My Storm Sprite

by E E Everly

  I palm the amulet into Josef’s hand, ignoring Thandoran’s disbelief. “Swear you’ll keep this safe.” Josef can’t use it without my blood, so I trust that he’ll protect it with his life since he wants his fellow demons restored.

  “You’re willing to trust me with this?” Josef asks.

  “I can’t have it falling into the wrong hands if something happens to us while we’re gone, and I know you won’t destroy it until you receive the powers Thandoran and I have.”

  “You have my word.” Josef bows.

  He’s so cordial that I blush before teleporting home.

  “He’s actually quite amicable,” I say to Thandoran once he zaps into my flat. I left him to teleport on his own because I was not touching his hands after his afternoon of sorting gross sink hair.

  “Who? Josef?” Thandoran quirks his eyebrows.

  “Yeah. I didn’t get that all-consuming malice I usually do when I run into demons.” Not to mention he was flirting with me while I restored powers to the demons.

  And he didn’t smell like demon stench.

  “Don’t tell me you’re fond of him.”

  “He wasn’t bad to look at.” I shove Thandoran into the kitchen and pull out the antibacterial soap. “Wash your hands like twenty times before you touch anything. Then I want to pack and go.”

  I’m more than antsy to see if this hair belongs to Isac. If Thandoran’s compass works and we locate Isac and get him to undo my curse, I just might kiss Thandoran.

  While he washes up, I engulf practically half a carton of ice cream. Pralines and cream.

  “You have to admit I’m a genius.” Thandoran soaps up his hands a third time.

  “I’ll admit it when I’m looking the demon in the eyes.”

  Thandoran dries his hands. “I’ll make sure you get the chance.”

  “So how will this work?” I ask around a mouthful of ice cream that’s freezing my brain. I grimace and brace my forehead.

  Thandoran places a hot hand at the base of my neck. Instantly my brain freeze disappears.

  Wow. I stop, with the spoon halfway to my mouth. When Thandoran doesn’t take his hand away, I let my hand with the spoon settle on the counter. I close my eyes and stay still, trying not to let Thandoran know how much tension his touch relieves.

  Do I really walk around with this tense?

  I still can’t move. I’m completely blissed out from my ice cream inhalation, and now this. Before I know it, Thandoran’s whole body is much closer, and his hand trails to my bicep. The heat from his overly warm chest soaks through the back of my sweater. I have an impulse to sink against him. The heat is amazing. I didn’t realize my consumption of ice cream made me so cold all the time.

  But I don’t move.

  And Thandoran doesn’t either.

  Then his breath hits my ear. “Never”—his grip tightens ever so slightly—“and I mean never, use compulsion on me again.”

  I gulp.

  My chest rises and falls, and somehow I nod.

  Thandoran relaxes his hold but doesn’t let go. We still don’t move. The tick of the wall clock is all I hear. I’m supposed to be doing something, but what? “Thandoran?” His name is barely a whisper, barely audible. Should I say I’m sorry?

  He steps back, just like that, as if we didn’t share this strange moment, and grabs a mandarin.

  I immediately miss his warmth and hate myself for it.

  “You have a backpack?” He bites into the fruit, and juice runs down his wrist.

  I have an insane urge to lick it off. Why does he make me think and do inappropriate things?

  “I need to take a bunch of these with me.” He sees me staring at the trail of juice and licks it off himself.

  I can’t stop staring at where he licked and the vein that bulges there. He has really toned arms that I suddenly want to touch.

  Thandoran moans. He’s entered his bliss-out. Dang storm sprites and this whole ambrosia thing. How will either of us think straight when our chosen foods are seducing us into mind-numbing idiocy?

  “Thandoran?” I wrap my hands around his forearm. He flexes it. “Thandoran?” I yank on him.

  Composed once again, he wipes his mouth with his other hand. “Backpack?”

  “Right.” I release my hold and head toward the bedroom.

  Thandoran follows. “We’ll teleport a few miles at a time. We don’t want to overshoot where Isac might be. Kind of like stopping every so often while using a compass and getting a new reading.”

