“Come.” Jack closed his eyes for a moment, letting the fire of his magic build and burn inside of him like never before. When Jack opened his eyes, they flamed with green magic. “Come and take me.”
The vampires grinned at one another before launching their attack. Jack noticed their lack of weapons. All they were equipped with were their fangs and unnaturally long nails that sprouted from their hands like claws. These were a new breed; creatures produced by yet more experimentation by Leah Noble.
As they fell on Jack, Jack reached with an outstretched hand to his wand on the table. The wooden table it rested on was more than ten yards away. Using the magic he was still studying in his books, he called to the wand.
As if it had suddenly sprung wings, his wand zipped through the air and fell into his outstretched hand; the wand that would extend with the push of a button to a staff, thanks to Edison Reeves, was his again. As the first vampire reached Jack, with outstretched claws and a mouth full of teeth, Jack activated the wand.
Dark green magic raced across it as it transformed into a fighting staff. The rod, hot with the burning magic of his order, caught the vampire through the mouth. It entered the cave of sharp teeth, punctured the skull, and came out the back with a spray of blood and brain matter.
Saber was right—they were faster than he was, and probably stronger, but odds were they had never faced a wizard before, and he was not the same wizard he’d been.
With the aid of the staff, Jack was able to easily channel his magic without feeling the strain of trying to hold it in his body. The vampires came quickly, shrieking with the promise of blood. Jack struck out with his staff when he knew he had an opening. He defended himself with a circle of blazing green magic. Any time he was too slow to meet one of their attacks, the tight, circular wall around him would blaze to life and light whatever claw or mouth was about to strike.
The hardest part of maintaining his defenses was consciously keeping his barrier up while still twirling his staff and striking out with both ends. Vampire soldiers fell around him, screaming as they held burning arms or, in some cases, even heads.
There was no time to think for Jack; there was only instinct telling him to act as all the many hours he spent training with a staff with his father kicked in. He fought like the staff was an extension of his body, and the numerous hours with Saber helped him maintain his defenses and attack at the same time.
Jack took another vampire through the heart with a quick thrust. Although his staff was not pointed on either end, the green fire surrounding the staff was more than capable of burning through flesh and bone.
Soreness and the burn of overexerted muscles began to creep up Jack’s back and arms. But there was no time for rest. More vampire soldiers flooded into the room.
Jack pressed the attack. The vampires were becoming smarter now. They were less likely to rush Jack. Instead, they circled him and waited for openings. Jack didn’t wait for them to all come at him at once. From the ends of his staff, he shot out green balls of magical fire that slammed into his targets, engulfing them in blazes of angry green flames.
For his dead father, Jack fought. For the woman he loved, he raged on.
The last vampire soldier came at him. It was the female who had talked to him when the fight started. Jack stood still. She screamed in fury as she launched at him with a bloodlust in her eyes. She came within inches of reaching his face with her fangs before his magical barrier burned her. When Jack was done, a pile of burning and moaning bodies surrounded him in every direction.
He almost felt sorry for them. He might have even felt proud of himself, if screams hadn’t started filling the room.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack
Jack pivoted on his heel. It wasn’t a single scream; it was two. Furthermore, they weren’t screams of terror, they were roars of battle. Abigail and Elizabeth were locked in deadly combat. Abigail had crossed her white mage swords overhead, blocking Elizabeth’s blow.
It seemed Jack wasn’t the only one with a wand that extended into a staff. The younger Ahab sister had the same weapon. Hers was covered in ancient runes and glowed a faint yellow.
A crackling and sizzling fumed from the impact area where the weapons met.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Abigail screamed at her sister. “It’s me! Wake up!”
Elizabeth’s eyes were alive with yellow magic and madness. She pressed down with her staff, forcing Abigail to a knee. Elizabeth withdrew her attack and shot out an open hand. An invisible blow that sent her sliding backwards on the armory floor struck Abigail.
