Overworld Chronicles Books 1-2: Sweet Blood of Mine & Dark Light of Mine (29 page)

"That goes without saying about anyone who'd steal a baby from her parents." I pointed a thumb over my shoulder at the dumpster. "What about him?"

"I don't know what to do about him. This is bad news. If he found us, there will be others looking to collect the bounty."

"Why would magicians need money? Can't they just make it out of thin air?"

He chuckled. "They don't like to be called that. It lumps them in with the ordinary illusionists. Besides, even the best sorcerers can't make things out of thin air." Dad stared vacantly for a moment then narrowed his eyes. "Do you have an internet phone?"

"You mean a smartphone? Yes."

"Let's check the Conclave's website. Maybe they have my bounty posted there."

My eyebrows threatened to fly away. "You must be kidding. They have a website?"

I pulled out my smartphone and typed in the address my dad gave me. Sure enough, it was a website for the Overworld Conclave with slick professionally-designed graphics and everything. The main page listed bounties. Mine and my dad's were at the top of the list. Most of the bounties ran around a thousand bucks. Our bounties were fifty grand each. I almost felt flattered.

"How can sorcerers have a website? I thought magic and technical stuff didn't work very well together."

"Technology and magic work very well together," he said. "Some of the things they can do nowadays would scare your pants off. Besides, this isn't the Arcane Council's website. The Overworld Conclave governs all supernatural beings. Or at least it tries to."

"Tries to?"

"Every faction complains that other factions have too much power. Most of the time nothing gets done. About the only thing most factions agree on is keeping the supernatural set out of the limelight. Anyone caught breaking that rule is usually dealt with quickly and efficiently."

I gulped. Had I stepped over the line? Stupid question. I had dived over the line with football. That had to be the reason the Conclave had listed a bounty on me.

I went to the dumpster and, despite the horrible odor, pulled out the unconscious sorcerer. A few shreds of moldy lettuce fell off his brown leather duster. I patted him on the cheek a couple of times. He jerked awake, mumbling something about remembering his gym shorts. When his eyes settled on me, they hardened.

"How did you break the circle?"

"I'll be asking the questions," I said. "How did you find us?"

"A lot of detective work."

"Tracking spells?" Dad asked.

He shook his head. "Didn't have blood or anything to track you with."

I wasn't really sure what the limits of magic were in that regard. For all I knew he could wave a magic wand around and teleport to us.

"You two should just come with me," the sorcerer said. "It'll be a lot easier on you that way."

I gave him a yeah-right look. "How about you leave us alone and go away?"

He snorted. "I'm the least of your worries. Ever since the bounties on you two went public, all sorts of supers are looking for you."

"Vampires?" Dad asked, worry creasing his forehead.

The sorcerer pushed himself to his feet and looked at the splintered mess I'd made of his staff. "Do you know how long it takes to make one of those?" He shook his head. "No, of course you don't."

Something rustled. A bit of broken roof tile fell onto the alley floor from two stories up. Dad cursed. The sorcerer dug in his trench coat and whipped out a smooth ebony stick about twelve inches long. Something cold prickled at the edge of my senses, almost the same way it did when Stacey was around. But this felt cold and hostile rather than hot and stalkerish.

"I just knew those sons of bitches were following me," the sorcerer said. "Lazy bastards were probably waiting for me to put you in sleepers."

I gulped. "Um, who's following you?"

Dark forms dropped from above and landed in front and behind us. I counted six. One shadowy figure stepped into the dim light of a lamp. He looked pretty ordinary to me aside from his abnormally ice-hued skin and his Fabio-length brown hair. He smiled. His canines lengthened into ivory-colored fangs.

I had just met my first "normal" vampire.

Chapter 26

The vampire's fangs reminded me of Elyssa's, except her straight white teeth and full lips complemented hers and drove the sexiness factor through the roof. This guy wasn't ugly, but the large gap between his two front teeth gave him an almost comical appearance. He really needed an orthodontist and some titanium braces to fix those ugly chompers. Apparently, becoming a vampire didn't fix your teeth.

"It's him," said a tall thin vampire as he stepped from the shadows and pointed at me. Light danced menacingly in his ruby-colored irises.

