by R. E. Butler
Brone flashed his cell phone. “I just texted Mishka, he’s on his way.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Angie said.
“All vampires have the ability to compel a human and many supernatural creatures, but compulsion in some vampires is far stronger. Mishka’s ability is the strongest. I only know of one supernatural creature who ever ignored his compulsion,” Rage said.
“Who?” Angie asked.
Brone smiled at Angie and it was the first time she noticed he had double fangs in his mouth. “My beloved.”
Angie returned his smile and looked past him to the humans. “They’re humans, right?”
Ven nodded with a frown. He slashed the air with his hand, his eyes filled with fury. “I’ve never had a human be able to resist me.”
Mishka strode into the room with Harmony on his arm and Arissa right behind him. “Brone filled me in.” He stopped in front of the humans and folded his arms over his chest. “You know who I am?”
The humans stared up at him. If they knew who he was, it didn’t show on their faces. Mishka was the most well-known vampire in the Midwest. He was always on the news for one thing or another. Humans were fascinated by him.
He leaned in, seeming to caress the faces of the humans. Angie felt that same flare of power she’d felt when Ven was trying to compel the humans, but it was far stronger.
“Tell me who sent you to vandalize the trucks at the SyBl factory,” Mishka said. His voice was like honey over steel; sweet, powerful, commanding.
The humans said nothing. It was as if they’d been rendered blind and deaf to Mishka’s ability.
Mishka’s power flared stronger, but the humans didn’t utter a word. He stepped away and spun on his heels. “Arissa, my dear, please see what you can make of this.”
Brone brought his mate to the couple. She spoke a few hushed words in a language that Angie didn’t recognize, ghosting her fingers over the humans. After a few moments, Arissa took a step back into Brone’s arms and sighed.
“It’s not a wiccan spell, but they’re definitely under another form of compulsion to be unable to speak about their intentions for the factory.”
“We need to know what they were doing here tonight as well,” Temple said. “It’s one thing to tamper with the vehicles, it’s another one entirely to walk into the lion’s den.”
“The witch glass might have been negated as well by the spell they’re under,” Arissa said. “Whatever has been done to them, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“Fae?” Brone asked.
“Perhaps. Or something else.” Arissa shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ven.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said.
“We need a bigger gun,” Mishka said.
“I know just who to call,” Ven said. He brought his cell phone to his ear and walked a few steps from the group, speaking quietly.
“Gun?” Angie asked.
Mishka drew the vampires away from the tied-up couple so they wouldn’t hear their conversation. “I believe the humans are bespelled to prevent them from surrendering to vampire compulsion. But humans don’t know about other species’ compulsion abilities.”
“She’s on her way with a few members of her nest,” Ven said. “She’ll be on the roof in twenty minutes.”
“I’m confused,” Angie said.
“There’s a dragon female named Maggie who has the power of compulsion in her family line. She can see into people’s minds and pluck out their memories without them even uttering a word,” Rage said.
Angie rolled the words around in her mind for a moment. “If she’s coming to the roof that means she’s going to be a dragon when she arrives?” When Ven nodded, she added, “Can we go and watch? I’ve never seen a dragon up close!”
Vex and Rage both gifted her with indulgent smiles. “Of course, sweetheart,” Vex said.
“We’ll escort her and her people here,” Rage said.
“I’ll go with you,” Ven said.
“We’ll stay and guard the humans,” Brone said.
“Keep me apprised,” Mishka said, sweeping from the room with Harmony on his arm.
Vex, Rage, Angie, and Ven left the War Room and walked down a hall to a security door, where Ven entered a code to unlock it. It led to another hallway, and another locked door, and then a flight of stairs that felt like it went on forever. After one more security door, they stepped out onto the roof of the club. Angie let out a gasp of surprise as she walked out onto the roof and turned in a slow circle. The entire city was before her, the night sky and sparkling stars a backdrop to the lights of the city.
“This is so cool,” she said to her mates. Walking to the edge of the building, she rested her hands on the short wall that lined the roof and peeked over. Below was the front of the building, the line of people waiting to get inside the club dwindling as the night trooped on.
Vex looked over with her. “Humans will stand out there all night hoping to get in.”
“Do the bouncers let everyone in?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “They generally let in every female, but they’re more choosey with the males.”
“Why?” She spread her fingers on the rough wall and inhaled the night air. She could make out a million different scents all mixed up together, from the people down below to the distant water’s edge of Lake Erie.
“There are more male vampires than females, so having an excess of females in the club makes the males happy.”
“That makes sense. Can vampires feed from a club visitor?”
He shook his head. “The rules are quite strict. Feedings aren’t allowed on the club floor, and only paid food is allowed to open a vein. A vampire could, however, convince a human to leave with them and feed them if they chose. It is a free country after all.”
“Where do they go for feedings?”
“There’s a large, private room off the dance floor where coven members and visiting vampires can take paid food. There are small cubicles with fabric curtains closing off the door to allow a modicum of privacy. It’s patrolled from sundown to sunrise by coven members, to ensure the safety of the food and the vampires.”
