Divine Hunter (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 4)

by C. N. Crawford

  “They had leverage on him.”

  “What?”

  “Me.”

  Rosalind let the wine roll over her tongue for a moment before swallowing, and her chest tightened. “They found you after you were orphaned.”

  “It wasn’t just that my mother had gotten pregnant outside of marriage. It was that the child of the father was a demon. One who’d produced the Ravener himself. You can imagine how much that would have impressed the rest of the king’s court. After she gave birth, they locked the two of us in a tower room. For three years, it was just me and her. I was happy, I think. We played games. She told me stories about talking rabbits and dragons.”

  I swallowed hard. “So why did she jump out of the tower?”

  His expression darkened. “I don’t know, exactly. I remember that she cried a lot, and spent a lot of time just lying in bed. I think she had no one to talk to, besides me. And I could hardly talk.”

  Rosalind’s throat tightened. “And after that, you had no one.”

  “Within an hour of her death, I was out on the streets, a beggar and an outcast. Half-brother to the Ravener. It was a wonderful opportunity for social climbers like your parents.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your parents were smart. They knew Caine’s weakness: family. They knew his history. And they believed they deserved a more powerful position in the city of Maremount. They wanted a prime spot in the Throcknell Fortress, on the council. They wanted more control.”

  A lump rose in Rosalind’s throat. It was starting to become clear to her. “So they thought they would deliver a prize to the royal family. The Ravener. And you were the bait to lure him to the city.”

  Malphas shrugged. “It worked. Your parents sent ravens throughout the realms to deliver a message to Caine. They used scrying mirrors to prove that they had me. Anyone could tell by looking at my eyes that I’m a son of Abrax, a descendent of the shadow god.”

  “And Caine came for you.”

  “Your parents were waiting for him. He didn’t come alone, of course…” He trailed off, clearing his throat. “Well, never mind that.”

  Rosalind leaned forward, the ocean wind toying with her hair. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not important. The point is, when he arrived, they were holding a knife to my throat. From there, it wasn’t difficult to control Caine.”

  “And they thought they’d present him as a gift to the king, so he could be executed.”

  “Tortured, yes. I’m not sure the royal family knew how to kill a demigod, so he probably would have been trapped, still alive, in amber, with his limbs cut off. Something like that.”

  Rosalind covered her mouth, nausea climbing up her throat. She no longer wanted any more of her meal. “That’s what the Throcknells did to people?”

  “I told you. It’s an unforgiving place. Unfortunately for your parents, King Balthazar didn’t care. He was caught up in his own machinations. Namely, he was busy having his wife executed to impress his mistress.”

  “So my parents had an incubus on their hands, and his little brother. And they weren’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.”

  “This is how Caine tells it. If the king wouldn’t give them more power, they would make themselves rulers of Maremount, by creating supreme magicians they could control. They summoned the spirits of the three greatest mages who ever lived, and trapped them in a sigil. First, they experimented on Caine. It seemed to go well. It didn’t kill him. He didn’t seem mad. They learned everything they could about magic. They learned of their own history, the rumors of Azazeyl. They believed themselves to be gods, and they moved in and out of the city, from Boston to Maremount, collaborating with the Brotherhood, drinking Blodrial’s blood.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Ah. That’s where they got their blood.”

  “The blood drove them mad.”

  Rosalind took a deep breath. “Caine is certain that it will drive me mad, too. I guess, given the available data… My parents and Drew…”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “When you say that my parents went mad, what do you mean? What happened?”

  “My memories are hazy. I wasn’t much older than you at the time. I mostly know what Caine told me. They believed they were gods, and that they deserved worship. And that’s when they decided what to do with their two other souls. They would have three powerful mages in their control, to build the empire of their dreams.”

  Goosebumps rose on Rosalind’s skin. “But then something happened with Caine.”

  “That’s not my story to tell.” Malphas’s eyes seemed to deepen to a dark pewter. “The stuff about your parents, that’s for you to know. If Caine wants you to know what happened to him, he will tell you.”

