by N. P. Martin
Before I knew it, she had gripped my head in both hands, holding me firm while she flashed her fangs at me. "You have some nerve saying that to me," she said, her lips peeled back like a predator. "You betrayed me!"
I held her gaze, despite the fact that her eyes were now a deep red color and full of murderous rage. “I betrayed no one. I did what was best for the girl.”
She hissed again and snapped her jaws at me, her teeth mere centimeters away from my firmly held face. “It was not up to you to decide what was best for my daughter! Nor was it up to her. It was up to me and me alone!”
I said nothing, knowing there wasn’t much I could say to justify my perceived betrayal.
The vampire glared at me with her red eyes for long moments as she seemed to be on the verge of killing me. It was all I could do not to try a spell on her, but I knew whatever spell I came up with would only be a temporary fix. Angela Crow was too old to be held back for long by mere magick, or at least not the kind of magick I had available to me at the time. A true Master Mage could have perhaps taken her down long enough to destroy her heart, but my skills were not at that level yet. Far from it, in fact. The only thing I could bank on was that her desire to walk in the daylight was stronger than her desire to kill me.
As I continued to hold her hypnotic gaze, it quickly became apparent that she was rooting around inside my head. She was much more skilled at it than Sebastian was. I didn't even feel her initial entry, and the only way I could tell what she was doing was from the look in her eyes, which had intensified as if she was looking past me and into my mind. Too late, I tried to defend against her intrusion, but she batted away my psychic defenses without even blinking an eye.
Then finally, she let go of my head, and I took a step back, exhaling sharply as I regained my movement.
Angela Crow never moved. She just smiled and stared at me. “I know where my daughter is going,” she said, sounding satisfied that she had got what she wanted from me.
Sighing, I shook my head. “You’re going to go after her, no doubt?”
“That depends on you, August Creed.”
A frown crossed my face. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes went back to blue again, and she seemed to relax, which didn't relax me any. "Here's the deal. You make it so I can walk in the daylight and I won't go after Jennifer. She can stay in Babylon if she wants. But, if you can't deliver what I want for any reason, or if you try to trick me in any way, I will go after my darling Jennifer, and I will enslave her for the rest of her days, which as you know, for us vampires, is a long time. I know you care for her, Creed. You see yourself in her. If you want her to stay free, you will deliver on what you promised."
What a cold, conniving bitch, I thought. Using her own daughter like that. Jennifer was truly better off away from her.
“Alright,” I said. “But how do I know you won’t kill me and go after Jennifer anyway, once I give you what you want?”
She smiled and licked her lips. “You don’t. I’m afraid you will just have to trust me, as my daughter put her trust in you.”
Nice, throwing that back at me. “Looks like I don’t have a choice then, do I?”
“One always has a choice, Creed. It’s what you chose that matters.”
"Fine," I said after a moment. "We'll have to do the spell at my Sanctum. I'm sure Sebastian can drive us, assuming he's recovered from the flaying your daughter gave him."
“He’s still healing. It will take some time.”
I smiled inwardly, glad to hear it. "Not to worry. I have a quicker mode of transportation anyhow."
20
Enter The Chaosphere
I teleported Angela Crow and myself to the brownstone on Poker Street, which I had already decided to make my Sanctum in Blackham. Assuming of course that I managed to pull off the spell that would allow The Crimson Crow to walk in daylight. The truth of the matter was that I wasn't entirely confident that I could pull it off. Don't get me wrong, by any standards, I was a skilled Mage. Given my upbringing and my teachers over those years, there was no way that I could be anything other than good.
But the fact was, in Mage terms, I was still a fledgling with many more years of practice and study needed to reach the heights of a Master Mage like my Uncle Ray, or even my dead father for that matter. So while it was certainly possible that I could properly execute the Nocturnus Spell, it was also possible that I might just fuck it up completely. My mother had been a spellcaster of rare talent and only a talent like hers could have created something as intricate and sophisticated as the Nocturnus Spell. It was one thing having the recipe to bake a cake, but quite another to actually bake it so that the cake came out the way it was supposed to. It was much the same thing with spells. So all in all, you could say I was more than a little nervous when I landed in the Sanctum with Angela Crow. At that point, I knew there was no turning back. It was either find my game or die.
“I take it you have never done this spell before?” Angela Crow said, standing in the living room as I slipped my trench coat off and placed it over the back of a chair. “I take it no one has, otherwise I would have heard of it by now.”
I nodded. “You are correct,” I said reluctantly.
Her eyes narrowed. “Then how do you know it will work if no one has tried it?”
It was a fair question. The Nocturnus Spell had only ever been used on a single plant species. After my mother had cracked the code so to speak, she had no interest in trying to apply the spell to anything else, least of all vampires. For her, it was just an intellectual puzzle that she had now solved and so she moved onto other things. So you may now be forgiven for thinking the same thing as Angela Crow. Why do I think the spell will work on a vampire?
The only answer I have to that question is faith. I have faith that the spell created by my loving mother will work as I want it to. Sometimes, faith in something is all you have to go on. In this case, that was especially true.
