Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2)

by Shawn Knightley

  “You don’t know what you’re capable of doing,” she whispered in my mind.

  “I’m starting to get little hints here and there.”

  She appeared a little overexerted. I slowly reached my hands out to stroke her feathers, letting my fingers softly touch her head and then steadily move down her wing. She was breathing hard. I could sense she was still unsure if she should let me keep going.

  I decided to take the chance and I took her into my hands and placed her on my lap. I stayed on the floor and let her slowly adjust to me holding her. She watched me with wide eyes, remaining silent for several minutes.

  “Why did you do this to yourself?” she finally asked me. “You know what vampires have done to kruxa over the centuries. They hunted them down. They killed your blood.”

  “I know,” I whispered as I continued to stroke her gently. “I had to think of the bigger picture.”

  “What picture?”

  I wanted to give her some sign that I was still there. That there was a part of me that was the nanna she remembered. So I let out a sigh as though I was carrying a heavy burden. One that I would only share with her if she was willing to listen.

  “A luxra named Lenora gave me a vision while I was being held captive,” I began. “She showed me a future that we cannot allow to happen. One where vampires have been exposed to the public. Witchlings will soon follow. I cannot allow it. This was the only way to fight back that made any sense.”

  “Couldn’t you help out in some other way?”

  “Not while being tied to the vixra,” I said softly, as though I had let her in on a little secret.

  “Oh my god,” she mumbled in my thoughts. “How are you…what…?”

  “Lenora cast a spell that broke my bonds to the vixra. I’m free. In some form. This isn’t the life I would have chosen had there been another option. But now I can do more to prevent the war and stop other vampires from being held captive by becoming a part of the Catach-Brayin. By standing alongside Tobias and directing them. Their loyalty to one another can’t be wielded to serve the vixra. I’ve already felt it. They trust each other far more than witchlings. I can do more good on this side of the battlefield than by following the orders of the vixra.”

  She was quiet for another minute. I waited patiently for her to think over what I said.

  “I hate you for that sometimes,” she muttered.

  “For what?”

  “Being so noble. And always putting everyone else before yourself. It’s a curse that follows you in each life. You let others walk all over you. That’s why Tobias and so many others can easily take advantage of you.”

  I stood up with her in my arms and took her to the bed, letting her rest on the pillow.

  “Probably. But at least this choice was mine and not the vixra ordering me about.”

  “They’ll come for you. You know that, right?”

  “Yes,” I said solemnly. “I do. Which is why I have to be smarter. I’m already stronger than I was before.”

  “What?” she said in disbelief.

  I raised my hand before her and showed off the bright scarlet red light permeating from my palm. “How do you think I summoned you here? It’s not like that’s a spell I could handle when I was a kruxa.”

  Granted she was a hawk Kitty didn’t have a wide range of facial expressions. But I could sense she was entranced by what she was seeing. She lost me in one form and gained me back in another.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  “I’m a vampire with crowning magic. A special form of magic the vixra gain when they’re close to death. It was passed on to me. Tobias is teaching me how to handle my thirst for blood. And soon I will know how to wield elemental magic. If anything, having you around will keep me grounded. So please, don’t fly away again.”

  “You need a pet bird to keep you grounded?” Christophe said from behind me.

  He was standing in the doorway with that same silly smirk on his face that he had in the back of my Jeep. I couldn’t quite decide if it was his way of showing his amusement or if he found the world incapable of admiring his wit.

  I shot up from the bed and gave him a look that could kill. I believe a small growl even left my throat as I watched him welcome himself into the room. Clearly, Lenora had taken down the spell walling her away from everyone to keep her safe. Now Christophe was invading my private moment with Kitty.

  “The last time I saw your face you shot me off a rooftop,” I exclaimed. “So don’t expect me to be warm and welcoming.”

  “You seemed to recover quick enough. Besides, don’t make me your enemy. I come bearing gifts.”

  He reached outside the doorway and revealed my staff in his hands. The staff that I had buried in my closet back in my apartment and used for my rituals.

  “You invaded my apartment and claimed what’s not yours only to call it a gift?”

  He wasn’t smirking anymore. “I enhanced it for you,” he said, handing it over to me. “Tobias told me it belonged to you in your first life. He saw you slay countless Roman soldiers with it. I can’t picture the image but he assured me he saw you do it with his own eyes.”

  I had so few memories of my past lives. One came to me every once in a while. Not enough for me to have the full picture and yet enough to tell me from a young age that I certainly wasn’t normal.

  I took the staff from his hands and held it tight in my grip. He wasn’t wrong. Something had changed.

  “Luxra have their wands,” he explained. “But only because they were inspired by a kruxa who used a long staff to channel what little magic she had. Or so the legends say.”

  I stared at him. “Are you saying luxra only use wands because they saw me use a staff in a previous life?”

  “Why not? You don’t think it’s possible? I thought you might want to have it back. You might be a very powerful creature but you aren’t immune to death. This might come in handy. Consider it an apology for my hand in your kidnapping. I only agreed to shoot you.”

  I scowled at him. He didn’t appear intimidated. On the contrary. He thought my frustration was comical.