  “I understand. But I saw him, how he was punished in the square. The iron nails through his arms and chest. The royal family got their Ravener after all, and they didn’t want to let him get away that time.” She shook her head. “So how did he get out?”

  “In the dead of night, I freed him. And when he recovered, he went after your parents.”

  “For revenge,” she said.

  “No.” Malphas leaned back in his chair, studying her. “Perhaps that, too. He knew they had two more souls, and that they planned to use them on other humans. He didn’t know who. And he didn’t know that it was already too late.”

  He’d never mentioned that before—that he’d killed them to try to stop them from ruining other people’s lives. He kept secrets even when the stories would exonerate him. “Do you have any idea how Miranda and I ended up separated, and living with the Brotherhood?”

  Malphas slid his glass across the table. “That might be a question for Caine.”

  “What do you mean?” Her pulse sped up. “Caine sent me to live with the Brotherhood?”

  Malphas cocked his head, considering what to tell her. She’d never seen him looking quite this beautiful before, with golden light tinging his skin, the amber flecks in his eyes. She couldn’t remember seeing him in the sunlight before…

  At that thought, the world tilted beneath her. Sunlight.

  Malphas turned, his jaw dropping. There in the sky—a winged demon, blazing with a fire so hot she had to shield her eyes.

  Chapter 15

  Rosalind’s pulse raced as she stared at the sky. Around the flaming demon, cracks opened in the silvery shield. She gaped, watching the shadow magic disintegrate before her eyes.

  The winged demon had enormous, curled horns and long talons. Silhouetted by the rising sun, his wings beat the air. Behind him, the sun began to rise, staining the sky a hot pearly rose, washing the world in lurid pink. Panic tightened its cold claws around Rosalind’s heart.

  He’s coming. Drew is coming for me.

  “I don’t understand,” she shouted, her heart hammering. “I can see the shield falling apart. Why? How is this happening?”

  “I don’t know. No one from the outside should be able to destroy it so quickly.”

  She swallowed hard, glancing at Malphas. Already, his black wings were growing from his back, his pale gaze locked on the fiery demon. Sunlight gilded him.

  “It’s an ifrit,” he said. “They haven’t walked the earth in thousands of years. One of Erish’s creations. They come from her part of the world.” Golden sunlight gleamed from his wings. “Unfortunately, they don’t usually travel alone.”

  As soon as the words had left his lips, another demon emerged from the glaring sunlight, seeming to fly from the center of the sun itself.

  From below, shouts pierced the air. The silver curtains should shield them, but clearly, some kind of attack was imminent. Time to take action.

  Rosalind’s body was still exhausted, but she closed her eyes, summoning her fire magic, letting it roil in her chest. And the best way to defeat fire is with ice. And with it, she rallied her shadow magic. Nyxobas’s cold power rippled through her body. She and Malphas should be able to take down two demons toget
her.

  Malphas turned to her, nodding once. And in the next moment, he burst forth from the balcony, rising into the reddening sky.

  Gods-magic rushed over her body, and she took flight, the wind whipping at her hair. She soared around one of the ifrit, circling him. His eyes blazed with the heat of a dying star, so bright she couldn’t look at him directly. The ifrit opened his mouth, and with a gut-churning shriek, he spat out a ball of fire. In the air, Rosalind dodged, the sea winds tearing at her hair.

  After going through the fire hell, fire would no longer burn her. But she saw no reason to waste a perfectly good outfit by letting it incinerate.

  She circled the ifrit again. She could take one demon easily. Let’s see what Nyxobas’s magic will do to him.

  Dark magic ran through her body like ice floes, and she flicked her wrist, sending a surge of night magic at the creature. The ifrit threw back his head, shrieking to the skies, his enormous body sizzling as her magic extinguished his flames. Writhing, he fell to the earth, and she glanced at Malphas. Malphas’s black wings beat the air, his opponent already fallen.

