Captive of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 2)

by Bella Klaus

  At least with him storming away, I could complete the mission in silence. Moments later, we reached the end of the hallway, where the twins inserted thin streams of light. I stood at the edge of the crowd, hoping they would tell us that the next step of our journey would be clear.

  “Two enforcers are standing at the door on the far left,” said one twin. “Beyond them, that entire length of hallway is clear.”

  “There’s another pair on a staircase three hundred feet away on the right,” said the other.

  Jonathan rubbed his chin. “Kill them all.”

  My mouth fell open. “Don’t you think you should question the nearest pair?”

  “Are you doubting the vampire’s intel?”

  Irritation prickled my skin, and I clenched my fists. “He’s a vampire, not a seer. And the Council would have changed things around the moment he became preternatural.”

  “Excuses.” Jonathan turned to one of the other mages with a smile, but nobody smiled back.

  “It’s worth a try,” said Racon. “Those enforcers should know where they’re keeping the coven.”

  Gail nodded. “I’d rather question them, even if they confirm what the Vampire King said.”

  Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

  My eyes narrowed. How old was this guy? In the three years he had come to see me for sound healing, I had always considered him in his mid-twenties. Now, he seemed about sixteen.

  The dark-skinned mage placed his hands on the twins’ shoulders, and the trio produced a rope-like structure of shadow and light. It snaked across the floor and beneath the door, disappearing out of sight.

  I leaned into Racon and asked, “What are they doing?”

  “Those three were born in the Flame to light and shadow mages,” he replied. “They’re lucky enough to use two elements.”

  “Wait.” I turned to Racon and frowned. “I thought the Flame only gave sanctuary to fire users.”

  He inclined his head. “Pregnant women who realize they’re carrying fire wielders run away from Logris all the time.”

  Questions swirled through my mind. If the Flame was good enough for them, why hadn’t it been good enough for me? I pushed down my confusion, reminding myself to focus on helping Aunt Arianna.

  A muffled grunt from behind the door caught my attention, and I turned to find two figures being dragged inside. Black shadows encased their heads and ropes of light wound around their necks and wrists and ankles.

  They half-stumbled and half-hobbled inside, making me step back and out of the way.

  “Listen carefully.” Jonathan placed a hand on one of their shoulders. “If you answer correctly, we’ll only knock you out, but if you lie or hesitate or try to call for help, we’ll snap your necks. Is that understood?”

  Both figures nodded.

  Jonathan turned to meet my gaze, tilting his head to the side as though checking my reaction. My insides shriveled with the realization that he was trying to imitate the threat Valentine made earlier. I smoothed out my expression and moved out of his viewing range. He acted as though I was attracted to Valentine because he was a dangerous killer.

  “Do you know the location of the Griffin coven?”

  The man on the left nodded, and the colleague standing on his right bowed his head.

  “Where?” Jonathan asked. At their frustrated grunts, he added. “Are they in the prison?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Are they in this building?”

  They both nodded.

  For the next few minutes, the mages mentioned random locations around the Supernatural Council building, including the academy, the concert hall, and the public library, and each time the men shook their heads.

  “Could you just release the shadows around their mouths?” I asked. “That way, they can tell us where to find the coven before morning.”

  Jonathan turned to the dark-skinned mage. “Do it.”

  He raised a hand, and holes appeared within the shadows encasing our captives’ mouths.

  “The Witch Queen’s department,” the one on the left said through panting breaths. “That’s where they’re being kept.”

  “Why?” Jonathan asked.

  “Because they’re witches?” asked the enforcer on the right.

  “Be more specific.” Jonathan raised his hands, coating his fingers with black flames.

  “We don’t know!” the man on the left rasped.

  “Fine.” Jonathan pulled back his hands, and snakes of black fire surged into their mouths.

  Before the men got a chance to scream, the shadows closed around their heads, burning them from the inside out.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I placed both hands over my mouth and stared down at the dead bodies lying side by side at our feet. Tremors ran down my spine, and my breaths turned shallow. They could have knocked them unconscious or bound them with fire magic until we’d gotten the chance to rescue Aunt Arianna and the others. Killing them had been unnecessary.

  My mind rolled back to the ruthless way Jonathan had dealt with threats, and I couldn’t help but wonder if everyone in the Flame had been trained to be so brutal in battle. Valentine and Aunt Arianna had shielded me from the brutality of being hunted as a fire wielder. Until recently, I had never been in trouble, never had any reason to fear the wrath of the enforcers or even hate them.

  But no matter how much I tried to empathize with people who had been driven from their families for fear of being executed, I still couldn’t justify those murders.

  Two of the mages joined hands and spread foot-long flames along the lengths of the corpses. I would have asked about the smell of the burning but Racon waved his hands, producing a gust of wind that both fanned the flames and drove the scents to the other end of the hallway.

  I stood at the edge of the crowd, clutching my churning stomach and trying not to catch glimpses of the burning flesh, which had now started to char.

  “Why are we still here?” I asked nobody.

