by Lucy Lyons
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
The Vampire’s Spell
Surrendering to The Night:
Book 2
Lucy Lyons
© 2017
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
I padded through the empty hallway in soft-soled hunter’s moccasins; cursing myself softly. I’d spent far too much time practicing the new spells Dominique had charged me to learn and overslept, Again! The vampire hunters would all be asleep after being out all night patrolling, so getting out of my new apprentice quarters had been simple. Usually even when I was late I wasn’t the only student in the halls at school. I must have been later than I thought.
I stopped before a heavy oak door and took a deep breath; holding it in as I reached for the door knob. The creak of the hinges echoed in the empty hall as I slowly opened the door. Cringing, I snuck a peek around the wooden edge to the interior of the classroom. Grateful that the lecture hall was empty, I released the breath I’d been holding and stepped inside.
“So good of you to join us lowly scholars, Miss Walker,” Professor Eldritch drawled from behind me. I jumped and pressed my hand over my heart. As he walked past me into the room, I leaned against a desk for support.
“Please, please professor, I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. I was up late studying, and I overslept,” I apologized. For a moment, his scowl lightened.
“You were studying the textbook passages that you rolled your eyes at yesterday?” He queried; my heart sank.
“I was studying for my practical spellcasting test.” The scowl returned and professor Eldritch pushed past me and strode toward the lectern. I followed, dragging my feet; wallowing in self-pity. How could he know how hard I was trying to please everyone right now?
The Venatores lamiae were the oldest and most powerful, vampire hunting society in the world. Less than a year before, I’d been kidnapped and later released by the master vampire of Los Angeles. Since then, I’d been doing double duty as a student and apprentice hunter. I was almost finished my senior year of pseudo-Catholic private school through the Venatores.
On top of the rigorous studies demanded of those who wished to become hunters; I was already apprenticed to Dominique de Borgia. She was the most powerful sorceress to walk the earth for the last two thousand or so years. Eldritch had agreed (perhaps out of spite) to help me finish school and now I was stuck with almost daily reprimands for my lack of application.
“The only way you’re going to pass your finals is if you study the work I give you, Caroline,” Eldritch sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing the spotless lenses with the hem of his cardigan. I bowed my head so he couldn’t see my eyeroll at the unconsciously pedantic gesture. “Right now, you have ten more centuries to cover before you graduate. I suggest you start caring about your schoolwork before it’s too late.” I opened my mouth to argue then shut it with a snap. Eldritch wasn’t inviting discourse. Telling him I was learning more from listening to Dominique de Borgia, who had lived it, was perilous to my health, at best.
“Of course, professor, I want to graduate with everybody else,” I apologized; proud I kept the insolence out of my voice. As if he read my mind, Professor Eldritch’s head snapped around and he stared at me, his forehead furrowed and lined with wrinkles.
“Did you do any of your homework?” I let him see my eyeroll at the question, and took out my books.
“I always finish my homework before I work on spells,” I fibbed. The truth was, I always meant to, but sometimes the temptation to develop and use my growing power was irresistible. Last night though, my assigned reading had been hunter-related and rather riveting. However nothing would make me admit that to Eldritch. I worked hard enough to please any teacher in the school and the head of the Venatores themselves. No matter what I did, Eldritch had nothing for me but criticism and disdain. I wondered sometimes if he would’ve kept hounding me so hard, if he knew that his attitude was the very reason I’d stopped doing my best to please him.
I kept my eyes directed at the scarred old desktop as Eldritch handed me a worksheet to fill out based on the reading. I’d been quietly working for well over an hour when the sheer weight of the silence made me glance up. Eldritch was gone; this often happened frequently during our private class sessions. I’d never been concerned about being alone in any part of the oceanfront school before; but now; I felt prickles of cold sweat on my forehead and spine. I wasn’t alone anymore.
The psychic powers I had unlocked as a tiny child, were now honed to a fine point under my mistress’ training. Now I flexed that power. My mind opened as I imagined a flower in bloom with my power resting at the heart of it. I stretched out that power like a hand with its fingers spread; until I brushed against the thoughts of the man watching me. My heart thudded and I made a sound of exasperation.
“Clayton, you idiot. What exactly, do you think you’re doing?” I asked telepathically, as he laughed aloud in response. I climbed the stairs to the top row of seats where he sat on the floor. He pushed up with his arms and settled into a folding theater chair.
