Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

  She jumped to the ground, grabbing the silver poker. Hot anger burned through her, and she whirled. She threw it in a high arc as he lunged for her, and it pierced the center of his chest.

  The demon froze, gripping the metal. He opened his mouth, and the chorus of shrieks that emerged from his throat turned her blood to ice. There wasn’t enough time to consider how proud Josiah would be, because her attack had stoked the vampires’ fury.

  As she leapt over a table, Jorge jumped for her. She ducked, bringing her fist up into his groin. With a twist of her body, she kicked him into the fireplace. As she did, another vamp grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back with a sharp snap. But the attack was short lived. Something had stopped the vampires.

  She glanced at Caine who murmured, his body luminescent.

  Bound by Caine’s magic, the vampires lurched, bodies contorting in pain. The horrifying crunch of vampire bone echoed through the room. She released a breath. As long as he was chanting, he had the vampires under control.

  She cut a glance to Bileth, and terror crawled up her spine. His dark, wide eyes were fixed on her, and he ripped the poker from his ribs. She needed to get out of here now.

  Leaping onto the tables, she crashed through champagne flutes of blood in a frantic rush to the door. “Caine! Let’s go.”

  His eyes met hers, and he broke his spell over the vamps.

  Rosalind flew, bursting through the door, and Caine followed in a black blur.

  Once outside, he flicked his wrist, and the door slammed shut. Enraged shouts reverberated through the walls as demons pounded on the door. Her heart leapt into her throat. Bileth was still in there, and it couldn’t be long until he tore through the rickety walls.

  Caine glared at her. “Do you realize that you just impaled one of the most powerful demons in the world? There was a reason I didn’t slit his throat.”

  The blood drained from her head. This “master your fear” thing wasn’t working out so well. Maybe she still needed to work on distinguishing bravery from flat-out stupidity.

  This time, she wasn’t going to wait for Caine’s instruction to run.

  She took off in a sprint over the pier, charging for the bike. Somehow, Caine was already there by the time she arrived, waiting for her on his bike.

  She jumped on, gripping his waist. He revved his engine, peeling off into Salem’s narrow streets. His magical aura rippled over her skin. Dizzy, she watched her body disappear as the street sped by below them.

  She tried to control the shaking in her hands so Caine wouldn’t notice. The way Bileth had controlled her mind made her sick. That was a demon’s true nature—the reason that Hunters had been fighting evil for centuries.

  She clamped her eyes shut. Here she was, clinging to a demon as though he were any different.

  Caine roared through Salem’s winding streets and up a dark hill—away from his apartment. Where exactly was he taking her? For all she knew, he could be dragging her to Nyxobas as punishment for assaulting Bileth. He could be sentencing her to the shadow hell.

  Fear tightened her chest as they sped past tiny wooden houses on a tree-lined street. She still didn’t trust Caine, and the recent display of his power told her just what she’d be up against if she stopped being useful to him.

  He pulled off the main road into a parking lot, slamming to a stop near the wooded edge of the pavement.

  Rosalind shot a nervous look to the darkened pharmacy nearby. What the hell?

  He stepped off his bike, and she followed, taking a tentative step away from him. They were completely alone.

  He stepped closer, casting a scrutinizing gaze at her neck. When he touched her skin with his fingertips, she flinched.

  “Did Bileth bite you?” he asked.

  “No. He didn’t get that far.”

  “Good. If he had, you’d die an agonizing death in the next hour.” He frowned. “But you realize you just got me barred from my favorite drinking hole when you lit the bartender on fire.”

  “I was revolted by Bileth’s magic in my mind. It disgusts me that demons want to control humans’ minds. We’re just their toys.”

  “You think that’s how I see you?”

  The question caught her off guard. “I don’t know yet.”

  “It should be obvious that I don’t, or our interactions would be very different. Anyway, Bileth isn’t an ordinary demon. He commands eighty-five legions, and he reports directly to Nyxobas. He’s as ancient as the god himself, a fallen angel from the celestial wars several millennia ago.”

