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

by C. N. Crawford

  She turned to the battlefield, the action now stilling. Demon bodies littered the courtyard, half sunk in muddy water, blood mingling with the mud.

  Among the bodies, Malphas sheathed his sword, dripping with blood, and Aurora was cradling a ravaged arm. Bite wounds covered her body, but as a valkyrie, she should heal quickly.

  Ambrose’s battle-ax dripped with blood, his body glowing with dark light. Somehow, he had managed to get through the battle without becoming soaked in mud, and she had the feeling that he loved this—slaughtering in the daylight.

  Rosalind began carefully stepping through the carnage, and her throat tightened at the sight of a crumpled hellhound, six inches deep in muddy water. Her armor had been torn off, and her throat ripped out. Blood stained her Vampires Don’t Sparkle T-shirt. Rosalind’s throat tightened. Becca.

  By Caine’s side, she moved among the dead, her stomach churning. When she caught sight of Tammi, she exhaled. Tammi was wrapping fabric around bite marks in her arm.

  She glanced at Caine. “We’re in a vulnerable position here. Drew will keep sending in legions of his archaic demons until we break through to that palace.

  “How long till you break through the shield?”

  She swallowed hard. “I’m close, I think. I just need to mentally break Drew.”

  “That doesn’t seem like it would be hard.”

  She frowned at him. “Harder than you’d imagine.”

  “You need to stop joining us in battle. Just work on the shield. When the next demon horde comes for us, your job is to break through the shield. Understood? We’ll be fine. Tammi will be fine. And I’ll protect you while you’re delving into the shield.”

  She nodded. He was right—the shield was their priority now. “Let’s go.”

  “Fast,” he added.

  She summoned her shadow magic. Together, they shadow-ran across the battlefield in a blur of dark magic, the wind rushing over her skin. The scent of death filled the air.

  On the palace steps, Rosalind slowly approached the shield, her mouth going dry at the thought of entering Drew’s mind again. Slowly, she ran her fingertips over the shield, and Drew’s sickening energy coursed through her. He slammed her with a series of images, of herself kneeling before him, telling him that she worshipped him.

  What was Drew afraid of more than anything else?

  “Rosalind.”

  She snapped away from the shield. Caine was pointing across the courtyard again. On the other side of the carnage, another legion was coming for them. Faint colored filaments coiled from their bodies. Even from here, she could recognize them as human, modified with Drew’s magic.

  All except for one, clad in silver armor. Shadow magic poured from his enormous body, and a flash of lightning glinted off his horns. Bileth.

  The army of humans came armed to the teeth, laden with machine guns. A helicopter rotor beat the air, and dread tightened its grip on her heart. She was running out of time.

  “Keep working,” he said. “I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you while you’re concentrating.”

  She grabbed his arm. “Caine. If I get through this shield, you need to stay and lead your soldiers against this army. But I’m going into the palace if I can get in. If I can murder Drew, maybe this will all be over. I can go in on my own.”

  Shadows flickered in his eyes. “He’s too powerful.” He gestured at the city. “Look at all this. He’s been using his power longer than you.”

  “I’m powerful, Caine, and your army needs you. You need to lead the battle against Bileth and the Hunters, and if I break through the shield, I’m going in.”

  Caine stared at the helicopters. He wasn’t as familiar with fighting humans as he was with demon warfare. “Tell me what the Brotherhood carries in those machines.”

  “Missiles and iron dust. You don’t want them to get any closer. And the Brotherhood might have flamethrowers. You’ll need to use your shadow magic to neutralize it.”

  Rosalind turned to the shield, tuning out the sounds of Caine’s commands ringing in her mind, his deep booming voice that commanded the winged cohorts to rise.

  Rosalind touched the shield’s rippling surface, and Drew’s corrupted magic seeped into her body, bringing with it images of Rosalind chained to the wall, telling Drew that she loved him. These were no longer fantasies. This was what had actually happened when she’d been trapped in the palace. He was trying to break her, but his images only stoked her rage. Right now, she wanted to tear his fucking head off and throw it to one of his hounds. Soon enough.