She turned and leaned against the wall to look at her sexy mate. “Why would vampires need protecting?”
He curled a lock of her hair and around his fingers and tugged gently, drawing her close. “It hasn’t happened in a long time, but every now and then someone with a bad agenda toward vampires gets inside the club with the intention of harming one of our people. And newly turned vampires can harm humans during feedings if they’re not taught properly. It’s for everyone’s safety.”
She smiled at him. “I like how Mishka worries about everyone, not just the family.”
“He’s a good master.”
“Did you ever want to lead a coven yourself?”
“Hell no,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s way too stressful. And if a coven is large enough, powerful enough, they can be attacked by other masters looking to take over their resources.”
“Sounds a lot like shifter groups, too.” She thought back to the brutal territory wars that were part of her pack’s history. “I think vampires and shifters aren’t so different sometimes.”
“Agreed. It’s difficult for some to let go of the past, but it’s not our job to make everyone like us or get over their prejudices.”
She heard something coming and stilled, not even daring to breathe as she saw four enormous dragons flying toward the club. She could hear the flapping of their great wings and the trill of their dragons. They circled overhead and one blew a stream of fire from its jaws. Rage joined her and Vex, and the two of them shielded Angie as the dragons swooped closer, the wind from their wings buffeting them. They landed one after the other, shifting immediately into human form and dressing swiftly in clothing drawn from pouches they’d carried.
“It’s nice to see you again, Maggie,” Ven said.
“And you,” Maggie said.
Ven motioned for Angie, Vex, and Rage to join him and introduced them to the female dragon. She was tall and curvy, with long, dark hair and a tattoo around her neck.
“These are guards from my nest,” Maggie said with a wave of her hand. “Zixin, Wei, and Dai.”
“Thank you for coming,” Ven said. “The humans are bespelled and I can’t compel them.”
Angie frowned. “If they’re magically forbidden from talking, why would a dragon be able to get past that?”
Maggie smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t need them to talk. I can pull their memories from their minds without their consent.”
“Cool.”
Maggie snorted and then genuinely smiled. “It can be.”
“Shall we?” Wei said. “The night is waning.”
“Of course,” Ven said.
He led the way back into the club. Angie was fascinated by Maggie. Not only because she was a dragon shifter, which was interesting all on its own, but because she had a power that Angie had never heard of. It would be very handy to be able to figure out what people were hiding. Once they were back in the War Room, Ven spoke to the two humans, giving them one more chance to talk. When they refused, whether by choice or the spell, he stepped away and Maggie glided forward.
She stared at the two humans for a moment, and then grasped the neck of the male. She lowered her head until she was mere inches from his face, staring directly into his eyes.
“Wh-what are you doing?” the male demanded.
“This is your last chance to speak of your own free will,” Wei said, as he, Dai, and Zixin joined her.
The human male clicked his teeth closed and pressed his lips together.
“As you wish,” Wei said.
A golden glow built between Maggie and the human male. The tattoo that ringed Maggie’s neck turned from black to bright blue as if it were lit from within. The human struggled, the ropes binding him not allowing him to move much. Sweat beaded on his brow.
“Stop!” the female shouted, struggling just as hard but making no headway in escaping. “Leave him alone!”
The golden glow brightened between Maggie and the human male, the tattoo on her neck seeming to pulse with a blue so bright it was nearly neon.
“He and his sister were recruited by the church to tamper with the vehicles at the factory,” Maggie said, her voice taking an ethereal quality. “He is a mechanic by trade and led several others in preventing the vehicles from leaving the factory.”
“What did they do this last time?” Brone asked.
Maggie grunted softly, then spoke. “They siphoned the gasoline from the tanks and replaced it with water.”
Angie blinked in surprise. She didn’t know a ton about vehicles, but she did know that replacing gas with water would ensure the engine wouldn’t work.
“Who recruited you?” Mishka asked.
The human male struggled, but Maggie moved even closer until there was only a minute space between their faces.
“The supreme leader, Jason,” Maggie said. “He sought them out personally. They joined the church one year ago after a coven in their hometown in Indiana bought their parents’ house during a land-grab to increase their coven’s holdings.”
“That’s shitty,” Angie whispered to her mates.
Vex nodded solemnly. “There are masters who cause more harm than good in their attempts to gain control of an area.”
“Still,” Angie said, looking at Mishka. “They’re from Indiana. Why did they come to Ohio?”
“Good question,” Mishka said. “Maggie?”
The dragon stared at the human for a moment, then said, “After their parents were kicked out of the house, their father went to the coven master to ask for the house back and was killed in an altercation. The master and coven were cleared of wrongdoing, but once that happened, these two went online and voiced strong opinions against vampires, Jason brought them into the church and sent them here to disrupt this coven.”
“Payback,” Rage said, referring to when Harmony killed Jason’s sister.
“What kind of shield are they using?” Ven asked.
“It’s a fae spell, chosen so that they would be unable to answer questions about their plans if interrogated,” Maggie said. “I’ll remove it.”