  “To destroy every scrap of their uniforms,” Gail replied. “If we left them for their colleagues to find, a quick incantation could give the enforcers our faces, numbers, and magical signatures.”

  “To stop them from tracking you?” I asked.

  Gail made a seesawing motion with her hand. “Right now, the Supernatural Council thinks that runaways disappeared into the human world or to other countries across the world that tolerate our kind. If they knew we had organized, the Council would do everything they could to find the Flame.”

  “I see.”

  Watching the mages incinerate the enforcers made me realize how much firepower it took to burn something as large and as moisture-dense as a body. Even at my most powerful, I couldn’t generate such large and consistent flames as the two mages cremating the dead enforcers.

  My heart sank, and I placed my hands over my chest, trying to tell myself that things would be different once there was no longer any firestone holding back my magic. Gail placed a hand on my shoulder, murmuring that I would get used to seeing death, but that was only part of my worries.

  Once the flames died, leaving charred husks, we continued through the door which led to a narrow staircase with no handrails that seemed to stretch four stories. Jonathan and the twins entered first with their light magic leading the way, and we all piled in behind them.

  Nobody talked during what felt like an endless climb, and I wondered how far up this staircase would go. Moments later, a doorway opened up on a patch of wall thirty feet ahead on the left, and a weasel-faced man poked his head inside.

  “You are late.” He beckoned at us to hurry.

  I turned around to meet Coral’s eyes. “Who’s that?”

  The older woman raised her shoulder. “The high priest has spies around Logris and a few contacts willing to do favors.”

  The weasel-faced man hooked his thumb to the right and disappeared behind the door. We picked up our pace to where the doorway still remained, and steppe
d into another hallway with marble floors and wooden doors.

  I glanced at the metal plaques adorning the rooms, scanning their occupiers’ names and job titles. After passing Agnes Chase, Financial Liaison, the next door opened, and a slender hand beckoned us inside.

  We stepped into a storage room with double sinks on three of the walls.

  “Enforcer uniforms,” the man said. “Two female, five male.”

  I glanced around, wondering if my mother and the High Priest had already planned on rescuing Aunt Aurora and the others from execution. “Did you bring a spare?”

  Weasel-face shook his head. “My orders were seven uniforms.”

  Coral pointed at the cloak Valentine had draped on my shoulders before we left. “You’re already wearing a uniform.”

  I pulled the hood over my head, encasing myself in the protective cloak. A vacuum-like energy encased my body with a pop. It was bubble-like, disconnecting me from the outside world, even though I could see and hear everyone through a filter that distorted the sounds. I guess this was how Valentine was able to withstand the sun. I pulled down the hood, letting the air rush inside.

  Someone pounded on the door. “Who’s in there?”

  My heart leaped into the back of my throat, and I spun to see who was about to catch us. Everybody around me huddled together, staying as still as death.

  The twins threw up a barrier of light around us seconds before the door opened, and a pair of enforcers in black uniforms stepped inside, each holding batons. Smoky magic swirled and curled around the room.

  I held my breath. Light mages could create illusions and bend light to render anything invisible. Their magic was a large part of the enchantment that kept people hidden from Richmond Park.

  The enforcer’s gaze skipped over us and settled on a point behind my shoulder. He raised his head and sniffed. “It’s in here.”

  His companion inhaled a long, deep breath. “Exquisite.”

  A tight fist of panic gripped my heart. I had been right about the anklet’s protection being just temporary. Now, any vampire lurking through the Supernatural Council building could smell my cursed blood.

  Someone nudged me in the arm, reminding me that I wore a reaper’s cloak and I pulled the cloak over my head, encasing myself in the vacuum. The vampires stopped three feet away from where I stood and raised their heads like hunting dogs. A tiny draft meandered across the room, making their head swivel to the door.

  The first vampire snarled. “It flew away.”

  “What in hell was that?” asked the other.

  His companion jogged across the room and disappeared through the door. I exhaled a shallow breath, not daring to inhale until the second one followed after him. As soon as the door clicked shut, everybody—including Weasel-face—blew out long sighs of relief.

  The dark-skinned mage clasped the twins by the shoulder and whispered, “That was excellent.”

  Both men exchanged identical grins.

  Weasel rushed to the wall without a sink and ran his hand over a two-foot-wide ventilation grill. “It’s too dangerous here.” The metal shimmered and opened up into a metallic tunnel that led to an upward chute. “Get changed in the shafts.”

  Jonathan crawled in first, and the others streamed inside, leaving the twins at the back with their hands raised. I guess they were creating an illusion to shield us in case the vampires returned. Even Weasel-face stepped inside.

  By the time it was my turn to enter, someone had already melted hand and foot holds into the shaft, making it easy to scale. Muffled footsteps echoed from below, drowned out by the whirring of fans and churn of machinery. At the top of the chute, the other fire mages crouched in the dark within a five-foot-tall intermediary space between floors. Next to them, light streamed up from ventilation holes that overlooked the hallway below.

  Jonathan waited for everyone to arrive before outlining the plan to cross Valentine’s former offices to reach the suite occupied by the Witch Queen.

