I channeled most of the spirit energy to my own soul, to speed up the vampire healing even more. The wound was still oozing, but had stopped bleeding heavily already. I gasped as Jared picked me up by the upper back and legs, and I cradled against him and laid my head in the crook of his neck.
“I can walk,” I objected.
He grunted, “Maybe, but I’m not letting you.”
I laughed, “Fine, but all the other vampires will make fun of me.”
He blew out a breath, “You’ll survive, you scared me. What happened to him not having a chance?”
I sighed, “The stupid gun, he really didn’t have a chance otherwise.”
I bit my lip. I also might have exaggerated just a wee bit on how easy it would be when I tried to talk him out of staying.
“Put me down, please. I’ll be fine by morning, and fully healed in a few days. It’s just a flesh wound, didn’t even break a bone.”
He sighed, and set me down after he finished taking me down the stairs. He held my hand though, and I didn’t object. He walked me to the front door of the coven building, and gave me a tender kiss.
“Try to stay out of trouble, I’ll see you in the morning.”
I smiled and winked suggestively as I suppressed the pain, “Or maybe sooner, go home and get to sleep.”
He snickered, and let me go inside, where there was a whole gaggle of vampires waiting for me. Apparently none of them had wanted to come out with Jared there…
Despite my promise about the dream, I was still awake an hour later, a little after four. First, Lisa and Kelly had gotten me cleaned up, and had dressed my wounds. Then Lisa, Kelly, Joseph and I went to the security office and got on the phone with Ceara. I’d just finished explaining what had happened, and I could tell Ceara was pissed off, though thankfully not at any of us.
Ceara said reluctantly, “Miku, I hate to ask for more after what you did, but I want you to come down here. I’ll take out Zachary for this, but I want you to read him. I don’t have time to figure out who I can trust. You can tell me who he had to force to do shady shit, and who deserves to die alongside him. You can also track down all his money, so it might be worth it. Zachary isn’t as rich as Mark was, but it could net you another ten million or a little more I think.”
I frowned, “I’ll take the money of course, but I’d come anyway.”
I felt dirty, like she thought she needed to bribe me, instead of just asking.
Ceara replied, “I know that, but it makes me feel better. I don’t want to take advantage of you, yet…”
I laughed, and felt a bit better about it, “Yet you do?” I asked good naturedly, and then said, “I can be there by noon I think. I need some sleep though.”
Ceara replied, “That’s fine, text me when you have a flight number and arrival time.”
I nodded, and then said, “Will do,” since she couldn’t see me. I really was tired, the wound took a lot out of me, plus the long day.
We hung up then, and Lisa helped me upstairs. We actually used the elevator for once…
Chapter 19
I smiled in the plane, remembering Cheryl’s face.
It was Thursday morning, around nine fifty, and this was the fourth day of construction and also the fourth time Cheryl had to cover part of my day. This time it would be most of the day and not just the morning hours.
I did wind up sharing dreams with Jared when I fell asleep, so he knew I wouldn’t be there this morning. He wasn’t happy about me flying off without him, but I promised no fights were on the horizon, that I knew of.
I’d even left my katana at home, though with a little mesmerizing my thigh sheaths went completely unnoticed at the security checkpoint.
I was also thirsty, very thirsty. Between it being another two days, and the bullet wounds from last night, I craved blood.
Brad the flight attendant looked and smelled tasty enough as he walked by, so I got up and followed him to the area behind the curtain. He turned in alarm, but calmed immediately when I caught his eyes.
“This won’t hurt a bit Brad,” I promised, and I held him still as I sunk my teeth into his neck.
I moaned in pleasure, the way a human would when biting into the best steak they’d ever eaten. Brad was delicious. I felt a lot better after that, and I wasn’t wrapped around Brad when I finished either, at least, not that much.
“Thanks Brad, forget this happened okay?”
He nodded with a happy face and a glazed look in his eyes.
I winked and returned to my seat. My shoulder still hurt, though the two grazes were practically healed already, and even the shoulder wound looked like an old scar, though there was still damage inside to heal. The scar would fade though, along with the pain in another day or two.
I managed to nap for the rest of the flight, and I only woke up when the wheels touched ground. I didn’t have any baggage, so as soon as we’d deplaned, I went straight for the arrival pickup location out front. I didn’t have any problems finding Ceara, I could feel every soul within a mile radius, and she shone like a beacon which led me right to her. I slipped into the passenger seat, and she took off.
I was pretty sure this was the first time I was with Ceara alone, and she was still intimidating.
“So, how old is this guy, Zackary I mean.”
Ceara replied, “Eight hundred or so. Almost as powerful as James was. Can you read him before he dies?”
I frowned, “Not sure. I have more power the last couple of days. It’s easier to get through the shields of a four-hundred-year-old now, though it’s still far from simple, but I haven’t seen anyone close to a thousand since Mark.”
Ceara nodded, “I’ll let you try, if it doesn’t work I’ll just kill him.”
I nodded, “That will work.”
