I knew that Tobias had resources. Men and women he used to have a stronghold over politics in a way that would keep our existence quiet. He acquired power by manipulating vampires and humans alike. Especially humans with political power.
“As long as Gandira wants our existence away from the public eye we can maintain a certain status quo,” he continued. “But that could change in an instant.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“We take down Gandira, one facility at a time.”
5
I watched as Tobias walked around the large cavern with a torch flickering in his hand. He lit each of the large pits of fire surrounded by stones to create a circle around me. It was the same cavern where he and Victor turned me into what I am now. A vampire with crowning magic. A being that shouldn’t exist. A combination of the distorted and the sacred. At least by witchling standards.
I had seen Edmund light torches with his magic and I wondered for a moment if I could try the same thing. I lifted my arm and shot a spark of my magic toward Tobias’s torch. It traveled to the fire and flared it up even higher.
Tobias nearly jerked it away when he saw the flames rising higher. “What are you doing?”
“Just something I want to try.”
I collected some of the fire in my hand and held it there just above my palm. I couldn’t feel the heat of the sun or the harshness of the cold air from the mountain’s high altitude. But I could feel this. The heat was alive in my hand. I could manipulate it and make it move. It turned into a spherical fireball and then a stream of flames dancing from one of the small circular pits to another as I lit each around the circle, one by one.
Tobias watched me in a state of awe. I don’t think he realized what he helped to create. I could already do things he couldn’t quite understand. Not even I understood them. I could handle elemental magic. Well, sort of. It would still take more practice.
Tobias knew I had changed. And I could sense how it thrilled him. It filled him with an excitement that I’m not sure I ever sparked in him before. Even in those dark days in Scotland when we first met.
He wiped the enamored look off his face and started speaking. “This is a fire circle. Much like the ones you used to meditate for your visions. Only fire is a stronger element than salt and sage with a few candles here and there.”
I let out the fire in my hand and shot him an irritated look. “You know so, do you?”
“You thought I never kept tabs on you?” he said.
I sat down in the center and began to cross my legs.
“No,” he said. “Stand up. This isn’t a normal kruxa circle. You can’t relax inside of it.”
“How do you know about these things?”
“I was a kruxa once,” he admitted. “A very long time ago. There’s a great wealth of knowledge that lower-tier witchlings no longer possess. Knowledge that you probably could have used before I turned you.”
“You never offered to share.”
“You wouldn’t have listened. You said so yourself.”
I pursed my lips and tried to focus. Closing my eyes, I let my mind expand throughout the cavern. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Anything you can,” he answered. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. The stakes are high and we’re in uncharted territory. Humans have been made aware of our existence. Most probably won’t believe the footage or take it seriously but some will. We need to know where Gandira is hiding my other warriors for experimentation. We can’t survive in small numbers. The coven must be restored. And we need to know where Liza has gone.”
“Liza?”
“She fled after the video started to trend on the Internet. Whether from fear of punishment or for her own reasons I’m not sure yet.”
“I don’t think she’s the asset you think she is,” I said.
He gave a slight shake to his head. “You’re wrong there. She’s loyal to a fault. I want you to find her and get inside her mind if you can. Wherever Ryker goes, Liza will follow. And where ever Ryker is, we’ll find Victor.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ryker is Liza’s brother. They’ve been through a lot together and are loyal to one another. Both Liza and Ryker were eager to see me back as coven master. They saw first hand what happens when the coven doesn’t have a strong leader.”
I focused on everything outside the cavern. Then expanded my mind away from the mountain. In a matter of seconds, I could sense everything happening within half a mile. To a degree I never imagined possible. I could feel the crowning magic flowing through my veins, helping me along and itching to be let out. I could see everything happening around us for miles. Not all at once but in pieces. As if I was shifting perspectives every few seconds.
Christophe had his eyes on a young park ranger making rounds a few miles away. His fangs flared, ready to taste him and enjoy closing in on his prey.
My vision expanded even more. I saw a few cars driving on the nearby highway through the mountains.
‘Not far enough. I need to get more range.’
I felt the heat of the fire circle’s glow become even stronger as I let my vision soar through the mountains, searching for anything I could find. Other than a few mountain towns, there wasn’t much to get excited about.
I envisioned Liza’s form. The way her hair fell to her shoulders. Her crimson red lipstick. The way her eyes flashed at me when she was about to dig into that man’s throat at the concert before I stopped her.
Within a minute or so, I found her. She was hiding in the woods. Watching. Waiting. There was a building before her. One with more security than she was used to seeing. She wanted to get inside and see what was going on.
‘Where are you? Show me where you are.’
I spoke with partially opened lips, still lost in the haze of my vision. “Liza found a facility… I think.”
“Where?”
I searched around, trying to recognize where she was. I couldn’t get a sense for it. Finally, I brought up my hand and let the crowning magic out. It spiraled out of my palm and formed a circle around me, showing what I was seeing in the nearby town where Liza was keeping to the trees for cover. The forest was her sanctuary. It gave her a sense of safety. That didn’t stop me from seeing her.
