Vampire's Crucible

by Yvette Bostic

  “Why aren’t they attacking?” Kate whispered from behind me.

  “I think that answer is obvious,” Kellen replied.

  I looked up, trying not to lose the progress on my new weapon. How had I forgotten we were in the middle of battle? Probably because of the silence. Dozens of faces stared at me, shadows dancing across them from the still burning fires. Fear and awe, but mostly fear, consumed all of them. I can’t imagine why, I thought wryly. Some demented witch just sucked the blood out of three vampires and was using it to make a weapon to kill the others. What the hell was wrong with me?

  I dropped my hands and the weapon disintegrated, splashing in the dirt. A tall vampire, still in full monster form, emerged from the smoke. His sandy blond hair looked completely out of place above his distorted features, blood red eyes, and long fangs. Shreds of his shirt hung from his shoulders exposing the raw, tight muscles of his enlarged arms and back.

  With each step, another feature softened starting with his chest and shoulders, then moving to his eyes and fangs. By time he reached me, he looked human.

  “What do you want?” I asked, stepping up beside Kellen.

  “You are the Magister?” he asked in a thick accent that sounded Russian.

  “What do you think?” I snapped.

  “I think I cannot fight against you,” he replied. “My clan has already suffered too many losses in a war that has not even begun. Jack is a fool if he thinks he can win.” He barked several orders in a language I didn’t understand, and dozens of shadows raced away from us. The three ogres lumbered after the vampires, disappearing into the thick smoke. Their leader lingered silently for a second more before following his men into the now-quiet night.

  Chapter 15

  “What just happened?” I asked, suddenly feeling more exhausted than before the battle. Had the vampires retreated? Did that group just defy Jack? It sounded like it, but it couldn’t be that easy.

  “I believe you scared yet another member of the council,” Logan replied, lacing his fingers with mine and pulling me to him. I didn’t resist.

  “She scared me,” the man next to Kellen said. I wished I could remember his damn name.

  “How did you do that?” Kellen asked, taking a step closer to me, his gaze darting between me and Logan.

  “Which part?” I heard myself asking again.

  “All of it.”

  “You taught me to draw out their blood, Kellen,” I replied. “I couldn’t actually see it until recently and hadn’t even thought about doing anything with it until just now.”

  “How did you heal David so completely?” a woman behind me asked. “I’d been working on his injury for ten minutes. Then you showed up and took it away within seconds.”

  I turned to face her. A long dark braid draped over her thin shoulder. Blood and dirt covered her clothes and smears of ash ran along one side of her face. Her eyebrows drew together as she stared at me.

  “I depend on my elemental to do the healing and it always does,” I replied. “I guide the magic, but it’s his power, not mine.”

  “I want to learn,” she whispered.

  I nodded; she needed to. They all needed to.

  A hot dry wind scraped my exposed skin, and Niyol appeared at my side. The mages around us gasped, stepping back away from his towering form. “Princess, the wolves need your assistance. It appears there are two factions of vampires here.”

  “Is it dire?” I asked. We needed to heal the wounded and take care of the vampires I sucked dry. I could hear their hearts beating faintly, the sound making me cringe with regret.

  “No, they’re holding their own, but they’re taking casualties.”

  “Kellen, can you burn those bodies while I heal the wounded? We’ll need everyone with us.” I turned my back to him and knelt beside one of the mages propped against the stone wall behind us.

  “We’ll leave the vampires,” he said. “Our mages can heal the wounded. It appears all we need in this battle is you.”

  Was that jealousy? Bitterness? What the hell? I rose to my feet and closed the space between us, not caring that I used my new super-speed.

  “The vampires are not dead,” I hissed, pointing at the shriveled bodies next to him. “And we are not barbarians who would leave them to suffer.” I looked over at Logan for confirmation, their faint heartbeats still calling to me. I pushed back my guilt for the woman I’d left at the train station. I’d assumed she was dead, but that probably wasn’t true.

  “Says the woman who sucked the blood from their veins,” Kellen countered.

  “Did you seriously just go there?” I whipped my head back to meet his icy stare. “Would you prefer I let them kill you? That’s exactly what would’ve happened. Logan may have been quick enough to take one of them, possibly two, but you didn’t even see them coming.”

  Yep, definitely bitterness and anger. It bled through our connection freely. He wanted me to know how he felt or he would’ve hidden it.

  “We’ll discuss our dysfunctional partnership later,” I whispered. “There are other things happening right now that are more important.”

  His hand flicked out to the side, and I followed his movement. Strands of fire snaked from his fingers and wrapped around the dying vampires, consuming them in seconds. The flickering flames danced on the air, mesmerizing me. I could feel their heat and need to burn everything in their path. A longing pulled at my core. I reached for Kellen’s hand, drawing his fire to me. It bowed, arching towards me in a slow, lazy loop.

  Logan pushed against my arm, and I looked up at him. He shook his head, and I blinked several times. What happened?

  “Ginny, stay and heal the others,” Kellen barked. “Everyone else with me.”

  He didn’t wait for me to argue or agree as he stomped off into the thick smoke, but the other mages did, including his sister. Several sets of eyes landed on me, looking for something. Approval?

