if he were hunting me and not able to see me.

  I opened my eyes, and disappointment flooded through me immediately. Diego was looking right at me and not having even a little bit of trouble seeing me.

  But he didn’t look upset. “You almost got it that time,” he said. “You flickered for a moment, and all of you this time, not just your hands.”

  “It’s so hard,” I said, feeling defeated.

  “Let’s take a break, then.”

  “Oh, good.” I stood up. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about. I thought you might have some insight.”

  His brow wrinkled. “What is it?”

  “The vampires are acting weird. I think we might be on the brink of a rebellion. I ran into some last night, and they said they didn’t care about Dudley’s rules. He’s the Baron here in London. He rules over the vampires here, and I’m assuming that his rules are fairly similar to other vampire Barons’. He doesn’t let them feed on the locals. But they were set on feeding, and they attacked me. I tried to tell Dudley about it, but he didn’t seem to care.”

  Diego’s expression darkened. He stood up and paced over to the couch where Desideria lay, reached out and stroked her fur. “That’s not good.”

  “You’re telling me,” I said. “I don’t know what to do about it if Dudley isn’t going to recognize the problem.”

  “I really don’t want to fight a war on two fronts,” Diego said.

  I tapped my foot as I thought about that. He was fighting a war in the States with the vampires there, and he hadn’t been very forthcoming with the details. I knew that if I pressed him about it, he’d just retreat. He didn’t want to share, but I wanted to know if there were similarities.

  “I don’t want a war, either. But this isn’t a war between vampires and Wizards, or humans. Not yet. Right now, we’re looking at possibly having a civil war. Vampires on vampires, fighting for supremacy. And then, if the bad ones win, it would be fair game to hunt the humans. But I won’t let it get there.”

  “And you think you can stop a swarm of vampires?” He turned to look at me. I could clearly see that he didn’t believe in me.

  “I’ve taken on vampires before,” I said. “I fought through a whole house of them. And this--I wouldn’t fight them fair, if I had to fight them at all. I’d take them down one at a time, on the streets and in their homes. I know I couldn’t take them all if they ganged up on me, but I could take a decent number at once, especially if I had you with me.”

  He shook his head. “Not the old ones.”

  I let out a frustrated sound. “No, you’re right. The ones I fought were mostly newbies, recently turned. The old ones I fought were tainted, and I think they were weakened by that.”

  Diego dragged a hand through his hair. “You don’t know what it’s like to fight them when they’re at full strength. It’s all but impossible.”

  “I wouldn’t be alone,” I reminded him.

  “No, you’re right. I wouldn’t leave that up to you.”

  “That’s not what I meant--but thank you. I meant I’d have Dudley on my side, and I’m sure he has some vampires who would still be loyal to him. I’d have them on my side as well. It wouldn’t just be me versus them, you know.”

  The look in his eyes was dangerous. “You can’t trust vampires, Blair.”

  “Who said anything about trusting them?” I arched an eyebrow. “I certainly don’t intend to. I’m just going to, you know, work with them.”

  That didn’t seem to appease him at all.

  “You can’t work with vampires!”

  I groaned. I should have known that this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere productive. “What do you think is going to happen? I mean, really. Do you think we’re going to have a rebellion on our hands? How did it start over in the States?”

  And just like that, his face closed off to me, and he turned his back on me. Again. I fought back the growl that threatened to rumble in my chest. I wanted to stomp over there and spin him around so he’d have to face me, but I exercised a significant amount of control to prevent myself from doing just that.

  “I think you’re going to have to see how it plays out. If your Baron is strong enough, he might be able to reassert control. But there’s no knowing with vampires, not really. They don’t operate like humans do. They don’t have humanity. All they care about is the blood.”

  I frowned, thinking about Carmen, the vampire Dudley had assigned to work with me back when I’d had to face those twisted vamps. She hadn’t seemed to care only about the bloodlust. She’d been multifaceted, and she had an inten
se love for clubbing. Who’d care about dancing if feeding was all that occupied their minds? No, I couldn’t agree with him on this one. He had to be wrong.

  But I knew he wouldn’t listen to me.

  He was deeply troubled by the war in the States.

  Eight

  “Let’s eat lunch,” Diego said, which surprised me. It was such an abrupt subject change from the vampires we’d been talking about.

  “Er...all right,” I said, shrugging. My stomach chose that moment to gurgle, reminding me that I hadn’t stopped to have breakfast this morning. Not that I usually ate much for breakfast; tea and a granola bar usually sufficed for me. But I’d woken up late, having been out patrolling after my confrontation with Dudley. I’d been worried that there would be more attacks, that more of his vampires were out of control.

  Luckily, I hadn’t found any evidence of that, but I had no idea what was going on in the parts of London I hadn’t gotten to. There was only so much ground that one person could cover.

  I pushed those thoughts away and followed Diego into the kitchen. “What’s for lunch?”

  “Sandwiches,” he said. “What else?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you were the cooking type, since you live alone and all.”

  “I don’t live alone by choice, and I’m quite the stereotypical male. I can’t cook for shit.”

  “Ah, well, if it makes you feel any better, neither can I.”

  He opened the refrigerator door and looked at me over his shoulder, an eyebrow quirked up, before he started to pull ingredients out. “Somehow, that doesn’t shock me.”

  “Oi,” I said, frowning. “For all you knew, I could be a gourmet chef.”

  “I suppose that’s true, but you strike me as a survivalist. The type that does just enough to scrape by and doesn’t bother with the luxuries of life. Am I right?”

  I glowered at his back. “You’re right.” I hated agreeing with him, but I wasn’t about to lie. I didn’t want to get myself into a situation where I’d be proven wrong at a later date. “Never really saw the purpose for it or had the money for it. I had one foster home where they had quite a bit of money, but they didn’t waste any of it on me. I didn’t even get the same meals as them. Don’t know why they took me in to begin with.” I knew I sounded bitter, but I couldn’t help it. You try growing up in various homes of different levels of wealth, and yet have the one constant of not belonging. I hadn’t had one single faux relative care about me in any way.