vampires mage 02 - witch hunter

by crawford, c n

  Her breath grew ragged in her throat as she tore over the sidewalk. A stream of magic whirled around her, growing stronger as she ran, and she tried to analyze the tendrils, to focus on one at a time. She sucked in a breath, and the scent hit her—a mountain wind, pine and granite, rough on her skin. Drew. He’s around here somewhere.

  Hadn’t he said his coven had been planning something to protect against the attack? She ground to a halt, leaning over with her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She needed to hunt his mountain magic down. As she gasped for breath she caught a glimmer of the copper tendrils, leading her further down Brattle Street.

  She glanced behind her, catching sight of an armored vehicle coming her way. They’re coming for me.

  Her breath ragged, she stormed down Brattle Street, following the trail of copper magic, watching as it curled to the front of an enormous yellow mansion.

  Breaking into another sprint, she tore down the street to the mansion, leaping over its white picket fence. But as she neared the door, she slammed face-first into an invisible wall. The wind rushed out of her lungs. A ward.

  Frantically, she glanced around. The armored vehicle was coming closer. From a speaker on the vehicle, someone projected, “Approach the vehicle with your hands above your head.”

  “Drew!” she screamed. It has to be his house. “Drew! It’s Rosalind. I need your help!”

  When no one responded, she looked down at her iron ring. Maybe now is the time for the nuclear option. She had no idea what Cleo would do when she took over her body, and there was no one around to get the ring back on her finger. But the mage’s spirit had a tendency to save her life.

  As her fingers tightened on the ring, the door to the house swung open. Drew stood gaping in the door. “Rosalind. Where the hell did you come from?”

  Frantic, she pointed to the armored vehicle. “They’re about to open fire. I need to come inside.”

  “Seven hells.” He chanted a quick spell, and she could feel a shift in the air around her, a lessening of the magnetic charge. The ward released; she bolted up the stairs.

  The Brotherhood opened fire again. As Rosalind reached the top of the steps, pain ripped up her thigh. She collapsed into the hall, and Drew dragged her the rest of the way in, slamming the door.

  Agony sank into her thigh bone, and she leaned against the wall.

  She clamped her eyes shut, listening to Drew frantically chant a spell, then exhale a shaky breath. “The wards are up again. That should hold against the bullets, I think.”

  Somehow, the air was full of several auras now—not just Drew’s but shimmering hot gold, and salty blue magic that rushed over her skin like cold seawater. Miranda. “There’s magic all around us,” she breathed.

  White-faced, Drew crouched down. “Gods below, Rosalind. Don’t try to talk. They nearly killed you. Were you out there when the keres came?” He leaned down, examining her thigh.

  “I was there,” she said, glancing at the deep red bullet hole. Blood pooled onto Drew’s floor, and the pain stole her breath. “Can you heal this?”

  “I’m good with potions. Give me a minute.” He rose, disappearing into another room.

  Her blood pumped hard. Gripping her thigh to staunch the blood, she looked around at the hall, trying to calm herself. Compared to the chaos outside, there was something very soothing about this place. A stairwell swooped upward, and lantern light flickered over orderly rows of oil paintings. A soft, bronze rug lay in the center of a hardwood hall. It felt safe in here. Almost instantly, her ragged nerves began to soothe, even if she was bleeding on his floor.

  It’s only too bad Orcus didn’t make it this far…

  Drew returned a minute later carrying a glass flask filled with dark green liquid, and a pair of copper tweezers. He handed her the vial. “Drink this, and don’t watch what I’m doing.”

  “I take it this will hurt.”

  “The potion will help.”

  She pulled out the small cork stopper, pausing to look at Drew. She wasn’t sure that she could trust a mage she’d just met—but she didn’t have a ton of options right now. He was certainly a better bet than the Hunters trying to shoot her outside, or the keres eating humans alive.

  She put the vial to her lips and took a long sip. It tasted of juniper berries, and it instantly began to soothe her pain.

  “Look at that portrait of the woman in the copper crown,” he said.

