by Aneesa Price
The vampire stroked the girl’s face as he leaned down and bit into her neck. The girl’s emotions were so strong, filled with panic, that Anais smelled the metallic scent of her magic-laced blood. Oh God, he’s going to kill her! Anais watched in helpless horror as the vampire, still drinking, picked the girl up and carried her over to the bed. She was going to die! The bastard was going to rape and drain the girl just as he had the other one. Anais pulled herself back into the library and looked at the thunderous faces of her friends. She didn’t know what to say to the girl and she didn’t dare break the connection. She racked her brain for the next steps, looking at the others to see if they had any suggestions.
Conall and Niul were silent, concentrating on something. Anais couldn’t get through to them and threw a wide-eyed look for help at Sophie who shared the inner circle with Conall and her. Sophie shrugged, clueless too.
Conall opened up the link he shared with Niul to let Anais in. Niul was sending him magickal energy so he could link with the girl on the level Anais did and teleport to the room. He badly wanted to hurt the fucking vampire. Anais adding her magick to his through the link would make the probability of success for the near impossible feat improve vastly. Anais must have figured out what he was doing because he felt her pull away. When he looked at her, the panic he saw in her eyes was there, not only for the girl, but for him too. She shook her head wildly, her eyes pleading for him to not do it. Conall cursed the lesson on teleportation and astral projection he’d given them. He’d particularly stressed the dangers of projecting to an unknown destination to curb Marie’s flights of superhero fancy not knowing he’d need to do it now.
He felt the warmth of Anais’ magick flood him along with that of the others who were pushing more into her and subsequently him. The relief he felt was quickly squashed by Anais’ mental tirade and ultimatum to take her with him. She was flashing her fangs to indicate that she was both a witch and a vampire and could help. He didn’t have the luxury of time to enter into an argument with her and prepared to cut her off. He’d risk it on his own, with Niul’s magick feeding into her. He needed Sylvain to stay linked to her and the rest to keep them safe. He’d rather risk his neck than hers, even if she was a vampire and felt that gave her the right to play with her life.
Anais felt Conall’s link to her disappear and glowered at him, the murder in her eyes piercing him. Conall waved it away, he’d rather see her angry and know that she’ll live.
Suddenly, sounds from the other room, brought their attention back to the girl. The vampire was abruptly pulled off her and she was left alone. The girl was thankfully ignored as her eyes took in the scene before her. A huge man, nearly seven feet in height, with golden Hollywood looks, glowered at the vampire, who lay prostate at his feet.
“You fool. I told you not to feed on these witches. What part of that simple order did you not understand?”
“I’m sorry Master Ayden. I was thirsty.”
“Then you should’ve fed on the humans. There are enough of them! But no, you had to disobey.” Master Ayden roared at the vampire before grabbing his head between his hands and obliterating it into a mess resembling shredded red jello. He then turned towards the other vampires that had followed him into the room and beckoned the other brute that had helped rape and kill the woman on the cot. He came forward, kneeling in front of Master Ayden, begging not to be killed. As little mercy was shown to him as he’d shown the woman earlier as he met the same end his fellow co-conspirator did.
Master Ayden turned towards the other vampires once more. “Do you see what drinking from a strong witch’s blood does to you? Did I not warn you all of this? The blood is addictive and no warrior worthy of the name loses control enough to disobey their general. I am your general – don’t forget!” His tirade rang across the room as the muscled vampire men in front of him cowered.
“What’s happening here? What’s all this shouting about?” Anais had to hold back a gasp of surprise as the owner of the voice entered the room.
Master Ayden bowed to Akeldonna, “Apologies Mistress. I was reprimanding our men.”
“Our men?” Akeldonna, out of place in the dingy room in the designer clothing she’d worn to the club, challenged Ayden.
Anais, watching through the girl’s eyes from the bed, refused to call the beast Master Ayden – he was no fucking master.
Ayden stuttered, “Y-y-your men, milady.” He was obviously petrified of Akeldonna.
