Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 2) (19 page)

He sighed. “If he tells the Magic Council about you, they will send someone to kill you and your sister. You were fortunate that whoever hired Nightshade didn’t know who the Dragon Born mages were, only where they were.”

“What if Shadowstalker is this season’s Nightshade?”

“I don’t think so. Something else is going on with him.” He frowned. “I just haven’t figured out what.”

“Maybe I killed his client’s favorite pet minotaur.”

“Have you killed a minotaur?”

“Just one, and trust me when I say no one was sad to see it go,” she said. “But I’ve been a mercenary for eight years, and I was killing heinous things even before that. Basically, ever since I could hold up a sword. I’ve taken down a lot of monsters over the years. And mouthed off to a lot of people who can easily afford an assassin.”

“You should really stop doing that.”

“Oh, come on, Logan. You know some people are just asking for it.”

“Hey, guys,” Naomi called back. “I think we found the ghost hunters those pranksters were trying to give a scare.”

Alex hurried to catch up. Sure enough, a group of four people dressed in dark hiking clothes were sitting around a campfire, frying donuts and chanting for nearby spirits to show themselves to accept this great offering. There were just three problems with their approach.

Firstly, Alex had never known an otherworldly being—whether ghost, spirit, or phantom—to appear on command. They all pretty much came and went as they pleased.

Secondly, even if there were non-corporeal beings already in the area, they wouldn’t change course for an offering of a few donuts that they couldn’t even eat.

And finally, only supernaturals could see the otherworldly, and from the big fat magic zero Alex was getting off their auras, these four chanters were undeniably human. They wouldn’t have noticed if the entire area were swarming with ghosts. Which it wasn’t. Alex sensed for otherworldly magic, but the closest she found was a trio of ghosts two blocks away. The ghost hunters’ donuts had, however, attracted a different kind of visitor.

“Logan,” she whispered, drawing his attention to the old homeless man standing further back down the tracks. He must have come in after them.

“Go chase him off, please.”

“Scared?” she teased.

“Right now, I’m standing at the safest minimum distance.”

Whatever that meant. Alex shrugged it off and walked toward the old man. Within a few steps, she realized what Logan had meant. The smells coming off of the man were…well, ripe. By the time she was within ten feet of him, she had to stop.

“Hi,” she said.

The old man stared right through her, as though she weren’t even there. Ok, then.

“It’s pretty dangerous down here right now.”

Behind her, magic blew through the tunnel. The chanters cried out in protest. Marek must have puffed out their fire.

“So, do you think you could leave?”

The man’s eyes shifted to her, blinked once, then went back to staring right through her.

“This here is why I shouldn’t be the one to talk to people,” she muttered.

An odd green glow shimmered against the walls, then the ghost hunters rushed past, heading for the exit. A summoned dragon, bound together by electrified strands of green magic, thundered after them in easy strides, Marek’s eerie laugh pouring out of its mouth.

Naomi came up behind Alex. “Here,” she said, setting the pan of steaming donuts down on the ground. “Take them and go.”

The old man looked from her, to Alex, to the two guys behind them. Then he swooped up the pan and turned to go.

“Let’s get going,” Logan said, tapping a section of the wall.

Marek pulled out a bottle of the magical corrosive, popped off the hot pink lid, then sprayed the contents onto the wall. When he had a bright pink circle taller than Logan, he began to fill it in. He had to pull out several more canisters before it was done.

“Nice color,” Alex commented to Naomi as the corrosive began to slowly eat away at the concrete.

“The spray came in vomit-green, diarrhea-brown, some weird yellow that I don’t even want to try to describe, and pink.”

“I think you made the right choice,” Alex told her. “And it’s easy to see against the wall in the dark.”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

The guys were watching the wall like they couldn’t believe anything so pink could work so well. It was slow, though. After two minutes, Alex began to pace. After five, she started to fondle her sword.

“Patience,” Logan said, looking back to her. “Stealth operations require patience.”

“That must be why I always run into battle screaming and waving my sword in the air.”

He chuckled, then turned back to watch the corrosive’s progress. Marek stood with him, asking what he thought of England’s team for the next Magic Olympics. That was Marek’s equivalent of an olive branch.

