vampires mage 02 - witch hunter

by crawford, c n

  But if they were working with Erish and Drew, they’d have all the information they needed.

  Malphus looked exhausted, his face the color of bone. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and the sight of him cut Rosalind to the bone. Maybe it was her guilt for having hurt him, but she had the strongest urge to soothe the pain out of him.

  She could feel the room fill with Caine furious magic; it crackled through the air around her. He flicked his hand, cutting off the news story in a burst of shattered glass and sparks. Rosalind looked at him, at the black wings that grew from his back and his sharpened tendrils of magic. Her blood went cold.

  Caine threw back his head, and his roar rattled the stones and glass around them.

  Chapter 19

  Cloaked by invisibility, Rosalind, Caine, and Aurora slunk along the tiny alley known as Appian Way, heading for Cambridge Common. Even from here, she could hear the crowd chanting.

  “Whenever I get to a new city,” Aurora said, “the first thing I want to know is where they executed people. London has Hyde Park, Tyburn, Spitalfields, Bow Church…a few others. Boston had the elm tree. And in Cambridge, they killed people on the Common. Did you know that they burned a woman here? A slave. Phillis, her name was.”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Rosalind whispered. She couldn’t see Caine, but his vicious aura sliced the air around him. It looked like he was about to unleash his shadow magic over the entire city, leveling Cambridge in a storm of cold rage until no one but the immortals survived. In fact, he might do just that.

  She hugged herself, her body still wracked by fatigue. With everything happening so quickly, she hadn’t found time to recharge after the tracking spell.

  “I’m just saying,” Aurora said. “The horror and mob rage have been here all along, under the surface. The Brotherhood are just ripping off the mask.”

  Up ahead, an angry crowd bellowed. As they drew closer, Rosalind could hear what they were chanting: “Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”

  Rosalind’s chest clenched. Fucking hell.

  “I want us to be careful.” Caine’s voice, cold and controlled, belied the rage she could see whipping the air around him. “We’re going to have to move fast—too fast for the Hunters to know what’s happening. They’ll have weapons trained on the platform, full of Hunter dust. They can easily destroy our magic the second they sense our presence.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Aurora asked.

  “The three of us slip up the scaffold, fast as the wind,” Caine said. “Rosalind will need to take off the iron ring, and we’ll invoke a spell for speed. We disable the Hunter guards. Before they even fall to the floor, we grab Malphus. Then we teleport out again.”

  “To where?” Rosalind asked.

  “Phobetor Field,” Caine replied.

  Rosalind felt Caine’s electrifying touch on her arm, and he pulled her in closer. “Make sure you keep control of Cleo. You can’t let your emotions take over, and you definitely can’t let Cleo’s emotions take over. This has to be extremely fast and precise.”

  From Caine’s reaction to Malphus’s capture, Rosalind was starting to get the impression that she wasn’t the only emotional one. She wanted to ask him if his whole loyalty is a weakness theory only applied to other people, because his obvious attachment to Malphus flew in the face of that theory. His brother had nothing to do with creating daywalkers, and yet here they were, saving him.

  Still, she kept her mouth shut. If she provoked Caine right now, he was going to lose it completely.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The alley’s mouth opened up to Garden Street, which lined the Common. The wide street was blocked off on either end by orange barriers, and no cars rolled through today.

  On the grass, the crowd seethed like a storm cloud, bellowing their fury at Malphus. White lights blazed on his skin. With his hands bound behind his back, Malphus simply stared back, unmoving. His eerie, demonic stillness probably didn’t endear him to anyone in the crowd.

  Still, Rosalind’s heart tightened at the sight of him. His gray shirt was torn and bloodied, and a trail of blood dripped from his lips. Deep gashes lined his pale, muscled arms. He is not in good shape.

  Behind Malphus loomed a giant image of Randolph Loring’s face. It seemed to glare down at Malphus in judgment. Meanwhile, the actual Randolph Loring stood at the front of the stage. He nodded solemnly as the crowd chanted “Burn the witch!”

  As Rosalind crossed the empty street, Caine slipped his hand into hers, his breezy aura rippling over her skin. “Stay with me,” he said.