The little buildings started to take shape in the same way Kitty’s form had in my hand. The streets. The cars. The whole town displayed before me as if I created a 3D map with nothing more than the magic funneling through my hand. It spread over half the fire circle and showed me the town in exquisite detail.
“That’s Telluride,” Tobias said with a grin.
“Careful, kruxa,” Victor’s voice whispered in my mind. I nearly jumped at the sound of his voice.
He knew I was searching for him. But how? Was he near Liza? Was he keeping tabs on her?
‘What are you doing, Victor? Is Ryker still with you?’
He snickered. I could sense him mocking me from where ever he was.
I shook my head.
“What is it?” Tobias asked. “What do you see?”
“Shhh,” I hushed Tobias.
I pictured Victor in my mind. ‘You know as well as I do that the most powerful vampires out there have others do their dirty work for them. You could easily manipulate a human on the Hill to do your bidding.’
“Stay out of my way, kruxa. I have no need for you as of yet. But when I do, you will know it.”
A horrific pain shot through my head, ending my vision and snapping me back into reality. My hands and knees struck the ground and I crumpled up in a ball. My skin was on fire. My blood felt like hot lava. I screamed into the air as Tobias tried to get closer to me inside the circle of my magic spinning around and dissolving the shapes of the buildings showing us downtown Telluride surrounded by high mountains. The flames of the circular pit flared higher, scorched the roof of the cavern, and shot Tobias back into the wall. I was trapped. Victor was controlling the circle from far away.
&n
bsp; My eyes shot open just in time to see my surroundings start to fade. The orange hue of the flames around me faded into a washed gray color.
“Get out of my head!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I could feel Tobias’s fear from feet away. He couldn’t get to me. No one could.
“G!” He hollered. “Get control! Focus! Use your magic!”
“I can’t! It burns!”
“Fight through it! You’re immortal. You’ll recover.”
I watched as his body faded into the background and I was surrounded by four walls. Somehow, Victor’s control over my vision faded. I pushed my magic through my palms, screaming as it erupted through my skin like a bed of hot coals searing through my hand.
Slowly, I began to take control of the vision again. Victor’s voice was little more than an echo and a grumble as I took back my mind. Only my vision wasn’t done with me yet. I was alone. Locked away between four walls. The room couldn’t have been larger than four by four feet. And there was a chair in the center with a woman tied down by her hands and ankles. Locksin sparked at her skin and tightened as she fell forward, barely strong enough to even sit up.
She heard a noise and woke up. Her hair fell to the side of her face and I saw the large bruise over her eye and the dried blood encrusting her swollen lip.
“Lenora?” I whispered.
The burning stopped and I slowly got up, expecting the feeling of flames burning inside my skin to continue down my spine and force me down. It didn’t. My magic was spinning over my hands and flickering in the pale monotone greyness of my vision. The only light in the room was the scarlet red from my palm. I lifted it up to see Lenora’s face with more clarity. It was definitely her. Did she know I was there?
One of her eyes opened. The other was so badly swollen that she couldn’t open it.
“What did they do to you?” I whispered.
I tried to sense if she knew I was there. Something stirred above me. I looked up to see a small video camera recording her. Whoever it was, they were watching her the entire time, making sure there was no room for error or escape.
“Is it Gandira? Who has you? Tell me where you are? Are you in Telluride?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t even move her lips to mouth anything to me. But she did make eye contact with me.
I wasn’t sure before that moment if she saw me. Then I realized that moving her one good eye was the closest she could probably get.
“Fight him,” she whispered in a low voice as if someone might hear us. “He won’t kill you. He needs you. And Tobias. You must fight him.”
“Where are you?” I shouted. “Tell me quick!”
“He won’t release me. Not until he has what he wants?”
“Who? Victor? Or someone in Gandira? Lenora, you have to tell me!”
Then she shut her eyes and let her head fall back down. She was too weak to show me anymore.
I let my magic seep back into my skin as the vision started to fade. The walls around me fell and I was back in the fire circle with Tobias watching from outside. Water was flowing through his hand, extinguishing the fire circle as steam barreled up through the cavern with nowhere to escape. I could hardly see him as I began to stir. Only once the circle had been completely extinguished was he able to cross through the barrier and get to me. He charged toward me with such urgency that any normal woman would think he was genuinely concerned. And perhaps he was. I just wasn’t used to seeing Tobias look at me with anything other than indifference. Until I said yes to becoming a vampire.
He reached for my head and tilted it upward as I began to see the cavern with more clarity.
“G,” he said my name. “G!”
“I’ve never seen you use elemental magic before,” I whispered.
“Few people give me a good reason to use it,” he said, sounding a bit relieved that I was more concerned with his use of magic over the pain shooting through my head. It slowly faded away as the seconds went by and I could think clearly again.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“Who was what?”
