Heartless (Blue Fire Saga) (2 page)

During her drive home, she had thought about how much to tell Cali and had come to a pretty big decision—she was going to tell her everything. Despite Cali’s often outrageous appearance and behavior, she was a loyal friend who had proven she could keep secrets—she already knew about Leesa’s dreams coming true and her ability to move things with her mind, although she had no idea of the true extent of Leesa’s magic or where it came from. Cali also knew about Rave and the other volkaanes, and had even developed a bit of a flirting relationship with the vampire Stefan after he had saved Cali from Edwina. Cali had not said anything about vampires to anyone, despite how cool it could have made her in some circles.

Leesa reached Cali’s doorway just in time to hear Bruno Mars belt out one of Leesa’s favorite lines, about telling the devil he said “hey” when his ex got back to where she was from. She loved the ironic putdown implicit in the words.

As soon as Leesa appeared in the doorway, Cali sprang up off her bed and wrapped Leesa in a tight hug. Leesa squeezed her best friend back. Mars was still singing about all the sacrifices he would make for the girl in the song, even “taking a grenade for her,” and Leesa realized there was probably very little Cali wouldn’t do for her—she had proven that before. Leesa tightened her embrace.

After a few silent moments, Cali let go and stepped back, giving Leesa a quick once over with her eyes.

“I know you told me you were okay,” Cali said, “but seeing is believing.” She grinned. “You don’t look great, mind you, but you do look okay.”

She plucked a small piece of dead leaf off Leesa’s shoulder.

Leesa returned Cali’s smile. “Thanks for the compliment. The way I feel right now, I’ll definitely settle for okay. You, on the other hand, look…uh…I’m not sure that I can come up with a word for it.”

“Spectacular? Sensational? Smashing?”

Leesa shook her head in resignation. She was pretty sure she would not have chosen any of those words. Cali was definitely one of a kind. Leesa thought maybe she should make up a word for her, something like “Calilicious.”

Cali’s shoulder length dark hair was freshly colored with burgundy highlights that matched a port wine stain on her cheek shaped like the state of California. The birthmark was the source of Cali’s nickname—her given name was Kelly. She had also done a smoky thing to her eyes that was similar in color, and it looked like she had added some extra silver sparkles to it. Her lips were painted with dark purple lipstick and she had changed the small jeweled stud just above the corner of her mouth to one that matched her lips. She had done her fingernails as well, alternating black with purple. The extravagant makeup did not go at all with her simple camouflage T-shirt and gray sweatpants.

“I was worried about you,” Cali explained. “All I knew was that you were involved in something dangerous. I had to do something to keep myself from going crazy while I waited for you to call.” She held out her hands, showing off her painted nails. “You should see the three layers of color underneath these. I’m almost out of polish.”

Leesa laughed. “That, I doubt.” Cali owned more makeup than anyone Leesa knew, and very little of it was in colors that could be found anywhere in Leesa’s much smaller supply. Cali liked to say that if she looked like Leesa, she probably wouldn’t own much makeup either, but Leesa was pretty sure that would not be true. Cali enjoyed the attention her usually outrageous appearance brought.

“So, how much can you tell me about what happened?” Cali asked, returning to the matter at hand.

“Maybe more than you really want to know,” Leesa said. “But we should sit down. It’s pretty complicated, and might take awhile.”

Cali’s eyes widened slightly. “Cool!” She backed up into the center of the room. “You’re the guest. Pick a seat.”

Leesa thought about sitting on the bed like she often did, but knew Cali would probably sit next to her, which would make it a little harder to watch her friend’s face for reactions while Leesa revealed her secrets. Instead, she pulled Cali’s desk chair out from beneath the desk and set it near the bed, facing in the opposite direction. She sat down on it backwards, with her legs straddling the chair and her arms resting on top of its back. She had a feeling she might want something to hold onto while she recounted her story.

Cali turned the music down low and sat on the bed, scooting backward until her back rested against the wall. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins.

“Okay. I’m all ears.”

Leesa took a moment deciding where to start—there was so much to tell. She decided to begin with something that Cali already knew a little bit about.

