vampires mage 02 - witch hunter

by crawford, c n

  “But you said Miranda isn’t in there.”

  “Right, but there are a ton of other people there. Humans who Erish wants to turn into keres. We need to get them out.”

  Rosalind glanced at the sky, searching for any oncoming keres. “You want us to free all the prisoners?” She shook her head. “That’s not our goal. We’re there to get Caine and Miranda.”

  “I saw people starve to death in there. Half of them have dysentery. There’s a twelve-year-old girl with gangrene. We can’t leave them.”

  Rosalind’s fingers tightened. “We need to find Caine and Miranda first. They could be in trouble.”

  “The prisoners are definitely in trouble,” Tammi said. “And there are more of them, so why wouldn’t we help them first?”

  “Because…” She couldn’t think of a reason. I don’t know the other people didn’t seem like a great rationale. “Because Caine and I came here together, and we’re going to leave together. And Miranda’s my sister.”

  Tammi crossed her arms, frowning. “There’s only two of them. There are hundreds in the prisons. And if anything happens to us while trying to find Caine and Miranda, those humans will never make it out. Freeing them is the right thing to do. This is two lives versus hundreds. It’s simple math.”

  Rosalind’s face flushed. In one of her psychology classes, they’d been asked to discuss a morality problem: if a train is heading for a group of five people on the track, and you can divert the train to a track with only one person on it, should you do it? You were supposed to say yes. It was supposed to be simple math.

  But she always hated those kinds of problems, always had more questions that you weren’t supposed to ask. What were they all doing there in the first place? What if some of them wanted to die? What if the group of five were a bunch of child murderers? What if she loved that one person and didn’t want him to die alone?

  Quantities alone weren’t enough.

  “It’s not simple math,” she shouted. “If anything happens to us while trying to free the prisoners, we’ll never get to Caine and Miranda. There are more factors than just arithmetic that go into deciding whose life to save.”

  Tammi narrowed her silver eyes. “Factors like being a super-hot incubus who could blow your mind in bed? That kind of factor?”

  “No.” Flustered, she searched for the words. “Factors like…” Loyalty. She didn’t know where Miranda’s loyalty lay, but she and Caine were some kind of team now.

  Still, his admonition rang in her head. Loyalty is a weakness. She didn’t know what was the right thing to do—but right now, she knew they were wasting time.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tammi. Fine. We get the prisoners first. And if we die in the process, I’m going to be extremely pissed off at you in the afterworld.”

  In the distance, so faint she could barely hear it, a bell began to ring. Rosalind threaded her fingers into her hair, her pulse racing. This is getting a little more complicated. “I don’t think we can take on an entire army of keres, Tammi. It’s nearly impossible to hurt them, even with magic. And if what you said about Drew is true—that he’s becoming crazy powerful—I don’t think we stand a chance.”

  “I can see your aura now. Cleo’s aura, I guess. It’s green.”

  Rosalind scowled. “Can we stay on topic?”

  “That is on topic.” Tammi folded her arms. “I think that’s part of what makes the keres resistant to magical spells.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tammi rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes was if she was searching her memory. “We were flying in the sky.” She turned, pointing to the clouds. “There. A mission or something… I don’t remember what it was, but I remember silver and green swirls of magic coming for us. I could see the magic, and that meant I could control it. I could force it away from me.”

  “That makes sense.” Rosalind bit her thumbnail. Maybe now wasn’t the time to tell Tammi she’d been trying to light her on fire. “I’ve been learning about that myself. And if I can control it… maybe I can send it back where it came from.”

  Tammi touched her lips. “Want to try a trial run?”

  “You know Angelic spells?”

  “No,” Tammi said, raising her hand. “But like we said, if you can see an aura, you can control it.” She stared at her open hand, until a whorl of colored auras formed in her palm. She wound up her arm, and threw it like baseball.

  It slammed into Rosalind’s gut, and the auras surged over her body, like jolts of electricity. Rosalind staggered. Gods I need sleep.

  Tammi clamped her hands on her hips. “Not good, Rosalind.”