"Oh yes, the football star," said a shorter vampire with a slight lisp who stood next to the other. I recognized both their faces even though they'd worn hoodies while watching me at football practice.

"Hey, it's Thing 1 and Thing 2," I said. "You two get your jollies stalking me?"

"I am a sorcerer and member of the Arcane Council," said the sorcerer. "These two spawn are in my custody. Let us pass peacefully."

The first vampire quirked a dark eyebrow at the sorcerer. "I see two rogues and a conspirator." Despite the jumble of teeth in his mouth, his voice was pure silk. His eyes glinted blood-red in the sodium glow of nearby street lamps.

He wore expensive designer jeans, properly ripped and torn, and a button-up shirt with a red power tie. I noticed most of the other vampires had on stylish attire as well. One of the females had a cute geek chic thing going with square glasses, a black pleated skirt, and a pink button-up. When they weren't sucking blood, they apparently did nothing but shop for fashionable clothes.

The sorcerer didn't seem surprised by the response. "Well, that suits me just fine," he said. "I haven't beaten the crap out of my quota of blood-suckers this month." The symbols on his wand emitted a low glow.

My respect for the guy notched up a bit even if he did try to kidnap us.

I tensed.

Dad tensed.

The vampires edged forward, stylishly, of course. More shadowy figures dropped from the rooftops until there were at least ten vampires encroaching on our position from all sides.

"Are they as strong as we are?" I asked Dad in a low voice.

"It depends on age," he said. "There's no way to tell how old they are from looking at them, though."

"Lovely," I muttered. My first experience with vampires and I had to fight a whole squad of them.

One of the vampires zipped my way. All hell broke loose. The sorcerer yelled a word and a blistering gout of orange flames roared past my face and blasted the vampire, knocking him against a wall and charring his designer jeans. The odor of burned hair and denim filled the air. More vampires rushed us.

I caught one in mid-dive with my fist. Sent him flying. Ducked under the geek chick's foot as she sprang off the wall at me, hissing. A vampire behind me wrapped his arms around mine in an iron grip. Another vampire swung his fist at my face. I ducked out of my captor's arms. The other vampire's fist missed me and crunched into his comrade's nose. I lowered my shoulder and rammed my would-be attacker. He flew back and thudded inside the same dumpster I'd knocked the sorcerer into moments earlier.

The sorcerer roasted another vamp, annihilating his long hair and leaving a smoldering, smelly mess. Fire didn't seem to kill them, but charring their hair and designer clothes really pissed them off. Another group of attackers had flanked us. The sorcerer shouted, "Yod!" and formed a fist with his free hand. He aimed it at them. The would-be flankers smacked against an invisible barrier and bounced back.

Dad grabbed the vampire who'd first spoken to us by his magnificent hair and slammed him into the dumpster. I put my back to Dad's, figuring we could guard each other.

A quick little vampire who looked no older than twelve dodged and dipped around my punches. I felt kind of guilty about fighting a kid, but then again, he was likely a lot older than he looked. Besides, he darted around my punches like Yoda on energy drinks. The geeky vampire chick came from my side. She punched me in the jaw while I was trying to pin down the kid. Stars erupted. I wobbled and staggered. The kid delivered a punch to my stomach that almost caused my dinner to make a return trip up my esophagus. I barely dodged another vicious blow from the female and caught sight of Dad as vampires swarmed him like ants.

A surge of adrenalin-fueled anger burned through my veins. I lunged for the kid as he came in for another punch. Grabbed his throat. Slammed him against the brick wall. The vampire girl leapt on my back. I grabbed her pigtails and slung her off and into the group of vampires that had just broken through the sorcerer's shield behind us. They caught the girl, no problem, but it also gave the sorcerer the split second he needed to throw a wall of flames at them.

Shrieks and curses erupted as the flames consumed their clothes and with it, their dignity.

I turned back to Dad. The mob of vampires had immobilized him with metal bands and were carting him away. "Dad!" I yelled.

"Justin! Run!" he said as one of the kidnappers bundled him over a shoulder and sprinted toward a waiting van on the road at the end of the service alley.

"No!"