“You won’t hurt me because you’re weak,” Elizabeth laughed as Abigail struggled to regain her feet. “You’re all weak.”
Jack ran to place himself between Elizabeth and Abigail. “I won’t let you hurt her.”
“’Let me?” Elizabeth repeated. She shook her head. Her yellow blazing staff shrank in her palm back to the size of a wand. “Jack, out of all of you, I feel sorry for you the most. You have no idea what’s been done to your father; how he’s been resurrected and how he still remembers who he is.”
Jack heard her words, but his brain was still processing what she said. How could his father be alive? An empty pit swallowed Jack’s stomach. His mouth went dry.
“You’re lying.” Jack said the words, though hating how weak they came from his mouth. “He’s dead. We all saw him die.”
“So was Brenda Emerson.” Elizabeth smiled. She shrugged as if she didn’t care if he believed her or not. “Leah Noble has mastered the art of magic unlike anything you have ever seen. She’s brought your father back from the dead, Jack. Wizards and witches are too few in the Outland. She wants you to join us. You can be reunited with your father, all you have to do is say yes.”
“Kid!” Saber, supported by Abigail, made his way to Jack’s side. He had also picked up a mage sword he used like a cane to help stabilize his broken gait. “She’s lying to you. Don’t believe her. She’s trying to warp your mind.”
“Am I?” Elizabeth grinned.
Jack’s mind was working on overdrive. He was almost sure Elizabeth was lying, but she had a point. Leah Noble had the means to bring someone back from the dead. What if she had brought his father back?
“I’ll go with you.” Jack dropped his hands to his sides. “But Abigail and Saber go free.”
“Hmm…” Elizabeth tilted her head from side to side in rhythm, like she was actually thinking about the offer. “No deal. They die here.”
Elizabeth’s right hand holding the wand shot forward, and a beam of yellow magic sprung forth.
Jack was barely in time to do the same. An emerald green beam of magic came from his and it intercepted Elizabeth’s just in time. The stench of the burned vampire soldiers filled the room now, along with the acrid smell of burning magic.
Sparks erupted from the nexus where the two beams of magic met between the sorcerer and sorceress. A ball of yellow-green energy was beginning to grow between the wizards. Heat radiated from the point where the two streams met.
The call of energy grew and grew into a sphere of destructive magic so powerful, Jack shuddered to think what would happen when it erupted. Hot sweat ran down his face. He held the beam in place, but even with the help of the wand, he was feeling the fatigue of using such intense magic for so long.
BOOM!
The sphere erupted in an explosion of brilliant light. Jack’s instincts took over, and his eyes shut. He felt his feet leave the floor as a hot wave of energy picked him up and threw him across the room.
The next few moments felt like a nightmare. His hearing was completely gone, a low buzz the only thing that came despite his being pulled up from the ground by Abigail. He could see her mouth moving, but no noise came out.
All around the armory, the room was on fire. A small section of the armory wall had even been blown apart. Saber appeared at his other side, his mouth moving like Abigail’s, but no words breaking through the ringing in Jack’s ears. Saber
was a mess of blood and wooden shards, but he ignored that.
As one, the three members of the New Order stumbled from the armory and out into the palace courtyard.
Jack saw Abigail look behind her. He understood why. She still loved her sister and was searching for a sign that she, too, had survived the explosion. Jack wanted to comfort her, but at the moment, they had their own set of problems. All around the courtyard, guards and servants ran to put out the flames.
Saber pointed with a gloved hand to a waiting carriage on the other side of the palace gates. Two horses, spooked by the explosion, bucked and pulled at their ties.
Jack’s head drummed with pain. The worst headache he had ever had began to settle in. There was no time to check himself for wounds. The three would-be thieves were at the gate. Using the last of his strength, Jack managed to boot himself up and over.
Saber took the reins of the carriage, leaving the inside to Jack and Abigail. Together, the wizard and the warrior fell inside. With a violent jerk, the carriage was off.