  But already, a third demon was coming for her, silhouetted in the sun as if the great star had birthed him. And behind him, a fourth, and a fifth. Her heart began to race. Within moments, a stream of the creatures headed right for them, flying for the fortress. Dread coiled around her. They were flying straight for the vampires—for the very flammable vampires.

  Rosalind circled in a wide arc, summoning Nyxobas’s magic. Shadows surged through her body, reaching for the sky in pearly tendrils.

  “Strengthen the shield!” she shouted to Malphas. “We need to stop them from coming in!”

  Immediately, a stream of night magic rushed from his body, spreading out in a dome above the sky.

  Another burst of night magic surged—from below her this time. Caine was flying into the air, his black wings pounding the air like an angel of death. Thick coils of silver magic spiraled from his powerful body.

  As the ifrit swarmed the sky, fire rained over the city. Caine and Malphas skillfully dodged it. Rosalind ignored it, no longer worried about her clothes. Let them burn. The flames warmed her skin, strengthening her body.

  Soaring through the sky, Rosalind sent the icy magic of the void curling around the fiery demons.

  And yet the creatures pressed on, swooping inexorably lower, landing on the rooftops and setting them alight. Terror ripped through Rosalind. The city would turn to ash if they weren’t able to stop the ifrit.

  As the fortress burned, the vampires would run into the open air—where the sun would light them ablaze. Aurora, Ambrose, the sassy chick in the Duckula T-shirt… all of them would die. As she swooped through the air, horror hit her in the gut. The ifrit were running into the fortress, dragging vampires out into the light. The scent of burning flesh curled into the air.

  And at that, icy wrath flooded Rosalind’s mind, until she could no longer hear her own thoughts. She only knew that she wanted to kill, to destroy. She wanted to send the ifrit into the center of the earth.

  As the magic poured through her body in icy streams of silver, shadows claimed her mind, climbing up the walls of her skull, until she was no longer Rosalind. She was the god of night, of darkness and the void, cloaked in shadow. She was the beginning and the end of time, the universe without light.

  Her body mercilessly slung night magic at the ifrit, and she listened to the hiss of their flames extinguishing. But while she fought on, her mind wasn’t in Lilinor. Her mind lurked in the void, and she closed her eyes. Deep in the hollows of her mind, she walked through the inky night, swift as an astral wind. Nyxobas reached for her, brushing her cheeks with his icy fingertips.

  Today, Rosalind was the god of death.

  Her body blazed with cold magic, a whirling blizzard of power. As cold winds kissed her body, her eyes flickered—opening and closing—and she caught glimpses of the sky darkening, the stars gleaming, the sun silvering into the moon.

  As darkness claimed the sun, a heavy snow began to fall, frosting her skin, until Nyxobas’s emptiness whispered through her. A voice spoke through her mouth, Slaughter them all. Send them to the void. I will keep their souls, she hissed.

  A vision of her sister’s face flashed in her mind, and for a moment, grief pierced her to her very marrow. She couldn’t quite remember what she was doing, and her body moved on its own, twisting and soaring through the frigid sky, until her feet landed on the earth again, inches deep in snow. The cold fog in her mind began to clear. Shivering, she looked up to find snow falling from dark clouds, Nyxobas’s icy magic still freezing her blood.

  Around her, the frozen bodies of the ifrit demons lay in the snow, frosted husks. Icicles hung from their horns. Her gaze flicked to the fortress, covered in webs of frost, the fires extinguished. Holy shit. Still, the air smelled of burnt flesh.

  From above, Caine and Malphas swooped lower, their black wings beating the air. A dome of silver shimmered above them. While she’d been summoning a blizzard, the two brothers had been repairing the shield.

  Shivering, she looked down at her naked body. The fire had burned all but a few singed scraps of fabric off her body, and goosebumps covered her skin. Her teeth chattered; her legs shook. The magic had weakened her body, but her mind still blazed with icy magic.

  In the snowy sky, Malphas circled her once before soaring away again, while Caine landed in the snow by her side, his wings covered in a layer of frost, and his silver eyes locked directly on her.