  Rosalind shook out her arms and legs. “Okay. I wasn’t ready that time. Let’s try this again.”

  Tammi summoned another vortex of colored auras into her palm, and hurled it at Rosalind. This time Rosalind paused it in midair, and the sphere of magic hovered between them.

  “Good,” Tammi said. “Now send it back.”

  Rosalind concentrated hard, willing the aura to shift back. It slowly slid back to Tammi, gently bumping into her and spreading over her body.

  Rosalind let out a long, slow breath. “That’s good, but I don’t think that skill is battle-ready yet. I think we need to sneak in as best we can and hope no one sees us. We can blow out the iron bars on the cells—”

  A rhythmic noise beat the stormy air above them, and Rosalind’s gaze flicked to the skies. Colorful auras swirled in the air around another horde of keres.

  Rosalind’s heart sped up. “Tammi, the bad news is that the keres are coming right for us. The good news is that the keres are no longer at the fortress.”

  “Maybe now’s our time to go, then.”

  “I can transport us back to one of the walkways. Can you get us to the prison cells?”

  “I think so.”

  Rosalind grabbed Tammi’s hand, whispering the spell for invisibility. Cleo’s green aura curled around their disappearing bodies, and Rosalind switched to the teleportation spell, her body shaking with exhaustion.

  In the next instant, they flickered to the castle walkway. A sonorous bell—some sort of alarm—rang out.

  Rain hammered down, and Rosalind peered over the battlement’s edge into the courtyard. Queen Erish’s headless body still lay on the ground, her blood mingling with the mud and rain.

  Above, the harpies screeched, copper wings beating the air. Tammi grabbed her arm, pulling her up to the battlement. “I think we need to get going now. I think the harpies sense something. Grab hold of me. We’re gonna fly.”

  Unlike the harpies, whose wings grew from their shoulders, Tammi’s wings stemmed from her back. That meant Rosalind would have to hang below her as they flew.

  Rosalind tightened her arms around her friend’s neck, then locked her legs around Tammi’s waist.

  “Bet you’re wishing I was Caine right about now,” Tammi said.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Rosalind shot back.

  She could feel the rush of air as Tammi’s wings began to whip the air, and they launched off the battlement. Rosalind’s stomach swooped as they flew, and she turned her head to see the fortress’s pale walls zooming past.

  She arched her neck, getting an upside-down view of the mountainous fortress. The slopes beneath the fortress walls were a steep, rocky drop.

  The wind howled around them, and she had to shout over it. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “I’m looking for the entrance.”

  Rosalind craned her neck, but trying to survey the terrain from this angle was awkward.

  “I see it,” Tammi said.

  Rosalind felt them dive lower, and the wind whipped hair into her face. Between strands of her own and Tammi’s hair, she could see an opening in the side of the mountain, below the fortress. A stream of water poured from the cave to the river below. Rosalind watched the entrance grow larger in her vision as they approached.

  “Hang on,” Tammi said.

  They flew straight int
o the darkened cave, splashing down in the running stream. In the hard landing, Rosalind let go of Tammi’s neck, and the current began to drag her out until she grabbed hold of a jagged rock.

  Tammi flapped her wings, straightening in the current.

  Rosalind closed her eyes, mentally asking Cleo for the spell for light. The words blazed in her mind, and she chanted a quick spell for the sun spirit. A pale, glowing sphere appeared in the air, lighting up the dank cave.

  “You think this is the right way?” Rosalind asked.

  “It was the only entrance I saw,” Tammi said.

  Rosalind pressed forward against the current, her boots sloshing through the water.

  Exhaustion was ripping her apart. Soon, she’d need to use another strength spell. But she’d wait until she really needed it. She didn’t want to lose her mind by using too much magic when her body was weak.

  Just as her teeth were beginning to chatter from the frigid mountain water, the tunnel opened up into large cavern. Here, carved from quartzite, were three chillingly lifelike statues of people dressed in ornate clothing.