  “What did you do to it?” I asked, still a bit skeptical.

  “I added an element or two.”

  “Elemental magic?”

  “No. You can wield that on your own. Especially with how much crowning magic is in your veins now. I saw your little spat with Victor.” He gave a deep laugh that was almost as funny as it was disturbing. His German accent seemed to make everything he said severe yet entertaining.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said to him, setting the staff down on the ground as Kitty watched behind me. “Show me how vampires wield elemental magic and everything will be forgiven between us.”

  He grinned at the idea and offered me his hand. I wasn’t sure if I found the gesture old-fashion or creepy.

  “You stay here,” I told Kitty.

  I took his hand and held my staff in the other. Then I allowed him to escort me out of the tunnel and toward the cave shaped entrance. It felt like taking the hand of a mad man.

  “Not here,” he said. “We need more space. And a tree or two.”

  “A tree? You want to set a tree on fire?”

  “Not exactly. You have to start small. Fire is one of the last elements Tobias taught me to use.”

  He let go of my hand and ran away from the hillside and down the slope of the rocks. I quickly followed behind him, enjoying the sensational feeling of the wind rushing by me. Not from being in my Jeep or in a vixra tunnel but from the sheer force of my legs moving at an unnatural speed.

  When he finally stopped we were standing before a large empty space with trees in the distance. He walked toward one of the larger trees and waited for me to join him.

  I cautiously walked a few steps closer. This man had been so vulgar with me. He aided Tobias in saving my life when I fell through the hole near the mine. And yet, I felt as though I needed to have my guard up. Not because my magic was telli
ng me so but because I had been betrayed and misled by far too many people as of late.

  “Set down the staff and hold both your hands up like this,” he said. His hands were tilted upward in a position that almost made them look like cat claws.

  I did so, feeling as strange as one possibly can. I was used to forming an L shape with my hands to control my magic. A trick I picked up from another kruxa who barely managed to escaped being burned at the stake nearly two centuries ago. She stayed in her home for months until she came up with a way to gain some control over her magic. I found it effective but far from perfect.

  “Now, let your crowning magic sit just under your skin,” he instructed. “Don’t let it out. Let it dabble there under the surface.”

  “Why can’t I let it out?”

  “Because vampires aren’t witchlings. At least the majority of us aren’t. We can’t channel magic the same way your kind can. So you’ll have to learn the hard way first.”

  I huffed in frustration and did as he said. My magic tickled being so close to my skin. It wanted out. Only when I was a kruxa it would have been outside my body by now. Not anymore.

  “It’s all in the visualization, darling,” he said as if we were old friends. “Visualize what you like, a cold climate, snow falling, a frost covering the trees, or a lake slowly freezing from the icy winter. Bring yourself to a place where you can see the cold even though you no longer feel such things.”

  I did so and watched as the tips of my fingers started to frost over. Almost as if I had dipped my fingers in the snow. There was a hint of blue to them.

  “Are you sure this won’t harm my skin?”

  He snickered. “Don’t doubt me now. Shoot your arm toward that tree in front of you.”

  I shrugged my shoulders, letting go of any reservations. Then I raised my hand toward the tree.

  “Let out your magic,” he said.

  “But you said-”

  “This is the part where vampires summon vixra magic. That’s if Tobias has given it to us.”

  A stream of ice shot through my palm and onto the tree’s bark, freezing pieces at a time and traveling up the trunk to the branches. It spread out over the tree’s limbs and through the twigs then finally frosted over the pine needles. Some started snapping off from the weight and fell to the earth. An entire branch came crashing down. I nearly jumped back in surprise.

  “How does that work?” I asked.

  “You channeled the element of water. Only starting with cold water makes it easier. All of us have memories of being cold at one time or another when we were human. Not everyone can remember coming into close contact with fire. And watching a fire isn’t the same as feeling the flames. It takes precise concentration to make fire.”

  “I bet I can handle it,” I said, almost teasing him. “After all, the magic in my veins is supposed to be some of the most powerful in the world, right?”

  He seemed skeptical. Not because he thought I couldn’t do it. More so because he wasn’t sure I should be handling such an element before I was ready.

  “Try it and we’ll see,” he said curiously. “Visualize the flames. The heat they give. The feeling on the skin when you’ve been burned. I take it you know what it feels like?”

  I thought back to the woman who showed me how to use my palms in an L shape. She was saved before she could be burned. Others hadn’t been so lucky. I recalled their screams. I ran out of the town square before the flames could overpower them with their fierce carnage. I couldn’t unsee what little I saw. The way the flames traveled so fast up their bodies and how they thrashed from side to side, stopped by the ropes holding them down. Only that was a memory from this life. Now I had another memory to call upon. One from a past life when Victor tied me to a stake and burned me alive for Tobias to watch.

  Before I knew it sparks started coming out of my hand. I must have had a hint of anger to come with it because the scarlet red of my magic shot through my palm, sending a ball of fire right to the branches of the tree. It climbed up the height to the very top before Christophe shoved my hand down and forced me to stop.

  It wasn’t exactly pretty. But the feeling I got from summoning the flames gave me a sense of empowerment that kruxa magic never provided.