  They quickened their pace, approaching the crowd. From the platform, Randolph held out his arms to either side, and jumped. The crowd fell silent and parted as he walked into the mob like some kind of ginger-haired messiah, holding his palms open to the sky. A lapel microphone projected his voice. “The demonic attacks on our cities have threatened our lives, our sense of safety…our American way of life. Anyone who has seen a shadow demon or a witch tear apart an innocent human is asking, begging their leaders to end the horror.”

  The crowd roared, and Rosalind’s mouth went dry. Cambridge Common was a tinderbox of fear and rage. They were ready to rip Malphus to pieces. With Caine and Aurora by her side, she stepped onto the grassy Common, heading for the platform through the crowd.

  Randolph’s voice boomed. “I alone have been granted the power to end the horror! We simply cannot stand by and let the demons take over our world because some people are too scared to take action, because we let elitists and appeasers make the decisions. Some people think we should make nice with the very demons who want to murder us. And do you know what those people are? They are traitors to our human heritage. And what do we do with traitors?”

  The crowd roared, and Rosalind heard renewed chants for burning.

  As they pushed closer, Rosalind surveyed the platform. Sweaty-Hands Dave sat on the stage, his foot bandaged. On his chest, he wore an iron badge shaped like a chalice—a medal of honor for sustaining an injury during battle.

  “Our country is in chaos!” Randolph shouted. “And despite what people say, The Brotherhood is not driven by hate! We are driven by love. Love for humanity. Love for order. Love for a deep, unwavering loyalty to the human race!”

  The crowd roared, “Burn the witch!”

  Rosalind’s throat tightened. So much for not being driven by hate…

  Besides Sweaty-Hands, twelve Hunters stood on the stage, forming a horse-shoe shape behind Malphus. Rosalind scanned them—all men, of course. The prestigious gigs like this one always went to the guys. She glanced up at the enormous image of Randolph, spying the tiny pistols trained on the platform just above his picture. She’d seen those before—they didn’t contain bullets, but Hunter dust, designed to burn magic.

  Thud. A glass beer bottle slammed into Malphus’s head. Caine tightened his grip on Rosalind’s hand and leaned in close. “I’ll take the guards furthest from us, Aurora can take the ones in the center, and you take those closest. Tell Cleo not to kill any more than she needs to. That’s four guards for each of us. We cut down the guards, grab Malphus, and we teleport together.”

  “What about Randolph?” she asked. She really wanted to hurt him.

  “We’re not here to kill Randolph,” Caine said. “We have to get out of here fast, and we’re going to need all the energy we have to teleport. We’re here for one reason only, and that’s to bring Malphus home. You or I will kill Randolph one day, but not today.”

  “I’ll do my best to keep Cleo in check,” Rosalind said. It wasn’t going to be easy, though. Caine had said that the risk of losing her mind was higher if her body was tired, and she felt halfway in the grave right now.

  “Give me the ring,” he said.

  “After I take off the ring,” she said. “I need you to give me a moment to get control over Cleo. If I don’t rein in her aura, it will be disaster.”

  “Of course,” he said.

 
Taking a deep breath, she slid the ring off her finger, tucking it into her bra.

  Cleo’s green aura snapped into her skull, like a thousand ferns unfurling, and the scent of hawthorns and moss filled the air. She buzzed with delicious, ancient power, her eyes narrowing at the sight of the Hunters around her. I will rip their throats out. I will call up the flames of Etna and slowly roast their bloated bodies. I will—

  “Rosalind.” Someone squeezed her arm, hard, and a soothing aura tempered her rage. “Focus. We’re here for Malphus.”

  Malphus. The word rang in her skull like a death knell. There was something she did to him, something that made her chest hurt… Malphus. She closed her eyes, forcing the magic into tighter and tighter coils, shrinking it down to a tiny, glittering gem of pure green.

  I’m Rosalind. I’m here for one reason only. She opened her eyes again, gazing at Malphus on the scaffold, at his pale, chiseled cheeks. A rock thudded against his chest, then another. Fury simmered in Rosalind’s chest, and her nails dug into Caine’s arm. She leaned into his strong body, whispering. “I’m ready.”