  “Go with him, he’s your leader and knows way more about fighting than I do,” I said. They nodded and ran after my partner. “Niyol, will you go with them and protect my stubborn partner?”

  “Only for you, princess.” His body swirled into a mini tornado then disappeared.

  “It talks to you,” Ginny said breathlessly.

  “Yes, he does. We need to hurry and join the others,” I replied, kneeling next to another wounded mage. “Reach for your element, ask its permission to use its power and help you heal.”

  Her eyes narrowed at me and she frowned. “Really?”

  “Did I ask my wind elemental to join Kellen or tell him to?” The skeptical look remained. “Fine, keep trying it your way, then. I don’t have time to argue.”

  I turned away from her and repeated what I knew worked for me. My healing warmth spread over the man in front of me, covering the long scrapes on his chest. As always, his pain was my reward. I clenched my teeth, holding onto the pain until his wounds closed.

  “Sammy?” I barely recognized Kate’s friend beneath the blood and soot. “Does anything else hurt?”

  “I think I have a broken finger, but it’ll wait,” he responded, pushing to his feet. “It’s good to see you, AJ.”

  “Where are the rest of your mages?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “We split into several groups when the wolves showed up,” he replied, rolling his newly healed shoulder. “The largest group of vampires were headed towards the lodge. We were supposed to attack from the rear and force the vampires to split.”

  “It looks like the tactic worked,” I said, rolling back onto my butt and pressing my forehead against my knees. A splitting headache started to form between my eyes. Too much magic? “I wonder how many left with our Russian friend.”

  Sammy kicked the scorched earth at his feet, glancing from me to Logan. “We would’ve died without you here. Especially once the ogres showed up.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said, trying to reassure him.

  “Our group was too small for the numbers
attacking us.”

  I looked up at Logan, hoping for some help with a convincing argument. No such luck.

  “We need to join the others,” he said.

  I nodded. “You’ve got this last one by yourself, Ginny,” I said. “I don’t have much left and I need to save it for the fight. Can you stay with her?” I asked Sammy.

  “Yes, be careful,” he replied.

  Logan appeared at my side. “Help me up, and let’s go,” I said, offering him my hand.

  “If I have to help you up, you don’t need to go,” Logan stated, pulling me to my feet.

  My world spun and stars blinked across my vision. Maybe he was right, but I couldn’t leave them to fight this on their own.

  The sound of several vehicles drew my attention to the blurred headlights moving towards us through the smoke. “Now what?” I tried not to lean against Logan as we walked towards the line of vehicles. I counted six pairs of headlights snaking up a barely existent road.

  When my new friend Jim jumped out of the passenger side of the first vehicle, I smiled. He waved a flashlight in the air and yelled back at the other vans. More people piled out into the darkened forest.

  “I’m glad you made it,” I said, approaching the leader of the Australian mages. “You’re just in time. The shifters need our help just north of here. Kellen’s mages are already there.”

  “The local fire department is on their way,” he said. “The fire is visible for miles.”

  “Oh shit,” I mumbled. Within minutes, the large group of Australians crowded around us. We didn’t need a bunch of normal people witnessing a fight between vampires and werewolves. How did we stop this? “How much time do we have?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Several trees might have fallen on the road, but it won’t take them long to clear it.”

  “Shit, shit, shit.” I looked around at the group of men and women. “How do we stop hundreds of people from attacking each other in the next fifteen minutes?” Soft murmurs and shrugs were the only response. Great. “Leave your vehicles blocking as much of the road as possible and let’s go. I’ll think of something.”

  I mumbled the last with barely contained contempt. These people had been mages their whole lives. Why couldn’t they come up with a plan? Logan and I broke into a jog, but the others still struggled to keep up. My vampire pulled on my hand forcing me to slow down. I let him. I needed to think.

  Was there a way to stop the fighting long enough to put out the fire? Then the normal humans wouldn’t be needed? No, they’d want to investigate and poke their noses into what started it, like the good emergency responders they were.

  We raced by an earthen wall and I swore again. How would we hide those? It’s not like they were natural occurrences. The closer we got, the more I realized we couldn’t hide it. We had to find a way to keep the fire department from coming. Jim’s vehicles would delay them, but that was it. All of this just needed to go away, but that wasn’t possible either. Or was it? A brilliant, probably absurd plan drifted through my exhausted brain.

  “I have a plan!” I yelled, pulling Logan to stop. Growls and snarls drifted through the trees along with flashes of light. We couldn’t be more than a hundred yards from the fight, but the thick smoke prevented me from seeing more than twenty yards even with my new night vision.

  Niyol, I need to get a message to Kellen.

  I felt my elemental’s annoyance immediately.

  I’m a little busy, princess.

  I know. I want to bury the vampires alive. Can you start maneuvering them so that they’re sort of grouped together? I asked. And can you convince the other wind elementals to help you?

  Niyol didn’t answer, and the mages at my back waited impatiently.