Jack and Abigail sat in the carriage, still stunned by the night’s events, each left to his or her own thoughts about family.
Chapter Fifteen
Leah
“You knew the attack on the armory was going to take place, and you did nothing?”
“Well, it wasn’t an attack so much as they were trying to steal weapons for their little insurrection.” Leah gave a long sigh and shrugged. “I knew they were coming; I even let them in. It was a final test for Elizabeth. I wanted to know that, even on her own, she would still stand by our side, and she did. It also served to unravel Jack Walker. He suspects his father is alive now. He’ll be emotional. He won’t be thinking straight during the next confrontation. He’ll make a mistake, and he’ll join us for the sake of his father, or die.”
“You’re taking risks, dear sister.” Queen Eckert sat on her throne, drumming her fingers on the massive chair where she sat. “And you’re not telling me everything. You know I trust you, but next time you have knowledge on an attack on the palace, do share.”
“I understand.” Leah knew when to placate her older sister. “I apologize.”
“Oh, don’t be playing that card,” her sister scolded. “I’m not angry. We’re just on the cusp of something great. The entire Outland united under one banner. When we accomplish that, we can push past the borders of our world and explore beyond.”
Leah nodded along with her sister’s words. From the very beginning they had planned on ruling the Outland, but for very different reasons. Her sister wanted to create unity; Leah just wanted to rule.
“How have the cities been taking to their new way of life?” Leah hid the haste in her voice. She needed to get back to work. Commander Steel and Elizabeth were solid, but there was a certain wolf-human hybrid that needed to be attended to. “Term, Burrow Den, Azra? Have you reached them with the mage locomotive yet?”
“Term and all of the other outlying cities have been linked to New Hope via our locomotive. We’ve been shipping vampire soldiers recently turned by Commander Steel to those locations to bolster our defenses. The citizens in the cities will have to get used to a new form of government. We’ll levy our taxes on them, and our soldiers will see that they pay.”
The queen paused. Her eyes went from clear and unwavering to worried and doubtful in a moment.
“What is it?” Leah asked, sensing something was bothering her sister. “Burrow Den, Azra?”
“Burrow Den is of no consequence.” The queen snapped back to their current conversation. “They’re too small and secluded. The track to that small town has just been finished. No, it’s Azra that worries me.”
“Because she’s there?” Leah guessed. The goings-on at Term had been fully reported. It seemed all of their enemies outside of New Hope had decided to flee to Azra. “Leave her to me.”
“You have a plan?” Queen Eckert looked at her sister with a raised eyebrow. “The latest reports say that they’re all there. She, as well as Sloan, is more than likely hiding among them.”
“I am more than she can handle.” Leah straightened her back at the thought of the fight she always knew must come. “I can sense her. She’s powerful, but no match for me. She never was. As far as the ex-captain, let Commander Steel and his new breed of vampires accompany the construction of the mage engine to Azra.”
“Your vampire soldiers couldn’t defeat Sloan before. What makes you think they have a chance now?”
Leah paused, choosing her words carefully. In truth, she was wondering herself if her latest breed of vampire soldiers would be effective. The last group was such a disappointment.
“Point taken, sister.” Leah bowed. In a swirl of her black cloak, she began heading from the throne room. “Perhaps Commander Steel is better suited to deal with the New Order here in New Hope. Marcus and his kind should accompany the mage engine to Azra.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Queen Eckert’s voice followed Leah as she let herself out of the room.
Leah’s footsteps moved as quickly as her thoughts. Her body maneuvered through the palace and down to the dungeon level where she performed her experiments, her mind replaying the plan in her head over and over again.
Marcus, for whatever reason, had been resurrected without his magical ability, yet with his memory. It had been foggy at first, but soon he was fighting to be free, demanding to see his son.
He had to be restrained. Leah was lucky he had no idea what he was yet. If he had transformed into the beast as Aareth had, he would have been much harder to maintain. But Leah had ordered him locked up and restrained. How long they would be able to contain him was another matter altogether.
