Night is Magic: A Vampire Romance (Hearts of Dagon Book 1)

by Alix Adale

  Outside the car, the brisk morning air braced his lungs. He studied the distant mountain, shading his eyes from the sun. The keychain in his hand, his fingers squeezed the curious fox-toy until it gave an unexpected squeak. Startled, he dropped it. Keys clattered on the ground, bright metal in a shallow puddle. He scooped them up, examined the figurine. It said ‘Red Panda Girl’ and gave a URL at the bottom of the page.

  Curious, he got back inside the Mini Cooper but instead of starting the car, he fished his laptop out of its hiding place beneath the passenger seat. As the computer booted up, he studied the distant mountain, twirling the keychain on one finger. Innocuous actions, on the face of it, but taken together they fit into a pattern, part of a greater whole. It was as if he stood at some fork on the road. It felt that way. His arm hairs tingled.

  The computer booted up. He opened Firefox, typed in the funky URL. It took forever for the page to load, only for it to show an error—no internet connection. Oh yeah, of course. Stupid. He shut down the laptop, put it away. What a waste of time. He should get going.

  And yet, something nagged at the back of his mind. This keychain couldn’t have come out of nowhere, by accident. It must have meant something, if he’d replaced the Golden State Warriors for this animal character. Had he lost the other one?

  He picked up his phone and tinkered with the Wi-Fi settings, turning on data roaming. This might blow up his monthly bill, but dammit, he needed to know. The phone’s browser loaded and he entered the URL again. This time, the web page loaded, piece by piece, as slow as molasses.

  It was hard to read on his phone, but the web address led to a web comic, something called Red Panda Girl. Logical enough. This character lived in the remote foothills of the Eastern Himalayas. Her species was endangered and many of the jokes were about that—Red Panda Girl felt lethargic and blamed it on deforestation. Others showed her in a tomb, drawing herself into her own comic strips, breaking the fourth wall. It was quirky, puzzling, and the sort of angst-laden indie web comic that never interested him. He didn’t even like comics. Some mornings, he might glance at Amazing Spider-Man in the newspaper before checking the NBA scores, but nothing else.

  Yet the more of the little black-and-white, two and three-panel strips he read, the more the artist came alive in his mind. She—the artist came across as female—put so much of herself into the strip, it was almost sad. Yet something about her language, the words she chose, ached with familiarity. It was the most astonishing moment of déjà vu ever.

  He skipped back to the most recent comic, read it again. It had been updated only today. A single panel strip, it wasn’t funny or well-drawn. But there was an earnest longing in those thin lines, a powerful emotion conveyed through clean, simple pen strokes. It showed Red Panda Girl lying in bed, alone in what looked like a tomb. The caption read: Yet in your arms, the night is magic. Red lines ran from her eyes, the only color in the frame.

  The nerves in the back of his neck shivered. Moving as if in a dream, he clicked on the ‘About’ tab of the web comic. A brief biography appeared, saying little but giving the artist’s name as Dez.

  That hit him like a hammer-blow, like an anvil dropped from a second-story window onto his head.

  Dez.

  The memory blocks exploded. Desiree: a woman in denim, breaking bicycle locks with her bare hands; a woman with fangs, feeding him her blood. Her brown eyes meeting his as they writhed in the dark.

  Whatever those vampires had done to his memory, it didn’t work. The memory blocks, brand-new and still weak, crumbled as the last couple days tumbled back, one by one: running through Pioneer Square, skulking through the zoo, riding in the back of a pickup truck with a load of firewood and her on his lap.

  Desiree D’antonio. Desiree Braden.

  Dez!

  He turned off the phone, started the car, and headed back north on the I-5, driving as fast as he dared amid the semis and lumber trucks.

  Five hours later, he circled the grounds of Eibon Manor in the Mini Cooper, seeking a way in, but nothing obvious presented itself. Thoughts turned into half-baked plans, ideas churned, various ways to sneak past the gates. What would these vampires do once they realized the enforced amnesia failed? Try again? Frame him for a different murder?