  I hand Thandoran a dark blue backpack from my closet.

  “We should be prepared for anything,” he says.

  “Like a demon horde attack?”

  “A long trip, at least.”

  “We can teleport home anytime we need to,” I say.

  “I still want to be prepared.”

  “Ooo, aren’t you the scout.” I head into the hall.

  Back in the kitchen, Thandoran loads the pack with fruit. “I need some more.” He disappears, just like that.

  I sigh. I assume he went to the store. “Thanks for asking if I need anything,” I say to the air.

  He has a point. Who knows how long we’ll be gone. I pull out bottles of shelf-stable creamers and shove them into the pack. I grab handfuls of sugar packets from a bottom cupboard and fill the entire front pocket. A tub of powdered cream goes in next and several cans of sweetened condensed milk. Once I was locked in a cell with Killian, without a source of ambrosia. It was not a pretty thing. It also taught me to be extra careful when planning a dangerous trip.

  I’ll need another pack for Thandoran. I grab my wallet and teleport to a store. I grab the closest backpack I can find—a shade of purple—pay for it, and zap home.

  Thandoran has returned, with a bag of mandarins.

  “No OJ?” I ask.

  He pulls a bottle from a plastic sack. “I see you left me no space in the pack.”

  I plunk the purple backpack onto the counter. “Use this one. It’s just your color.”

  He looks at the purple pack and the blue one. “Doesn’t bother me one bit, princess.” He shoves his ambrosia inside the new one and transfers his citrus fruit from the blue pack.

  “What else?”

  “My compass. The rest, meaning our powers, is in us.”

  “A word of caution.” I finish loading my pack with a handful of caramels made from real cream. Storm sprites do need a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables, but with this weird magnetic field on Earth, ambrosia takes precedence. I’m grateful we can’t become fat or diabetic. My college roommates were so jealous. “Stay away from any demon blades. If you’re cut, Natalia’s the only one who can heal you, and that involves siphoning your blood, and you know how she can’t resist.”

  “Avoid pointy swords. Check. Anything else?”

  “I’m going to text Nat.”

  Thandoran puts his hand on mine. “Don’t.”

  A strange tickle shivers up my arm. “Someone needs to know where we’re going in case this goes awry.”

  “I took care of that. I mentioned to Josef, that if he’s serious about destroying the amulet, that if we don’t return in forty-eight hours, he should look for us.”

  “Two days, huh?” I hope we’ll find my demon curse caster in two days. “And you think Josef will?”

  “Oh, he will. He likes you.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Dead serious.” Thandoran zips up his pack and slings it over his shoulder.

  “He’s a demon, and I’m a storm sprite. You do know what happens with cross-species mating, right?”

  “Ah ha!” Thandoran smirks. “I knew you were letting your mind wander, wondering if you could seduce a demon.” Thandoran coughs into his hand. “Like your mother did.”

  I punch Thandoran on the shoulder, but it’s a playful punch. I can’t believe we’re getting along. “We will not talk about my mother and her choices.”

  My mother seduced my demon-possessed father a
nd stole his powers. It’s a whole succubus type of thing. Any other species who mates with a storm sprite has his or her powers taken. They go into the fetus at conception, which was why Kili was born with vampire powers. He stole his father’s, as I stole my father’s. Luckily this trait is well known. Not so much back when my mother seduced my father.

  Because I inherited my father’s demon powers, my mother took them out of me, for my safety, with the amulet. That’s where this whole amulet thing started.

  All because my mother seduced a demon.

  She was never good at cleaning up her messes.

  We teleport to the parking lot of my building.

  “Let’s teleport outside the city to the southeast and then get our first bearing.” Thandoran holds out his compass and points in the direction the crystal is turned.

  “Lead the way.”

  He takes my hand, and we disappear.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Thandoran and I teleport to the suburbs and then to the farmlands beyond. After every teleport, we make sure the needle points us in the right direction and that it doesn’t suddenly whip the other way, indicating that we’ve teleported too far.