So, Anais thought, the bully is bullied.
The other men looked scared but seemed transfixed, looking at Akeldonna’s hideous form as though she was the most beautiful creature they’d ever beheld. She motioned to one who approached her and kneeled while rubbing his face in her skirts like a cat does against a beloved owner. He gasped in pleasure, not pain, as she grabbed his hair and turned his face upwards.
Akeldonna addressed the vampire, unaffected by the look of total adoration he sent her way. “Tell me my pet, what did Ayden do?”
A deep baritone voice, the lilt of Irish in it, responded, “He stopped Rex from killing the witch, Mistress. Rex was raping the witches and draining them. We caught Trevor with a body and he led us here. Trevor was helping Rex and thought he’d save his own skin, Mistress. Master Ayden confronted them and killed them.”
“Master Ayden?” Akeldonna raised a hideous brow, shooting vengeful looks at Ayden.
“Apologies, mistress. I meant no disrespect. Ayden is not our master – you are our liege.”
“Thank you, pet.” Akeldonna moved away and the vampire remained kneeling, whimpering at the lost contact.
“You did well, Ayden.” Anais could see relief flood Ayden’s face. “Make sure the witch will live. No need for sparkling health, they just need to live for another three days. I don’t want you to waste your energy. I need you to help me harvest their blood for the new range on Tuesday. We promised our customers premium brand and it can’t be premium without magick in it!”
“Yes, Mistress.” Ayden responded meekly, a far cry from the vicious killer a few moments ago. Anais couldn’t figure out if he was enthralled of her like the others, scared or both.
“Men,” she continued, “always thinking like the baser animals you are. Ayden, I want these witches to be brought food only by female vampires. The rest of you,” Akeldonna turned to glare a warning at the other vampires, “keep your dicks in your pants and your fangs in your mouth. No more organic blood for you. You will drink from the blood bank - cold blood! Drain the humans we have left and fill the blood bank – but keep a few for me. I’ll drink from the source and you can watch.”
“Marc, you will go out and find me witches to replace these. Take who you need with you. I need them pronto! Try and find nice fat ones; all the rich food that they eat here in New Orleans will make the blood taste better. And bring me a fat, non-magickal one, the memory of spicy Cajun blood has made me peckish.” Akeldonna smirked appreciatively, “It has such a nice, wild taste to it.”
As the other vampires filtered out, Ayden did a quick round of pulse-checking. He ended in front of the girl, still lying on the bed. After reassuring himself that she was still alive, he shrugged and left the room.
The bastard just wanted them to live long enough for the blood-letting. The only thing that kept Anais linked to the girl and not running to the nearest bathroom to release the bile rising up in her throat was a stronger need to help her. Anais tried to get some form of mental dialogue going with the girl and failed – she was too close to death.
“Anais,” whispered Conall, weary that with their combination of magick that they’d be heard in the other room. “We need to link again, all of us. I’ve got a connection to the girl now and so do you. As Royals we can send healing magick to them. It’s going to take a while, so let’s start with her and a few of the others that are as close to death as she is. We can do the rest tomorrow morning when the vampires are resting.” He looked at the rest of them in the inner and outer circles. �
�We need to do the same as before, channel your magick to Anais and I’ll cast the spell to heal the girl. After this, we can meet to discuss how we’ll get them out.”
Chapter 18
“Before we discuss strategy, I think it’s time I tell you a bit of our history. You already know that vampires used to hunt witches for their blood,” Conall began, addressing all of them in the big kitchen. “At the time when Anais’ ancestor, and mine, Claire, was taken from the Royal Witch stronghold, the plight of witches was off to an ominous journey. Vampires and witches had previously lived in harmony. They had the understanding that each would do what had to be done to survive whilst trying to live in harmony with the earth and all its inhabitants, including humans. Vampires never killed then. They used glamour to hypnotize the humans before taking just enough blood or they had arrangements with donors. These were the feudal days of masters and mistresses, so most vampires, generally being of the wealthy, got away with it.”
