Insidious Winds (29 page)

Unfortunately, recalling the last time she emptied my
personal bank account
after
our divorce was too infuriating; fire
engulfed the entire mass of boxes, spread to the ceiling, and filled the room
with black smoke. I had just turned to grab the door handle when part of the
ceiling collapsed in front of me, blocking the door. Since it opened inward, I
was trapped.

I opened my mouth to cuss, only to fill my lungs with
smoke.
No damned windows when I need one! Maybe there’s a back door
. I
could have made it through the door eventually, but I doubted I had that much
time.

I had just started towards the back of the shop to
try to find a back door when the front door burst open. It was actually broken
off its hinges. Someone entered wearing black clothes, goggles, and a face
mask. He grabbed my arm to pull me towards the door. I followed him out to the
street and into the building across from the burning one. Someone shut the door
behind me and the man who helped me pushed me onto a bed of blankets.

I struggled to breathe through my burning lungs, but
I was otherwise unhurt. When someone tried to hand me a bottle of water, I
pushed it away. “It’s clean!” she said, taking her mask and goggles off. She
drank from it herself before passing it to me.

It tasted clean and the water felt cold in my dry
throat. “Who are you?” I asked, picking up a blanket to dry my hair with. I was
still wet and getting pretty cold again.

There were five of them, who all started taking off
their masks and goggles. I gaped. The youngest was only about ten years old,
while the oldest couldn’t have been more than fifteen. And every one of them
had glowing red eyes, indicating that they were vampires.

“He speaks English, so he’s human,” the oldest one
said in English. He and the youngest vampire were boys, while the middle three
were girls. The really odd part was that I didn’t
sense
that they were
vampires.

“We should kill him,” the younger boy said. They
certainly
sounded
like vampires.

“He burned down the CT supply; he’s on our side,” the
oldest girl said. She was the one who offered me water. I just hoped she wasn’t
about to ask for blood in return.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“I’m Lyda,” the oldest girl answered. “We were each
lost here over the last five years.”

“From the vampire world? How?”

“There was a tower on our world. We were told it was
a portal to other worlds. We didn’t believe it and tried to destroy it. Nothing
happened to the tower, but we started getting attacked by demons that demanded
sacrifices. All of us were sacrificed to the demons.”

“How do you know English?”

“When I first arrived, I met a very beautiful demon
who said I would be saved if I survived long enough. We’ve all been waiting for
the savior. The demon said he would be a human and that English was the human
language, so we learned from the humans that were sacrificed.”

I scoffed. “There are hundreds of human languages.
Sacrificed…? You mean dead?”

“How else would we be here?”

I studied my palm and ran my fingers over the mark.
“If you’re already dead, how can you be saved?”

Lyda shrugged. “Every day is miserable and harder
than the last. What else can we do but to keep fighting and hope there’s an end
coming?”

I stood. Even though my key was for another world, I
assumed that it would let me back into Earth, since there was no key for Earth.
“I will help you get out of here, but I need to find someone first. Her name is
Astrid. She’s a vampire, but not like you guys; she’s from Earth. Her mother
was a vampire from your world, though. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

They shook their heads. “Only the dead have names
here. We can be controlled by our names.”

I had forgotten all about that; Krechea’s name was a
huge secret, which made sense because everyone was calling him “the Master.” In
fact… “If I had the name of someone, how would I use it?”

Lyda frowned. “That depends on who you are, who they
are, and what you would be trying to do with their name. Only wizards can use a
name.”

“I am a wizard.”

She narrowed her red eyes in suspicion. “I thought
you were human.”

I rolled my eyes. “I am from Earth, yes, but we have
wizards on Earth, just like we have shifters, fae, and vampires.” Plus, the
rare dragon, phoenix, gargoyle, griffin, and a shitload of other mythical
beings I didn’t even want to contemplate.

“I told you we should have killed him,” the younger
boy said, sneering at me.