  I raised a hand. “Wait.”

  Gail turned around and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “The anklet holding back my curse stopped working.” I raised the leg of my jeans and showed her the black mark on my leg.

  “Can you burn through it with your magic?” she asked.

  “Only for a few minutes before it comes back.”

  Gail whistled. “Coral?”

  The fire mages ahead of us gathered around to take a better look at the curse, and Coral pushed her way through the crowd and glanced from Gail to me.

  “Your magic is the most precise,” said Gail. “Can you trace a cursed mark and push it out of Mera’s body?”

  Coral’s lips formed a tight line, and she stared down at my leg with a furrowed brow. “Not without an hour trying to unravel it to find its source and another hour to chase it around.”

  My mouth fell open. I didn’t even know such feats of magic were possible unless a person had studied for years at the university. “Could you charge my anklet, then?”

  Coral squinted at the bone-colored object around my leg. “We can give you a couple of hours of protection.”

  “Please.” I rolled up the leg of my jeans.

  Coral and Gail knelt by my left leg, each holding opposite ends of the anklet. Racon and a few others stood behind the other women, placing a glowing hand on their backs and shoulders.

  I stared down at the flow of power moving through Coral and Gail and into the band of white around my leg. This process was called channeling, and it was a way for a talented mage or witch with limited power to work on a large project that might exhaust their magical reserves.

  The twins stood back with Jonathan and the dark-skinned shadow mage, whose name I learned was Clarence. I guessed that the light and shadow mages needed to conserve their power for the mission, but I suspected that Jonathan’s black flames didn’t serve any purpose except destruction.

  Moments later, the anklet warmed, and the women rose to their feet. I thanked them, and we continued toward the Witch Queen’s offices. I prayed to anyone who was listening that my curse wouldn’t flare until after we had rescued Aunt Arianna and returned to the ritual room.

  As we passed along a darkened corridor, alarms rang through the floor below, making us all pause.

  Gail leaned into me and whispered, “They must have found the bodies.”

  “Are you sure they can’t trace any of the magic up here to us?”

  As she nodded, heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway, and enforcers clad in black uniform ran past in the opposite direction to where we were heading. Trailing behind them was a tall, thin man dressed in a cloak similar to that of a reaper, except the black fabric seemed to flow like smoke. The alarms quietened, allowing their voices to drift into the intermediary floor above.

  “She is not to be killed,” the man said in a cold voice.

  His companion, a dark black-haired woman who looked like Captain Zella, bowed. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  I squinted down through the ventilation holes and bit down on my lip. This had to be the Mage King.

  “Secure those phoenix flames at all costs.” He placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Even if that means destroying King Valentine.”

  My heart sank. Either they had worked out the nature of my magic from the firestone bracelet or Aunt Arianna had cracked under torture.

  “Understood,” replied the female enforcer.

  Gulping, I swallowed back a bout of nausea, remembering something Valentine had said about people wanting to possess me because of my phoenix flames. Something the Mage King said didn’t make sense. I thought the Council already wanted Valentine destroyed? It almost sounded like they might want to save him. The Mage King clasped his hands over his chest and disappeared out of sight.

  Gail and I exchanged glances, but neither of us dared to speak. The others up here with us also remained silent, waiting for the last of the enforcers to leave the hallway. My mind drifted back to Valentine
, and I placed my hand over the engagement ring he had looped around my neck. For all of our sakes, I hoped he hadn’t heard the alarm and decided to charge in to save me.

  If Jonathan of all people knew how to take down a preternatural vampire, so did the hundreds of enforcers who were now probably making their way to the building to investigate the death of their comrades. A cool draft blew through the ventilation shaft, and I slipped my fingers beneath the cloak, marveling at how comfortable it felt despite the scratchy fabric.

  The ruckus died down, and we continued through the intermediary space, over Valentine’s office suite, which was decorated in muted blue walls, mahogany wood and chocolate-brown leather. Sylvester stood in the hallway, deep in conversation with a black-haired vampire wearing a navy suit with gold epaulettes. Valentine’s silver-haired brother clenched his fists, seeming irritated with the other vampire.

  We continued past them, and several minutes later, we reached the threshold of the Witch Queen’s offices.

  Jonathan raised both hands. “You have all memorized photos of the coven members. Everybody split into groups of two and report back if you see something.”

  My mouth fell open. So, Jonathan had lied about needing me to come along to identify the coven. He had just also confirmed that the fire mages would have rescued Aunt Arianna without my asking. As everyone paired up, I rushed up to Jonathan, who stared down at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Have you come to apologize?” he asked.

  “Why did you negotiate a meeting with your High Priest if you were going to rescue my coven?”

  “Do you want to save them or do you want to stand up here bickering?” he asked.

  “What do you people want from me?”

  His lips tightened. “Personally, I wish I’d been assigned to watch someone else.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. If he expected me to flinch, he’d be waiting all night. “I said, you-people, not you-Jonathan.”

  “You’ll find out when you’re kneeling before the High Priest.” Jonathan stuck his nose in the air and turned on his heel.