It would be much easier to read his soul when he died.
Ceara drove us downtown, and pulled into a club parking lot. I didn’t think for a second the coven lived at a club, but I could also feel a single vampire inside the club’s basement, and he felt as strong as James.
I started to try to break through the maze of air power that flowed around the old vampire before we even got inside. My power was stronger, and my tendrils had more leverage against the air power pushing out, but I still couldn’t get through. If my power doubled again maybe, but it was still better than before.
I was also almost positive I could do more than just shock him with spirit lightning, a true assault would penetrate what my probing magic could not.
We went through an employee only door, and down some stairs. It was dark and dingy, and smelled of beer and whiskey. Definitely a stock room. Zackary was tied up with what looked like bent metal bars and tire irons in the corner.
Ceara shrugged, “I thought he’d run as soon as I left him alone.”
It didn’t bother me at all, he probably deserved a lot worse than what I was looking at.
“Can I try something? I can’t get in with pure spirit power but…”
Ceara shrugged, “Go ahead.”
“Yeah, he might scream.”
Intent with spirit lightning is important, I could hit a human with all my power, and if all I wanted to do was knock the human out, his soul would stay rooted in the body. So I brought up spirit lightning with the intent to blast through his shields, and use it as a conduit for soul reading magic to follow. Something I’d never tried before. Something like digging a hole, and then dropping in a post.
I blasted him.
He screamed for a brief moment, and I cut off the lightning. He looked at me terrified, but I wouldn’t have to do that again. It had worked, but barely. It wouldn’t have worked on Mark, or even James, but I might have been able to kill a vampire as old as James now. I doubt I’d have even a shot though, of more than tickling a vampire as powerful as Ceara.
But in ten years, when I could reach ten or fifteen miles? I didn’t think vampires would be a challenge anymore. Not even the oldest of them. If I could manage to
live that long.
Regardless, I had a pulsing connection of spirit magic that I’d planted in his soul, and even though the hole in his magic was gone when my lightning stopped, the air magic wasn’t strong enough to break it. I read him then, all of his lives, thought I only really needed this last one.
“I have what I need, give me a few minutes, I practiced and can type really fast now.”
I pulled out my laptop and sat on the floor with my legs crossed. I brought up a word processor program, and typed so fast I had to wait for the computer to catch up every few seconds. First I typed out the forty-three names in his coven and the thirty-one of them I thought could be trusted enough to give a chance to. Of those thirty-one, only two were above five hundred, so I figured one of them would be running things, and I gave my suggestion there.
Then I typed up all his hard and liquid assets, passwords, and everything else she’d need to know to claim his assets. She’d been right, I’d be picking up another ten point three million. It didn’t even really seem real to me. I had over thirty-five million dollars now, and no idea what to do with it all. I needed to ask someone for investment advice, maybe Daniel if he was still talking to me.
I kind of got off track there. I finished up the document in just a couple of minutes, it was about twenty pages long. I emailed it to Ceara, shut down my laptop, and put it back in the bag.
Ceara cleared her throat, “That was interesting, would you like to do the honors?”
I froze for a second. I was completely shocked. Had she just asked me if I wanted to be an executioner?
I said quickly in a babbling kind of drawl, “No, thanks. I think I’ll stick to self-defense, and defending the coven. I know he deserves it but I…”
I felt Ceara’s hand on my arm and stopped talking, and then I noted the relieved look in her eyes.
“It’s fine, it’s my job anyway. You can wait upstairs if you want?”
Damnit, it had been another test. Apparently one I’d passed. I wondered for a second if she’d have killed me if I said yes, before I could become a danger to her, and then decided I didn’t really want to know. Even though I kind of knew already.
How could I blame her, she’d only have the upper hand for the next ten years maybe? That meant she had that long to decide whether or not to trust me with her life.
That wasn’t nerve wracking at all…
I was upstairs and halfway across the club to the exit when I felt Zachary’s life extinguish. He’d deserved it I supposed, he killed Stacey, if indirectly, and had done a whole bunch of other bad stuff, he had needed to be dealt with. I was glad I didn’t have Ceara’s job. It must be like herding cats ruling the vampires. Fire breathing, blood drinking cats from hell.
I reached out to help his soul, but he didn’t need it. His soul moved on all on its own.
Ceara actually beat me to the car, and had it started by the time I slipped into the passenger side.
“Why don’t you stay another hour, I know what I’m doing now and you can travel home with me.”
She had an amused tone there at the end, which made me nervous, but I agreed anyway and we shot off toward the coven house. In L.A., that turned out to be an actual mansion.
Chapter 20
The implications of the list hadn’t occurred to me, until we arrived at the mansion. It was stupid of me, but I hadn’t really made a list of who could be trusted and who couldn’t.
I’d made a list of who lives, and who dies.
She’d barely disappeared from the car, and I felt twelve deaths happen just like that, all within two seconds. Forty-three to thirty-one vampires before I could blink twice. I waited in the car and felt a little disturbed by that.