  While Drew crouched beside her, Rosalind stared at one of the paintings on the wall, a beautiful woman with platinum hair and red lips.

  She winced as Drew pulled the bullet from her thigh, but the potion certainly helped dull the pain. Pinching the bloody bullet between the tweezer’s pincers, he dropped it into a copper bowl on a small table. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  She glanced down at her thigh, where the skin was already healing. “Thank you, Drew. You’d think I’d be used to getting shot by now.”

  He stood. “Come into the parlor with me. I need a drink.”

  She nodded at the painting. “Who is that?”

  He held out his hand, helping her up. “A queen, from a long time ago.”

  “I’ll take one of those drinks you mentioned.” She wiped a shaking hand across her brow. “Do you have any idea what the hell happened out there with the keres? It was a bloodbath.”

  He led her into a room lit by a chandelier, its light dancing over the room’s lush fabrics in warm honey and apricot hues. A copper disc carved with an eagle hung above the marble fireplace; below the bird was the motto Loyalty Binds Me.

  With a flick of his wrist, Drew ignited a fire in the fireplace.

  Rosalind breathed in the rich sent of burning spruce. Her legs burned, and she sat on an antique gold sofa. She couldn’t rid her thoughts of the image of that beautiful blond girl, being eaten alive by a ker. What really terrified her was the idea that Miranda could have caused that horror. It wasn’t so hard to believe—not after Miranda had tried to kill her.

  Drew crossed to a wooden table crammed with crystal decanters, and poured two measures of amber liquid into tumblers.

  Thank the gods, Rosalind thought. I’ll need that. If the violent images in her head hadn’t been bad enough before, now she’d never be clear of her nightmares.

  Drew crossed the room, handing her the drink. She noticed his hands shaking slightly. As he sat on the opposite sofa, she sniffed the tumbler. Rum.

  “I saw him tonight.” Drew’s eyes had taken on a glazed look. “He was controlling the keres.”

  Him. At least that put Miranda in the clear. “Who was controlling the keres?”

  The flames danced in his brown eyes. “The Ravener.”

  A chill washed over her skin. “He’s still alive?”

  Drew narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about him?”

  “Only that he killed the king and queen in Maremount over three centuries ago. I just read it in a book. What was he doing in Cambridge?”

  “He thrives on human blood.” His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  A deep sense of dread began to bloom in Rosalind’s mind. “What sort of demon is he?”

  “He’s an incubus. Son of the great demon Abrax, prince of the shadow hell.”

  She took a long sip of rum, and it burned her throat. “What else do you know about him?”

  “You wouldn’t know he was evil by his beauty. But I saw him there, controlling the keres. One of the philosophers in my coven can see magic. He felt the Ravener’s magic all around us. We knew something was brewing, and tonight it exploded. We ran to a meeting point in Harvard Yard.” He shook his head. “We tried to stop it, but the Ravener was stronger.”

  “The coven’s magic—that must’ve been all those auras I saw around the keres,” she said. “But I don’t understand. What was the Ravener trying to achieve? Why did he suddenly appear out of nowhere?”

  “I think he was after vengeance,” he said. “He hates full-blooded humans. Always has, since long before he fi
rst slaughtered our king and queen. A powerful demon like him, forged in the shadow void—he was born to hate humans. And after what the Brotherhood did to his brother, he wanted to teach them a lesson. So he attacked with the keres.”

  Rosalind felt a glacial shiver run over her skin. What the Brotherhood did to his brother. The Brotherhood—Rosalind—had tortured Caine’s brother. But the Ravener couldn’t possibly be the same incubus.

  She cleared her throat, afraid to ask the next question. Her knuckles went white as she clutched her glass tighter. “What’s the Ravener’s real name?”

  Drew looked at her as if snapping out of a trance. “He goes by Caine.” He took a swig of his drink. “Caine Mountfort.”

  Chapter 6

  I ce closed around her heart. “It can’t be him. I know him.”