  It’s a ridiculous process, and one that’s using a lot of energy. After the first thirty minutes, we stop for ambrosia because even though we aren’t running, we pant as if we’ve been sprinting.

  By nightfall, we enter the low foothills. The forest is dark and cold. The moon barely peers through the trees.

  A wolf howls close by, and I shiver. I came prepared, with a heavy coat to ward off the bitter cold, but nothing will keep me from the chills that a wolf’s howl causes.

  Thandoran cracks open a fireball in his palm and checks the compass. “This way.”

  The wolf howls and another answers.

  “We have to keep moving. I do not want to meet my first werewolf,” I say. The forests in this area are filled with them.

  “You haven’t met one yet?”

  “No. Have you?” I have my suspicions about a few supernaturals that frequent a club near my campus because they smell different from the familiar vampire scent I’m used to, but I’m not sure. I’m more concerned about meeting them in wolf form—and not those sexy wolves in shifter romances. I’m talking about full on, cursed, walks on two legs, beast of a wolf that will rip my throat out.

  “I’ve seen one from a distance. Back when I was on Earth before.” Thandoran grabs my hand and teleports us deeper into the woods. We stop on the edge of a ravine.

  “Whoa. We are really out here. How many miles do you think we’ve come?”

  “I can’t say. I have no landmarks. We’re nowhere near a road, and the mountain keeps climbing.”

  We cross more canyons and rivers. I guzzle an entire can of sweetened condensed milk. Thandoran and I take turns controlling the teleport destination, but it still doesn’t help the energy drain. We’ve been traveling for a few hours, and I’m buzzing from the ambrosia and the amount of sugar. The forest is a blur around me. The haze of the moon casts everything in silver. I rub my arms, more from the eerie atmosphere rather than the chill.

  “Need a break?” Thandoran opens his coat and pulls me against his warm body. He rubs my back as his face nestles in my hair. “We may have traveled a couple of hundred miles.” His voice is muffled and warms my scalp. “I could use a rest.”

  I burrow into his chest. He smells amazing, a tad like toasted marshmallows. I try not to read anything into our embrace, but the comfort of his arms feels heavenly. He’s just being my protector. We’re blissed out from ambrosia and tired from teleporting, so I know any amorous feelings are not real.

  We rest for ten minutes, in which Thandoran pulls me down to sit and folds his arms around me. I huddle between his legs, in a warm cocoon. I could almost nap, if a wolf didn’t howl every five minutes.

  Then the snap of a twig has Thandoran teleporting us in an instant.

  We land at the edge of another ravine, and this time the view makes me gasp. I jump to my feet.

  On the other side, a looming castle shoots up from the cliff. The moon hangs over the castle’s shoulder, highlighting it in a foreboding glow. A river deep in the canyon below nearly surrounds the narrow cliff that supports the castle. The only access to the keep is a narrow, winding road.

  Thandoran’s crystal points directly at the castle.

  “Would it be too much to assume that the creepy castle is our destination?” I whisper.

  “We could teleport beyond it and verify for sure.”

  “Let’s do that. I’d hate to come knocking when Isac isn’t there.”

  We do a quick jump to the other side of the castle and ravine. Thandoran and I stare at the crystal with partially opened mouths.

  It’s pointing to the castle’s backside—a sheer cliff face.

  “You know, I was hoping for a happy cheery beach resort,” I say. “Why do supernatural beings live in the scariest places they can find?”

  Thandoran squeezes my hand, sending warmth up my arm. I relax for a breath, but then a wolf howls behind us, and we both jump.

  “Courtyard?” he asks in a hurry.

  “Go.”

  We’re pulled forward as we teleport. Our surroundings fold around us, dragging us across the ravine, through the air, and over the castle’s walls, where we settle in the courtyard.

  No one rushes out of the shadows to greet us. The courtyard is deadly silent and empty. It is in the middle of the night. The occupants must be asleep.

  A steel door held together with rivets looms before us, with the most archaic knocker I’ve ever seen as big as the palm of my hand.

  Not very friendly. “Should we knock?” I whisper.