“You know how a couple of my dreams came true?” she asked. “And how I can sometimes move things with my mind?”

Cali could still picture the vampire Edwina flying backward away from her, somehow propelled by Leesa’s anger.

“Yeah, sure. How could I ever forget that?”

“Well, it turns out I can do a lot more than just that.”

“Really? Like what?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. But first, I need to tell you a little story.”

Leesa told Cali about the waziri, and how some of them had turned to the black arts and massacred their former comrades and then joined forces with the Necromancer. She explained how Dominic was the only good waziri to escape, and how in an effort to create an apprentice the black waziri would not be able to detect, he had decided to impart his powers to an unborn female, rather than to a young male child as was traditional.

“It turns out, that female was me,” she said.

It took Cali a moment to comprehend what Leesa had just told her.

“You’re a wizard?” she exclaimed. “Like freakin’ Harry Potter? How cool is that?”

“Technically, I’m a waziri,” Leesa replied, “but it’s really the same thing. I don’t have a wand or flying broomstick or any of that stuff, though.” She smiled. “I’m sure you’re disappointed to hear that.”

Cali grinned. “Well, maybe just a little,” she admitted.

“My powers were mostly dormant until I turned eighteen,” Leesa continued. “Dominic should have begun training me a year before that, but he couldn’t find me because my mom getting bitten by the
grafhym
altered my vibrations, which he normally would have been able to use to locate me. So I’m way behind.”

“How did he find you, then?”

“Amazingly, we have Edwina to thank for that. Dominic was already in Connecticut, and the amount of power I used to knock Edwina away from you was enough for him to detect.”

Cali nodded as she began to put the pieces together. “So, I’m guessing that the dangerous thing you were doing this afternoon involved some of those black wizards?”

“Yeah, it did.”

Leesa described the events of the afternoon for Cali, which was a complicated job. She began with the diminished magic and its effect not only on her magic, but on the volkaanes’ inner fire and on the black waziri as well. She revealed that Jenna—who Cali had met once—was a witch and how Jenna had used her magic to infiltrate Leesa’s mind. She repeated the story of how the two of the vampires came to be indebted to Jenna.

“Everything was going wrong,” Leesa said as she neared the end of her story. “Dominic had his magic weakened, which ruined his plan. We didn’t even know that Jenna and the vampires were there—this was before she admitted that she had invaded my mind—but one of the vampires was too new, so her lover refused to let her fight. That left them one vampire short, and so they were not going to intervene. Luckily, your boyfriend Stefan showed up, so now there was one vampire for each of the bad guys. Since vampires’ strength and speed are not affected by the weakening magic, they finished off the black wizards pretty quickly.”

“Way to go, Stefan,” Cali said, grinning. “Next time I see him, maybe I’ll let him give me a quick kiss on the lips, instead of just on my hand.”

Leesa shook her head and smiled. The first time Cali met Stefan, he had kissed the back of her hand, and Cali had turned it into a “thing” between them, acting like Stefan just could not get enough of it. The two had seen each other a couple of times since, and Stefan dutifully played along with it each time.

“Anyhow,” Leesa said, “that’s pretty much the story. Now you know just about everything. Pretty amazing, huh?”

Cali slid up to the front of the bed and sat with her legs dangling off the edge.

“I’ll say. I cannot believe you’re a freakin’ wizard—and Dominic, too. And that Jenna is a witch, except when she’s an owl or an otter or something. But I guess if vampires, volkaanes and zombies are real—and I’ve seen all of them—then why not wizards and witches?” Cali paused for a moment and then asked, “Are there any other supernatural creatures running around I should know about? Werewolves, maybe? Centaurs? Unicorns? I’d
really
love to see a unicorn. How cool would that be?”

Leesa smiled. “Rave said there used to be werewolves—way back in the past they were allied with volkaanes against the vampires—but he thinks they all died out. I don’t know about centaurs or unicorns. I can ask Dominic and Rave, but I wouldn’t hold your breath—especially about the unicorns.”

Cali grinned. “That’s okay. Being best buds with a wizard is good enough for me. Can you show me some of your magic? Or are you too tired?”