  ‘No wonder Tobias’s warriors do whatever he says for a little vixra blood. I could get used to this.’

  Christophe raised his hand and summoned a tidal wave of water over the tree. It took him a solid twenty seconds to completely put out the flames. They already spread to four other trees before he got the fire under control.

  As the smoke from the flames extinguishing wandered into the sky Christophe turned to glare at me.

  “And that, my darling, is why Tobias waits to teach vampires such skills.”

  “I thought vampires delighted in being reckless,” I retorted. It was my turn to smirk. ‘I regret nothing.’

  “No, we don’t. Not among Tobias’s warriors in the Catach-Brayin. We don’t need the fire department in the nearest town getting alerted about a forest fire.”

  “It sounds like the authorities have their hands full right now anyway,” I beamed.

  “I’m afraid that’s only going to get worse,” Tobias said from behind me.

  I turned around to see him admiring the smoke barreling into the sky. I could sense he was impressed by my handy work. Nevertheless, he didn’t let it distract him for more than a second or two.

  “How so?” I asked, curious how long he had been standing there watching. I took the staff back into my hands and approached him. Something shifted in his eyes. I saw an expression I wasn’t used to seeing. He looked vulnerable. His emotions matched in perfect tandem as he watched me walk over to him carrying the staff.

  ‘I must remind him of her with the staff in my hand. The woman I was in my first life.’

  This was the first time I had walked about with the staff in my hands outside my apartment. At least since I died on the pyre after Victor cast his spell on me. His voice echoed in my mind, ordering me not to tell Tobias a thing about it. What would happen if I did? The man had already threatened me and killed me many times over during our previous encounters. Not that it mattered. We were two immortals engaging in a dance where neither could be conquered.

  Tobias stiffened and forced himself to snap back to reality. I could only assume I had forced him to relive a memory he hadn’t allowed himself to revisit for a very long time.

  I peered back at Christophe. Tobias’s expression didn’t escape his attention either. He seemed puzzled. Maybe Tobias hadn’t told him the murkier details of our history together. Even though he sensed it from the start.

  “Something has happened,” Tobias started. “Something that will change everything. I guess I should have been more careful with how I handled things.”

  “What things?”

  “The way I had Lenora give you visions. And the way I let you spy on President McAllaster that day in the park. I should have trusted you more. Perhaps if I had asked you to just listen…”

  “I wouldn’t have,” I said to him. “I needed to experience being a vampire. And I needed to hear it from someone who wasn’t you. Lenora provided that with the vision.”

  He took out his cell phone. “It came at a price.”

  I took the phone from his hand. There was a video on the main screen. I pressed play only to be horrified a few seconds later. On the small screen was an image I clearly recognized. The memory was lodged in my brain. It was me appearing out of nowhere after Liza destroyed my shadow charm. I hobbled across the street in downtown Denver with blood trickling down my side after Christophe shot me with the potion infused bullets. Liza was facing me with a ball of fire in her hands, ready to launch it at me. Her fangs were flared and I was holding whatever magic I could summon in my hand as it slowly drained from my body.

  Whatever was left of my human instincts wanted to come barreling out in whatever form it could. Whether that be hyperventilating or getting chills down my
spine. All that was gone now. There was only anger.

  I checked the bottom of the video to see the view count. It was over two hundred million.

  “There were many more copies uploaded to the Internet,” said Tobias. “They were all taken down. It keeps getting re-uploaded. Some are saying it’s Hollywood tricks. Others are calling it supernatural forces. The media has obviously been told to stay away from the story because they mentioned it being a hoax on the evening news then dropped it entirely.”

  “So someone is trying to hide it?”

  “Gandira wants more vampires at their disposal. And more witchlings. They can’t afford for this to leak right now. There’s more.”

  He took the phone from me and played a different video. It was Vice President Eriksson. Only now, he was the new president of the United States. As much as I disliked McAllaster, something told me this man was ten times more vicious. And if Gandira had something to do with the president’s death, the Vice President was likely in on it.

  “My fellow Americans,” he addressed the nation from a podium with a hallway of the White House behind him. “We no longer live in times where mere speculation will result in others proclaiming the impossible is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. For the impossible has happened. I neglected to share this information with the country because I wanted certainty from my administration and from the local police of Denver before I jumped to conclusions. But now I can say with absolute certainty that President McAllaster wasn’t killed by a lone assassin. There were several involved in his murder. And the nature of those assassins has yet to be determined.”

  “The nature?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t come out and said magic or vampires if that’s what you’re wondering. But he’s not denying it either.” Tobias took the phone from my hand. “Honestly, I don’t think he had to. People can see for themselves since everyone carries a camera on their body these days.”

  “Do you think its Gandira keeping him from admitting the video is real?”

  Tobias’s jaw jutted. “No. It’s one of my contacts on the hill. I have various resources, G. I go to great lengths to make sure I can manipulate things in our favor in whatever ways I can. But that will only work for so long. People will keep asking questions. I think we need to work now based on the assumption that vampires have officially been revealed to the world, even though humans aren’t really aware of what they saw.”