  She gritted her teeth, trying to concentrate. What was Drew afraid of—what was anyone afraid of? A pointless existence in a dying body. A soul trapped in a corpse, rotting into the forgotten riverside—painful isolation for eternity.

  Okay. How could she show this to Drew?

  Perhaps Caine—not Rosalind—was Drew’s greatest weakness. Caine was more to him than a simple rivalry. After all, Caine murdered Drew’s heroes, the king and queen who should have beaten death and achieved immortality. Caine was Death, a god from the underworld, come to drag Drew into the void.

  She envisioned Drew, walking over the muddy riverbank in the rain, just before three wooden stakes. Tendrils of his colored magic snaked into the air around him. And as he trudged through the mud, silver magic writhed around the oaks like a living thing. The forest’s shadows grew heavier, pooling like ink. Death is coming for you, Drew. Let’s invite Caine into this vision.

  He appeared, his black wings protruding from his shoulder blades, eyes dark as caves. In his black talons, he gripped a long, iron nail. He stalked closer to Drew, who stumbled back through the mud. A hard rain battered their faces.

  Drew raised his hand to strike Caine with a spell, but Caine rushed for him in a blur of silver and shadows, slamming Drew hard against the stake with a growl, black talons piercing white skin.

  Caine began chanting the spell to steal immortality—the one she’d gleaned through his memory. She mixed it up a little, changing some of the words. There was no way she was giving Drew knowledge of the real spell. Still, she left in just enough of that spell that he’d recognize the intent.

  Drew’s colored magic flowed from his body, leaving him slumped, his skin wan and gray, dark circles beneath his widened, green eyes. Completely mortal.

  The shield shuddered.

  In the vision, Drew lifted his hands defensively, and Caine slammed a nail into his chest, piercing him against the stake like a butterfly specimen.

  Drew’s body slumped, his eyes widened in shock. And Caine—his angel of death—simply slipped away into the shadows.

  Drew’s shield began to crack, but Rosalind wasn’t finished yet. She showed Drew a vision of his body pinned to the stake, his skin turning gray and corrupted. Slowly, nature claimed his body, as the forest’s vines snaked around him. Alone, forgotten, his body rotted into nonexistence.

  As she finished her brutal vision, the shield ruptured. With a loud report, like a ship’s cannon, the shield splintered and cracked around her. Before Drew could raise it again, she rushed through, her feet pounding up the palace steps.

  As she raced up the steps to the towering maroon doors, she hurled an explosive spell at them, breaking them open.

  When she ran into the vast, marble hall, a line of empty-eyed scorpion men blocked her path. Good. She’d been hoping to kill some more of them.

  Chapter 32

  Rosalind stepped into the cold, marble palace, staring at the line of scorpion men who blocked her path.

  In here, Drew’s chilling magic snaked over her body, curling inside her ribs as he tried to rebuild the shield. Since he’d built this place with magic, his aura tainted nearly everything around her, making it hard for her to focus.

  His magic filled her with a gnawing emptiness, and visions flickered in her mind—Drew and her, sitting on iron thrones. Her eyes were vacant, her jaw slack, and her belly swollen with his child. Drew’s fantasy.

&nb
sp; She didn’t want to linger in this hellhole any longer than she had to. She needed to search for Drew, and slaughter the bastard. And when he was dead, the magic sucked dry from the walls, this place would be nothing more than an empty, marble skeleton. She’d blow the fucking thing to smithereens.

  First, she just had to put these scorpion men into the ground. Sucking in a deep breath, she summoned her battle rage, until her legs trembled with anticipation. She gripped her sword hard, remembering the scorpion men watching her in her prison room. They’d enjoyed her humiliation. Most of her time in captivity had been a blur, but she remembered vividly the scorpion man ruthlessly slaughtering that gray-eyed servant girl, and the girl’s pale body writhing and convulsing on the ground before her, mouth foaming.

  Right now, she could only hope the scorpions were wildly underestimating her power.

  One of the men stepped closer to her, his clawed legs clacking on the marble floor, footsteps echoing off the ceiling. Their tails and stingers shone in the light. Rosalind’s pulse raced, and sweat beaded on her forehead.