  It didn’t matter, so long as he was with Dez one last time. But didn’t she reject him? She went along with the plan for that bald-headed, silver-eyed freak to try and clean out his mind, right?

  Yes, but she did it for the wrong reasons, to protect him. She wanted him back. They belonged together. The comic strip made that obvious. Their parting hurt her so much, the way she’d begged him for one last kiss.

  One last kiss—a kiss he wouldn’t give her. How wrong he’d been, how stubborn. But this time, he would make her see. They belonged together, no matter what. She would take him as a thrall or a servant or whatever they called it. Vampires employed the occasional human, Dez admitted as much. They could make it work.

  Good, that was decided then. And no sooner was that settled, then a plan popped out of nowhere. He licked his lips, considering. Yes, yes—it might work.

  He drove away from Eibon Manor, back downtown and across the bridge toward Overlook. If Eibon security had spotted him circling their grounds, they didn’t react. To be safe, he took his new phone—so thoughtfully provided by that Gideon asshole—and flung it out the window. It crunched beneath the tires of a moving van.

  “Xerxes! What a surprise! Where’ve you been?” Suarez looked astounded to see him, as well he might. The fire station in Overlook hadn’t changed, but it lacked the clitter-clatter of little toenails scraping asphalt. The puppies were gone.

  He hated to do what he was about to do, but he couldn’t think of a better plan—other than renting a helicopter, and he couldn’t afford that. Besides, what pilot would fly him over the grounds of Eibon Manor? It was private property. “Sorry, Suarez. No time to chat. Where are the puppies?”

  “Oh, the Captain sold them off yesterday. He wanted to do it earlier, but you were so attached to them, he couldn’t bring himself to do it before your term ended. Say, where’ve you been? I tried calling you the last couple days, see if you needed help packing, but you never picked up.”

  Now or never. He walked with purpose toward the garage office. “Lost my phone.”

  “Hey, Xerk. You can’t go in there…”

  He hated to betray his old friend’s trust, to go back on everything he’d trained for over the last year, but he saw no other choice. He snagged a key ring off a peg, emerged from the office.

  Suarez puffed and drew himself up to his full height, blustering. “Where do you think you’re going with that?”

  “To fix a mistake. I’m sorry, Suarez.” When the other man tried to block him, he grabbed Suarez’s wrist, gave it a slight twist, causing the other man to move out of the way. “Please, don’t try and stop me.”

  Suarez didn’t. He only stared, wide-eyed, mute protests dying on his lips.

  This is it, Dez. Here comes the rescue. Hot damn, but this was crazy. He jogged up to Fire Engine Number Thirty-Four, unlocked the door, and jumped behind the wheel.

  Suarez ran for the office, picked up the phone. It was obvious he was calling the police.

  No matter. That was to be expected. Flicking switches, he activated the console and lifted the garage door. Sunlight flooded the garage, automated sirens sounding to clear the sidewalks. He pulled out and headed toward the river. “Hang on, Dez! I’m coming!”

  He didn’t turn on the fire engine’s siren until he picked up a police escort. It wasn’t hard for the squad cars to locate a forty-foot long red fire engine leaving downtown, headed up into the West Hills. Now, with his lights flashing and the police chasing him, it looked like any other cavalcade of emergency vehicles. Cars and trucks pulled over, clearing lanes. The police turned on their own lights and sirens, sticking to his tail. He didn’t want to hurt those guys. They needed to keep their distance.

  What h
e intended went beyond crazy, approaching certifiable—but if he ended up in a loony bin, at least he would remember Desiree, could nurture a hope of seeing her again.

  Dez.

  He accelerated.

  Eibon Manor thrust up above the trees now, a familiar if ominous presence in this part of the city. The wrought-iron gates barred the private drive from outside access. A towering stone fence topped with razor-wire prevented entrance any other way.

  He gunned the fire engine toward the front gate, blasting the horn as the siren wailed. Behind, the police cars added to the din. Some tourists snapping photos at the gate saw a fire engine barreling toward them and scattered. Nothing else stood in the way.

  The massive engine punched through the gates with the force of a freight train. The gates snapped back like crackers, flying piecemeal this way and that. The engine kept going.