“I’m getting better, Caroline, admit it.” He been practicing stealth for a few months. Every chance he got, he’d taken trying to sneak up on me.
“I don’t know if sneaking up on me is going to help you hunt vampires Clay. Not to mention; how offended should I be that you think my abilities are v
ampiric?” he laughed again as I switched to verbally chastising him. Dominique had warned us after we’d been caught speaking telepathically, that our faces made the people around us uncomfortable as we silently conversed. Now I did it in case Eldritch walked in on us. He already had enough reasons to hate me without being reminded what a freak I was in his own classroom.
People like me didn’t have a classification; officially. Unofficially; we were called witches, sometimes worse. The Venatores didn’t know if we were human or something else entirely. Dominique told me we were classified as “homines supernaturali” or supernatural human. I felt like the Venatores around me saw me as more than human, but less than a person sometimes.
“You look sad again. What’s eating at you lately?” I faked a smile as he arched an eyebrow at me. “Remember how scared I was the first time I saw your abilities?” I nodded. “People will come around. Look at how distinguished the Lady Borgia is among the Venatores.” He said, and I nodded.
“And look at how seasoned hunters make the sign of the evil eye when she passes them,” I countered. She was the greatest among us. Because she wasn’t quite human, she was hated and mistrusted no matter how many hunter lives she saved or how many times she risked her own.
“She does have friends among us Caroline, so do you.” I appreciated his reassurance but even as he said it; I knew where his mind went. We didn’t need telepathy to feel the empty place between us. My foster brother and best friend David; had once rounded out our group to a perfect triumvirate of mischief. But we were no longer children and David was now feuding with us both. I couldn’t hate the vampires that took us and Clayton refused to hate me.
“Have you figured out who you’re going to beg to take you on as an apprentice?” I asked to change the subject.
“That’s why I came to see you. I might not be as available for a little while,” he began and my traitorous heart wobbled in my chest excited for Clay, selfishly bummed that he’d be leaving me.
“You’re going to the Vatican,” I gasped. It was fitting for him to be honored with a position among the scholars and priests that led the Venatores from the holy city. Clayton was the best among the last round of graduates. He was better than David at strategy and with a blade or a gun. He was almost as fast as I was. He’d managed to graduate valedictorian despite how much time he spent clowning around with David and me.
I was so proud of him; I was selfish and didn’t want him to leave me. Clay; Simi and lady Dominique were the only friends I had left. “We have to celebrate before you go,” I told him just as my phone started bleating at me from my pocket.
It was Dominique requesting my presence immediately. In her uncanny way, she knew that Clayton was with me and demanded his presence as well. I ran down the steps and put my finished worksheets on the professor’s desk, and we took off at a jog.
Chapter 2
The school was at the far end of the compound; it was removed from the violence that was an unavoidable part of a hunter’s existence. We ran easily keeping pace with each other as we did on our daily runs through the city for physical training. Still, we were both panting when we halted outside the double doors that led to the chambers.
“Come in, don’t dally outside you two,” Eldritch’s voice rang out from within as Clay cracked the door.
“You’d think he was psychic, the way he sniffs his students out,” Clay muttered under his breath, as I stifled a nervous giggle. I’d been Dominique’s personal apprentice for almost a year and I’d never been summoned to the chambers before. Heart thudding in my chest, I made my way inside.
Clayton jerked to a stop in front of me so suddenly I bumped into his back and had to step around him. In the center of the council chamber were the most experienced hunters; including my friend Simi and Eru Somayo; the North African Venatores liaison who had helped rescue David and me from the master vampire’s lair months before. I was thrilled to see him again but the fact that he’d returned made me nervous.
Then I saw who had made Clayton pull up so abruptly. My chest squeezed down on my heart in a vise-grip and I gripped his arm as my legs turned to noodles. David and his new cronies stood a few feet from Dominique; it was obvious even without psychic powers that we’d interrupted an argument.
“No. This does not continue with that blood-letting whore in the room,” a redheaded Viking I’d never seen before pointed a thick finger at me; raising his voice. Shocked, I stood there wide-eyed and unable to speak. Dominique reached out to me as Clay led me to her by the hand.