“My magic is weakened, remember, but I think I can probably show you a little something before I head up to my room to crash. Turn off the light.”

Cali got up and switched off the overhead light. With the afternoon rapidly waning toward evening, only a bit of illumination filtered in through the window, keeping the room fairly dim.

Leesa held out her hand, palm up.

“
Illuminati verdus
,” she said, picturing a glowing yellow orb above her palm.

The floating sphere was not all that bright, but in the darkened room it was still a pretty impressive demonstration.

“Very cool,” Cali said. She reached out and carefully touched the ball of light with her finger. “It’s not even warm.”

“I have another spell for that,” Leesa said. “But that’s going to have to wait for another day.”

A moment later, Leesa’s light winked out.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our demonstration for today,” Leesa said with a smile. She stood up as Cali turned the light back on. “Now, I really need a shower and a nap. Who knows, I may sleep right through until breakfast.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” Cali said. She wrapped Leesa up in another embrace. “Thanks for trusting me and telling me all that stuff. It’s way cool.”

“It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to about this,” Leesa replied. “God knows the people in my life who have magic can be hard to get a hold of.” She smiled. “I can almost always find you, though.”

“Any time,” Cali said. “You know I love hearing about this stuff, even if I can’t tell anyone.”

“Yeah. You for sure can’t tell anyone. I just hope I haven’t put you in any danger by telling you.”

“Hey, don’t worry. If no one knows that I know, how can I be in any danger?”

Leesa hoped that was true.

3. RESTLESS SLEEP

B
ack upstairs in her room, Leesa stripped out of her grimy clothes and tossed them into the canvas hamper at the bottom of her closet. She put on her comfy terrycloth robe and rubber flip-flops, grabbed her shower kit, and limped down the hallway to the communal showers at the far end of the corridor. At this hour of the day, she had the place all to herself, which was just fine with her.

The sixteen girls on her floor shared five showers, each one separated by a red plastic curtain attached to a curved metal ring suspended from the ceiling. Leesa took off her robe and hung it carefully on the chrome hook behind the stall farthest from the door—she had learned from experience that things sometimes slipped off the hooks if you weren’t careful. The floor looked clean and dry now, but that did not mean it was going to stay that way. She pulled the shower curtain closed and turned on the water, standing off to the side while the water warmed up. The hot water heaters were located in the basement of the dorm, so it usually took a minute or two for the hot water to make it up to the fourth floor.

When the water finally got warm, she stepped under the showerhead, leaning her head forward until her forehead rested on the tile wall. She let the delicious streams of hot water pound onto the top of her head and flow down over her back and shoulders. It felt so good and so relaxing she thought she just might stay like this until she ran out of hot water. She wondered if it would be possible to fall asleep just like this.

Finally, she summoned up the energy to grab her shampoo and lather the raspberry scented blend into her hair. The fruity aroma was almost as enjoyable as the hot water. Fatigue was catching up to her, so she decided to skip the conditioner and went right to scrubbing herself with her blue nylon loofah—a color she had switched to after meeting Rave—and raspberry body wash. When she was done, she toweled off quickly, donned her robe, and wrapped a smaller towel around her hair.

Back in her room, she pulled the towel off her head and flopped down onto her bed, still in her robe. She knew she was going to pay a price for not drying her hair before going to bed, but she didn’t care. Closing her eyes, she fell fast asleep.

Leesa opened her eyes and things immediately began to change. Her soft cotton comforter grew scratchier and more brittle, transforming itself into a blanket of decaying leaves. She lifted her cheek from the irritating surface and watched as bare trees replaced the walls of her room. She pushed herself to her feet, confused. The woods were lit in a very strange manner—she could see everything in a fifty foot circle quite clearly, but beyond that the world was dark as midnight.

Movement caught her eye. She turned her head and saw Dominic standing under a giant oak tree, a faint yellow glow outlining his form. No, not Dominic, she realized—his avatar. Now she understood. She was dreaming…remembering. She turned her head in the other direction and saw Dominic again. No glow outlined this new Dominic. This was the real thing. He raised his hand in greeting. She started to raise hers.