  She arched an eyebrow, daring him to move closer. If she was going to defeat all five of them, she’d need to move fast—inhumanly fast. On top of the battle fury, she’d need shadow magic on her side.

  Nyxobas’s magic pooled in her chest, and she submitted to it, bending to the god of night, to the vast and empty chasm. She didn’t have to fear the void anymore. This was Caine’s magic, too, and he was her home.

  When the scorpion took another step over the marble, she was ready for him. She shadow-ran to him, leaping into the air at the last moment and slicing her sword through his neck. Blood arced into the air. One.

  For just a moment, her feet touched down on the ground, and she leapt in the air again, moving like a phantom wind. Before the scorpions had a chance to react, she whirled, cutting her sword into the next scorpion’s neck. Two.

  A scorpion’s tail was reaching for her through the air as she touched down again. She dodged, running for the wall. At the speed of a hurricane wind, she let her feet climb the wall, then bounced off it, flipping through the air until she landed before the scorpion. She bounced off the marble floor, leaping again to hack her sword into the next scorpion’s neck. Three.

  Immediately, she pivoted, leaping, swinging. A scorpion head rolled across the floor. Four.

  She looked up at the final scorpion, who stared down at her. Slowly, he began backing away, fear sparking in his eyes. It was one she’d remembered—the one with gray patches in his hair. This one she’d saved for last. She wanted to see the fear in his eyes, just like she’d seen the fear in the blond servant’s eyes.

  “Remember the girl you killed?” asked Rosalind. “I remember. I don’t know her name, but I remember her. I want you think of her now, as I’m coming for you. I’m your angel of death, Scorpion, and I want you to remember her.”

  He opened his mouth wordlessly, then closed it again. Rosalind’s footfalls echoed off the ceiling, and the scorpion backed away. Shadow magic rushed through Rosalind’s body like an arctic wind, and she rushed forward, sword drawn.

  The scorpion man lunged for her, suddenly on the attack, his tail ready to sting again. He wouldn’t get that far. As she ran for him, she leapt into the air. Whirling, she sliced her blade clean through his neck.

  His head tumbled off, rolling over the floor in a spray of red.

  Five.

  Now she just needed to find Drew. And while she was at it, she was going to slaughter that bastard Randolph.

  Chapter 33

  Scorpion men poured into the hall behind her, and Rosalind’s pulse raced. How long would it take her to kill all of them? The longer she spent in here, the worse her chances got. She just needed to put distance between herself and the scorpions.

  She shadow-ran over the marble, and as she moved the shadows seemed to climb the walls around her. As she moved deeper into the enormous palace, the walls seemed to change—no longer smooth marble, but now made of vast expanses of ivory bone, as if she were moving through the skeleton of an expansive creature. Around the halls stood statues—some of Blodrial, his veins spurting blood. Some depicted Randolph and Drew. Carved into the bone around the halls, the letters R&D, intertwined. Rosalind and Drew. She wanted to puke.

  The further she moved into the building, the more the walls began to change. A network of dark veins throbbed beneath the walls’ surface, like thin, pale skin. The shadows grew, shifting between the statues.

  Energy reverberated through this building, pulsing like a heartbeat. She felt as if she were running through a living creature, as if the walls themselves pulsed with life.

  She slipped her hand into her pocket, running her fingers over the old iron nail. This thing needs to find its home in Drew’s heart.

  From the shadows, figures emerged from crouching positions, their wispy bodies thickening and solidifying. The three creatures wore cloaks, though beneath their hoods she could see that the creatures had large, dark eyes. The lower halves of their faces were simply a mass of wrinkled, gray flesh. At least until their lips parted, revealing a chasm of black interrupted by a few spiked teeth. Smoky auras undulated from their bodies, and iron-gray wings curved from their shoulder blades.

  A chill snaked its way up Rosalind’s spine, and she readied her sword. An emotion tinged their magic, but to her surprise, it wasn’t anger or menace. It was despair. It rolled off their bodies, staining the air with stark melancholy. It wrapped itself around her muscles, freezing her in place, and as the force of it hit her, her sword drooped in her hands.

