by Gwynn White
“I will always treasure it,” I told him.
He stroked his hand down my cheek. “Goodnight, Terra. And happy birthday.”
He leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips. As he turned and walked away, I lifted my hand to my mouth. We’d exchanged friendly kisses on the cheek or forehead throughout the years, but Jason had never kissed me there before. No one had.
I watched him melt into the trees, disappearing like a Phantom into the night.
8
Pacific Sunrise Bakery
That night, I dreamt Jason brought me to the base of Ribbon Falls, my favorite waterfall. My clothes were dirty, completely covered in mud. The cool stream of silver water washed the dirt away. Jason brushed his hands down my arms, displacing the rest. I shivered.
“You’re cold.” He pulled me away from the waterfall’s misty shore and took off his jacket, wrapping it around my shoulders.
But I wasn’t shivering from the cold.
I lifted my hand to his face, stroking it down his hard jaw. When he didn’t pull away, I slid it behind his neck, kneading his tense muscles. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. I lifted my hands, pausing, wondering if I dared. Then I plunged them down, my fingers tracing the rigid contours of his back.
He stepped back and captured my hands in his. I met his eyes. They were open now, and a dark storm raged inside of them. He set one hand behind my neck. The other traced my jaw. Then he dipped me back, his mouth closing over mine. We kissed before the silver stream of water, its misty shower sprinkling over us.
I woke suddenly, startled. My head spinning, my skin tingling, I wondered if I’d just had a dream or a foresight. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. It was still early, still dark, but the sky was changing. The sun would be up soon.
My eyes focused, and I saw Jason standing over me, his hand on my arm. He’d shaken me awake.
Heat flushed my cheeks, and I tried to push all thoughts of the dream out of my head. And it was a dream, I told myself. It was just my mind trying to process everything that had happened last night. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t real. Not my bold hands stroking his back. Not the feel of his lips on mine, hard and possessive.
Shit! I was thinking about it—with a mind-reader right next to me.
“What’s wrong, Jason? Why are you here?” I said, trying to sound casual. And failing. I sounded like a kid who’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. It didn’t take a mind-reader to know something was off.
But if Jason had seen anything in my head, he wasn’t showing it. “We’re going on a witch hunt,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Like we discussed last night,” he reminded me.
Last night was a blur. So much had happened. My mind hadn’t been all there.
“Did I agree to that?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
He walked to my window and looked out. “Come on. On the way there, I’ll buy you a muffin from the Pacific Sunrise Bakery.”
That was all I needed to hear. Earth might have been a backwater world with no magic and antiquated technology, but no one could indulge your tastebuds like they did. They were the galaxy’s best cooks. And no one made muffins like the Pacific Sunrise Bakery. It was worth visiting the planet just for the muffins.
I got up. Then, realizing I was standing in front of Jason in nothing but a tank top and underwear, I suddenly felt weird. He’d been sneaking into my room for years, on our way to grand and exciting adventures. I’d never been self-conscious around him before, no matter what I was wearing. Or not wearing, for that matter. But now that we were engaged, I felt kind of naked.
And he’d kissed me last night. The rational part of my brain knew he’d only done it as a gesture of our engagement, but all the rational thought in the galaxy didn’t stand a chance against an overly-active imagination. My baffled mind was even dreaming about that kiss now.
I realized that I was being silly. Jason was the same person he’d always been: my friend. And I was the same person too. So why was this all so awkward? If my betrothed had been anyone else, Jason and I would have talked about it. We’d have plotted against my hapless suitor. But I couldn’t do that now. Because, whether I wanted to admit it or not, things had changed between us.
“Could you, um, turn around, Jason?” I asked him.
I didn’t have to ask twice. He pivoted sharply, and I went to my closet to pull out my clothes.
“So what’s the plan?” I said as I changed.
“From Earth, we will take the portal Vib escaped through to the witches’ empire, to Temporia. We will find him and bring him and his menagerie of drugged mages back to Pegasus.”
I finished pulling on my clothes, then circled around him. “Have you talked to your father about this?”
He gave me a flat look.
Of course he hadn’t.
“It’s best that he doesn’t know,” he said.
“So you will defy your father in matters that might ignite a galactic conflict, but you didn’t defy him when he betrothed you to me?”
“There’s too much at stake with Vib. He’s planning something, and it’s bad news for all mages.” His brows drew together. “And who says I didn’t defy him in the matter of the betrothal?”
“You lost?” I asked, surprised.
“I was persuaded,” he amended.
“How?”
“My father made it clear that your father would eventually manage to marry you off, that our schemes could not delay that forever. The only way to prevent it was for me to marry you. It makes perfect sense if you think about it. See it as a lifelong friendship, a commitment to stick together, to have each other’s backs.”
He said it so practically, so without emotion. But I’d felt something when he kissed me, like it had been more than a friendly peck, more than a kiss shared by partners in crime. At least I thought I had.
“Are you coming or not?” he said impatiently.
“You know I am.”
I’d never been able to say no to him, not when it was about something really important to him. He’d never been able to say no to me either. That was how we got into so much trouble. But it was also how we got each other out of trouble.