  Where now? To the tombs. It was still daylight, Desiree would be under the ground still. She could not walk in the sun like the others. He gunned it along a golf cart track, wrestling with the engine’s mass. It fought like mad against every turn of the wheel, like trying to drive a frozen whale.

  Behind the mansion, a raging party stopped mid-beat. Even the musicians were stunned into silence. Then the guests scattered like waves parted by a ship as the fire truck roared through the heart of the festivities. Vampires dived left and right, but the props weren’t as fortunate.

  As he grappled with the steering wheel, the tail end of his fire engine swung out, crushing a buffet table and sending wedding cakes, ice sculptures, and a hundred champagne glasses and bottles crashing to the ground.

  Regaining control, he cleared the party and bounced across the grassy hillocks, making for the mausoleums deep within the wooded grounds. But he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. Nothing looked familiar. The fire engine whipped around the bend of a gravel track only to find a carriage house barring the way. He jumped on the brakes, bringing the engine to a screeching halt. There was enough room to back out and try again.

  The carriage house doors flew open. That bald-headed crackerjack Agent Gideon stood there with a pair of black-suited goons, each bigger than the last. All three held automatic rifles and they cut loose without hesitation, blowing out the engine’s front windows and filling the cabin with bullets.

  “No! Wait!” he screamed, diving onto the floor, seeking shelter from the deadly hail. But before he could act, before he could surrender, a grenade flew through the open window and the world exploded into a thousand red hot fragments of pain.

  “Dez!”

  Chapter 18: No, Never That

  Desiree

  Xerxes lay dying in a hospital bed. The symmetry—the irony—it was almost comical. He’d even slipped into a coma. God, oh god.

  As she paced outside the operating theater, for once, she could be glad of Mabon and the others. They stayed on the surface, dealing with the cops, doing whatever to defuse the fiasco created by Xerxes and his improbable, ridiculous, dangerous, and oh so tragic attempt to reunite with her. The sweet, glorious fool.

  There was no question he’d done it for her. Mabon kept telling everyone who would listen: “Guy’s got it bad if he blew through my conditioning and ended up stealing a goddamned fire truck.”

  The entire Kingdom of Dagon found it amusing after they calmed down. Yeah. Smashing through the gates of Eibon Manor with a fire engine—hilarious. He might have died. He almost did. He was dying—dammit! What a noble, foolish, mixed-up thing to do. No use blaming Mabon and the others for almost killing him; they had to assume it was a truck full of lycans or rival vampires. Solstice gatherings made great targets.

  Everyone was relieved when it turned out to be “just” a lovestruck fireman trying to reunite with his undead lover. How romantic. Even the Queen was impressed, according to gossip. Ugh, what a fiasco.

  The door opened, and Armando emerged, grim-faced.

  She grabbed his arm. “How is he?”

  Armando shook his head. “Lydia—Doctor Qin—says there’s nothing she can do, the boy’s lost too much blood. If you’re going to do anything, do it now, before he’s gone.”

  She sprinted past her sire into the hospital room, pulling up short beside Xerk’s bed. His face looked so wan and wasted, his powerful body covered with bandages and hooked up to innumerable machines. “Dammit, Xerxes! Couldn’t you just ring the bell?”

  He did not respond. His eyes stayed shut, his head slumped, not even breathing save for the respirator. The shadow of death crept over him, inch by inch.

  “I’m sorry,” said Doctor Qin. “There’s nothing modern science can do. An hour, tops, and he’ll release from this reality.”

  Qin was the Queen’s personal physician and the only vampire doctor in Dagon, so she must know a way! Dez flung up her arms. “What about magic? There’s got to be magic that can save him, right?”

  The doctor shook her head. “This is beyond the abilities of even our best healer.”

  No. Wrong answer. There was a way. There was always a way. She knew the lore. “Give him vampire blood! It’s a healing agent. I healed him at the zoo, after a lycan clawed him. Give him our blood!”

  The doctor grimaced. “He’s too far gone, child. Any vampire who gave him blood now would become his sire. That’s not something any of us should undertake on a whim, without permission from the Queen.” The doctor glanced toward the door and coughed.

