Magic Redeemed (Hall of Blood and Mercy Book 2)

by K. M. Shea

  Tasha had to retreat as I used my magic and created a lightning bolt that struck from the sky and shook the ground with a peal of thunder. It was the same neon blue as all my magic and was blinding, even though I had raised an arm to block the worst of it.

  As soon as the last sparks of the bolt fizzled out, I dropped my arm and stabbed my sword forward. It crackled with electricity, but I realized I was too late.

  Tasha had charged in and was about even with my katana. She ducked to the side to avoid it—and its electric tendrils—entirely, and reached for my throat.

  Panic buzzed in my blood. Recalling one of the illustrations from my musty book, I yanked on the magic in the air. “No!” I shouted. Rather than trying to channel the magic into anything, I pulled it raw through my body and flung it out in front of me in a sheet of blue.

  I thought it might make Tasha pause, or maybe burn her a bit at the worst.

  Instead Tasha slammed into it with a painful crunch. Her legs gave out underneath her, and she sagged to the ground with a pained groan as blood that was far too dark to be human trickled from her nose.

  Without me funneling into it, the blue magic evaporated. “Oh my gosh—Tasha, are you okay?” I crouched at her side, trying to get a good look at her nose in the flickering light of the lampposts.

  Tasha gave me a thumbs up with her free hand—she clutched her nose with the other. “This is your win, Miss.”

  “Don’t even start,” I growled. “We have to get you inside—and there’s no way this counts—”

  “Every match counts, Hazel.” Celestina made me jump when she appeared at my elbow, peering down at her underling. “Is it broken, Tasha?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Badly?”

  “It’s probably going to take an hour to heal.” Tasha’s prim and proper voice was oddly muffled by her hand.

  Celestina nodded in satisfaction. “Take the rest of the night off, then.”

  “Yes, First Knight.” Tasha slowly stood, then forced herself to bow first to Celestina and then to me. “Thank you for the fight, Miss.”

  I made a noise in my throat, but before I could say anything Celestina slapped me on the back, almost knocking all the air out of my lungs. “That’s our wizard,” she said cheerfully.

  Tasha nodded—which looked awkward since she was still clutching her bleeding nose—then limped her way back to the house.

  I wiped sweat off my forehead with my free hand—as a wizard I always had a naturally high body temperature, but using magic put it into overdrive. “Celestina, this is ridiculous. There’s no way I could have beaten Tasha,” I said. “Everyone’s been going easy on me—is this rank just a farce because you guys feel bad I got beaten down by Solene before I unsealed my magic?”

  “No—we haven’t been able to openly discuss that matter,” Celestina said. “It gives His Eminence anxiety.”

  “HAH! As if!”

  Celestina grinned, acknowledging the absurdity of her statement, then twitched her expression back to something more serious. “However, Hazel, your rank is very real.”

  “That’s impossible. I’m a human, you guys are a race of immortal beings that Killian has trained for decades. There’s no way I caught up to you guys in a matter of weeks.”

  “We’ve been training you for several months now,” Celestina corrected. “And you don’t give yourself enough credit. You were scrappy when we picked you up, which gave us a good foundation to work off. Combined with your magic, it was guaranteed you were going to be lethal once you were unsealed. Killian wouldn’t have brought you into the fold if you weren’t.”

  That was a pretty good point, actually.

  Killian would never waste his time if he didn’t think the payout was going to be several times the investment. He wouldn’t have been content at making me competent, he wanted a deadly wizard at his beck and call.

  “It feels like we’re taking it easy on you because you’ve grown skilled at such a fast rate,” Celestina continued. “And I am not only referring to your magic abilities. Before you unsealed your magic, you almost managed to stop the murderous Unclaimed—a foe other vampires had fought against and lost to—by yourself.”

  “Yeah, but Solene wasn’t the same caliber as a Drake Family vampire.”

  “But you still did it. And it still counts,” Celestina said. “Hazel, you demand a perfectionism from yourself that none of us expect. Don’t you realize? You stopped Tasha with one attack.”