  Rosalind shivered, looking up at them. A dripping noise echoed off the cave walls. “What do you think all this is?”

  “If I had to guess,” Tammi said. “They’re probably the ancestors of whoever owns this place.”

  Rosalind shuddered and peered up into the face of one of the statues—a woman with long hair falling over her shoulders in two braids. She had Rosalind’s high cheekbones and straight nose, and wore a spiky crown. A long gown draped over her stony body, with a deep V neck and long, wide sleeves that reached the floor. The garments were clearly medieval—these ancestors went beyond the founding of Maremount.

  She glanced at the other two: medieval knights with chainmail and swords. There was something eerily lifelike about these statues. Rosalind hugged herself. “I guess there’s something I should mention about that.”

  “What?”

  “Drew and I are cousins. This is my ancestral home, and he thinks I’m going to marry him.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

  “Nope. Apparently, Drew and I were supposed to be married.” She trudged on. “Drew said my parents were trying to re-establish their dynasty. That they once ruled in another kingdom, a long time ago. Drew wants to pick up where they left off. I think he was homeless or something before he started working for the Brotherhood. And now he fancies himself a king.”

  “And I thought my family was screwed up,” Tammi muttered.

  “There’s something going on between Drew and Caine that I don’t understand.”

  “You’re making it more complicated than it is. Men only ever fight about one thing when it comes down to it. They both want to have sex with you. End of story.”

  Rosalind shook her head, happy to put distance between herself and the statue. “No. It’s more than that. There’s more to the history between Caine and my family that he’s been hiding it from me. He finally almost told me what it was, and I stopped him. I feel like it’s something terrible, and it caused all the shit that’s happening now.”

  “You didn’t want to ruin your illusion of him.” Tammi’s footfalls splashed. “What if you’re related?”

  “Ew. We are not related.”

  “Forbidden fruit is the sweetest kind.”

  “Stop.”

  At last, the sound of murmuring drifted through the dank caves. Rosalind and Tammi fell silent, listening to faint voices echo off the rocky ceiling.

  Their footsteps splashed as they walked into a larger cavern. The statues that had stood so proudly in the rest of the cavern were not to be found here. Instead, rocky ledges jutted out above them. Rosalind glanced up as they walked further into this new cavern; between the stalactites and iron bars, she caught glimpses of people, their hands grasping bars, faces peering down. The faint talking fell silent, and more faces appeared at the bars, staring.

  “Here we are,” Tammi whispered. “But they won’t recognize me. Especially when I’m invisible.”

  “I can make you visible,” Rosalind said. “Even if I can’t make you human again.

  She closed her eyes, finding the words for the spell, and chanted them out loud. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking right at Tammi. “How far down do you think that drop was to the river?

  “A hundred, maybe a hundred fifty feet.”

  “They should be able to make the drop. I can try to turn them invisible, too. They’ll have to make their way to Maremount from here, just following the river. In the center of the city, they need to jump into the fountain. It will take them to Phobetor Field.” She grabbed Tammi’s arm. “The river flows toward the city. Maybe they can ride the current with branches. I have no idea what the people of Maremount will think of they see a horde of starved humans jumping into their fountain, so they’ll need to hurry. The invisibility spell doesn’t last forever.”

  Tammi nodded. “I’m going to speak to them.” She flapped her wings, rising into the air. Droplets of water fell from her wings.

  Panicking, the people in the cages shifted away from the bars, whispering to each other. If any of these prisoners had seen a ker before, it would have been when they were eating people’s necks in Harvard Square.

  Tammi held out her hands, like she was taming a wild beast. “Everyone stay calm. We’ve come to get you out of here. I know I look like a demon, but I’m not. I mean, maybe I am now, but… I was in there with you. Some of you might remember me. Linda, I see you in there. And Steve. And Ben! You knew me as Tammi.”

  “Tammi?” a voice called out. “What did they do to you?”

  “They’re turning people into demons. And that’s why we’re going to get you out of here. You need to take the river—”

  Panicked shouts echoed around the chambers, drowning out Tammi’s instructions. Someone screamed that her friend was too sick to move, her legs infected.