  No kidding. Nobody needed to tell her that. Goddamn Armando. “Can’t I do anything?”

  “You can sit with him and pray to Dagon. I’ll be in my office if you need help with anything—else.” Qin retreated to the adjoining room.

  That nobody would help didn’t surprise her. Nobody could help. This decision was hers and hers alone. Not Armando’s, not Colin’s, not George…

  George! His voice replayed through her mind: You’ll know when the time is right. The note! Xerxes had written her a note, she’d put it in her pocket and tried to forget it—then had forgotten it, getting drunk and sleeping all day and waking up to this—this fiasco of all fiascos.

  She found it in her jean pocket, tore it open. It was printed in small, neat capital letters in black felt tip marker:

  Without you, the sky weeps when it rains and every mountain stands alone. I have lost a friend, a lover, and the only woman I ever wanted. The hole in my heart can never be filled. I will wear this scar as a badge of honor to remember you. When I was with you, for the first time in my life, I was alive. Like the writing on the wall said: The world is dark, the sky is tragic, but in your arms, the night is magic.

  Remember me.

  – X.

  The paper crumpled in her hand. Like she could ever forget. Damn him, damn his eyes. She knelt and took his hand. “Hey, big guy. I wish you could hear me. It’s not fair to leave me after a crazy stunt like that.”

  His hand felt cool in her colder, lifeless ones, his fingers so immobile, unresponsive.

  She lifted his palm to her cheek, kissed his good, fine fingers, each one. “I’ll tell you a secret. That night, when my car drove off the bridge—it wasn’t an accident. I wanted to die. My life was a joke, a wreck, a disaster in every way. Drowning in debt, failing my classes, few friends, no family left. Nothing mattered.

  “And I couldn’t even get that right. Imagine, trying to kill yourself only to have some drunk vampire come along and take pity on you. Life is a joke—death is the punchline, and if you’re undead you get to live it over and over again. Welcome to this week’s episode of My So-Called Unlife.”

  His fingers trembled. A slight pulse tingled against her palm. But that was all.

  She kissed his hand again, searching for another sign, but he lay quiescent. After a moment, she went on. Unburdening to him, things she’d never shared, not even in the little blue cottage at Respect Village. “Funny thing is, I don’t want to die anymore. Those few days with you—it’s like you said. For the first time, I was alive. I can’t bear to lose you again.” She crushed his
fingers to her palm. “Please. Give me a sign. A nod, a word. Squeeze my hand.”

  But he lay still, eyes shut, body immobile. His vital signs kept dropping. Oh god, what to do?

  “You wanted to die?” Armando’s voice came soft and cold from the doorway. “You drove off the bridge on purpose?”

  Damn him and his lurking. She kept her gaze on Xerxes. “You never knew that? After all these years, you never figured that out?”

  “Do you still want to die? Do you want to die with him?” He crossed the room with three swift steps, grabbed her and shook her until they stared each other down, sire and spawn, eye to eye. “Or do you want to live—do you want to live! With him! Together, forever—in the Underworld?”

  With him, without him. It was too much. She grabbed his arms and shook Armando with more violence than intended. “I don’t know!”

  He leaned his forehead against hers, fury in his eyes. “It’s not life as he knows it and it won’t be easy. But it’s the one gift we have to give, we who are already dead. For even in death, we cling to this world with every ounce of our stolen vitality. We sink our fangs into it and never, ever let it go.”

  His breath felt fetid against her lips. Her whisper came, harsh and angry. “Why?”

  “This world is a prison—but it is also a palace, more beautiful than anything. How can we say farewell to paradise?” He released her. “I will say no more; the choice is yours. And I will support you no matter what path you take.”

  “B-but—Dagon’s Law?”

  “Have no fear of the Queen—I’ve already received permission for this turning.”

  This impossible man! “Why? Why are you always helping me?”

  “Because I am your sire. You are and shall always be my responsibility. As he will be yours, if you are strong enough and brave enough to save him.” He walked to the door.