I ignored him. “Wizards are different on Earth.
We’re… basically human with magic. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Lyda looked unsure, but she turned to the older boy.
“He doesn’t act like a wizard and he did burn the poison.”

“Yes, but… a good wizard? I’ve never even heard of
such a thing.”

I scoffed, because before I started at Quintessence,
I would have said the same thing about vampires. “Astrid, the vampire who I’m
here to save, is my childhood friend, and I love her.”

“A wizard and a vampire?” the youngest girl asked
incredulously.

“Yes, so please help me find her. Once I find her, we’ll
go back through the tower and you five can come with me. She has brown, wavy
hair, hazel eyes, and I think she’s wearing a red leather jacket.”

“There are too many people in this world to remember
everyone who has brown hair, hazel eyes, and likes red.”

“Nobody wears red,” the oldest boy said. “It’s like
you’re teasing us.”

“She probably doesn’t know the customs here. She came
through the tower.”

“Then the Master will be after her. All who come
through the tower are taken to the castle.”

“Astrid is too smart to get herself caught. I spoke
with her recently.” I wasn’t about to tell them she had been poisoned in case
they gave up that easily. “Where would she be safe if she were trying to take
out… the wizard in the castle?”

“Why would she be trying to kill the Master?”

“It’s a very long story. Basically, to protect
Earth.” And revenge. Revenge was a big part of it. “Is there anywhere she might
have gone where she could be safe?”

“If she’s smart, she would get as far away from the
castle as possible. However, if she’s trying to bring down the Master, then
she’s pretty stupid.”

Astrid was not stupid in the least, but I remembered
what Langril said after he took her here. She thought I hated her for what
Krechea made her do. While a lot of this was her way of protecting me, I knew
some of it was because she felt like Krechea took what was most important away
from her. He took her control.

For twenty years, I hated her as much as I loved her,
and I couldn’t imagine how much that tormented her. During the entire time, she
didn’t even know why she did it or if she would do it again. I couldn’t blame
her for going after Krechea when she found out he was behind every miserable
thing that happened to her.

Only, it was more my fault than Krechea’s or
Langril’s. I was the one who pushed her away when she really needed me. As much
as I was hurting, I should have asked her why. I should have trusted her to
explain for five minute. I could have seen it wasn’t her.

“Okay, pretend you had nothing in the world to lose,
that you believed you hurt the one you loved, and that someone had violated you
in the worst way. Revenge wouldn’t help, but it is all you can do. Where would
you hide to plot your revenge?”

All five of them considered it deeply. “Is she the
kind of person who would get help?” the little boy asked.

“She’s a vampire,” Lyda said for me. “She wouldn’t
want to share her revenge. If it were me… if it was my father’s murderer
sitting on the throne of that castle… I would hide in the castle. I would
pretend to be staff until I can plan the perfect attack. The Master has too
many guards and too much magic, so the attack would have to be very carefully
thought out.”

“He has already seen her and would recognize her in a
heartbeat.”

“There are enough people in the council that she
could hide from the Master.”

“Then that’s where I’ll go.”

“We’re not going there,” the youngest girl said.

“No, of course. I wouldn’t ask you to risk your life…
or whatever, for her. You know where the tower is?” I asked. They nodded. “Hide
there, and when I rescue her, I’ll return to the tower and we can all get out
of here.”

I would come back for Heather. I wasn’t heartless
enough that I would abandon her, but I had to get Astrid out first. Langril
would damn sure let me back in to save her… if he was still alive. I said
goodbye and good luck to my unlikely friends and traveled back the way I had
come. It was easy to find the castle; it was so big I could see it from
anywhere in the city.

Along the way, I had time to mull over my
relationship with Astrid. That seemed to be all I was doing when it came to
her; arguing with myself. We were both different people than we were when we
were kids and the chance of us having a real relationship was very slim. I did
love her and I enjoyed holding her in my arms, but I was more interested in
saving her life than having anything deeper with her.