Leah had laced his chains and his cell door with magic. If this was enough to contain the beast living inside Marcus, it was yet to be seen.
Leah walked down a long corridor in the underbelly of the palace. At the end of the hall was a thick metal door. Commander Steel sat on a wooden chair. His collar was unbuttoned, a goblet of blood in his right hand, a near-empty pitcher of the same crimson liquid in his left.
“There she is.” Commander Steel waved to Leah with the hand holding the goblet. Blood sloshed from the rim of his cup and fell to the stone floor. “I tried talking to our Lazarus in there, but he seems more of the silent, brooding type.”
“I think he may change his tune once he understands what’s at stake.” Leah reached the steel door. There was a sliding metal viewer eye level with Leah. She reached for the handle. The sound of metal scraping on metal filled the room. “Go and get your people, commander. I’ll explain the situation to our guest.”
“I’m on it.” Commander Steel drained his goblet, then he stood and left the corridor the same way Leah had come.
Leah heard the Commander’s feet echo down the hall behind her. She peered into the small cell where Marcus was imprisoned. He was in the same seat she had left him. His cell was made up of a single stool, and he was chained to the floor by both his ankles and wrists. Thick steel chains made his arms hang down close to the floor.
As far as Marcus himself, he looked as healthy as ever. The pigmentation of his skin was brown and weathered from his life as a sorcerer in the Outland. His brown hair was streaked with grey and white, a testament to his age.
Leah knew he had heard her conversation with Commander Steel and still he didn’t look up. His head was pointed down, his shoulder-length hair veiling his expression.
Leah shut the door’s viewer. She disabled the spell holding the door shut and opened it.
Still, Marcus refused to look up.
“Marcus Walker,” Leah began again. They had already tried reasoning with him, to no avail. Leah was willing to give it one more try before blood was spilt. “You must understand—”
“The last thing I remembered was the Burrow Den beast tearing me apart,” Marcus interrupted. He finally looked up. Through a curtain of hair, brown eyes peered at her so intensely, Leah took a step back. “I know I died.
I know I should have stayed dead. Magic always has a price. I can only imagine what you had to do to raise me back to life. What I don’t understand is how you took away my magic.”
Leah licked dry lips. Anger filled her for allowing herself to become so distraught from a simple look. She was used to being the one filling the other with dread, not the other way around. She was the leader, and she would show Marcus who he was talking to.
“You were bitten by the beast.” Leah took a step forward, meeting Marcus’ gaze with a look of ferocity of her own. “When I brought you back, your magic was not resurrected with you. But you are something else now. You have an animal raging inside of you. We only ask that you share this gift so we can harness it. We’re not the villains in this story. If you would just help us to understand…”
Leah’s voice trailed off.
Marcus was laughing. “I don’t know who you think you’re talking to. I can see your lies like I can see the hair in front of my face. Save your stories for someone naive enough to believe them. I’m not helping you, or that blood-gulping thing who was guarding me. Whatever I am now is mine to deal with on my own. I can guess why you want it. You’re looking for pawns you can use as weapons. Well, you can go somewhere else.”
Leah could hear three pairs of footsteps traveling back down the hall, and her anger was subdued by the events the next few minutes would herald.
“Not even for your son?” Leah grinned. “Surely, for Jack, you would do whatever we asked. All we need from you is a single bite. We’ve learned through Commander Steel’s experimentation that, a bite is the best way to transfer the power from a creature of your standing to a human.”
“You don’t have my son, or else you would have used him against me by now.” Marcus craned his neck to look past Leah at the approaching sound. When he confirmed it was not his son, he let out a long breath and shook his head. “Whatever you think I am, you’re wrong. I’m not a creature, or an animal, or whatever you think I’ve been turned into since the Burrow Den beast bit me. Sorry to disappoint.”
The Complete Vampire Project Series: (Books 1 - 5) Page 58