  “Say the spell with me,” he said. He began to chant, calling upon Nyxobas for the speed and fury of a celestial wind, asking the god of night to cloak him shadows. His aura lashed out around him, and Rosalind joined in the spell. Their magic twined together, tendrils of silver and green rising into the air.

  She could feel the spell overtaking her as Nyxobas’s magic washed through her bones. Inky shadows slipped over her muscles—a gift from the god of night. Buzzing with energy, her muscles filled with a chilling surety, a dark power that smelled of earth and bone.

  I am shadow and darkness, death incarnate. She grabbed two knives from their sheaths, one in each hand. I am the great leveler, and I reap vengeance.

  “Now,” she said.

  With Caine and Aurora by her side, she leapt onto the scaffold, furious as a storm wind. In a fraction of a second, she sank her blade into a Hunter’s back. One.

  Pivoting, she slashed at another guard just as his fingers twitched for his gun, and her blade slid between his ribs. Two.

  Shadow magic surged, and the Hunters didn’t have a chance. She whirled again, cutting into a dark-haired Hunter, her blade finding its mark in his kidney. Three.

  The night wind whipped through her hair, rushed over her skin as she pivoted. She plunged the blade into the final guard’s abdomen. Four.

  Around her, the guards began to stagger, and she rushed to Malphus, ready to teleport. She touched his shoulder, surging with protectiveness. I must keep him safe.

  Cold, frozen rage slid through her veins as her gaze landed on Randolph Loring, and Cleo’s aura roiled. Rosalind was dimly aware of Caine chanting the teleportation spell, but her attention was on the Brotherhood’s leader.

  Cleo wanted him dead.

  Burn his flesh… Her mouth began to form the words for an inferno spell, but in the next second, she was standing in a forest. Moonlight streaming between the branches.

  Gasping, her gaze landed on the beautiful, gray-eyed man—the one with fury in his blood.

  She hadn’t been finished with her work—there were Hunters to burn. “I was about to char the Hunters’ flesh,” she growled.

  “Your ring.” His eyes darted to her bra. “Do I have to take it out for you?”

  Rosalind’s mind began to clear a little, and she reached into her shirt, pulling out the ring. She slid it onto her finger.

  Cleo’s aura snapped out of her body, replaced by a grinding fatigue, searing her muscles. She faltered.

  “You didn’t chant with me,” Caine said. “We’re lucky we made it here at all.”

  “Cleo wanted Hunter blood,” Rosalind said, looking around.

  She was standing in the forest near Phobetor field, surrounded by ferns and oaks. She eyed Caine, whose athletic body was visible now. Filtering through the trees, chinks of moonlight danced on his perfect skin and sparked white in his arctic eyes.

  Aurora stood by his side, rolling her shoulders, her blue dress splattered with blood. “Nyxobas’s spell has left me, but I still feel like death.”

  Rosalind glanced down at her own body, catching a glimpse of the streaks of blood glistening on her black clothes, and shuddered. She’d cut down four Hunters back there in less than a second.

  With a jolt, she realized that Malphus was with them. I have to face him.

  Slowly, she turned, and her gaze landed on Caine’s brother. His arms were bound behind his back. Caine stepped behind him and tore the iron chains from his arms.

  Malphus, meanwhile, stared right at her; Rosalind’s chest ached.

  The younger incubus was so much like Caine: the same straight nose, black eyebrows, and sharp cheekbones; same wintry eyes framed by black lashes; same beautiful, full mouth. But Malphus’s expression was softer, and his skin was the color of porcelain instead of pale gold. He had large, poet’s eyes, without Caine’s calculating glint.

  She swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought about what she was going to say to him. What do you say to a man you tortured? Sorry for the drowning?

  “Sorry about the…” she stammered. “Sorry about the drowning.” Shit. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about everything.”

  Free from the chains, Malphus shook out his arms, rubbing his wrists. “You didn’t remember me,” he said. It seemed half a question, and half an accusation.