  Too bad for him, the frigid wrath of Nyxobas still lit up her mind. “Your grandfather gave me the power of a god. He took over my mind.”

  “I saw. You killed them all.”

  Nyxobas’s void ate at her chest. When she’d first met Caine, he’d looked down on her. Who was more powerful now? She took a step closer to him in the snow, her feet growing numb.

  “You’ve kept so many secrets from me.” Her body shuddered. I should hurt him for lying to me. “What happened after my parents gave you that second soul? And how did I end up with the Brotherhood?”

  Caine’s eyes slid to the sky, where Malphas had been flying. “I see you and Malphas have been talking.”

  Rosalind summoned her fire magic, letting the flames play about her fingertips, warming her skin, even if her heart felt frozen. With her sister dead, she had no family anymore, and she still couldn’t quite trust Caine. “Tell me the truth. Fire doesn’t hurt me. But I know it hurts you.”

  “I can see Nyxobas’s darkness in your eyes right now. It’s more than a bit unnerving to look at a beautiful, naked woman and see my own grandfather there. I’m not sure if I want to kiss you or run far, far away.” He cocked his head. “In any case, this is what I warned you about. If you can’t control your magic, you shouldn’t use it.”

  Her lip curled. “Always lies and diversions with you. Tell me. Did you hand me over to those sadists—to the Brotherhood?” Flames burned higher from her fingertips.

  “Yes,” he said coldly, stepping closer, unafraid of her fire. “You were orphaned. And I needed to send you both to live with people who would control the insane spirits in your head. Who would stop you from ever using magic. I wanted them to keep you wearing the iron rings. You were just children, with unimaginable powers. You were a danger to yourselves and everyone around you. It wasn’t until Ambrose decided that he needed the three mages together that I sought you out.”

  “Why did you separate us?”

  Darkness pooled in Caine’s eyes, and his magic whipped around his body. “So you wouldn’t kill each other.” Venom laced his voice. “Are we done reminiscing, or shall we go see who died?”

  His last sentence snapped her out of her trance, and the cold night magic drifted from her body. The flames died at the ends of her fingertips.

  “Right.” Suddenly, the cold overwhelmed her body, and she began trembling. She still needed answers from Caine, but this wasn’t the time. “We’ll talk about it later.”


  Caine stepped closer over the snow, then wrapped his arms around her. “You’re going to freeze,” said Caine.

  His body warmed hers, and her muscles began to relax as she rested her head against his chest, listening to the sound of his beating heart.

  “Your feet are going to freeze.” Caine reached down, scooping her up in his powerful arms. “Your power is impressive. I’ve never seen anyone kill that many demons at once.”

  “Where did the ifrit come from? Malphas said they hadn’t walked the earth for centuries.”

  Caine held her close, folding his wings around her to shield her from the wind. “Erish would have known about them. She probably fought them, thousands of years ago, when she was a warrior.”

  “Erish created them…” she said, just as the seed of an idea began to bloom in her mind. “Maybe she can help us.”

  “How?”

  “Maybe we’ve been approaching the daywalkers all wrong.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ll talk to you about it later. You were right. We need to check on the fortress. People might need healing from their burns.”

  He pulled her in tight, his dark wings beating the wintry air. In the next moment, they were lifting into the sky, soaring over the snowy fields, and she held him tightly.

  The shield had recovered its silver sheen, the magic thick as the fortress walls. “You did a wonderful job with the shield.”

  “The question is: How was it weakened in the first place? Only someone from the inside should have been able to destroy it like that. And it wasn’t Malphas or I.”

  Shivering, Rosalind looked up at Caine, at the snowflakes catching in his dark eyelashes. Her mind whirled with all he things she wanted to say to him—the questions about her past, how she’d ended up with the Brotherhood. The fact that despite it all, he was wrong about how Malphas was her destiny. She knew to the depths of her soul that she and Caine belonged together, that she loved his darkness and his thorns.

  But it wasn’t the time for that now, not when the smell of death and ash still hung heavy in the air.