“Ayden,” at the look of shock on their faces, Conall affirmed, “yes, that Ayden, was only a witch then and one who dabbled in the dark arts. The witching community had long suspected it but could never prove it until it was too late.”
Conall continued. “Back then Ayden befriended vampires, which wasn’t unusual in those times. They began to hatch plans to increase their magick and become more powerful. Ayden was a feudal lord and already very powerful but in his case, the old adage is true, power corrupted him. Their strategy was evilly brilliant and the witching community had been too naïve, too trusting. Before they suspected anything untoward, Ayden and his band of vampires had kidnapped and turned a number of witches to vampirism in an attempt to create the superior army and overthrow the supernatural rulers. The vampires began hunting down witches too, feeding from them when they found that the additional magickal blood increased their own powers. We lived in villages then, close to human ones but not fully part of it. The feudal system served us well and helped us maintain some distance so humans were safely ignorant but though the witches tried to fight, they failed miserably.”
“That explains why witches and vampires don’t mingle today but from the sounds of things, they were at the losing end, so how did Ayden survive?” Anais asked.
“And what happened to the witch vampires they created?” probed V.
“The Goddess stepped in. She’s not only the Goddess for witches; she is the Goddess of all magickal creatures, witches, shifters, fae, vampires and others. She serves to ensure that we maintain equilibrium in this world and inhabit it peacefully with our human neighbors. When the vampires started to act much like the Church did with the witch-hunts, randomly attacking humans in mistaking them for witches, she had to intervene. That’s when she destroyed all the vampires that had committed the atrocities, including the witch vampires. Ayden, who’d aligned himself to the Dark Lord, used his dark magick to hide from her like the miserable coward he truly is. No one had heard or seen him within the witch community until today.”
Conall dragged a tired hand through his hair, a stray lock swiping at his brow. “As you know, a few months ago, witches started to go missing. They were either kidnapped while out or their homes were found broken into, their families killed. Only the women or girls were taken. Male witches, even babies, were slaughtered if they happened to be at home when the kidnappers came. We searched for them using magick as well as substantial financial and technological resources and nothing came up.”
“Hold up,” interrupted Marie. “Why were only women and girls taken? Magick doesn’t discriminate against gender.”
“We don’t know,” offered Niul. “But we think it boils down to plain and simple sexist arrogance.’
Anais nodded, “From what I’ve experienced from the ancient vampires, they still treat us like whores or chatelaines. That’s another reason why we chose event coordinating. It gives Yves the impression that we are a bunch of women making money from flitting around like social butterflies and playing hostess, so he leaves us alone.”
Conall nodded but felt the flicker of irritation ignite; it galled him to think of anyone having such an undeserving opinion of Anais. He took a breath to stifle it and explained, “My sisters, the history geeks, highlighted the similarities to the witch vampire wars. Around this time, the Goddess approached me to forge an alliance with the vampire, Yves. He’d been trying to forge this alliance for a while and I’d done my best to ignore him. The Goddess said that I had a mission and that the first step was to accept Yves’ offer – with caution. She prophesized that it would bring us here and that we’d find the key.”
“There’s plenty of cryptic in that,” noted Raulf.
“Yes,” concurred Conall, “that’s the way of the Goddess.” He lifted his shoulders in indifference. “It is because we are meant to carve out our own fates, the only exception having been the witch-vampire war.”
“Okay, so that gives perspective,” Anais stated, “but I’m anxious to get those girls out of there. Did you get enough of a link to be able to find them?”
“Aye,” nodded Conall. “With the link we’ll be able to teleport there. But that’s not enough – we need more information – we can’t just show up. We need to know how many vampires, what the place looks like, escape routes, how many women, etc.”
“And we only have two days to do it,” interjected Niul. “Too risky to do it on the third and I don’t know how many women will be bled out before then, so the sooner the better.”
Conall noted the fretful atmosphere and stated, “We can use magick to find out more. If we heal the women, we might be able to gather some more intelligence from them.”