“This council does not answer to you, Vladikk Agnarrson,” Professor Eldritch reminded him. He didn’t raise his voice, but the air in the room shifted as his authority rang out in my head like a bell. I saw in some of the other faces that they felt it too; even David; whose face went pale and his eyes turned toward the floor. I didn’t know why I hated seeing him with such bloodthirsty men. He was a hunter. I had known what path he would choose. But knowing he wanted to be like them hurt as much as how little he wanted to be near me.
David, once my friend and only family, couldn’t forgive me for seeing more than the half-truths we’d been fed as children. I didn’t blame him for his hatred. I had the clarity of time spent with the masters; studying our treatises with the night creatures, the “De venandi, et tenebrae”. David would never be a part of that inner enclave. He was a foot soldier with grand ambitions, but he wasn’t a leader. I looked at him; cringing next to violent men who hated vampires more than they loved humanity and my heart ached.
“Don’t waste our time, old man. We don’t recognize your witch or her fang-banger apprentice as Venatores lamiae. Send them away or we leave.” I forced my shoulders back and stepped out where they could see me better. Then, I took a step toward David. I didn’t really have any idea what I was going to do when I got to him; then I took a second step and a third. I was halfway to him when the Nord with an attitude growled something unintelligible and made the sign of the evil eye. I couldn’t help myself. I was so shocked that I laughed at him. Instantly, the hunters in his group reached for their weapons and Clay grabbed me and yanked me back to the other edge of the circle.
“Oh, for the love of God!” I exclaimed. “What is wrong with you? I’m Venatores lamiae, the same as all of you.” I huffed as I threw my hands out in frustration. The Viking jumped back and David met my eyes as he was jostled. “Whatever lies you’ve been telling will come back on you eventually,” I hissed at my former friend. I turned my back and pleaded with the professor. “Can I go? I don’t want to be staring down their hatred any more than they want me here. I can just leave.”
I heard the big doors open behind me; then turned around without waiting for him to answer me. I had seen the man and woman who entered a hundred times, but hadn’t ever met them before. The Cardinal Paulo Parelini was dressed in black, unlike the scarlet he wore for ceremonial purposes. Lady Sofia of Genoa looked like Dominique, if my mistress ever wore Givenchy and stiletto sandals. The family resemblance was striking as the two women greeted. I recalled learning about the power or magical ability; that the Borgia’s had specifically worked to breed into their bloodline. Sofia of Genoa had become queen of Italy in the late 1500’s. Just standing before her raised goosebumps on my arms.
If anyone had wanted to wipe the Venatores lamiae from the face of the earth; a nuke to the council chamber would’ve done it. I didn’t know Vladikk or his men; other than David of course. Eru Somayo; the biggest and most bad-ass hunter I’d ever seen in action, showed him respect. Cardinal Parelini was the second in command to the pope and the Head of the Venatores in the church. Dominique and Sofia were distant cousins. Both came from the infamous Borgia family of assassins and sorcerers. Both were hundreds of years old and power rose from them like heat waves in the desert. The power in the room was overwhelming; both political and mystical.
“Great, now we have three devil-worshipping witches and a crooked cleric to round out this meeting,” Vladikk Agnarrson complain
ed, obviously feeling the power too. The Cardinal raised an eyebrow and serenely walked past the hunters. He held out his hand and I knelt and kissed his ring automatically; keeping my eyes on the floor between us.
“Stand little one,” he said, and I glanced up into twinkling eyes. I stood; chewing on my lip while he perused me. He nodded in approval and joined Somayo, Simi and the others as they spoke with Lady Sofia quietly. I looked over at Clay, who shrugged as I mouthed “What the heck?” at him.
The Cardinal cleared his throat and gestured for us to take seats at the round table in the center of the room. We took our places with Clayton sitting between David and Somayo. I was between Professor Eldritch and Domonique; my mistress. Vladikk, David and the others were across from us.
“There’s no room for hatred among us right now,” the Cardinal began. “We’ve received information that leads the Venatores back to your old enemies in Los Angeles. Bodies are turning up; not just bled, but torn apart and disemboweled. I automatically opened my mouth to argue, but Dominique pressed against my mind with a command of “shut it” and my mouth closed with a snap.
“You have a question, Caroline?” Simi asked with the corner of her mouth twitching down into a frown.
“There’s one, I guess.” David scoffed and hit the table with his fist.