  Drew’s jaw dropped, horror etched all over his face. “You what?” He rose. “Let me guess. He’s the one who imprisoned you against your will.”

  She could feel the blood draining from her head. “Yes, but he’s never tried to hurt me.”

  “Only because he wants to use you for something. Has he told you what he wants you for?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She actually didn’t know why Caine and Ambrose needed her and Miranda so badly. “Caine has some idea for me, but…” She shook her head.

  Before she could continue, a rapid chilling of the air stopped her sentence. The flames in the hearth burned lower. She shivered as a dark and powerful aura filled the room—a silver aura, one that smelled of fresh earth after a thunderstorm. It rushed over her skin like a night wind.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she turned. Caine—the shadow mage—stood in Drew’s parlor, his powerful magic whirling off him in menacing silver tendrils. His gray eyes drilled into Drew.

  He looked just as he had when she’d first met him: intensely beautiful, but terrifying at the same time. He wore all black, with sharp, claw-like tattoos visible on his neck and eyes cold as glaciers. His raven sat perched on his shoulder, black eyes glittering.

  Drew dropped his tumbler to the ground. “He’s here,” he whispered. “My wards. They didn’t stop—”

  Rosalind held up a hand, determined to get to the bottom of things before these two guys started murdering each other. “Everyone calm down. I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” She shot a perplexed look to Caine. “He thinks you’re someone called the Ravener.”

  Caine’s cold eyes slid to her. “I am someone called the Ravener.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. Her grip was so tight on her tumbler she was about to crush it. What the actual fuck? “You threw a queen out a window four hundred years ago?”

  “Closer to three hundred years ago.”

  “How old are you? Who are you?” Her body was rigid with tension. “I don’t understand.”

  His face red with fury, Drew began frantically chanting a spell. Coppery magic unfurled around him. It smelled like pines, and felt rough against her skin, like a brush of granite—and more powerful than Rosalind would have imagined.

  Was it her imagination, or did it shimmer with other colors—periwinkle, gold, and gray?

  As Drew’s aura swirled around, Caine chanted a spell of his own, his silver aura lashing at the air.

  A choking noise turned Rosalind’s attention back to Drew, and panic coiled around her heart. Falling to his knees, Drew grabbed his neck. His eyes bulged, his face turned purple.

  Caine—the Ravener—was choking him to death.

  “Stop it, Caine!”

  The shadow mage continued chanting, attacking Drew with his magic. But she’d seen enough death for one night. She pulled her gun from the back of her pants, pointing it at the incubus. “Stop being an asshole. He just saved my life.”

  Caine’s eyes narrowed, and his lips stopped moving. Behind her, she heard Drew’s body fall to the floor—probably dead.

  She stared at Caine, lowering the gun. “He thought you were responsible for that slaughter. Something about revenge—” She paused, her fingers still tight around the grip of the Glock. “You weren’t responsible, were you?”

  “It’s fascinating that you’d ask me that.” Venom tinged his voice. “All along, you’ve been eager to believe that I’m a monster. I see you’ve found yourself a new, more human friend.”

  “Can you just give a straight answer? I told him it wasn’t you, but the whole ‘Ravener’ thing is news to me. You never told me that you were a billion years old and have a history of queen-slaughter.”

  “This new friend of yours told you all about me, didn’t he? It seems you’ve become awfully close with him in the past two weeks, while I’ve been hunting for your sister.”

  “You locked me in the mansion! Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is—” What was the point? She had so many questions to ask him, she didn’t know where to begin. “Did you find Miranda?”

  “No. I can’t sense magic like you can. That’s why I need your help.”

  I could have helped you if you hadn’t locked me up. She glanced at Drew, who lay in a heap, his eyes bulging. “Is he dead?”

  As soon as she took her eyes off Caine, she felt a cold stream of magic sing at the nape of her neck. She raised the gun. Caine now stood less than a foot from her—but she’d felt his magic, and she’d been ready for him. At the sound of the gun’s hammer cocking, he raised his hands, just inches from the barrel. “Your reflexes are getting faster.”

