Magic Nights (4 page)

Yarran led them to the back side of the plot, where the building was nudged between two fences. The big door there was swung wide open. Unfortunately, there were two vampires standing watch right in front of it. The ghost slid silkily between them, then turned to wave at Sera and Naomi.

As they crept forward, one of the vampires sniffed the air. “Smells funny.”

“What smells funny?” his comrade asked.

Sera and Naomi paused as the vampires both looked around.

The first vampire sneezed. “The air.”

“Smells like salt, grass, and that stinking ghost we chased off earlier.”

Yarran scowled and made a rude gesture at the back of the vampire’s head.

“No, there’s something else,” Sneezy said and sniffed again. He sneezed again too. “Fairy. And mage.”

Sera held her breath—and pushed her magic down as deep as it would go. After its month of freedom, her magic did not go willingly back into hiding. She pushed harder. Sweat beaded her brow and trickled down her neck in salty streams.

“Of course you smell fairy and mage,” Grumpy told him. “Remember what we have in our dungeon.”

“I’m remembering how much we’re getting paid for what we have in our dungeon.”

The vampires chuckled, relaxing their guard, and Sera slipped past them. Naomi came in right behind her.

“Show us the way to your friend,” Sera whispered to the ghost once they’d put some distance between them and the vampires at the door.

Yarran sped up, swerving and looping full-speed down the stairs, then through a labyrinth of hallways. Sera had to break out into a sprint to keep pace with him. Hopefully, he wouldn’t forget that she and Naomi couldn’t pass through walls.

Finally, they reached the end of a long hallway. Yarran shot inside like a comet, excited impatience lathering his magic. Sera followed, feeling the rush of vampiric magic too late. Yarran stopped so quickly that had he been solid, Sera would have knocked him over. As it was, she passed through him as she slid to a stop. An eerie chill that had nothing to do with the ghost bit at her skin. There was no boy in sight. There were, however, a dozen vampires in the room.

“No, no, no,” Yarran moaned, swaying in erratic loops as he threw up his arms in panic. “Where is he? Where have those dirty vampires taken him?”

Sera opened her mouth to soothe him—then shut it just as quickly. Nothing she could say would calm the ghost who was now throwing himself from one end of the room to the other like a handkerchief caught in a tornado. And whatever spell he’d used to make them invisible wouldn’t extend to any sound she made.

“Filthy beasts!” Yarran spat at the vampires.

He was so angry that parts of him were turning visible. Uh-oh. If he couldn’t even keep himself invisible…

“What do we have here?” said one of the vampires, turning toward Sera and Naomi.

The other vampires followed his lead, their eyes pulsing red. The air grew thick with hunger.

“I think they can see us,” Naomi whispered to her.

One of the vampires stepped forward, favoring them with a malicious smile. “Dinner is served, boys.” He slid his tongue across his extended fangs with relish. “Mage and fairy on the menu.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Mind Breaker

SERA HAD NO intention of being a vampire’s snack. She pulled out her sword as Naomi did the same. In response to their show of steel, one of the vampires slid his finger into his mouth and sucked on it. Another yawned loudly. They were all looking at Sera and Naomi like they were walking blood bags. Vampire mercenaries were about as subtle as a wrecking ball. That’s why Simmons didn’t hire them. Ok, so maybe Sera was also about as subtle as a wrecking ball. But at least she didn’t try to eat her opponents.

In a single fluid motion, the front vampire leapt into the air, drawing his sword and swinging it down as he descended on Sera. He was so fast that she hardly had time to lift her own sword to block his strike. Her blade met his, the force of the impact shooting ripples of pain down her arms. She slid to the side, spinning out of the way. The aftershock still buzzed through her body. Vampires were too strong. She wouldn’t be able to take many more hits like that.

Beside her, Naomi wasn’t doing any better. In fact, she’d already lost her sword. It lay halfway across the room. And she was too busy trying not to get filleted by the heavy swipes of her opponent’s whistling blade to go after it. Above them, Yarran fluttered around in dizzying loops, flinging juvenile insults at the vampires.