She’d asked me last week, what if my information leads her to kill someone? I’d been so confident, and told her that it would be indirect, the responsibility wouldn’t be on me and the tenets would be upheld.
No big deal.
The tenets were upheld, but the morality of it was another story. I hadn’t considered the emotional weight of it. I had no doubts though, if Ceara had spent another week here she’d have killed the same twelve, and perhaps one or two more that I’d thought could go either way. Regardless, it had been my list. I may not have been executioner, but I’d certainly played judge.
I needed time to come to terms with that, and decide if I could do it again.
“I miss you,” I thought toward Jared as I tried to control my emotions.
“I miss you too Miku,” his mind voice came in clearly.
I was shocked for a minute. Normally mind speech only worked within the range of my reach with spirit magic, but of course we were connected no matter the distance. It’s why I could join his dreams, and apparently it meant we could talk to each other, from anywhere, and at any time.
I started to cry, I’m not sure why, all of it I suppose, the whole week. The judgements I’d just made, the fights, getting to be with Jared my soulmate, which was going really well so far. Although we were in that honeymoon phase still, so it should be easy right now.
Hearing his voice in my mind had tipped me over the edge I supposed, my tears were happy, sad, and confused, all at the same time.
“I’ll be home soon I think,” I sent with a mental hug.
I wiped the tears off my cheeks, and dried my eyes when I felt a mental hug back.
I was a mess, but also a happy one.
Three people came out of the house, Ceara, Melody, and one of the older vampires, Clara.
“… I don’t mean to run out on you after leaving a mess, but it’s better if you straighten them out Clara, it’s your coven now. Follow the laws, but otherwise rule as you see fit. I’ll be in touch.”
Ceara waved me out, so I got out of the car and walked over.
Ceara tossed the keys to Clara and said, “Thanks for letting me borrow it,” then she turned to me, “You ready to go back?”
I nodded, and wondered how we’d get to the airport without a car, when the ground started to rumble. That’s when I realized why Ceara had been amused earlier.
Oh shit, you’ve got to be kidding me.
We slipped into the ground and I froze, my sphincter turned into a vise. Travel underground was strangely quiet, and it didn’t feel like we were moving at all. I finally managed to squeak out a pair of words.
“How long?”
Melody looked amused that I was nervous, I couldn’t wait until I could spirit walk. Revenge would be so sweet… in a hundred years or so.
Suddenly our little bubble of ground rumbled, and we rose up into the underground garage.
Melody winked, “About that long, you okay? The first time is always… interesting.”
“That was… fast,” I said in complete understatement.
I didn’t think we were down there more than a minute. That almost made it even scarier, just how fast was it that we were moving through the Earth?
Melody shrugged, “I can actually get to New York faster. California is a pain to travel through, I have to be careful with all the damned fault lines there. Can’t have California falling into the ocean because I was in a hurry.”
I nodded a little unsteadily, “Of course. That would be unfortunate, for California I mean. Umm, thanks, for the ride. I’m going to go relieve Cheryl now.”
I could swear they were both laughing at me, when I got in my car and drove off.
Epilogue
I shifted back and forth right there in my car after I pulled into a spot behind Legends. It made my shoulder ache, but it also cleaned me and my clothes up, and my long dark hair looked freshly brushed, which made it worth it. I was still wearing the same thing as I’d worn for the flight, which was a yellow sundress that showed a teasing amount of cleavage, and came down to mid-thigh.
I walked in and said hi, and I saw Jared look up at me in surprise. I knew he thought I was still in California and wouldn’t be back for a few hours. I grinned as I headed toward the back and into the office.
<
br /> “Hey Cheryl, you can go now. I promise I’ll try really hard to make it all day Friday without you.”
She snorted and knocked on the wooden desk, “Don’t jinx it girl. It’s not that bad from back here, I can’t feel their magic. Just don’t tell anyone I said that.”
I laughed, “I won’t.”
She slipped out without another word, and Jared walked in.
“Hey, you got here fast.”
I shrugged, “Melody express. Umm, Earth sorceress.”
Jared said in a very determined voice, “I’m taking you home tonight.”
I raised an eyebrow, “You are?” my body tingled at the thought, but I tried to play hard to get. Not that I was, for him anyway. He so didn’t count that way.
He nodded, “Yes, I know you’re working all weekend, which means tonight’s the best option.”
I smiled at him and blushed, but refused to look away from his eyes as I said, “I suppose I could be talked into that.”
He nodded and I could see his eyes kept dipping down at my dress, so I smiled and spun in a circle, “See something you like?”
He nodded and I felt beautiful as his eyes caressed me.
He said gruffly, “That’s a very nice dress Miku,” and then he turned around and locked the office door…
Afterword:
I hope you enjoyed this story, if you did please leave a review. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback or opinions.
About the Author : If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at [email protected] If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book. I can also be found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7456808.D_L_Harrison
Other books by D. L. Harrison:
http://www.amazon.com/author/dlharrison
The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own.
Lion's Claw: Spirit Sorceress: Book 2 Page 11