  She swallowed hard. “But you held a blade to his throat.”

  “That would be difficult to fix diplomatically, yes. But I’ve angered him before, and I could usually make amends by supplying him with expensive vodka and a particularly stunning courtesan or two. Plus, I’ve never actually stabbed him. I don’t think he’ll forgive impalement with a fireplace poker so easily. You should have run.”

  “I did tell you that something was coming. But you wanted to finish your drink. Plus, I wouldn’t have made it out fast enough.” She couldn’t tell him the truth—that she’d needed to save him to atone for what she’d done.

  “You had a second chance to run.”

  Her legs were still trembling, and the memory of Bileth’s complete control still haunted her. “I wanted to hurt him. He deserved it. And anyway, I thought you needed my help.”

  “I don’t see how that would be any of your concern. According to you, I’m a monster. And more than that, I told you I’d handle it.” His voice had a razor-sharp edge; his eyes were dark storm clouds. “And I would have. Aurora ran when I told her to.”

  Despite the look of primal wrath in his eyes, irritation spurred her on. “I don’t like being bossed around. You need to stop giving me commands. I’m not your soldier. And why couldn’t you just tell people that Ambrose wanted me alive? Surely the Vampire Lord has some clout.”

  Caine took a deep breath, and his eyes returned to their normal gray. “It’s not that simple. Ambrose doesn’t want Bileth to know what he’s planning.”

  “What’s he planning?”

  “You don’t need to know that. Not as long as you still plan on exorcising the spirit.”

  Exasperated, she glanced around at the empty lot. “Can you at least tell me what we’re doing in a parking lot?”

  “Come with me.” He stopped himself, taking a deep breath. “Please come with me, Rosalind.” Turning abruptly, he marched up the thickly overgrown, rocky hill.

  She followed, slipping on the steep, rocky slope as she scrambled to catch up. “Is there some sort of botanical emergency that needs addressing?”

  “You should rethink your plan. About purging the mage’s soul.”

  “And this rethinking needs to happen in the woods?”

  Maples loomed high above them, blocking out most of the moonlight. They crunched over fallen leaves and twigs.

  Caine led them up a steep hill into a grove of maple and poplar trees overlooking the parking lot. “In 1692, this is where the Brotherhood hanged nineteen people who had nothing to do with magic.”

  Another history lesson. “I’m not saying the Brotherhood are perfect. So they get it wrong sometimes, and they need to modernize. But they’re trying to protect humanity, and no one else is fighting the predatory demons like Bileth.”

  “The Brotherhood aren’t perfect, and neither is the magical world. We’ve got that in common. The difference is that the Brotherhood is gaining an unprecedented amount of power. People are terrified of magic, and that means the Hunters no longer have any restraints. No more trials. No more mercy. They’re starting to execute mages, and people they mistakenly think are mages. They want to watch the world burn. They want to watch you burn. And you want to run back to them. Do you have a death wish, Rosalind?”

  Executions. Burnings. That stuff wasn’t true, was it? “First of all, I’m human. They won’t hurt me. Second of all, they don’t burn anyone.”

  “R
unning back to the Brotherhood would be suicide.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. What good was her life if she had no home, no family? She didn’t even know who she could trust anymore. “I don’t see myself having a lot of options.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

  “You have a gift. You’re meant to fight. Just like I am. And call me crazy, but I think you should fight the people who want to burn you to death. Your plan to throw yourself on their mercy is utterly stupid.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s your mage-recruitment pitch? Calling me stupid?”

  “I said your plan is stupid. Not you.”

  “You haven’t explained why we need to be knee-deep in shrubbery for this conversation.”

  He stepped closer, fingers grazing her hand. His touch sparked her with a warm, electrical charge. Must be an incubus thing.

  “Take off the ring.” He winced as though in pain. “It is your choice to take off the ring, but I would strongly suggest that you do it. You need to see the magic that lurks under the surface—what the Brotherhood is so terrified of. Then tell me if it scares you, too. Because I’ve seen you fight. You’re a warrior. Like me.”

