by Mark Tufo
Within the pretty, poof sleeves of her shepherdess outfit was a polished iron knife on a spring trigger, courtesy of Drake. Luckily the Ball did not have a security sensor or she would have set off every alarm in the place. Triggering the release, the blade shot into her palm. She brought it out and down, slicing through the necromancer's tuxedo and deeply into his chest. On the upwards swing she stabbed into his wrist forcing him to release her other hand. Iron is deadly to the people of Faerie. Not instant death as many stories implied but the metal made it much harder for their super-healing processes to kick in.
Trance jumping, she leaped to one wall where she clung using a resonance spell. Scientists would be so very surprised to learn how much the physics of resonance played into magic. You could tear a man apart with the right frequency. Or a building. Jump like a grasshopper and climb walls as quick and sure as a spider.
He leaped to meet her head-on. Their magic clashing in an explosion of power. They rushed at each other like eagles locked in combat. Punching and fighting, more brawlers than magicians as their spells fought with them.
Snarling in rage, he pushed away from her, calling out a spell that hung tangibly in the air between them. Tamsin pushed after him only to bounce painfully off the incantation, solid as a brick wall.
With a wave of his hand, he threw the magic at her and in the infinite time of slipstreaming, she could see behind the words to the true form the spell. A beast of many legs and more teeth. From the sides of its body, long tentacles waved restlessly, each covered in rows of suckers. Cross a lizard with a giant squid and this might be the result. She could see the name of the spell written across the leathery hide, glowing as brightly as hot neon. Devourer.
The spell-beast sprang, knocking her off balance. A dozen tentacles attached themselves to her. Each touch burned like hellfire and Tamsin couldn't help crying out. The incantation pushed her to the other side of the room as the suckers lining the tentacles attached themselves to the bare skin on her thighs, forearms, throat and face. They began to pulse. A horrible, sucking, swallowing sensation.
A spell as powerful as the Devourer would surely have consumed the life force of the Charmer, truly eating her alive. Tamsin was much more than this single Witch, however powerful the Charmer had been in life. Her personal magic was the sum of many diverse supernatural creatures. Tamsin called upon the still powerful remnant of Shifter magic she had learned two bodies ago. A gut-wrenching, vertigo inducing, mind reeling, over-the-drop roller coaster spell that forced her body into agonizing contractions and changed her internal structure into something else entirely. Though it lasted bare seconds, that was enough.
Shifters were pure poison to most supernatural beings. The Devourer had been created specifically by the Necromancer for the Charmer. To suck the life force from her and leave the body untouched. Perhaps this was how the girl had originally died. Unfortunately for the sorcerer's schemes, the altered life force of the Shifter contaminated the spell entirely. The Devourer pulled away too late, its rubbery skin changing from blue to black. The tentacles flailed out spastically, whipping this way and that and nearly braining Tamsin in the process as she scrambled away. Bouncing off the ceiling and into the wall spastically, until, tentacles hanging limply, it spun away, back into the void.
The necromancer could not hide the dismay in his face. He obviously had been very sure of this spell. He launched himself at her, screaming curses, a wave of the dead roiling before him.
Her Shifter magic was already dissipating. Tamsin tensed her legs and sprang from the wall directly in the wave's path, pulling a round mirror from another pocket with her free hand. There were hidden pockets all over the fanciful dress ensemble and secret magical goodies stashed inside. Tamsin had spent much time over the past couple of days cataloging all she could find.
Placing the knife before the mirror, she called on the light of every white magic goddess she could think of and plunged into the seething mass of mist and bodies. At first she was surrounded by only inky darkness, the stench of corpses all but overwhelming. Marshalling her power, she centered it in her stomach feeling the heat build, flooding out into her entire body. Channeling that energy, she sent it shooting through her fingertips into the mirror. The talisman lit up like a spotlight, exposing the twisted, horrifying faces of the dead all around her.
Their screams of anger, pain, despair and rage were deafening: They clutched at her, ripping and tearing her clothes. She felt the little knit cap snatched from her head along with a thick lock of hair. Tensing her muscles – magical and physical – she said the other spell she had prepared. A word. A very hot, bright word.
Razor-edged brilliance blossomed, first around the mirror and then her entire body until she glowed brightly as a saint in a Caravaggio painting. The hands of the dead touching her caught fire, flaring like oily rags. Screaming, the spirits jerked away. She blazed through the press of wretched corpses, burning her way closer to the necromancer.
As the dead began to fall back cowering, two face loomed before her. Beautiful, ageless features, strong narrow nose and long brows. Black staring eyes. A man and a woman. They opened their mouthes and Tamsin saw the fangs. Primes.