The vampire Crow got edgy as she waited for my answer, which I finally gave her. "My mother created the spell. I have faith in my mother that the mechanics of the spell are sound. Besides, it has been tested before. Just not on a vampire like yourself."
Angela Crow frowned. “On what then?”
“A plant.”
She seemed to stifle a laugh before looking at me seriously again. “A plant?”
“Yes. A special plant that could only survive at night. My mother made it so the plant could survive in the daytime also.”
The vampire seemed to think about that for a moment. “Once again, Creed, let me remind you of our deal. And let me also tell you that if you are fucking with me, I will hunt down every person you have ever met and tear them into tiny pieces.”
I held my hands up. "Hey, I'm not stupid. I get it. I promise I'm not fucking with you."
“No,” she said, coming towards me, which always made me nervous. “Maybe not, but you are winging it here, aren’t you?” She stopped in front of me and gave a slight smile. “I don’t know whether to admire you for that or just kill you right now.”
Holding her gaze, I kept my cool. “The spell will work. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Yes, you will.”
And with that, I went to work on getting things organized and preparing for the spell, while Angela Crow waited impatiently in the living room, sometimes appearing behind me in the basement while I was down there, scaring the shit out of me, seeming to enjoy doing so. After the third time she did it, I just ignored her, brushing past her as I continued my search for the right ingredients needed to do the spell. Which was a lot, by the way. Like I said, my mother threw everything she had at the problem, which ended up being a long list of rare ingredients. Things like Wolfsbane, the eyes of a Scarlet-Backed spider, the claws of a Singing Bat, Belladonna, petals from a black rose, anus of newt (yes really), toad sweat, wizard's eyelashes and a whole slew of other ingredients. As spells went, it was more complicated than any I had ever tried before, and
believe me, I'd slung many a spell that would make even Einstein weep at their complexity.
Luckily for me, Ray kept the basement of the Sanctum fully stocked with every ingredient a magickslinger could ever need, and then some. It was almost as if the old bastard knew I would need access to all those ingredients at some point. Sometimes I wondered if he had found a way to see into the future. Given the circumstances, the thought brought me some comfort, because if Ray knew what shit was going to go down before I did, then that meant he must have thought I could handle whatever was going to happen next. Or maybe I was just making shit up to make myself feel better, I don't know. Either way, it didn't change anything. It was still do or die.
Hours later, I had finally managed to assemble everything I needed for the Nocturnus Spell. I had also managed to mix or combine whatever ingredients needed doing so, the whole time working under the pressure of not only Angela Crow’s stalking presence, but also trying to recall from memory everything that I had to do. One missed step and the entire spell would fall flat, or worse, drastically misfire.
"Kindly fill that with your blood," I said to Angela Crow as I handed her a wide brimmed wooden cup that dated back to medieval times and which had become darkly stained by all manner of liquids (magickal and otherwise) over the centuries.
The Crimson Crow gave me a suspicious look, but she took the cup after slicing open a vein in her wrist with one of her long, sharp fingernails, allowing her blood to spill into the cup until it was almost full. Then she handed it back to me, and as I took it carefully, I noticed the deep slice in her wrist heal over in a matter of seconds. “A useful ability,” I said, placing the cup on the floor of the living room, next to the array of bottles, jars and vials I had gathered around me.
"Yes," she said, looking straight at me. "It makes me hard to kill."
I glanced only briefly up at her as I caught the emphasis in her voice. “I’ve no doubt.”
After that exchange, I worked in focused silence for the next while as I carefully added all of the ingredients around me into the cup containing the vampire’s blood, fittingly using the foot of a crow to gently stir the mixture around.
Once that was done, it was time for the real work to begin. I now had to infuse the blood mixture with magick--magick that had to be perfectly conjured and processed in a certain way, and all done without mistake. It was the part of the spell I was most worried about as it was going to take a phenomenal amount of focus and concentration on my part, not to mention an expert handling of the magick itself once it was fully conjured and shaped to perfection. It was akin to trying to solve a puzzle with just your mind, moving pieces around whose properties could drastically shift in any given moment as you tried to put them together in a way that made no sense at all, but which you knew to be right anyway. And if that sounds hard and confusing, that's because working with magick was exactly like that most of the time. Working with magick was more about feel and intuition which could only be cultivated so far with training. You still needed to have a certain connection with the magick itself, and often that was achieved through pure faith.
Which was all I had to go on as I requested that Angela Crow remain quiet and not disturb me in any way until I had completed what I had to do. Then I knelt by the cup of blood on the floor, closed my eyes and went to work.
Within moments, I was somewhere else. Not physically, of course, but in my mind, I was literally somewhere else. A giant open space filled with the buzzing, crackling energy of pure magick. It wasn't a real place. It was simply a place I created long ago, a place where I could access and work with the magick I had learned how to cultivate and channel inside me. Every magick practitioner had their own version of this place. I called mine the Chaosphere because that's what it resembled. A giant sphere of pure energy that was completely chaotic in nature and which required my skills as a Mage to tame and channel it so it could do my will. I stood in the center of this Chaosphere, like standing in the center of a hollowed-out sun, the energy buzzing around me at once terrifying and exhilarating as I began to pull strands of that energy towards me, twisting them this way and that, melding them together, twisting them again, forging them into new forms and shapes, the whole time allowing my intent to infuse every single strand of magickal energy to ensure each strand would bend in the direction of my will.
