Into the Fire

by Jeaniene Frost

  Ian responded by fluffing his boobs until their bulk nearly escaped the too-small bra he’d stuffed them into. Marty twirled a lock of his silky raven hair and Maximus let out a strained giggle that was at odds with his sultry Southern belle disguise. Mencheres, however, sauntered over as if he’d been born to look like a hot, naughty schoolgirl.

  “This is my password,” he said, turning around in a slow, provocative circle.

  The guards took in long, lustful glances. “Good enough for me,” one said in heavily accented English, and opened the door.

  I gave a slight nod of acknowledgment in response to Ian’s arch look. Okay, so Ian had been right about his choice of the guys’ disguises, his subsequent boob fondling notwithstanding.

  “Hope to see you two later,” Ian cooed as he passed the guards, fondling their meaty biceps with brief, teasing touches. I didn’t know if Ian was acting or being serious. With him, either was a possibility.

  Music hit us like a sonic boom the moment we crossed the threshold into the next room. This place didn’t just have soundproofing, it had magic soundproofing. Otherwise, we would have heard the music as soon as the guards opened the door.

  It didn’t surprise me that supernatural soundproofing wasn’t the only unusual thing about this place. I might not be an expert in dance clubs because I’d had to avoid them since I shocked anyone who came into close contact with me, but I didn’t need vast experience to know that this one was unique.

  For starters, the air was filled with tiny, floating lights that settled beneath people’s skin when they were breathed in, making everyone appear as if they had stars inside of them. The interior lights were very low, emphasizing the occupants’ inner glowing orbs, until it seemed as if the people were the ones lighting the room more than any artificial illumination.

  Next was the music itself. It seemed to use the smoke from the fog machine in visually dazzling ways. When the bass was booming, the fog formed into thunderclouds that hung heavy over the dancers and enveloped them inside the vibrations. When the higher-pitched treble segments came to crescendo, the fog thinned into cometlike streaks that darted between the gyrating patrons before striking certain dancers and sending them into blissful spasms. And within every manifestation of the fog, those tiny little orbs winked with their strange light.

  “Don’t breathe them in,” Ian warned, his tone low yet urgent. “I know that sort of magic. It strips away glamour.”

  I clamped my lips shut to make sure that no lights inadvertently found their way into my mouth. Thank God we were all vampires and didn’t need to breathe. Still, that took away our scent-deciphering advantage, and that was no small loss.

  “How do we find these people?” Vlad murmured while leaning in and pretending to fix a hair clip on my head.

  How indeed? When I’d asked Mircea what the necromancers looked like, he’d only responded with a cryptic “You’ll know them when you see them.” He hadn’t mentioned the part where we’d have to pick them out of a crowd of hundreds at a magically enhanced dance club. I wanted to find the nearest corner and slice open my hand to link to Mircea and demand a more thorough description, yet if I did, I already knew what Mircea would say.

  “Mircea is testing us,” I whispered back, cursing Mircea once again. “We don’t just have to be strong enough to defeat these people. We also have to be able to find them, too.”

  “They will be vampires,” Mencheres said, giving a little wave to a group of guys who openly leered at him. “They cannot have amassed such great power otherwise. There aren’t many of our kind here, so we will start with that.”

  “And they must be regulars, work here, or own the place,” I added, trying to fill in more of the missing pieces. “Or else you-know-who would’ve told us to come on a specific night.”

  I wasn’t saying Mircea’s name out loud here. Like the fictional villain Voldemort, I was sure that bad things could happen if it reached the wrong ears.

  “We split up,” Vlad murmured, gesturing to Mencheres and Ian. “You two take this room. Leila and I will search the other sections. Maximus and Marty, see if there’s a back room.”

  “What’s the signal if we find something?” I asked low.

  Ian snorted. “I expect the rest of us will simply follow the ensuing screams.”

  Vlad shrugged in concurrence. On that rather ominous note, we left in pairs to begin our search.