Sera drew two knives and launched one at the vampire in front of her. Pivoting, she threw the second at Naomi’s opponent. Both knives met their marks in the vampires’ foreheads. And it didn’t make a damn difference. They tugged the blades out of their heads and sneered at her. Their tongues darted out, licking the blood dripping down their faces. Behind them, the other vampires were stirring, making ready to charge.

“We need to try something else,” Naomi said.

“Yes.”

Naomi’s blonde brows crept up. “You have an idea?”

“Remember that time we chased those vampires down to Monterey?”

“Yes,” Naomi said slowly. Her body tensed. “But there are no torches here.”

“This time we don’t need torches.” Sera offered her an apologetic smile. “You ready?”

Naomi’s sigh was resigned. “Just do it before I change my mind.”

The vampires watched with perplexed curiosity as Naomi bent over and rolled up into a headstand. Sera grabbed her by the ankles and began to spin, twirling faster and faster until Naomi’s chest was parallel to the ground. Magic crackled in the air, and an explosion of pink sparkles split out of her fingertips, drenching the ring of vampires in Fairy Dust. Before they could brush it off, Sera released Naomi. As her friend shot through the air, Sera poured fire magic onto the Dusted vampires. The flames ignited the Fairy Dust, and the vampires went down. The mist spread out from them like a blanket of pink clouds, rolling toward Sera.

“It’s spreading fast,” Naomi called down. She was hovering above the mist—barely. Unlike a full-blooded fairy, she couldn’t fly. She could just drop really, really slowly. “What did you hit the Dust with, Sera?”

“Just fire. It ignited the Dust much more than those beach torches did.”

“Of course it did. Magic fire is more potent than regular fire.” Naomi’s feet had almost dipped to the mist. If she fell into the Dust-charged air, she’d be knocked out by her own spell.

“I’m going to try something,” Sera told her, looking out at the mist. It was almost upon her too.

She pushed down the fire bubbling inside of her—which was screaming to be unleashed once more, whispering seductive promises into her ear. Fire was a powerful but unruly ally; it wouldn’t help her here. In fact, igniting the air again would only make things worse. So she reached past the fire and found ice. Cold magic poured out of her, biting at her skin. It streamed toward the pink mist, a silver twinkling ribbon of magic. And like a gigantic set of icy jaws, it chomped down on the cloud, swallowing it whole. The air stilled for a second, then, with the crack of an avalanche, the frozen crust shattered and poured to the ground in a shower of pink-silver shards.

Naomi landed softly beside Sera. “When you said you were going to do something, you weren’t kidding. That certainly was
something
.” She looked at the pile of unconscious vampires. “Holy crap, Sera. Where did you learn how to do that?”

“Kai.”

A smile twitched on Naomi’s lips. “There’s a real beauty to the dragon’s magic.”

“Yes.”

“And yours too.”

“Thanks.” Sera drew her sword and stalked toward the vampires. “But now comes the not-so-pretty part.”

Naomi grabbed her own sword from the ground, her face as glum as Sera felt. Neither of them was looking forward to what they had to do next, but they couldn’t leave the vampires to come after them later, even if it meant killing them while they slept.

When it was done, Sera turned her back on the vampires and closed her eyes. She felt out with her magic. She shifted past groups of vampires, searching for the fairy-mage boy in this maze. She found a twinge of familiar magic, so like Naomi’s and yet smaller. Younger.

“I found him. He’s—” Sera gasped when she located a second familiar twinge next to the first. And a third. One by one, they slammed into her magic, a cascade of fairy-mage power.

“What is it?”

“There are more of them.”

“How many?”

“A lot,” Sera said. “At least a dozen. All hybrid children.”

Naomi tugged on her arm. “Then let’s go get them.” She frowned at Sera when she didn’t budge. “What’s wrong?”

“The children are surrounded by vampires.”

Naomi glanced back at the dead vampires. “We don’t have a choice. We must save those children.”

“I know.” Sera sighed and wiped down her sword. “Follow me.”

They ran down the halls, not bothering to be quiet anymore. All the vampires were moving in the same direction: toward the children. Their magic was heavy with compressed violence, the stench of it nearly smothering the children’s magic, which was tingling with anxiety—an anxiety that was growing with every passing second.

“I think the vampires are moving them,” Sera said.