More vampires dropped from the buildings above. Where were they all coming from? Someone grabbed my elbow. I reared back and almost punched the sorcerer in the face before realizing it was him. Our attackers, beaten, burned, and hurting, abandoned their fight with us and guarded the retreating flank of their comrades as they raced for the getaway van.

"We have to get out of here," the sorcerer said. "We've got no choice."

"No! Help me stop them," I pleaded. "Blast them."

"I can't. I'm exhausted and there are too many of them. If they figure that out, they may come back and finish us off."

"Conjure up some wooden stakes and shoot them!"

"It doesn't work that way, kid."

I ran toward the swarm of vampires. Three of the new ones formed a wall for their smoldering, now hairless comrades. I lowered my shoulder and rammed into them. One went tumbling. The other caught a blast of fire from the sorcerer.

A cold pair of arms clamped me around the chest. "You'll make a nice snack," said a deep male voice.

I roared, bent my knees, and sprang backwards, slamming my captor into the brick wall. His hold loosened. I rocked my body forward then drove my head back into his face. His nose made a nasty crunch. His arms loosened their hold as his hands raced for his broken nose. I spun and punched him in the eye. Kneed him in the stomach. He howled in pain and doubled over as dark blood oozed to the ground. A foot slammed into my butt. I tumbled forward and landed in a heap next to the sorcerer.

He muttered something and a blue-tinged shield sprang into being between us and the vampires. The one I'd injured flipped me off while his comrade helped him into a black car at the end of the alley. The van with my dad was long gone. The geek vampire chick threw her cracked glasses at the shield and stuck her tongue out at us before following her comrades. One of her pigtails was gone and her pink shirt had acquired greenish mustard and rotten lettuce—probably from the oft-used dumpster.

"Good work, kid," said the sorcerer, slapping me on the shoulder.

"Oh, God," I said, dropping to my knees. "They have Dad. What am I going to do?"

"There's not much you can do," he said without much sympathy in his voice.

I stood up. Grabbed him by his coat and jerked him toward me. "You may not think we're human, but he's my dad and I plan to save him. If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be gone."

"I don't appreciate the way you're touching me, kid."

"You don't?" I shouted as rage boiled my blood. I picked him up off the ground by his collar and considered slamming him against the wall until he was ground hamburger.

"Hurt me if you want, but it won't save your dad."

He was right. It wouldn't do me any good now, I realized. Sadness cooled my anger. I dropped him on his feet and turned away to stare at the alley exit.

The sorcerer cleared his throat nervously. "Look, I appreciate you saving my life back there. The name's Harry Shelton, but everyone calls me Shelton."

I shot a glare at him over my shoulder. "I'm Justin."

"I know," he said before hastily adding, "from the bounty notice."

"I suppose the Conroys told you all about us."

"Those stuck-up bluebloods?" He snorted. "Alice Conroy, your mother, vanished from the sorcerer community years ago. We hadn't heard a thing about her for over a decade. Suddenly she's back on the radar and the Conroys put out a bounty on David Slade. Now, as everybody knows, you don't mess with House Slade. But apparently this demon was no longer considered a part of the family. So I did a little digging and found not only did Alice Conroy play house with this monster, but she apparently had you to boot. Once I figured out Case was an alias, it was only a matter of tracking you down."

"My dad may be demon spawn, but he's no monster," I said in a low growl. This guy was about to get smacked around again if he didn't watch it.

Shelton gave me a thoughtful look. "I'll admit he doesn't seem like a typical Slade. And you." He shook a finger at me. "Something is very different about you. I always thought spawn and human mating produced pure spawn." His eyes lit up. "But in this case it didn't. Am I right? You're part human. That explains how you could break my circle."

"Are you going to help me or not?" Every wasted second beat painfully in my chest.

"I guess I owe you one."

"
That
is putting it mildly."

"If I do assist, we can't involve any other sorcerers. Your kind doesn't have a lot of admirers."

"Is it just me or is the supernatural community full of racists?"

He smiled. "Look, you don't know much about the political map, obviously. Incubi are not nice…err…people. Vampires, on the other hand, are pretty civil. But mostly, everyone loathes the spawn because they're a bunch of demonic jerks."