“I don’t know if this is possible,” said Raulf, “but if you could get a scent for me, the pack could try to find where they’re held and scope the place out.”
“Pulling something tangible through a psychic connection is tricky magick,” responded Conall. “I don’t know if it can be done, but I’ll get my sisters to go through the old grimoires – if it can be done, it’ll be documented somewhere.”
“I’ll stake out the house in the Garden District,” offered V, “see if I can find something on the council. Pick up who else is in on it and maybe get a chance to follow Akeldonna.”
“There’s one more thing. Those are vampires. Magick is one skill and we can use that but my sisters and I need to learn to fight. Only V is trained in combat.” She waved an arm in the direction of the four men. “Also, as strong and powerful as y’all are there were many vampires there and from what Akeldonna said, they have others. I get the feeling that we’re outnumbered.”
“Nope,” Raulf responded resolutely. “I have a pack of wolves who’d love to get their paws dirty. They’re innocents being tortured and killed. Wolves were created to protect the innocent – it would go against our very reason for being not to help them.”
“Thanks Raulf, we’re honored by your offer of the aid of your pack,” Conall stated sincerely as he crossed the room and shook hands with his prior nemesis.
“I can offer more man-power and magick too,” Sylvain interrupted the moment of ‘bromance’. He pointedly ignored Conall’s look of surprise and addressed the rest. “I have a secret to tell. That I have come to trust you is the only reason I’m divulging this, but under no circumstances must this secret be revealed.” He took a deep breath while the rest sat wary, breaths held and dropped the bombshell, “I’m not a witch. I’m Sylvain, Prince of Fae.”
“What would this fae be, boy? “ Miss Suzette, confusion knitting her brow, asked while the others sat shocked, mouths wide open.
“That would be fairies, Miss Suzette,” Sophie explained. “Fae is the real word for fairies.”
“I thought you were a witch, Sylvain, you don’t look like Tinkerbelle to me.” Miss Suzette leaned to peer behind Sylvain, as though she was expecting wings to sprout from his back. It was said with a complete lack of mockery and such sincere curiosity that the others packed out laughing, the mood lightening consider
ably. Miss Suzette looked so baffled at their laughter that it only cracked them up more.
“Oh God,” Anais gasped between giggles, taking the tissue Rose handed her to wipe the tears away. She went over to Miss Suzette and pecked her cheek. “Thank you for making us laugh, we needed it.” Miss Suzette blushed and swatted Anais away with embarrassment.
Sylvain, lips curved, continued, “Just like vampires are different to what we find in movies and tales, so are fae. We don’t have wings but we can fly, so you’re not far off Miss Suzette. Many of you won’t know of the fae and what you know won’t be nearly close to the truth. Like you, we’re supernatural, magickal beings. But unlike you, we don’t have any biological link to humans.”
Sylvain disappeared and was replaced by a glowing misty creature with lights of silver, white and gold passing through him, twinkling and dancing. He had a shape similar to what he’d held before but was far from human or ghost. He exuding bliss and all things wonderful. It enthralled them, pulled at them. Unknowingly, they all edged closer, wanting to touch that glorious magick, to be wrapped in it. A sweet enticing scent permeated the air, making them draw in deeply to get more of it. Anais smelled Chanel no. 5 and roses in the hand of a happy bride, Miss Suzette smelled the spicy air that surrounded her mother’s gumbo after stepping into the kitchen from school; each of them smelled the scent they most treasured. Sylvain spoke to them; his voice rang with the sounds of musical instruments playing in perfect harmony.
Sylvain returned back to the shape they were accustomed to seeing him in, snapped his fingers and jerked them back to reality. The men scowled, feeling uncomfortable at their lack of control and the magnetic pull they’d felt. “I’m sorry, my friends. It was the easiest way to show you and a sight that very, very few non-fae have witnessed. The pull you felt is stronger for normal humans and they become quickly addicted to it.”