  “Were you trying to disarm me?” She frowned. “You don’t trust me with a gun?”

  “You seem a little unhinged.”

  “That’s exactly what Orcus said.” She took a deep breath, sadness tightening her chest. “You should know that Hunter bullets killed him during the ker attack. I’d tried to pull him away, but he wasn’t listening to me.”

  Caine sucked in a long breath, something dark flickering across his features. “He’s in the shadow hell now.”

  “I’m sorry.” She tucked the gun into the back of her pants again, then pointed to Drew. “He did save my life.”

  “He’s still breathing, but only because you stopped me with that gun of yours.”

  She exhaled. “So what happened at the keres attack? I know you were there. I felt Miranda there, too.”

  “I was hunting around the Chambers for your sister when a powerful aura drew me in, and I felt the demons drawing closer. You can’t possibly believe that I was behind the attack.” His voice dripped with disdain.

  She studied his stunning face. Firelight bathed his skin in gold, sparking off his gray eyes, and the flickering light danced over the beautiful planes of his face. In the V of his black T-shirt, she could see smooth, unblemished skin, marked only by his tattoos. His seductive, loamy scent drew her in. “No, of course I don’t believe that. Drew was just confused. And I’m a little on edge. I haven’t been sleeping.”

  “You were hurt? Why did he need to save your life?”

  “I was shot by a Hunter.” Outside, helicopters beat overhead, and she could her someone speaking into a megaphone, but she ignored it. “I just don’t understand. How can you be so old? I thought Malphus was your brother, and I remember him as a little boy.” Half-brothers, perhaps.

  “It’s not important right now.” He paused, listening to the rotors. “But you know what is important? There are armed helicopters flying overhead. And you’re wondering why I can’t knock them off course like I did before. That’s because they’re laden with bombs—small ones, granted, but large enough to destroy a house like the one we’re in. So we can let them bomb this house while we’re in it, or we could teleport out first. Those are our options.”

  Shit shit shit. Adrenaline blared through her veins. From above, the projected voice blared something about evacuating the area.

  “Okay, let’s go to Lilinor.” She nodded at Drew’s unconscious body. “But I don’t want to leave him to die in a fire. Can we take him?”

  “You must be joking.”


  “This isn’t the sort of time I’d choose to joke.”

  “You do realize he tried to kill me? He wasn’t good at it, mind you, but that was his intention. I’m not protecting him in Lilinor.”

  “It was a misunderstanding. You have a bad reputation, apparently.”

  “He’s an idiot, and he should burn in a fire, though really he deserves to be conscious for that.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “Fine. If it will get you out of here.” He glared at her before leaning down and picking up Drew’s limp body. In a blur of silver and black, he flung open the glass doors and carried Drew outside. Within a few seconds, he was back, wiping off his hands.

  “Thank you.”

  He held out his hand, and she crossed to him.

  He pulled her closer, sliding a hand around her back. “Will you chant the spell with me?” She felt his muscled chest through his shirt, and breathed in his alluring, earthy scent. “As I get to the end of the spell, you should hold your breath.”

  She pulled off her ring, handing it to Caine. A green aura danced in her skull, scented of hawthorn groves and moss.

  As they chanted together, Caine’s strong arms enveloped her, his thrilling magic mingling with Cleo’s—hungry vines intertwining with shadows. She held her breath, and in the next moment icy water pulled her under.

  Chapter 7

  Caine’s strong arms held her close, but the shock of icy water froze her completely. Deep beneath the frigid water, she was dimly aware of Caine slipping the ring back on her finger. Instinctively, she pushed her way out of Caine’s grasp and kicked her way to the surface. As she got to the top, she gasped. Her lungs felt frozen; her entire body shook with the cold.

  She grasped for the fountain’s edge, glancing around at Lilinor’s dark esplanade. The sharp spires of Ninlil Castle towered over the empty town square, and its obsidian walls gleamed in the moonlight. The last time she’d come here, she’d been completely alone and with no idea what she was getting into. At least she was a little better informed now.