Brone shook his head. “We thought they used a fae to get into the club and abduct Harmony, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?” Angie asked.
“Because fae in this realm lose their wings and most of their power. Fae have two kinds of power, their ‘natural’ power like healing and their ‘fae’ power which can range from fire manipulation to other types of elemental control. When their wings are taken, they’re supposed to retain only their natural power.”
Angie mulled that for a moment. “It means that there’s a fae living in our area who still has his or her wings.”
“Exactly,” Brone said. “Troubling.”
Maggie stepped away from the human male, who slumped in the chair, his head lolling to the side.
“What did you do to him? What are you going to do to me?” the human female shouted. Maggie grasped her neck and leaned in close, the tattoo glowing brightly as the human female stopped struggling and seemed to freeze in place.
“Any questions for this one?” Maggie asked, her voice a rasp as if she were very tired.
“What were they doing here at the club?” Brone asked.
Maggie stared into the human female’s eyes and then said, “They were ordered to come into the club and use their phones to photograph the interior, particularly guards, food, and exits.”
“I think you should say no more phones in the club,” Angie said.
Mishka nodded. “Yes. We’ll add guards to the front doors and a collection table. It will be a hassle, but if the church is sending people to photograph the interior of the club, then they’re looking for weaknesses. I’m done with these humans, Maggie.”
Maggie leaned in closer to the female and after another minute, she slumped in her chair as her brother had. Maggie turned from them and cleared her throat. “The spells are gone. It appears that the church will go to any lengths to drive your people from the area. Although these two weren’t high up in the church and simply tools that Jason wielded – which means they don’t know much at all about the inner workings of the church – I did see in their memories that the branch of the church for this region meets in the back of an ice cream store in Wynona. The regional captain’s name is Alvin Pierce.”
“That’s just outside downtown,” Temple said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Once we drove them from downtown, we haven’t had access to one of their meeting places.”
“The question is do we run them out or surveil it?” Vex asked, cracking his knuckles.
“We’ll meet tomorrow night at sunset in my office to discuss,” Mishka said. He moved silently to the two humans and stared into their eyes. Angie could feel the swell of power from him for a moment before their heads dropped to their chests and the sound of deep breathing emanated from them. They were asleep.
“Now that the spell is gone, we can make them do what we want,” Vex said. “He wiped their memories and put them to sleep. They won’t remember anything about this night.”
“That’s handy,” Angie said.
“Indeed,” Mishka said. He lifted Maggie’s hands and kissed her knuckles. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Please extend my thanks to King Tosh.”
“The alliance is there for a reason,” Zixin said as he came to Maggie’s side. “You’ve aided us many times, it’s our pleasure to return the favor.”
“I’ll escort you to the roof,” Ven said.
The dragons said goodbye and left with Ven, Maggie seeming to need help to walk. Rage explained that the power she wielded drained her strength.
“Power’s funny like that,” Arissa said. “It takes as much as it gives.”
Mishka nodded and stopped in front of Angie. “Thank you for
your help. If not for your strong sense of smell, we wouldn’t have known why they were targeting the trucks or that they were coming into the club to surveil it.”
“Wouldn’t the witch glass have stopped them?” Temple asked.
Arissa shook her head. “Their intentions weren’t to harm anyone but to get information. If they didn’t know what it was going to be used for, then they couldn’t harbor evil toward anyone inside the club. They might have hated vampires, but I suspect their hatred was for the Indiana coven who took their parents’ home. It makes me wonder, also, if the church knows about the witch glass, so they’re sending in people who they deliberately keep from knowing anything that could be construed as harmful to the coven.”
“Is there something stronger than witch glass?” Rage asked.
“Not for these purposes. But it’s even more reason for everyone to wear their protection wards, and not just when leaving the club.”
“I’ll send a text to everyone who has one,” Harmony said.
“I should make some more,” Arissa said. “Everyone in the coven should have one, and their mates.”
Angie watched as Temple and Traz took the two humans and left with them slung over their shoulders like duffel bags, guards following closely behind as did Mishka and Harmony.
Arissa and Brone stopped in front of Angie and her mates.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” Arissa said to Angie.
Angie looked down at herself and wiggled her toes in her heels. In the excitement, she’d nearly forgotten she was in a sexy dress coming home from a date. “Thank you.”
“Crazy end to date night, huh?” she asked.
Angie giggled. “Yeah. But it was amazing nonetheless.”
“Are those rings I see?”
“Yep,” Angie said, the weight of the rings on her finger feeling wonderfully warm.
Arissa squealed happily and hugged her. “That’s so wonderful, congratulations!”
“Thanks.”
Arissa stepped back to Brone’s side and gave him a secret smile, then covered her mouth as she yawned. “Put me to bed, Brone, I’m about to fall asleep right here in an uncomfortable heap.”
Brone moved so swiftly that he was a blur, as he lifted Arissa into his arms and rushed from the room. Angie could hear the distant “goodbye” followed by a giggle and soft moan from the wiccan.