I almost made it to the huge castle without running
into anyone, thanks to my instincts. Although there were only a couple of
people out, any one of them could have ended my mission in a very quick and
gory fashion. I started to cross the street to the castle when I heard a sound.
My instincts weren’t bothered, but there was definitely someone coming. I hid
in a hole in the side of the building.

There was a
hole
in the side of a
building
.
In the middle of town. Talk about a dump.

To my frustration, a trio of adolescent wizards
stopped in front of the large gates beside the tunnel. That was assuming they
were wizards; they were pretty non-magical if my senses were correct. Then they
started setting up a bomb and I sighed. If that went off, the only thing it
would have accomplished was to make it impossible for me to get in.

I stepped into the street and held out both of my
hands. Realizing that strength in my emotion was what gave me power here, I
honed in on my own determination to not only survive this hellhole, but to do
so with Astrid. Above my palms, fire formed, but it was a cold bluish purple
color and wouldn’t burn anything.

They didn’t need to know that.

“Need a hand?” I asked, deepening my voice. I really
wished I had a wizard’s robe instead of my leather jacket at that moment. I
needn’t have worried; the three took one look at me and ran away screaming
about a wizard.

Large gates protected the castle. What it protected
the castle
from
exactly, I wasn’t sure, because nobody in their right
mind would attack such a monstrous beast.

I went back into the tunnel and found nothing but a
brick wall over a river. Grimacing, I got down into the water and climbed
through the narrow, rough gap. Despite every effort not to, I lost a bit of
skin off my hands. “Have fun keeping the vampires at bay now,” I grumbled.

The river came out in what appeared to be an
abandoned service hall, which was pretty lucky in my book.
It could have
been a bathroom
. I followed the hallway until I reached an old kitchen.
From the dust on everything, I gathered that it was abandoned.
Okay, I’m in…
now what
? I patted my pockets to see if the glass sphere Hunt had given me
had returned. No such luck.

Once again, I tried searching for Astrid. Even with
my strong resolve, I couldn’t sense her. I sensed many minds in the castle, but
I also knew there were many more wizards in the fortress who were able to block
their minds from me easily.

If Astrid really is here, she’ll be as close to
Krechea as she could possibly get without getting caught, so I went looking for
the most potent magic. I searched for fear, because these people would only
fear someone much more powerful than themselves, and found myself outside a set
of huge doors. I tried to listen in.

There were murmurs, but nothing I could make out. My
next course was to hide somewhere where I could watch the comings and goings
without being seen or detected. I just had to find one first, which proved to
be easier said than done.

There was nothing fancy about the castle; it was big
and pretty bare, with rock walls, no décor, and the random sharp or blunt
object on a table here or there. I found an empty bedroom down the hallway from
the room my instincts were driving me towards, so I left the door open a crack
and watched.

After half an hour, I was about to give up and move
on, only to freeze with my hand on the knob when I heard a familiar woman’s
scream.
I knew it
. Heather’s scream was one of agony, not fear. It was
coming from that room. My instincts demanded I move, that I get in there, but
when I threw open the door, it slammed shut before I could get through it.
Standing in my way was a wizard who materialized out of the shadows.

He grinned. “Well, what do we have here?”

I struck out with lightning, but he instantly melted
into shadow and formed behind me. He shoved me against the door and two more
men were suddenly grabbing my arms. I drove my elbow into the nose of the man
on my right.

It hurt my elbow.

They were vampires, and damn strong. One of them held
me against the door while the other forced me to face him with one hand on my
throat and the other on my jaw. His red eyes seemed to get brighter, which was
fascinating in an unnatural, ominous way. My brain told me to look, to stare,
and never stop, but my instincts told me I had to close my eyes.

I was more inclined to follow my instincts than my
brain anyway, so I was able to close them. As I struggled against the two
vampires, I heard the wizard whisper something and grab me lightly at the back
of the neck. My anger, as well as my adrenaline, just stopped. The calmness
that followed was unnatural, but not unpleasant. It wasn’t mind-altering; I wanted
to fight them, I just didn’t have the drive left.