  “I don’t remember much from Maremount—mostly glimpses of Miranda.” She reached out and touched his hand lightly, and he jerked it away. “But I do remember you. I remembered someone giving me flowers. I didn’t know it was you, until after…” She bit her lip. “Until after the…”

  “Until after she tortured you,” Aurora cut in. “Gods below, you stammer a lot.”

  Wordlessly, Malphus turned, walking through the woods.

  Aurora sighed, following after him. “That was awkward.”

  As she trudged through the woods, Rosalind’s whole body was tense. Switching sides in a war isn’t exactly easy.

  Caine whispered a spell and the forest thinned before her eyes, replaced by the field of wildflowers and the stone building that towered over the pond.

  She stepped into tall grasses, the air fragrant with the scent of wildflowers, and her thoughts whirled back to the scaffold. She was gaining in her ability to control Cleo’s magic, but the aura had started to churn out of control when Cleo had laid eyes on Randolph Loring. Whatever her history was, the woman absolutely hated Hunters.

  Maybe she’d prove to be a useful ally after all.

  Chapter 20

  I n Caine’s bedroom, Rosalind sank into an armchair, her muscles screaming. Candles cast long shadows over the walls, shadows that twitched and danced like unquiet spirits.

  Rosalind reached inside her shirt, running her fingers over the small divots in her flesh where the harpy had sunk her talons. Malphus isn’t the only one in rough shape.

  Still, the incubus wasn’t meeting her gaze. Her chest ached; she wanted to help him, but to him she was basically a monster.

  Caine nodded at his bed. “Sit down, Brother.”

  Grimacing, Malphus sat the edge of the bed.

  Caine crossed his arms. “How did you end up with the Brotherhood a second time?”

  “Erish poisoned me before she left Lilinor,” Malphus said. “A legion of keres transported me, unconscious, to the Chambers.”

  Caine’s gaze flicked to Rosalind. “So the Brotherhood are in league with the demons.”

  The concept burned into Rosalind’s mind. For nearly a hundred thousand years, Hunters had been serving Blodrial, their sole purpose to rid the world of the Angelic language. Their whole reason for being was to destroy the demons that served other gods.

  And now—for the first time—Randolph was changing the rules. With magic, the Brotherhood would be nearly invincible.

  Their motivations were clear. Malphus, Rosalind, Tammi, Miranda, Caine—they were all scapegoats. They were the monste
rs—the raveners—who would haunt people’s nightmares, the specters on whose bones the Brotherhood would build their empire.

  But what the hell was Erish getting out of this? “I don’t understand,” Rosalind said. “Wouldn’t a succubus hate Hunters?”

  “She does,” Malphus said, his pale eyes boring a hole into her. “With good reason.”

  “But she recognizes power when she sees it,” Caine added. “And the more the demons attack, the greater the Brotherhood’s power grows. Demons win. The Brotherhood wins. The only losers in the scenario are ordinary humans.”

  Rosalind shook her head, trying to puzzle it out. “The Brotherhood are creating a new empire, a new reality. They hate magic, but they can always change the definitions of things to suit their purposes—just like they redefined what it means to be human. You’re not human if you consort with demons. And it’s probably not magic, anymore. It’s an enhanced warfare tactic, or something like that.” She crossed her arms. “Angelic isn’t the only language that can create reality.”

  Caine’s fingers curled into fists. “This is going to make them much more formidable to target.”

  Malphus winced, rubbing his shoulder. “I’m going to need to heal.” His gaze flicked to Rosalind—still angry, but there was something else there, too. Hunger?

  “What did they do to you?” Caine asked. “Take off your shirt.”

  Grimacing, Malphus complied, pulling off his torn gray shirt. Rosalind gasped at the sight of his skin. Unlike Caine, no tattoos covered his muscled chest, but his perfect porcelain skin was marred by ragged scars and a few open wounds. Dark shards riddled his body, and it looked like fragments of iron.

  Caine growled, his aura flaring around him. He shot a glance to Aurora. “I need you to go outside and find some yarrow. Now.”

  Aurora stood, rushing from the room.

  Caine turned to Rosalind, watching her carefully as if considering something—probably something to do with the fact that she’d once put Malphus in a similar state.

  Rosalind took a deep breath, her fingers curling. “Let me help.”