  I frowned a little. “Yeah, that was…unexpected.”

  “What was it?” Celestina asked. “I saw blue magic, but I don’t recall you doing anything like that before.”

  “It was pure magic. I filtered it through my blood and didn’t try to form it into an attack, just flung it out in front of me,” I said. “In the book the Paragon has lent me, there’s a picture where a wizard is holding swords made of magic. Since there aren’t any words, I can’t tell for certain if there is anything special about the magic, but based on the other pictures I thought it seemed like the blades were made of raw magic. I thought if raw magic was strong enough to form swords, a blast of it might be powerful enough to knock Tasha off balance.”

  I scratched my chin as I considered the matter. “But it did so much more than that, which opens up the possibilities. I wonder if I could use raw magic to create a shield…it technically should be more stable than electricity.”

  “Ahhh, yes. I saw your lightning strike.” Celestina turned to the cleared area where Tasha and I had fought, zeroing in on the burnt husk of a bush that had taken some of the lightning bolt damage. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I would prefer that you refrain from blowing Drake Hall to smithereens in your efforts to win your match.”

  “One bush hardly counts as Drake Hall.”

  “Only because you fought Tasha outside instead of inside,” Celestina countered.

  “Fair enough. I’ll apologize to the gardeners tomorrow.” I stretched my arms above my head. “But instead of another match, could I try to re-create that magic shield?”

  Celestina tilted her head. “I suppose so.”

  “Great, thanks! Oh—and Celestina?”

  “Yes?”

  I scuffed my foot on the burnt lawn. “When do you think I could have a night off so I can go check out my parents’ lockbox at Tutu’s?”

  “You’ll need a vampire escort,” Celestina said.

  “The fae won’t jump me at Tutu’s,” I snorted. “The staff would kill them first.”

  “No, but once you exit Tutu’s it is quite possible the traitor who controls your House may be waiting to jump you.”

  I grimaced. “Oh. Yeah, that’s true.”

  “Indeed,” Celestina said. “And you may have a night off as soon as you clear it with Killian.”

  “But Killian knows I need to go to Tutu’s—he seemed fine with it.”

  “Yes, but he may wish to go in with you.”

  I squinted at her, confused. “Why?”

  “I don’t quite know,” Celestina admitted. “But I don’t intend to question it as I might be able to get a pedicure or something while he’s off playing with you.”

  I laughed. “You’re the best, Celestina.”

  “I train for it.”

  The car rolled to a stop in front of Tutu’s Crypta & Custodia. To humans, it would appear rather benign: a brick building with glossy red trim and spotless picture windows.

  But those of us who were supernaturals could see the truth.

  The building really was made of brick, but every square inch of the place was covered with glowing seals and wards.

  Tutu’s was founded by a dragon shifter.

  Dragon shifters are super rare—I don’t know if even a hundred of them are alive today—but they are also supremely powerful because they’re the only kind of shifters capable of casting magic.

  As a result, they were pretty enterprising, and filthy rich. Tutu’s was actually a chain…store I guess you could say. But it was a
lso the highest rated option for magical lock up because of all the wards its dragon founder put on her buildings. Wizards and fae couldn’t pass through dragon seals, and she shored up her other openings with wards from fae, and hired enough shifter, fae, wizard, and vampire guards to staff Fort Knox.

  I climbed out of the car and turned around, surprised to see that Killian was also climbing out of the vehicle. “I thought you said you weren’t coming in?”

  “I’m not.” Killian looked at Tutu’s with great disdain. “The inside is so gaudy it’s offensive. Besides, I have a meeting I have to phone in to.”

  “Then why aren’t you staying in the car?” I asked.

  Killian raised an eyebrow at me. “Is there a reason you want me to stay in the car?”

  “No, it just makes the most sense.”

  “Then stop worrying about my business and go see to yours.” Killian put his back to the building—which hummed with magic—and answered a call on his smartphone.