  She had the sense that these creatures had once been something different—something majestic, from a past so distant they no longer remembered it at all, yet still they lamented its loss.

  One of them stepped forward, tapping his sharp teeth together. “Rosalind.” Tap. Tap. “Our queen. Reign over us in the Desert of Anguish.” Tap. He pointed an elongated finger at her chest, his nails gray and sharp. Tap. Tap. “Queen Rosalind,” he hissed. Tap. “Rule us.” Tap. Tap.

  Sorrow coiled around her heart, tightening its grip, and a dry wind seemed to rush over her skin, calling her to the Desert of Anguish. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  An iron crown appeared on her head, weighing heavy on her skull, and her grip loosened on her sword. What was she doing here? Why fight? Miranda had bled out on the cold stones, an iron nail in her heart, and Rosalind hadn’t been able to help her at all. Raised from the grave, her soul splintered.

  Rosalind’s body began to sway to the rhythm of the palace’s heartbeat, as the demons lulled her into their spell. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Miranda’s body, cold and alone, buried deep beneath the earth.

  Queen of Anguish… She had no family. She’d let her sister die. Her parents had been monsters who’d ruined Caine’s life, forced him to slaughter his brother.

  “Join us,” said the creature. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Her soul was corrupted, tainted by the sins of her parents. She was a solitary monster…

  She gritted her teeth, trying to focus. Closing her eyes, she forced the images from her mind—her desert throne, her iron crown. Cleo’s magic whirled within her, forcing out the despair.

  She hadn’t come here to become a queen. She’d come here to kill. She tightened her grip on the sword again, forcing their smoky magic from her body. “I’m sorry. You’ve got the wrong girl.”

  She swung, cutting through one head, then two. She pivoted, cleanly slicing off the third head. The three creatures slumped to the floor.

  She stared at their withered bodies, their dark blood staining the floor. “It’s for the best. Someone needed to put you out of your misery.”

  Rosalind stalked the halls, listening for footfalls. The place was surprisingly empty. Apparently, Drew and Randolph had sent all their soldiers to the battlefield outside, depending on Drew’s shield to keep them safe in here.

  Rosalind frowned, not entirely sure where she was going. Drew’s magic was all around her, so i
t was hard to trace it to a particular source. She seemed to be in an endless hall of veiny bones.

  Where would Drew be hiding out? It’s not like she’d been given a tour of the palace when he was keeping her chained to the wall in her room, and these halls seemed to go on forever.

  Drew was obsessed with dominance, with supremacy, with ruling as an emperor. She supposed he’d be in the most grandiose room in the palace, one that gave him a view of his entire domain. When she thought of her view from her prison room, she’d been on the third floor at least. She imagined Drew would have kept his own chambers near hers.

  She needed a stairwell. At last, a door interrupted the smooth, bony walls. She pushed through it, finding a twisting stairwell that spiraled upward like winding ribs. I’m on the right track now.

  She ran up the stairs, heart pounding. When she got to the third floor—the top floor—an enormous iron door barred her way. With the power of the mountain goddess strengthening her body, she kicked through it, knocking it open onto another hall.

  Inset into the wall directly across from her was a set of oak doors, carved with chalices and crowns. Iron barred the doors. Someone was clearly in there, hiding. What sort of sad coward locked himself in a room while his city was under siege?

  Based on the ornate doors and the iron, it looked like a room fit for a king, and if her calculations were right, this was the center of the palace, the high point from which an emperor could look out over his entire kingdom. Bingo.

  She crossed to the oak doors, running her fingers over the wood, feeling for a surge of Drew’s magic. If he were inside, she would feel his magic like an intense vortex.

  Yet, she felt nothing here. At least, nothing more than the same low thrum of corrupted magic that covered the whole palace.

  A room for a king. Perhaps Drew wasn’t the real king anyway. He believed he was the emperor, and needed that illusion to sustain him, but he wasn’t the true ruler. He was too mad for that, too enraptured by his own fantasies.