  Chapter 34

  Ian’s choice of our disguises had gotten us past the bouncers, but it didn’t take long to discover their downside. I should have realized that looking like an African goddess while dancing with Vlad’s buxom blonde disguise would result in a lot of turned heads, not to mention a ton of come-ons.

  “No,” I said to yet another offer to dance as Vlad and I continued to make our way toward the back of the club.

  “Ah, American, yes?” the guy’s pal asked, grinning down at a now-much-shorter Vlad. “I looove Americans. Especially blondes.” Then the guy grabbed Vlad’s hips and forcefully ground his pelvis against them. “Dance, baby, you like it with me!”

  He might be wearing the face and body of a petite female blonde, but his smile was pure Vlad the Impaler as he turned around, grabbed the guy right in the crotch, and squeezed.

  A high-pitched scream cut through even the piercing crescendo of an Adele remix song. Every head around us turned. The guy dropped to his knees while gasping, crying, and still screaming at the same time.

  “Ruptured testicles can be serious,” Vlad said, the cold words at odds with his new, wispy voice. “Best seek medical attention.”

  His friend began yelling at us in Polish, which I didn’t speak, but Vlad did. Whatever he said in reply shut the guy up. With a last, furious glance, he helped his still-sobbing buddy to his knees and began half supporting, half dragging him away.

  “Is there a problem?” an accented voice asked behind us.

  I turned. If I’d been my normal height, I would have needed to tilt my head to meet the gaze of our questioner. The woman had to be six feet tall in her bare feet. In her stiletto heels, she was almost Maximus’s height, and she was beautiful in a way that defied convention. You would think her prominent nose and full, wide mouth would have had better symmetry with thick brows, but hers were pencil thin and her cheekbones were delicate compared to her strong jawline. Her almond-shaped eyes were a striking shade of burnt umber and her thick blond hair was styled in crisscrossing, elaborate braids.

  More importantly, from the aura that wafted off her and added a sizzle to the air that hadn’t been there before, she was an old vampire, no matter that her human appearance looked frozen at the south side of forty.

  “No problem,” I said at once. “Someone needed a new set of manners, and that happened to come with a pair of damaged balls.”

  She laughed in a husky, throaty way that denoted a blend of sophistication, amusement . . . and warning. “Perhaps, but you still overstepped yourselves. Our employees are supposed to manage the customers if they warrant managing. Not other customers.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vlad shake his head and make a quick, dismissive motion. No doubt warning the rest of our group not to swarm after the guy’s screams would have drawn their attention. Then he turned to the tall, striking vampire.

  “So sorry,” he said, widening his eyes to match his new, overly dramatic tone. “I don’t mind being pawed at a little, but there’s a line, you know?”

  I tightened my lips to keep from smiling at his flawless American accent, not to mention his nasally, sulky manner. He was owning his blond bombshell disguise with this act.

  The vampire cocked her head. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two,” Vlad replied in that haughty, sorry-not-sorry way that made me wonder if he were channeling Gretchen for motivation.

  “In combined years?” the vampire all but purred.

  Vlad huffed in a manner that would’ve done Gretchen proud. “Noooo, I’m twenty-five in combined years, bu
t that’s, like, not the same, is it?”

  If the situation weren’t so serious, I could’ve grabbed some popcorn and watched this act all night. Instead, I was trying not to show how I was tensing as I discreetly sized the woman up. Old vampire. Sounded like she was a manager or supervisor here. Creamy, golden-brown skin. It was possible that she was the Egyptian vampire sorceress that Mencheres had known before. Anyone could dye their hair blond, after all.

  Then again, she could just be a vampire who happened to work here and who had nothing to do with Mircea or the necromancers. Either way, we had to find out.

  “Whose line do you belong to?” the vampire asked, narrowing those deeply colored eyes at us.

  “Why, are we in trouble?” Vlad asked, actually managing to make his voice quaver this time.