  Was it really wise to leave Killian out here alone? What if a human accidentally offended him, and he decided to maim them?

  I peered up and down the street, hoping a Drake vampire would emerge to watch their leader, but I didn’t see any in the swirl of people walking up and down the sidewalks.

  It was really easy to tell who was supernatural and who was not. Anyone familiar with supernaturals glanced at Killian, paled, and moved to walk on the other side of the street. Only oblivious humans walked past him. Two young women even tossed their hair and giggled at him as they strutted past.

  Conversely, they didn’t seem to hear Killian’s phone call, or it might have put a dampener on their interest.

  “I don’t care. Fail me again, and I’ll have you staked under the noon sun,” Killian said in his too-pleasant voice that always meant pain was coming.

  I shivered, but relaxed when I recognized Manjeet and Sigmund—two Drake vampires—crossing the street.

  “We had to park,” Sigmund said when they reached me.

  “No worries. Wish me luck!” I winked and slipped through the revolving bank door, holding my breath when I stepped into the fluorescent script of the dragon seal. It was a burst of heat on my skin, but faded as soon as I passed through it.

  The interior of Tutu’s vaguely resembled an old-fashioned bank. Tellers stood behind gorgeous wooden stands that were fenced in with iron bars, and velvet ropes indicated where lines began.

  Everything looked beautiful—the stands had elaborate carvings of dragons and piles of money, and the iron bars had fancy decorative swirls at the top and bottom—but there was no hiding that every bar, every piece of furniture was covered with seals and wards. Even the frames of the artwork hung on the brick walls had dragon seals plastered to them.

  This is what made Tutu’s safe. No one—and I mean no one—could break in and survive.

  I waited in line for a teller—a lean young man who was probably a werecat based on the unnatural luminescent green of his eyes and his silent movements. He smiled and set his hands on the glossy wood stand. “Welcome to Tutu’s, how can I help you?”

  “Hello.” I smiled politely as I set my folder—which contained the House deed and other official papers—on the stand. “I’m Hazel Medeis. I inherited my parents’ vault, and I wanted to open it up today.”

  “Of course. I assume you have the necessary legal documents and a photo ID?” the teller prompted.

  “I have the documentation.” I opened the folder and slid it in the rectangular gap left between the wooden stand and the iron bars for that purpose. “Unfortunately, I don’t have any ID, and I can’t really get any right now.”

  I’d left my wallet behind in House Medeis. Mason went through my room and took my wallet, phone, and personal stuff when I fled, so there was no way I was getting it back until I kicked him out.

  The werecat frowned. “That is going to be a problem.” He opened the folder and flipped through the documents. He found the document that proved I had inherited the vault, then turned to his sleek black computer and pounded on the keyboard for what felt like forever.

  “I can verify that Rand and Rose Medeis have Hazel Medeis listed as a beneficiary, and your paperwork confirms that Hazel Medeis has inherited everything as is proper. However, without any legal ID confirming your identity, we cannot give you access to the vault.”

  Chapter Four

  Hazel

  “Could I bring my parents’ lawyers and have them confirm my identity?” I asked. “Or do you have a wizard on staff who can confirm my wizard mark?”

  “We need legal documentation, unfortunately,” the teller explained. “Fae glamor can be used to trick others into believing you are someone else, and your wizard mark proves you are a wizard, but not your personal identity unless you get a confirmation from Wizard Registration that proves the match. If you don’t have a voucher from Registration, we need a photo ID and then use a magic process to test your blood.”

  “I can get my ID, but I need to get into the vault first to get my signet ring so I can reclaim House Medeis,” I said.

  “I’m afraid we can’t allow that,” the teller said. “Company policy.”

  “Can I make an appeal for a special case?”

  “Yes, the appeal process usually takes several months.” The werecat ducked behind his stand, then reappeared with a packet of papers.

  I took them, holding in a sigh at the size of the stack, and took my folder back, too. “Thanks for the help.”