  The door groans open a crack before we move. It just stops. No one comes out.

  “That was disturbing,” Thandoran says.

  “I have a feeling someone already knows we’re here.” I step forward, with my vampire senses heightened. Everything is in high definition, from the rust on the hinges to the cracks in the partially crumbled slate steps. The air coming from the castle is musty. No surprise. I don’t expect an ancient castle to have central air.

  I listen for anything immediately within the entryway. There’s nothing. Not even the caw of a bird. The wolves haven’t howled for the past two minutes as well. The rush of the river is prominent if I focus, but that’s all. My hand’s on the cold steel, about to push the door open, when a familiar scent hits me.

  Vampire.

  Thandoran grabs my shoulder. His lesser demon sense must have caught a whiff.

  Oddly, a recent movie marathon comes to memory. A few months ago, Dumitru thought it’d be fun to show me as many vampire movies as he could over Halloween weekend.

  The atmosphere. The stench of death. The foreboding precipice and crumbling castle.

  If the stories and movies have anything right, it’s that vampires like creepy abodes. Like this castle. Deep in the woods.

  A haven for vampires.

  I give Thandoran a knowing look and ease the door open. The place vibrates with magic, dark magic. I wish I’d brought Natalia and Dumitru.

  The door opens into a vast entryway, with two parallel corridors leading forward into the dark on the opposite side. A crystal chandelier with narrow tapers fills the space with a gentle light.

  I step softly inside, but my boots are clunky on the marble floor and echo with dull thuds.

  Thandoran is right at my elbow, gazing around the heavily tapestried room. “Why do you think a demon lives where the stink of vampires is so overwhelming?”

  “Do we really smell all that bad?” a man says from the shadows.

  A short scream rips from my throat, but I clamp my hands over my mouth. Thandoran whirls in the direction of the voice, but I’m quick to grab his arm before he can coax a fireball forth.

  I choke out my words while hugging tight to Thandoran’s side. “We’re looking for someone.”

  The man chuckles, deep and heavy. “Someone
is always looking for someone or something when they come to Blestemat Castle.”

  How do I tactfully ask for what I want without sounding rude and in a hurry to leave? Oh well. No time to be polite. “Do you know a man named Isac Vasile?”

  “Oh, Isac. Yes.” The man doesn’t move from the shadows. “I’m sorry, who might you be?”

  “Sasha. This is Thandoran.”

  “Sasha,” the vampire says, playing with my name on his lips. He rolls the syllables around as he repeats my name. “I am Vadik. Welcome. My master is expecting you.”

  “Really?” Suspicion fills my voice. “Is your master Isac?”

  The man laughs and steps from the shadows. He’s rail thin, with white hair cutting sharp to a widow’s peak. He has the air of a butler. “No, mistress. Master shall arrive for a late meal. He will expect you to dine with him, but first I must show you to your rooms, where you may freshen up. Your travels have been long.”

  “We’re just fine, thank you.” Thandoran stands so that half of his body is a good block for mine.

  Vadik blurs forward so fast a gust of wind blows my hair back. Neither Thandoran nor I react soon enough. With a wrist flick, Vadik reaches past Thandoran, plucks a brown leaf from my hair, and holds it out for me to see. “Did you crawl through the woods to get here?”

  Heat sweeps up my neck. Thandoran growls and nudges me backward with his shoulder. This close, I see all the hard lines of Vadik’s face and the hairs in his nostrils.

  “We are perfectly rested from our travels,” I gasp out.

  “Please”—the leaf he’s holding disappears, and he meets my astonished eyes—“the master insists.”

  He’s using compulsion. I narrow my eyes as I resist. His compulsion is strong, but Killian’s powers weaken the draw to obey. “Who is this master of yours?”

  “I believe you know him. Count Ciprian.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Count Ciprian? Anya and Killian’s sire. Of course Thandoran and I stumbled upon his main residence while demon hunting.

  Of course.

  Hadn’t we left Ciprian at Deorc Mansion? He took up residence there after Anya died. Perhaps he was tired of the solitude of this place in the middle of nowhere.