  “How many earth and water mages do we have?” I yelled, hoping everyone could hear me. “Logan lift me up, I can’t see.” He had the audacity to chuckle as he lifted me onto his shoulders. “Okay, all the earth and water mages move to the right. Air and fire to the left.”

  The crowd shifted and I smiled. At least two thirds were earth and water. My stupid plan might work.

  “Jim, if I can get my air elemental’s help, we’re going to bury the vampires.” It was crazy, but it would hide a lot of the evidence of our fight and protect the humans. It had to work.

  Logan lowered me to the ground and I explained my plan to Jim. Dylan and Sammy stood next to us, each of them smiling as the details unfolded.

  “Dylan, pass the word. All the water and earth mages stay with the Magister. Fire and wind with me,” Jim said. Dylan rushed to do his bidding and the tall, dark mage grinned. “As much as I’d love to force the bastards to stay buried, you know they won’t.”

  “We just need it to hold long enough to get the firefighters out,” I said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the vampires will surrender.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Logan mumbled. “This is insane. I can’t believe we’re going to try this.”

  “It’s exactly why it’ll work,” I said. “No one will expect it.”

  “We’re ready, Jim,” Dylan said, running up to his leader.

  He nodded, and the first group ran through the trees towards a battle I didn’t want to see.

  “Here we go,” I yelled back to my group.

  Dylan and Sammy were both with me. It was nice to have people by my side who weren’t complete strangers.

  “Sammy, can you direct the water mages?” I asked as we rushed between the trees.

  “I guess so, but I’ve never led anyone before.”

  “You’re just watching and coordinating. Those that can make shields to guide the vampires’ movements, should do so. The others focus on putting out the fires outside of our area.”

  As we reached the edge of the fighting, my heart dropped. The smell of blood was so thick I could barely scent the smoke. How many people died today? I couldn’t see the bodies lying in the thick, moldy leaves, but I knew they were there. Vampires in full transition fought against large wolves partnered with mages.

  Niyol’s fiery windstorm swept across the battlefield, running along the line between friend and foe. How did he pick up the vampires and not the wolves? Because he was awesome. The most intense fighting appeared to be in a small clearing among the thick pines. A large group of vampires surrounded an equally large group of wolves. I was surprised to see the shifters keeping pace with the vampires. Humans definitely weren’t that quick.

  “Are you ready, AJ?” Sammy asked, breaking me from my stupid moment of distraction.

  “Yes, you know what to do.”

  Niyol?

  Some of the others will help, but not all. Their mages are not worthy.

  I understand. Thank you for trying.

  Only for you, princess.

  I love you, Niyol.

  “Alright, here we go!” I yelled. “Our focus is the clearing in the middle. Make a crater on the southern edge deep enough that the bastards can’t jump out.”

  The earth mages knelt, digging their hands beneath the rotting foliage, and the ground began to tremble.

  “Logan.” I turned around and placed both hands on his chest. “Don’t leave my side. No matter what happens.”

  The shadows didn’t hide his concern, and our connection flooded with his turmoil. He wanted to fight but knew if he jumped into that mess, he’d be attacked on all sides. We both knew it.

  I joined my group of earth mages, sitting on the damp soil. Logan sat with me and pulled me into his lap. I smiled. At least I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Göksu, I really need your strength.

  I know, child. It is yours.

  I also need your wisdom, I thought. I know what I want to do, but I need you to guide me.

  I see your mind, and I have a better idea.

  I could almost hear him laugh, but I wasn’t about to mention it. I had his help and his strength. It was all I needed.

  I placed my hands, palms up, on my knees and
imagined a large dome sliding over top of my earth mages, protecting them from anything that might try to stop their progress. As promised, my elemental made it happen. The smoky air grew thick with the moisture being drawn to us. Within seconds, a liquid shield rose from the ground in a circle around my group. The sight of the water flowing up instead of down distracted several fights raging around us.

  The ground shook violently, throwing the same combatants off their feet. Through my watery shield, I saw dozens of small tornados racing through the trees, picking up their targets and dragging them to the small clearing. The ground just outside my shield split open, the tear in the earth edging its way towards the hovering tornados. The fissure widened to twenty feet as it clawed its way to the clearing. Wolves and mages scattered, while fiery elementals chased the vampires and tornados tossed them in the widening fracture.

  My first earth mage collapsed. I suspected it would happen, but it still broke my heart.

  “Stay focused!” I yelled as the man next to him reached for his unconscious companion.

  I forced a tendril of water from my shield to extend to the exhausted mage. It snaked around his torso, then covered him in a healing warmth. The mage’s exhaustion wrapped around me, draining the energy from my limbs. Damn, I wasn’t expecting that, but I should’ve been. Healing always worked that way. I fell back against Logan, grateful for his presence.

  The somewhat revived mage resumed his position, digging his hands back into the dirt. Torrents of air pushed more of the vampires into the crevice. Finally, a wave of fire blanketed the hole – just like I imagined the gates of hell - our cue to close it up.

  “Close it, now!”

  The ground shook violently, and I was grateful I was already sitting. Those who weren’t were thrown off their feet as the crevice slammed closed. The mages around me collapsed in various phases of exhaustion.