  “We’d rather not say,” I interjected, glancing around as if worried about being overheard. “We don’t want our sire to know. See, we met some guys earlier who told us about this place, and they said there were special ways a vampire could party here.”

  “Did they?” the woman drew out.

  Vlad bobbed a nod. He was killing it. “Yeah, like, in magical ways?” he said, saying the last two words in an isn’t-it-obvious manner.

  Now her burnished umber gaze really narrowed. “Come with me,” she said crisply.

  We followed after her brisk strides, Vlad and I exchanging a glance that required no words. I drew in my electricity until no hints of it emitted from me. Now, in addition to being undetectable, it would also be more concentrated if I had to unleash it to strike. Either we were about to be shown a magical version of club drugs, or we were about to be interrogated so that management could find out who had been loose-lipped enough to tell a couple of strange vampires about this place.

  Either way, we would find out who the higher-ups were, and if our suspicions were correct, at least one of them should turn out to be part of the necromancer group we were here for.

  I expected to be ushered to a back room on the same floor. Instead, we were brought upstairs into a room where large glass panels overlooked the main dance floor. Must be a two-way mirror. From our old vantage point on the dance floor, this had been a black glass wall that dimly reflected all the glowing lights the people had absorbed, increasing the ethereal effect of the club’s ambiance.

  The room was empty, which was a disappointment, but Vlad made sure to brush his hand against the vampire when she curtly directed us to sit in one of the several chairs that faced the glass. We sat, and I pretended to twist my fingers in nervousness when in actuality, I was loosening my gloves.

  “This place is only meant for humans, not vampires,” she began without preamble. “If either of you want to see the sun rise again, you will tell me who told you about it.”

  “Why? We’ve done nothing wrong,” Vlad said at once.

  He’d touched her, so he could burn her now if he wanted to. He must be stalling so the female vampire would call for reinforcements to help with her interrogation.

  “Yeah, this is bullshit,” I chimed in to move that along. “You’re a vampire and you’re here, so why can’t we be?”

  She began to hum something as she rubbed her fingers together. At first, I thought she was mocking my complaint by doing a mime of the world’s smallest violin. Then, as light began to form between her fingers, I realized she wasn’t mocking me. She was forming a spell.

  “I can make you talk,” she all but purred at us. “But you will not like what happens if I do.”

  “There you are!” a feminine squeal suddenly said as the door opened and Mencheres bustled inside the room.

  The vampire swung around so fast, her intricately braided hair lifted off her back to snap around like a thick whip. “Get out unless you want to be in as much trouble as they are!”

  I was surprised when Mencheres stopped in mid-step, his whole body freezing as he stared at the vampire. Despite wearing the face and body of a young girl, his ancient nature seemed to pour through the gaze he lasered onto the vampire’s back.

  “What an unusual tattoo you have. If I’m not mistaken, that is an Egyptian cartouche, yes?”

  I stiffened. Mencheres wouldn’t be mistaken. Not when one of the three most famous pyramids in Egypt was his. This was a message meant for us. Vlad met my gaze, and that single look said that the fight was about to begin. I pulled off my gloves.

  The female vampire flipped her hair into place again, covering the series of shapes and images within two parallel lines that were inked onto the right side of her back.

  “You’re another vampire. Are you here with them?”

  She suddenly sounded unnerved instead of angry. I didn’t know the significance of the tattoo, but she obviously hadn’t expected to reveal it, let alone have anyone comment on it.

  “I have one as well,” Mencheres said, ignoring her question. He opened his palms, revealing that he’d caught some of those strange floating orbs in his hands. Then he put them to his mouth and breathed them in, pulling up the back of his shirt at the same time. True to Ian’s warning, as soon as he inhaled the lights, his glamour vanished and his well-muscled, very male physique burst through his former schoolgirl mirage.

  He did have a tattoo on his back with another series of strange shapes contained within two parallel lines. The vampire gasped more at that than she did at him suddenly morphing from an Asian teenage girl into an older, imposing Egyptian man.