Naomi noticed this as well. “See? He’s trying to mend fences with your honey.” She put her arm around Alex, leading her away from Logan and Marek. “So, now that we are alone.” She stole a look back at the guys and their corroding wall. “Spill. What happened between you and sexy assassin?”

“Sexy assassin?” Alex asked, amused.

“We’ll come up with a better name later. Now, come on. Don’t leave me hanging. I need details.”

“Well…”

“That good, huh?” Naomi nodded. “It must have been. You’re speechless.”

Logan’s aura changed from amused to smug.

“Stop listening, Logan,” she muttered, knowing he could hear her. “This is a private conversation.”

“Ok, fine. You don’t have to give me a play-by-play. I saw the apartment. I have a pretty good idea of what you two did,” Naomi said. “But do tell me the next part.”

“I fell asleep.”

“Stop being a tease, Alex. I meant the part where he told you he loves you.”

“How did you know?”

“I can see it in the way he looks at you.”

“You have scary powers.”

“I know.” Naomi sighed—and smiled. It was as though she couldn’t decide how to feel about that.

“He told me he knows about me and gave me a book he stole for me.” Alex lowered her voice even further. “A book about the Dragon Born.”

“And that’s when he told you he loves you?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it!” Naomi subdued her expression. “Tell me about the book.”

“Most of the time, it looks like a normal book, but when I touch it, it activates the magic that reveals its true content. There are all kinds of interesting things in there. Like how to link with my dragon. My magic has to be laid bare and fully unleashed. I wonder what that means.”

Naomi chewed on her lip. “You know, that sounds an awful lot like what the Magic Games are supposed to do. They break you down until your mind cracks. And that’s supposed to unleash your full magical potential.” She shrugged. “At least for mages.”

“The Dragon Born are mages,” replied Alex. “The Magic Games didn’t crack Sera, but there has to be another way.”

“Kai says there’s an old ritual. He’s going to perform it on Sera.”

“I’ll have to ask her about it.”

A cool breeze brushed against Alex’s back as the last of the corrosive’s magic winked out. She turned to find a new hole in the wall. Logan and Marek were already entering the exposed tunnel. Naomi squeezed her hand, and they followed the guys through.

They walked for a few minutes before they reached the end of the tunnel. Logan tapped his knuckles against the wall.

“This one isn’t as thick as the last one,” he said. “The corrosive won’t take as long.”

Marek sprayed the wall with the pink magic, then they waited.

“I can feel the hybrids on the other side, not far away,” Alex whispered.

Marek pivoted around. “How far?”

“Twenty feet maybe.”

Her magic popping in anticipation, Naomi began bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“How about the Blood Orb?” Logan asked.

“It’s still on the other side of the building. Same level.”

“What about other guards? I can’t hear them through the walls.”

She frowned as her magic brushed against that familiar interference, that thing which was
jamming her ability to find magic. She must have been getting better at compensating for it because she could at least feel the Blood Orb and the mass of hybrid magic. She just couldn’t feel weaker magic signals and humans.

“They’re doing something to mask their presence,” she told Logan. “It feels like the magic-nullifying device they had at Purge. The one I couldn’t deactivate.”

“Try again.”

Alex uncoiled her senses, reaching for that evasive magic vacuum.
There was no magic to follow. She could only follow the silence, trailing it to its source.

Ha! Found you!

Breaking magic was a lot easier to do when she wasn’t fending off enemy forces. The device was at the top of the building. Why was it always at the top? Slowly, she began to poke at it, searching for that weak spot she could pull back. The moment she found it, she tugged hard.
The bands of the anti-magic web ruptured with a
resounding crack that split through her mind.
All the magic in the area snapped and slammed into her.

“Alex?” Naomi asked, catching her stumble.

“Got it,” she gasped. “The anti-magic field is down. I can feel them now. There are guards throughout the level. Human and…mage.” Dread sank in her stomach. “The Convictionites are expecting us.”