  At the thought of taking off the ring, raw panic burned through her nerves. “What is it with you people and wanting me to lose my mind?”

  “Like you said, you don’t have a ton of options. The people you plan on running to for protection want to kill you. Now the demon world wants to kill you, too, and they will hunt you unless you convert. It’s your one chance at saving yourself.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “I’ve saved your life more than once now. And I’ll be here now, when you take off the ring. If the spirit tries to hurt you, I’ll put the ring back on. Just like I did in Lilinor.”

  The wind rustled the elm leaves, whipping her hair around her head. She couldn’t bear the thought of that wild rage and agony. “I’m not doing it.”

  “Running away from your true nature won’t keep you alive. You can’t be scared of it.”

  “It’s not my true nature. It’s an invasive nature, just like Bileth’s aura in my skull. And I don’t want the magic to corrupt and deform my body.”

  Caine furrowed his brow. “I thought we’d established that my godlike beauty dispelled that myth.”

  “That’s just because you’re an incubus.”

  “No, it’s because magic doesn’t deform the human body. When will you understand that the Purgators are wrong about nearly everything?”

  “I felt this thing corrupting me. I felt the evil when Ambrose yanked off the ring.”

  “You’ve been trained to fundamentally reject magic, and that’s why it feels evil. You’ve been hiding from it for most of your life, and that means you’re at war with it. You need accept that it’s a part of you now.”

  If he thought she could master this particular fear, he was wrong. The spirit’s mind was the seventh circle of hell. Of course she was scared. Fear was a normal human emotion, absent only from demons and psychopaths. And while Caine fit at least one of those categories, Rosalind still felt a natural, human terror at the idea of losing her mind.

  Even so, it wasn’t like she’d admit to being scared. She had her pride.

  She lifted her face. “If anyone should be scared of me taking off the ring, it’s you, since I’m pretty sure this mage is a psychotic murderer. But if that’s what you want, then fine. Just stand back so I don’t rip your spine out through your throat.”

  Nice. I’m starting to talk like a vamp.

  Caine smiled. “Don’t get cocky. You speared one demon prince, but I’m not overly worried about my chances in a fight against you.”

  Now she kind of hoped the mage would do a tiny bit of damage. She sucked in a shaky breath, and slipped the ring off her finger.

  Chapter 15

  As soon as she slid the ring off, the second soul inside her opened like a flower, and another presence filled her mind.

  “Druloch calls to me,” it whispered. “I live within the tree’s shadows.”

  Someone looked out at the world through her eyes, and sent energy through her legs, forcing her to run. Bright, silvery light pierced the oak leaves above her. Elms towered over the forest floor. In the bright moonlight, they cast long shadows—the woods’ fingers.

  The forest teemed with life. Hawthorn petals carpeted the mossy earth. Around the path, blueberry bushes grew, and wild fox grape vines climbed over trees, their branches full of sparrows and blackbirds. The rich, peaty scent of the woods hung thick in the air. But there was death here, too, and sacrifice. Something drew her into the trees’ shadows.

  She slammed to a halt, feeling the vibrations of the surrounding woods. A flutter of movement caught her eye from a tangle of roots on the ground—black wings, a squawking bird. In the shadows, a crow ripped out a sparrow’s entrails, and the tiny bird screeched in agony. The crow was eating it alive. Lost somewhere in the aura, Rosalind felt sick. She wanted to wring the sparrow’s neck to end its misery.

  But the thing inside her relished the electrifying cycle of life and death. In the dark parts of the forest, the strong feed on the weak.

  The spirit wanted to feed.

  It forced her to her knees, and made her plunge her fingers into the ground. Vernal power coursed through her veins, and a green aura swirled through her body. This mage wanted her to bury herself in dark moss.

  I’m in here, her mind screamed. My name is Rosalind.

  The mage forced back her head, scanning the woods. Sage-colored algae grew on felled tree trunks. In the distance, an elk tore along a path. The trees’ spirits breathed around her, trunks swelling like bellows, the air thick and sweet with their whispered breath.