I don't know how long I was in the Chaosphere for. In there, the constructs of time and space ceased to exist. I could have been in there minutes or days at a time, and I wouldn't have known either way.
When I finally opened my eyes, Angela Crow was kneeling in front of me, her eyes full of fascination as she watched what I was doing, almost like she wished she could see inside me to observe me working the magick. I barely registered her, however, as I placed my hands just above the cup of blood and began to direct the magick I had conjured and shaped in the Chaosphere into the blood mixture. A yellowish-green energy released itself from my hands and infused with the blood mixture in the cup, causing it to go from a dark crimson to a deep yellow color with streaks of purplish-red in it. At the same time, I began to recite the incantation that was part of the spell. It was an awkward incantation because it was formed with over a dozen different languages, none of those languages having been spoken in this world for centuries. The only saving grace was that the incantation was relatively short and basically helped to focus the effects of the spell on a certain subject, which in this case, was Angela Crow.
After finishing the incantation, I finally lifted the cup and held it out towards the vampire Crow. “Drink,” I said simply, sweat running in rivulets down my face, my shirt stuck to my back.
Angela Crow took the cup and stared at me as if she was going to voice some doubt, but whatever she saw on my face made her think otherwise, and she finally drank down every drop of the blood in the cup, licking her lips afterward as she placed the empty cup on the floor. "Is that it?" she asked, hardly able to keep her excitement from her voice.
Nodding, I said, “That’s it.”
The vampire stood up. “How do we know if it worked?”
I nodded to the rays of light coming through a crack in the living room curtains. “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
Swallowing hard, I watched as the vampire walked to the window and stood there for a moment. Then she flung open the curtains and the morning light swallowed her whole.
21
Sunshine Girl
Standing in the pure morning sunlight streaming through the living room window, Angela Crow made a noise that I at first interpreted as pain, and my heart sank as I fully expected to see the vampire erupt in flames before me. But then I realized that the vampire wasn't expressing pain, but joy. I could only stare in wonder and gratitude as The Crimson Crow appeared to be resistant to the incendiary effects of the UV rays bathing every inch of her. "Yes," she said as she probably realized that she was now the most powerful vampire in the city, in the world even. Walking in the daylight would not necessarily make her invincible or even any more powerful than she already was, but it would certainly make her special, and more often than not, that's all it took to dominate those who were less special. Which of course, Angela Crow knew all too well. To the rest of vampirekind, she would be held up as god, as The Daywalker perhaps (it remained to be seen what catchy titles were assigned to her).
Eventually, she turned to me and smiled, looking more powerful than ever as the sunlight lit her up, giving her an angelic appearance that belied the darkness in her soul. "It appears you have succeeded,” she said to me as I continued kneeling on the floor, exhausted now from the long hours of concentration.
“So it seems,” I said. “Thankfully.”
“One final test.”
Angela Crow left the living room and went to the front door. A moment later, I heard the door open as she must have stepped outside. I stayed where I was, having no wish to witness her day-walking firsthand. All I wanted to do was get rid of the bitch, so I could have a drink be
fore going to bed. It was all I could do to hold myself up.
From outside, I heard joyous laughter, and I imagined Angela Crow standing in the middle of the street, her arms extended as she welcomed the rays of the sun on her milky white skin. No doubt it was a rush. Overwhelming even.
She didn't seem too overwhelmed when she came back in, however. She seemed as calm and composed as always in fact, apart from the grin on her face and the unashamed delight in her normally cold eyes. Her smile widened as she came and stood over me. “Creed,” she said. “You are truly a talented boy. Your uncle’s faith in you is well placed. So was my own it seems.”
"Are we even now?" I asked, only wanting to be rid of her.
She breathed in deeply as a conciliatory look came over her face, a look I didn’t welcome seeing because I knew what was coming next. “Not quite, I’m afraid.”
I shook my head. “Why am I not surprised.”
“Come on, Creed. You must have known I couldn’t let you live after this. I can’t risk you giving this precious gift to any other vampire. Surely you can understand that?”
With the little energy I had left, I got off my knees so I could stand and face her. "I do understand," I told her, my voice dulled from fatigue, but also blunt so she would feel what I was about to tell her. "That's why I built a failsafe into the spell I just did."
The girlish delight left her eyes and became replaced with cold suspicion. “What did you do?”
“I put the magick equivalent of a bomb right next to your heart. The bomb is linked to me, so that if I die, the bomb goes off and your heart is destroyed. I’m sure you can guess what happens next.”
Angela Crow’s scarlet lips slowly peeled back to reveal her fangs. Her eyes burned red as she seethed from within, her body tensing as if preparing to attack and kill me. I held her murderous gaze so she’d know I was deadly serious. “You fucking rat,” she seethed, extending her hand towards my throat, but stopping herself at the last second. “I should—”