  “Tell them I’ll heal them!” Rosalind shouted. “I’ll strengthen them. We need to move quickly.”

  She bit her lip. Shit. How was she supposed to quickly conduct spells on hundreds of prisoners? I need to move this along—fast. If I can see magic, I can control it.

  “Tammi!” Rosalind shouted. “Carry me up there. I can help heal them. Then they need to get the hell out of here before someone discovers us.”

  Tammi flew lower, and Rosalind wrapped her arms around her friend’s neck. Tammi beat her wings, lifting Rosalind out of the water. Craning her neck, Rosalind glanced around at the people stuck in the rocky prison cells. The sphere of light dimly illuminated ragged clothes, gaunt faces, haunted eyes. They stared at her, gripping the bars.

  Rosalind swallowed hard. All these people in here were now counting on her and Tammi to get them out of this. “I’m going to open your cells,” she said. “I’m going to use magic.”

  “Witch!” someone shouted.

  Oh, right. To everyone in here, magic was the ultimate enemy. Magic was what had led to their capture and imprisonment, to horrific massacres of innocent people. What she needed was some sort of rousing speech to help them understand the complexities of the situation—that it wasn’t simply good versus evil, that sometimes things were nuanced.

  “I’m a witch,” she said, raising her voice. “But I’m a good witch. Like Glinda.” Or I could just reference Wizard of Oz. “Listen,” she continued. “We’re going to get you out of here, and that’s better than starving to death or rotting from gangrene under a mountain. So, witches or not, we’re your best bet.”

  The prisoners fell quiet, and Rosalind closed her eyes, trying to focus on Cleo’s green aura. For the magic she was about to conduct, she’d need a staggering amount of power.

  Cleo’s magic burned in her chest, a tiny green sphere of light blazing from her sternum. Cleo, help me open the iron bars. Like we opened the iron for that woman before.

  Cleo whispered, Ambrose.

  The spell shimmered into her mind, in words emblazoned w
ith light. Rosalind spoke the words out loud, her body vibrating with Cleo’s spell. This time, the aura surged like electricity, and she felt a thrilling rush at its power. She concentrated on moving the aura with her mind, branching it out so it curled around all the cell bars. The power flowing from her body felt immense. She was a conduit, letting it out.

  She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back, and the aura bubbled up her chest, tingling and brushing over her skin.

  As the raw, vernal power ignited, she caught a glimpse of something… A rowan grove, the leaves illuminated by pure, golden sunlight, berries bright as fresh drops of blood. After the shadows grew long like grasping fingers, and the sun dipped below the flowery knoll, he would come for her in darkness. She burned for him…

  “Rosalind!” Tammi called out.

  “What?” Rosalind’s eyes snapped open. Her body ached to the bone. She glanced around at the prison cells. The bars gleamed with a green aura, and they’d been bent wide open in the center—leaving enough room for people to escape.

  “You got lost there for a moment,” Tammi said. “What the hell was that?”

  Rosalind gasped for breath. “I think I was sucked into Cleo’s life.” Must have been the power of the spell that let Cleo take over.

  “You need to keep going,” Tammi said, clinging to her. “I think the spell might have alerted someone’s attention. Can you heal them?”

  The walls around them rumbled, and dust fell from the cavern’s ceiling. Damn right we need to get going. She didn’t want to get caught in another collapsing tunnel. But gods, that spell had sucked the life out of her, and she wanted to curl up in a ball. Nausea welled in her gut, and aches bit at her bones.

  She closed her eyes, asking Cleo for help again—this time for a healing spell.

  Ambrose, Cleo whispered, offering up a spell.

  Rosalind began to chant. Once again, her body blazed with vibrant, leafy power. A stream of green aura poured from her body, and she concentrated on branching it out into each cell, letting it curl around the sick and injured prisoners like shimmering ferns.

  No longer tired, she felt a giddy rush light up her body from within. Cleo was here, filling up her chest, sneaking up into her mind, urging her to close her eyes and see…