  “It was my pleasure—though I am sorry we cannot do more.”

  I nodded and was about to step back, but then paused. “No one besides me can be granted access to the vault, right?”

  The werecat glanced at his computer. “Hazel Medeis is the inheritor, but the Adept of House Medeis automatically has access as well.”

  “I’m the Adept, but I’m guessing I need legal proof?” I asked.

  “You need a photo ID and to be the registered Adept, yes,” the teller said.

  I finally let a sigh escape me. “Go figure. Thanks anyway.”

  “Of course. Have an enjoyable day.”

  I clutched my papers as I left the building through the revolving door—the dragon seal dropping a kiss of warmth when I passed through.

  Killian was still on his phone. I don’t know if he could smell my nasty-scented blood, but he turned around when I stepped onto the sidewalk.

  I smiled at Manjeet and Sigmund—who backed up a few steps.

  Just before I reached Killian, he wordlessly hung up his phone call. “That was faster than expected.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t get to see the vault. They need a photo ID, and I left all of mine in House Medeis when I was fleeing for my life.”

  “What will you do next?” Killian asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve got time, though. The ring has to be in that vault, and Mason can’t open it since he’s not the Adept, so he can’t claim it either. Can we go home?”

  Sigmund jogged off—probably to get one of the cars.

  Killian studied me. “You are upset.”

  “Frustrated.” I puffed my cheeks out with my sigh. “It just seems like I can’t get anything to go right with House Medeis.”

  Killian stared at me. In fact, he stared at me so long, I was starting to feel awkward, so I peered out at the street, which was gold with the setting sun. “Did you finish your phone call?”

  “No.”

  I whipped back around to gape at Killian. “Then you just hung up on them?”

  “Yes.” He tilted his head as he stared at me. “Have you started wearing perfume?”

  “No,” I sourly said. “Rupert already complains enough about the smell of my blood. He’d be unbearable if I tried to cover it up with a human scent. Why?”

  “Hazel?”

  Recognizing the voice, I whipped around and almost dropped my papers. “Momoko?”

  Momoko booked it down the street. She craned her neck, wildly looking around, as she skippe
d the last few steps to me. “Hazel, thank goodness.”

  She reached out to grab me, but Killian—with his hands on my shoulders—tugged me out of reach and managed to half scoop me behind him.

  “You know this human?” he asked me.

  “Momoko—it’s fine, she’s one of my best friends,” I said.

  Killian stared at her. “Your best friend from the House that betrayed you?”

  “Everyone from Medeis saved me—Mason was the traitor. Come on, you know she’s safe. You let her visit me in Drake Hall.”

  “Do you really think I bothered to remember the faces of random wizards?” Killian asked.

  “Yes,” I bluntly said.

  Momoko had shrunk during our conversation, but at my response she bulged her eyes at me in shock.

  Killian also turned slightly so he could look back at her. “Don’t take too long.” He released his hold on my shoulder and let his hand slide down my arm before stepping away to speak to Manjeet in a lowered tone.

  Momoko threw herself at me, wrapping me in a fierce hug.

  Tears stung my eyes, and I sniffed as I hugged her back.

  When Momoko finally released me, she left her hands on my elbows. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I wiped at a tear—seeing Momoko was like crashing into a wall of homesickness. Exhaustion and determination had kept it at bay, but seeing her made me realize how much I missed everyone, and how much I missed House Medeis.

  Momoko didn’t look convinced. She scratched her arm—the blasted magic-blocking cuffs Mason made the whole family wear so they couldn’t use their magic and fight him glittered in the fading light. “I’m so glad I saw you—I was about to leave.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When we overheard Mason say you’d gone to the lawyers we knew it wouldn’t be long before you’d come to Tutu’s. We’ve been taking shifts hanging around.”

  I frowned. “Why don’t you just come to Drake Hall?”

  Momoko winced. “Mason found out about that, so it’s not really an option anymore.”