  “Mine is the mark of Menkaure, my birth name,” Mencheres told her darkly. “And yours is the mark of Imhotep . . . necromancer.”

  Chapter 35

  What happened next happened very fast. Mencheres’s power shot out, filling the room with the force of a dozen wrecking balls. That knocked me off my feet and even staggered Vlad, but the female necromancer was unfazed. She spun around and then shot forward as if she’d been fired from a gun, launching herself right at the glass wall behind us.

  “Stop her!” Vlad shouted, his hands bursting into flames.

  Incredibly, Mencheres didn’t freeze her with his telekinetic abilities, and the fire that Vlad unleashed at the necromancer seemed to skip over her body instead of burning it. Shock over that combined with being knocked on my ass from the force of Mencheres’s power cost me a precious second of inaction that the vampire used to dive through the glass wall.

  Then I jumped through the glass wall after her. Shards slashed me in various places, but I ignored the pain. I also ignored the screams from the dancers as the female necromancer and I suddenly fell on top of them. She shoved people aside hard enough to fling them into the air as she ran away, and I hit more than a few of them by accident as I chased after her.

  More screams sounded behind us. I didn’t turn around as I fought to keep sight of her. She was headed for the door, and I didn’t need Vlad’s shout of “Stop her!” to know that I couldn’t let her make it.

  Fire erupted along the entire wall where the exit was, and the people inside naturally began to panic. The necromancer threw a fraught look over her shoulder, screaming something that could have been Russian or Polish. I remembered Elena’s huge sinkhole spell and lunged toward her, now shoving aside people with the same disregard she’d shown. I could not let her activate a fail-safe spell.

  Two forms whooshed over my head. Vlad and Mencheres flew over the crowd, their clear path causing them to reach the necromancer before she made it to the wall of flames blocking the door. They dropped out of sight as they tackled her, and that caused her to stop whatever she had been saying. Seconds later, I’d forced my way through the people to reach them.

  Vlad had her in a choke hold, one arm locked around her throat, the other over her mouth to prevent her from completing whatever spell she’d been uttering. His hands were still lit up with flames, yet again, she didn’t catch fire the way she should have. However, the walls of the club were burning just fine, and from the countless coughs and chaos, it was becoming dangerous.

  “Do something; people can’t breathe
,” I told Vlad.

  The fire instantly vanished, although clouds of smoke remained. Vlad and Mencheres hauled the necromancer away from the door and Mencheres telekinetically flung it open. At once, a swarm of people headed for the exit.

  “Your powers didn’t work on her. Why?” I asked, looking around for Ian, Marty, and Maximus in the crush of bodies.

  “She must be infused with grave magic,” Mencheres replied, referring to the most formidable form of magic because its power came from harnessing the darkest energies of the dead. “It’s the only thing immune to my abilities as well as resistant to Vlad’s.”

  Resistant. Not entirely immune. That’s why the necromancer’s body now smoked like a wet log thrown onto a fire beneath Vlad’s hands. Still, we didn’t have much time to get the answers we needed since our cover had been more than blown.

  “Where are the other necromancers?” I demanded. “And if you utter one more word of a spell, you’ll regret it.”

  Vlad removed his arm from her mouth so she could answer. “You lied to us, Impaler,” she spat, only to be immediately silenced by Vlad before she could say anything else.

  “Lied? I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’d better stop,” I told her tersely. “You might be throwing off their power, but my abilities aren’t affected.”

  I wasn’t bluffing. Vlad had once likened my seeming immunity to grave magic as my being “scorched earth” to those dark energies due to all the electrical currents in my body.

  “So talk now, or talk after I cut you into ribbons with this,” I finished, sending currents surging into my right hand. When she saw the whip that snapped out while sparks rained out of it, her eyes widened. Then a thunderous boom shook the club behind us. Alarmed, I spun around to see what had caused it.