  Power charged her body, and the mage compelled her to rub the dirt over her arms and chest. The rejuvenating power of fertile soil.

  Her mind shrieked with the invader’s thoughts.

  The hawthorns. The sharp claws of lust. The fire. You led me to the fire. You will burn.

  Somewhere inside this chaotic mind, Rosalind tried to make herself stand. Rosalind… The name grew fainter.

  Something was wrong. Rage tightened around her heart like a cinquefoil vine. The moonlight burned too strong, dazzling through the leaves, blinding her. The smell of burning flesh filled the woods. Within moments, agony ripped her apart, her skin burning, blackening, and cracking. Pain splintered her mind until the world tilted.

  The mage was burning her body.

  Something else needed to die to stop this. Her blood boiled, and around her, oak leaves blazed like candles, lit with the witch’s fury.

  Oh gods. The agony warped her mind. Someone was here. An agent of the night god. Break his ribs. Rip his heart from his chest. Drink the blood to cool your flames.

  She leapt up from the ground, her pain blinding, and slammed into the mage, her fist ramming into his skull. After knocking him to the ground, she jumped on his chest, hands slipping around his throat.

  But the flames faded, her skin cooled, and a long sigh slid from her. Now the pain was just memory. She could see him now—so beautiful, his eyes a pale gray. The mage wanted him, and now Rosalind wanted him, too. She ran her fingers over his chest. The spirit forced her to lower her mouth to his and lick his lower lip, pressing her body against him, burning with need as she kissed him—

  He slammed the ring back on her finger, and the thing withered in her mind, its presence only a faint echo.

  She was lying on top of Caine, her hands fisted into his tousled hair and her mouth pressed against his. His soft, warm lips were electrifying, sending a different kind of heat through her—one that she liked. She forced herself to inch back, and stared into his eyes, trying to catch her breath.

  Caine’s breath warmed her neck. He murmured, “Apparently, your spirit wanted to get her hands on me, but not for fighting.”

  Her dress was torn, hiked up to the waist. Heat warmed h
er cheeks, and she said the first thing that popped into her head: “This is why I don’t wear dresses.”

  His eyes blazed with a pale light, and he trailed his fingertips down her back, leaving a trail of tingles. “If you’re going to straddle demons in the woods, you might as well show a little leg.”

  Oh, gods. She’d just pushed him onto the forest floor and assaulted him. And he’d clamped the ring back on her finger. For an incubus, that must have taken an awful lot of self-control—or maybe she wasn’t his type.

  Caine glanced at the mud and dirt coating her body, and whispered a spell. As he spoke, his aura whispered over her skin. She watched the muck lift into the air.

  As much as Caine’s aura soothed her, the thought of the mage inside controlling her body made her stomach turn. She unclenched her fingers from Caine’s hair, gazing into those glacial eyes. “You shouldn’t have made me take it off. I don’t want that thing inside me, forcing me to do things against my will. Just like Bileth.”

  He frowned. “Forcing you to do horrible things like kiss me.”

  “Exactly.” Seven hells. If the other novices knew what she’d been getting up to, they’d celebrate her downfall. The golden Hunter, covered in alchemical tattoos and mud, straddling an incubus in the Salem woods.

  His hand slipped around the back of her neck; at his touch, another electrical charge sparked through her skin. “And yet, I don’t see you jumping off me very fast.”

  Shit. He was right. Embarrassment warmed her face. She leapt up, tugging down her hem. Though, really, it was probably a little late to reclaim her dignity now. “I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t stop the witch.”

  He propped up on his elbows. “You can’t expect to master it right away. You need to be stronger than the spirit.”

  A ghost of that crazed blaze still burned in her mind. Her fingers trembled as she brushed the leaves off her dress. “That’s not the kind of war I know how to fight. She’s completely crazy. I’m not taking that ring off again. Not until I get the spirit out.”

  “She’s absolutely not crazy. Jumping on top of me was the first sensible thing I’ve seen you do, and honestly the first time I’ve seen you enjoy yourself.”