On the way to Earth, we paid a visit to Ruby and Topaz, the two captured mages in the Pegasus prison, but Vib’s children weren’t in a very talkative mood. They just hit us with a creepy smile that made my skin crawl. They must have believed Vib was coming for them. I only hoped Vib didn’t send Nemesis to break them out of jail. After being locked up in the GTA office for hours, she would be positively murderous.
Following our detour to Pegasus, Jason and I took the portal to Earth. He brought me to the Pacific Sunrise Bakery, a cozy cafe with hardwood floors. Framed photographs of nature hung on the walls, featuring redwoods, high mountain peaks, and sandy oceanside beaches.
The teenage girl behind the counter yawned from a combination of boredom and exhaustion. The cafe had only just opened, and she already looked like she was ready to go home.
As promised, Jason bought me a muffin. I was tempted by the triple chocolate delight, but I ultimately passed in favor of the blueberry crumble. Chocolate was a stimulant for a Prophet, and I was still trying to figure out how to use the new headband Jason had given me. There was no need to overload the accessory’s magic on the first day.
Jason and I sat down at a table outside the cafe. As I devoured my sugar-loaded breakfast, he watched the other customers come and go, carrying baked goods and coffee cups.
“Perplexing,” he commented.
“What is?”
“That foamy coffee. And spending large amounts of money on it.”
“Says he who dropped a bag of gold coins on black market goods just yesterday.”
“We all have our hobbies, Terra.”
I snorted.
“Foamy beans.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“You could always try it and find out what the
fuss is all about.”
“I’m not sure how my magic would react to it.”
I chuckled. “Ok, so I’ve been thinking. Some foods are stimulants for our magic, some are inhibitors, depending on our ability. Like alcohol is a stimulant for Prophets, but a soothing element for Phantoms.” I licked a muffin crumb off my finger. “What if Vib’s potions just took that a step further? What if, based on that knowledge, he mixed together serums that greatly accentuate or inhibit our abilities?”
“Accentuating and inhibiting serums?”
“Yes,” I said. “And perhaps other serums too. Did you notice how his children seemed linked?”
“Yes.”
“What if that’s the work of his potions too?”
The question was whether his children were a failed experiment or a successful one. I didn’t know which possibility scared me more.
“That is actually a good observation,” he said.
“Try not to sound so surprised.”
Jason folded his hands together. “How did you get to be so smart?”
I smirked at him. “I’ve always been the brains in our operation. And you the muscle.”
An amused grunt rumbled in his chest. “This is nice. Just like this,” he said seriously. “Things have been awkward since last night.”
“You’re never awkward, Jason.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well, you do an excellent job of hiding it,” I told him.
“I know.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. His face was just so serious.
“I’m sorry you were disappointed when you saw me last night. I know you were looking forward to marrying a vampire.” He even kept a straight face as he said it, but I knew he was teasing me.
So I teased back. “Well, you know what they say: vampires make the best lovers.”
“Who says that?”
I gave my hand a dismissive wave. “Everyone.”
His eyes phased a shade darker. “And now you’ll never find out.”
“Good riddance. I don’t think I could ever get used to the biting.” I reached for my muffin, but it hopped, evading me. “That’s not funny, Jason.”
“It wasn’t me,” he said, as our table shook again.
The whole street was rumbling now.
“Earthquake?” I asked.
“No.” He rose to his feet. “Monster.”
I followed his gaze. A behemoth beast was charging down the street, the ground shaking every time its paws touched down.
“Wolf!” someone screamed.
Jason and I jumped up and ran after the beast.
“That is no wolf,” he said.
Sure, it looked like a wolf—or at least as close to a wolf as any otherworldly creature did, but it was many, many times bigger. And far more dangerous.
“It’s one of the witches’ guard dogs,” I replied, my chest constricting with panic. “A hellhound.”
Hellhounds were so feral, so vicious, that the witches only kept them in check by placing special control collars around them. This one was not wearing a collar. It had gone wild. Worse yet, this wild hellhound was charging down a street on Earth in broad daylight. It wasn’t just the Veil of Secrecy that was in danger. If we didn’t stop the beast, it was going to kill someone.
9
Vampires
Jason looked at me. “Lead the beast away from town, into the woods. I’ll be waiting for it,” he said.
He wanted to lure the hellhound away from the humans, so he could use his full magic to fight the beast. And he would need all his magic. Hellhounds were notoriously difficult to take down. With their control collars on, they were a menace. Without them, unchecked and wild, they were a catastrophe. And this one looked furious.
As Jason darted away from the street, I ran toward the beast, grabbing rocks off the ground. “Over here, you overgrown wolf!” I shouted, bombarding it with stone after stone.
It turned around, snarling. Its lips pulled back, and it flashed me a full mouth of very pointy teeth. Beastly saliva dangled from its fangs.
“Puppy!” a young boy shouted, running at the hellhound.
At the child’s high-pitched squeal of glee, the beast’s head snapped around. Oh, no. I tore a wooden plank off a nearby road barrier and swung it at the beast, hitting it hard in the stomach.