“Then we’ll have to get to them first.”

Nodding, Sera sped up, sprinting down the halls. She was pushing herself so hard that her muscles burned. Her lungs puffed out in protest, screaming for air. She would be in sorry shape when they got to the vampires. It wasn’t like she had a choice, though. If they didn’t hurry, there wouldn’t even be a fight. The children and vampires would be gone.

She blasted open the door before her, the last one that stood between them and the children. The ball of wind magic ripped the door clear off its hinges, slamming it into the vampires she’d felt on the other side. She burst into the garage and ran over the downed door, trapping the vampires beneath. Every head in the garage snapped toward her. Sera caught a glimpse of a group of children huddled together in the back of the large truck before the vampires closed the latch. Five broke off from the main group and headed for her.

“Stop that truck!” Sera shouted back to Naomi, then blasted the five vampires against the wall.

Naomi streaked past her. She was faster than Sera, closing the distance quickly. By the time the truck pulled out of the garage, she’d hopped onto the back.

Sera spun to face the three vampires running through the doorless passageway. She hurled a wave of magic-charged wind at them, smacking them against the wall beside their comrades. Fueled by rage and adrenaline, her magic soared high, carrying her over the edge of control. Tendrils of purple-gold lightning slithered across the vampires and pinned their limbs to the wall. They shifted and grunted, struggling against their bindings. Sera might not have been physically strong enough to hold a vampire, but right now her magic was rock-solid. The vampires didn’t budge an inch. They were trapped. Tiny flames slid over the lightning tendrils, their soft crackle sweet music to her ears.

“Sera.”

She snapped around at the sound of Naomi’s voice, turning away from the hypnotic dance of red and purple flames. How much time had passed? She needed to stop allowing her magic to carry her so far from the real world. One of these days, she might not come back.

“The children are safe. For the moment, anyway.”

“Shall we check on them?” Sera asked, looking at the truck.

Sometime between her slamming the vampires against the wall and getting lost in the trance of her own magic, Naomi gained control of the truck and had driven it back into the garage. Yarran was hovering in front of the locked latch, pacing in frustration.

“Open up, open up, open up,” he muttered.

“I was just about to check on them,” Naomi told Sera. “Are the vampires secure?”

“They’re not going anywhere,” Sera said into the face of the closest scowling vampire.

In response, he spat at her, but his spittle ricocheted off the magic bindings and splattered him in the eye. Sera snorted at him. The laughter died on her lips, though, the moment Naomi opened the back of the truck. It was dark in there, but not dark enough. Sera could see well enough—or perhaps too well. The children were huddled together. Their bodies quaked with terror. Their magic pulsed out in erratic beats, oozing fear. Their clothes were dirty and crusted with dried blood, and their skin was a grotesque patchwork of bite marks. The vampires had fed from them. Often.

“We’re going to bring you home to your families,” Naomi told them, barely choking out the words. A look of complete horror plagued her usually cheery face. “Which one of you is Jacob?”

One of the older girls scooted forward. “They took Jacob and some others away awhile ago.”

“How long?” Naomi asked.

The girl’s shrug shook her whole body. “A few hours? I don’t know. Whenever they bit us, we lost track of time.”

The other children nodded, fear building in their magic once more. One of the vampires on the wall let out a shrill cackle, and the children retreated further into the shadows. A few of them whimpered. As a little boy began to convulse, something inside of Sera snapped. She spun around and marched up to the cackling vampire. She thrust her hands through the magic bindings, slamming her palms against his chest.

“Where did you take the other children?” she demanded.

He only growled at her.
 

“Where?” she repeated, shooting lightning through his chest.

The vampire convulsed worse than the poor boy in the truck, a string of gurgled curses streaming out of his mouth.

“Let me try,” Naomi said.

Sera stepped back, giving her space. The vampire watched in amusement as Naomi shook out her hands.

“Going to punch me, sweet pea?” the vampire asked, smirking.

“Something like that,” she said, then hit him with a face full of blue-silver Fairy Dust. “Now, tell us where you took the children.”

The vampire’s eyes rolled back slowly—then he shook himself. “Was that supposed to hurt?” he asked, yawning.

“It was supposed to make you talk.”