Time slowed as she passed, time enough for them to speak.
"Find me," said the man, his voice dry as dust in her ear.
"Find me," pleaded the woman, her voice thin and hoarse.
"We are lost," they cried together. "So lost."
Tamsin pushed forward and they were gone, tumbling backwards with the rest of the dead.
The necromancer raged at his slaves. Several times he called upon them, ordering them forward. Each time they cowered further away from the white light of Tamsin's power.
She rammed into him in a bone-shaking body slam and thrust the iron knife into his abdomen pulling it high until the blade scraped bone. With her other hand, she thrust the blazing mirror into the open wound. The light burst from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth and he screamed, a high horrible sound of pain and terror. She dragged him into one of the little galleries that lined the high walls of the ballroom, pressing him against the wall as his blood flowed over her dress.
“Tell me what you know of Knightly!” She shouted.
The dead had retreated from them, hovering nearby. Tamsin could almost believe she saw them smiling at his pain.
“Tell me!”
“Nothing! I know nothing about him. Those who promised me this body told me to use that name to draw you out,” he gasped.
“Who ordered you?”
“Saints, Sinners, what does it matter?”
“What do you mean saints and sinners? What are you talking about?”
“The one who hired me. Primes and witches are at war in this city. The Witches,” he gasped again, giving a sharp cry. “They brokered a truce some months ago. Not everyone is happy with that.”
She said the word again, louder, and the light became incandescent. “Are you saying a Prime hired you? Or the witches?”
He howled.
The dead, who had been at arms length, were suddenly all around her – which is what happens when you take your eyes off reanimated dead spirits. Their power was growing as the sorcerer's diminished. They pushed, actually pushed, Tamsin aside, forcing her to pull the mirror from the ragged hole in the necromancer's abdomen. As she did, the dead rushed in to fill the void.
There was a horrible, grinding sound and an intense absence of light, plunging them into inky darkness. The necromancer screamed again and an explosion of energy blew Tamsin off the gallery and into the air.
The sonic boom from the dispersal of magical energy tumbled her over and over, petticoats flying up in her face. She fell out of slipstreaming, slowing down to crash back into the pace of real time. Something sparkly came into view and Tamsin reached out automatically, just managing to grip it with one hand as she tumbled by. Shaking off the concussion of energy, she tried to focus.
She was wet, she realized. It seemed to be raining
very hard. Blearily she saw something solid receding and getting closer, receding and getting closer.
What the hell?
She stared harder. A wall, she realized. That was the wall of the ballroom. Why was it moving? And why was she wet and getting wetter? Shaking her head and tightening her grip, Tamsin took a deep breath, looked around and understood.
She was hanging one-handed from the giant crystal chandelier of the ballroom, swinging precariously back and forth high above the dance floor. All the emergency sprinklers were going full blast and every dancer, every partygoer, every waiter had stopped to stare above their heads in astonishment.
At her.
“Oh crap,” Tamsin groaned.
Note from the author: Thank you for reading Dust to Dust: Fangs For Your Memories. I hope you enjoyed Tamsin and her soul-searching quest to put herself together – paranormally speaking. Though I am not sure she enjoys being a mage/sheep/Little Bo Peep all rolled into one. I rather think Drake is intrigued with her new transformation. Minus the hideous hat. Their adventures with the Prime Vampires will continue in the next Dust to Dust book, Witch You Were Here. Tamsin, after all, has a blood debt to repay, runes to find, and Soul Eaters to hunt.
Author bio: Eden Crowne is from San Francisco, California. In her other life, she is an international journalist writing on technology, pop culture, trends, and travel in Asia. She calls Tokyo, Vienna, London and L.A. home. She loves traveling, champagne, hanging out with her kids, espresso at sidewalk cafes, people watching, really fast express trains, and laughing like crazy – though not always in that order.
If you are interested in receiving emails from Eden about new books, contests and giveaways, please sign up for her mailing list at: www. edencrowne. com.
Look for the Prime Vampire Clans in the first of their own series coming soon: Burning Daylight.
You can also find some Prime Vampire action in 'Fools Downfall: The Journal of Julian Lake' on the author's website, www.edencrowne.com. The journal follows the tortured young English sorcerer on his adventures in supernatural underworld of Japan before the start of my YA Urban Fantasy novel, Fear Club: Tokyo Masquerade.
Take care everyone!
Other books by Eden Crowne:
Fall From Grace, Book 1 in the Avenging Angel series
Fear Club: Tokyo Masquerade
For More From Eden:
Webpage: http://www.edencrowne.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eden-Crowne/150046175078398?fref=ts
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[1] (Chernev, 2012)