The beast howled and pivoted around. Then it ran after me. The people of the town just stared at us in shock.
As I ran away, I saw the child’s mother carry him to safety. Thank goodness for that. There was no time to celebrate, though. The beast was closing in on me. Damn, it was fast.
“Someone help her!” a man shouted.
A gun fired, but it missed the beast. It nearly hit me, though. I had to take this fight off the street, before one of the well-meaning townspeople shot me.
The woods were close. I ran into them, darting down a narrow path speckled with trees. The beast roared in frustration, then took a parallel trail that was wider. I kept running and didn’t look back.
What was going on? Where were the witches? How could they bring one of their beasts here, to Earth? And, come to think of it, how was the beast even here? Beasts could not travel to Earth. They didn’t get portal keys. The witches could not bring them here, and the beasts could not get here alone. And yet one of them was here.
As the beast closed in on me, I noticed there was something strange about the beast. It didn’t look quite like a hellhound. It wasn’t just its lack of collar. It was more than that. The beast’s fur was also different; there was a blue tint to it. And its eyes. They were so blue! Hellhounds had red eyes, not blue ones.
The beast’s pants grew heavier, louder—and it was then I saw it was not alone. It had friends, each beast a little different. One with yellow eyes, one with green eyes, and the last with purple eyes. Though their eye color varied, they shared the same vicious sneer. And they were almost upon me.
“Damn it, Jason. Where are you?” I muttered.
One vicious beast was hard enough to fight alone. Battling four of them was pretty much impossible. Even with Jason’s help, taking them out would be a challenge. I had to think of something real clever, real quick.
There was a whistle of movement, then a howl of pain. Jason was behind the beasts. He’d just knocked one of them into a tree. Another howl. That was the second monster hitting a trunk.
I spun around to face the beasts. I drew my twin swords and slashed at the wolves, driving them back. The two beasts Jason had knocked aside were coming back around. They dove at him, their mouths open, their jaws snapping. Jason kicked one in the face, spinning the kick to hit the other one too.
“Ideas?” I asked as Jason and I moved back-to-back. The beasts had us surrounded.
“We must aim to incapacitate, not kill.”
Right. We didn’t have a kill order to destroy the witches’ property. But we were allowed to render them unconscious to protect humans and maintain the Veil of Secrecy.
“Ok, incapacitate,” I repeated. “And how do we do that?”
“Aim for nonessential body parts.”
Great. That was helpful.
A beast kicked off its massive hind legs, jumping at us. Jason met the monster’s attack, aiming low to slam his fist against its chest. It fell unconscious to the ground.
“Like that,” he told me.
I looked at the beast on the ground. There was a ripple of magic, and then the beast’s fur disappeared, melting away into skin. Its body shrank into human form. Sapphire, one of Vib’s mages, lay motionless on the ground.
I looked at the other wolves. Each one had a different color tint, each one a different color of the rainbow. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. They weren’t beasts at all. They were mages who could shift into beasts. That explained how they’d gotten here. Mages could use portal keys.
But werewolves? That wasn’t even a mage ability. Chameleons could change parts of their appearance, morphing their hair color or the shape
of their nose. Some could even assume the form of another person. But they always had a human shape, never that of a beast. Werewolves were just a myth. Or so I’d thought.
I bent down and lifted an empty potion vial from Sapphire’s body. Vib’s children had drunk something. A potion. Is that what had turned them into beasts? Had Vib found a way to create a new kind of mage ability?
I prayed for answers, not monsters. Unfortunately, the universe did not oblige. The remaining beasts were closing in on us, feral magic glowing in their eyes.
The forest quaked, and six vampires burst out of the trees. Covered in their big black armor, the vampire soldiers were massive, even larger than Phantoms. And the helmets that masked their faces made them look even more inhuman.
As the vampires charged at the beasts, one of them threw a sphere into the air. It was a reality distortion field, a device that cloaked us from human eyes. Some people might have called it magic, but it was tech all the way. Vampires used tech, right down to the power armor they wore. I’d heard their armor even allowed them to breathe underwater—or in space.
The vampires bombarded the beasts with bullets. With the reality distortion field up, no one outside it could hear or see us. Overwhelmed, the beasts shifted back into mage form and fled through a portal.
The vampires didn’t follow. As one, their helmeted heads turned to me and Jason. One of them stalked toward me in powerful strides, his movements smooth and fluid, as though he weren’t even wearing armor. He emanated raw, undiluted power—a power that spoke to me on a deep and dark level. A monster, a predator, lay in wait behind that armor. This was the vampires’ leader, the lord of all hunters.
He must have been a beast of a man under that armor. Yes, he. I knew he was male. All vampire soldiers were. Unlike mages, the vampires didn’t believe in their women serving in the military, or charging into battle. Vampire women could hold power, be rulers and diplomats, but they could not be soldiers. They didn’t swing swords—or shoot guns. To be honest, I found the whole notion rather impractical. It must have been horribly inconvenient to always wait around for someone else to rescue you, instead of taking matters into your own hands.