The corrosive gave a soft pop, and the final layer of the hole dissolved, raining down to the ground like powdered sugar.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Silver Castle

THEY STEPPED THROUGH the newly-made opening into the basement of the Silver Castle. There weren’t any guards waiting for them—or at least none in sight. Even so, the building was definitely on high alert. An anxious energy hung thick and heavy in the air, buzzing against Alex’s senses. The Convictionites’ song filled the entire building from roof to basement.

And then there were the hybrids. A potpourri of magical scents trickled from the room just across the hall. It felt like someone had thrown a few dozen supernatural flavors into a blender and turned it on.

The tingle of sweet and sticky nectar with an aftertaste of blood. The airy aroma of dew-dripped forests turbo-charged with lightning. The saccharine decay of fallen ruins and crimson battles. A heavy percussion beat tap-dancing on a siren’s sweet song. The earth-shaking strides of charging beasts trailing ringing bands of tiny silver bells. Demon drums and magic metamorphoses.

“I feel them,” Alex said in a whisper, walking. “Vampire fairies, elven elemental mages, dark vampire elves, nymph telekinetic mages, fairy mage summoners, vampire mage shifters…there are so many.”

She hurried forward, following the trail into the room. And then she just stopped. She hadn’t been prepared for this.

The prisoners were locked inside glass boxes that resembled shelves more than cells. Each box was barely high enough for its occupant to sit up, and they were stacked all the way to the ceiling. A few of the hybrids looked up as Alex’s group entered the room, but their eyes didn’t express anything more than indifference. Hope hadn’t just been crushed out of these people; it had been completely obliterated. Their faces were sallow, their bodies emaciated, and their clothes stained with blood and other bodily fluids.

Behind Alex, Marek swore under his breath. Naomi walked past them, her eyes wide with horror. She pressed her hand to the box holding a fairy-mage woman with hair that might have once been red. Right now, though, it was a blend of dirty brown and vomit orange. She was wearing a running crop top that showed off pale, bare skin crisscrossed with scars and scratches. One of her ribs looked broken too.

“Naomi,” her voice croaked through the tiny holes in the glass front. Her brown eyes shook.

“Eva, hold on. We’re going to get you out of here.”

Naomi stole a look back at Logan. He was already tinkering with the panel that controlled the cells.

“The others,” Eva coughed.

“We’re getting everyone out,” Naomi promised.

The shadow of a smile touched Eva’s cracked lips. “Thank you.”

The vampire fairy in the next box stirred. He must have been a recent capture because he looked a lot better than the others. His clothes were wrinkled but not torn or stained. He was hungry, though. His green eyes were freckled with crimson.

“There are only four of you.” He licked his lips like he was counting off four meals-on-legs.

“Fangs away, buddy, or we leave you in that box,” Alex warned.

“You need me,” he said, smiling. “How else will you get everyone out of the building? Most of them cannot walk.”

“We brought healing sprays and magic-boosted energy drinks,” Naomi said. “There’s enough for everyone.”

“And blood?” he asked.

Murmurs of assent came from the other vampire hybrids. It looked like everyone was awake now.

“We have a few bottles of an energy drink called Blood Magic,” Naomi told them.

The vampire fairy let out a martyred sigh. “I suppose that will have to do.”

“Geez, you’re sure picky,” Alex told him. “What were you expecting? A gaggle of hysterical girls to sip on with your rescue?”

“No, I prefer mage blood.” His gaze traced her carotid artery.

“Sorry, my neck’s not on tap.”

“Shame.” He pouted out his lips. Then, his eyes swimming with mischief, he inhaled deeply and said, “I bet you taste delicious. Did anyone ever tell you how tantalizing that subtle hint of vampire and fairy on you is?”

“It must be left over from the last presumptuous vampire fairy I killed.”

He chuckled. “I like you, mage. So much that I even promise I’ll try not to eat you.”

“Fabulous. Then we’ll get along just fine,” she said drily. “What’s your name?”

“Xanthus.”

“Hi, Xanthus. I’m Alex. Now how about you tell us how you ended up in that box?”

His smile wilted. “Two nights ago, a group of mages cornered me outside of Bloodbath.”

Alex looked at Marek. “Bloodbath?”

“A vampire club. The bloodsuckers aren’t known for their subtlety in naming their establishments.” He arched a single brow. “Or in anything for that matter.”