“Who was in your head?”
My eyes narrowed, trying to look a tad confused. “What do you mean?”
“You shouted ‘get out of my head’ just before you fell.”
Victor’s warning was fresh in my mind. And even so, after what Lenora told me I knew I had no choice. I kept the secret that he was inside my head for far too long.
“Victor,” I said, nudging Tobias away gently and getting up from the ground. The steam from the fire was still drifting throughout the cavern, making Tobias look like he was rising from the smoke flowing across the floor as he towered over me. “He’s been inside my head for weeks. I don’t know how or why.”
“You didn’t think to tell me that?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know if I could trust you. And to be fair, you’ve given me good reason not to over the years.”
He frowned as if to say ‘I thought we were past this.’
“That’s not all,” I said, sensing his annoyance that I was still keeping secrets. “Lenora was kidnapped. I saw her in a room. She was tied up with locksin. I think she was tortured. I don’t know who has her. She couldn’t tell me.”
His entire body language changed in an instant. Whatever annoyance he had for me quickly shifted into something else. His temper was flaring. His glare became icy and dangerous.
‘Easy now. Direct that hostility somewhere else.’
“Did you sense where she was?”
I shook my head. “No. But something tells me if we find the facility in Telluride, we’ll get more answers.”
6
I ran through the trees along the mountainside as my thirst started to lurk back into the forefront of my mind, begging me for more blood. If it hadn’t been for Tobias trailing beside me and Christophe to my right I might have felt the urge to dig my teeth into some hikers we heard a mile away. I could hear their heavy breaths of exhaustion as their feet struck the ground on a nearby hiking trail. I looked over to Tobias. He gave me a simple shake of his head.
“If we manage to find the facility you can feed on as many as you want as long as you keep your wits about you,” he said to me as we came to a stop.
“Summon your magic,” Tobias instructed me.
I did as he said and let the scarlet light pierce through my palm. I had a firm grip on my staff in the opposite hand. Its soft glow swirled between my fingers. It still stunned me to look at it and know that I was something other. Not a witchling and not a vampire. But both. The staff responded to my every movement when I summoned my magic, moving with me. Never against me. It was following my command.
I closed my eyes as Christophe watched me from a few feet away, waiting for orders. As a kruxa, my magic would always show me when danger was near. And not always because I wanted it to. Rather because I had no control over it. This time I had to let my magic do my bidding and think of where I wanted to go, what I wanted to see, and who was a direct threat to me.
‘Practically everyone now that we’ve been outed. Or at least those who believe the merits of a video on the Internet.’
Kitty cawed above me, watching from above the trees. We hadn’t exactly made up but the fact that she wanted to be near me without me having to call for her with my magic was an improvement. Her words, however, were far and few between. We could make progress slowly. Or so I hoped.
I opened my eyes and watched as my magic molded with my mind and my will. Although, it wasn’t completely without effort. Every time I called on it I was given a jolt. A reminder of how strong I was now.
The image before my eyes changed. I saw the facility. A large gray building built into the side of a mountain sixteen miles away from Telluride. It was only a few miles away from us. When I expanded my mind I could hear the screams of the vampires inside, trying to escape. And their desperation to tear their captors to pieces. I could sense their fear that they might never escape. It wasn’t my
vampire hearing helping me to sense it. It was the crowning magic, heightening the emotional transference I could always feel coming from humans. Only this time it was almost overwhelming.
“We need to go north,” I said, leading the way as my legs pumped under me, running through the trees so fast that animals spooked by our presence ran off seconds after we had already passed by them.
“What did you see?” Tobias asked.
“The facility was built into the side of a mountain.”
“Were there vampires inside?” Christophe asked.
“Yes.”
“Witchlings?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out.”
I let the red magic flaring in my hand on the staff stay there as it directed me where to go. Tobias and Christophe followed me with every turn that I made.
‘Who knew it would take becoming a vampire for you to actually help me hunt. Maybe I should have thought of it myself.’
I stopped abruptly once we reached a high wall that was completely out of place. It was vertical and clearly man-made with the rough edges of the mountain ascending above it.
‘Apparently, Tobias isn’t the only one gifted with carving into mountains for protection.’
“Take a step back,” I said. “I don’t know how much magic I’ll need for this.”
“Just don’t kill my warriors inside,” Tobias pleaded with a mocking tone. “We will need them.”
‘I have no doubt.’
Once they were what I assumed would be a safe distance away from me, I funneled my magic through the staff, feeling the energy it gave off and letting it flow throughout the woods. A ball of red light spun at the top as I placed my staff in front of me. Then I swept it back behind my head and slammed it down vertically into the ground under my feet. It quickly began to shake with tremendous violence. Almost as if an earthquake was taking place right where I stood. Then I balled up the energy at the top of the staff and pointed the top directly toward the wall before me. The foundation was already becoming unstable. I could hear the humans inside shudder, wondering what was going on and finding no answers.
Fated Realms: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 2) Page 6