The coven’s rules permitted its members to leave the caverns if they felt the need, as long as they stayed within a few hundred feet of the entrance. Kristi wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she was pretty sure she would not have to go far. She told Marcio so.
“Let’s go, then,” he said.
He let go of one of Kristi’s hands, but kept hold of the other. Together, they headed for the surface.
42. A MEETING
Jenna had the cabdriver drop her off at Gillette Castle, a normal enough destination. The strange looking hilltop castle looked like it had been constructed out of papier-mâché, but was actually made out of thousands of stones gathered from the local hills. It had been built for an eccentric actor early in the twentieth century and was now the centerpiece of a state park whose other main attraction was its spectacular views of the Connecticut River. The vampire caverns were hidden in the forest a mile or so north the park. She would walk the rest of the way.
The air was chill, with the sun hidden behind a thick layer of gray clouds that had moved in since the morning, but the cold seldom bothered her. She skirted the edge of the park surrounding the castle and headed north into the trees.
She had learned the location of the vampire lair the same way she learned many things—by carefully watching the world below her in the guise of an owl. Years ago, she had seen a vampire slay a young man. There was nothing she could have done to help the man even if she wanted to, but she had followed the vampire through the night, staying high above the tree tops. Her keen eyes and ears had barely been up to task, but she had managed to see him disappear into an opening behind some bushes. She never thought to make use of the knowledge, yet here she was, picking her way through the barren woods towards the vampire den.
She stopped at the edge of a small clearing near the bank of the river and sat down on the smooth, hard surface of a fallen log whose bark had long since rotted away. The vampire caverns were still several hundred feet away, but to go any closer would be to invite disaster. Those she needed to speak to would find her here easily enough.
The overcast sky gave her hope the vampires would come while it was still light. She didn’t relish the thought of dealing with the creatures in the darkness, but if she had to wait until nightfall, she was determined to do so.
Kristi and Marcio appeared in front of Jenna as if by magic. She had neither seen nor heard the vampires’ approach until they were mere steps from her. She was glad to see they were holding hands. It might make her mission easier. She stood up.
Kristi smiled at her, but Marcio was staring hard at her with a suspicious look in his eyes.
“Hi, Jenna,” Kristi said. “What are you doing here?
“I need to talk to you. How are you feeling?”
Kristi’s smile widened. “I’ve never felt better, thanks to you.” She snuggled closer to Marcio. “And to Marcio, of course.”
“Should I even ask why Kristi is thanking you?” Marcio asked. His voice had a definite edge to it.
Jenna silently cursed herself. She had made it impossible for Kristi to speak to anyone else about Jenna’s role in Kristi’s transformation, but had not thought to forbid Kristi from speaking about it to her. Oh, well, she thought, since she wanted both Kristi and Marcio’s help, she would probably have had to tell him eventually.
“I, uh, gave Kristi a bit of help before you found her,” she said to Marcio.
“A bit of help, huh?” A half-smile curved Marcio’s lips as he recalled the strange, almost irresistible pull that had led him to Kristi. “I’m pretty sure you did more than that.”
Jenna sighed. She decided she might as well come clean. With a glance as Kristi, she dissolved the spell that kept Kristi from speaking about what had happened, then turned back to Marcio.
“The only way to save Kristi was to find a vampire to complete her transformation. I may have provided a slight push for you to come find her.”
“Trifling with vampires is dangerous business,” Marcio said. “Even for a witch.”
Kristi turned to Marcio and took his other hand.
“Please don’t be angry with Jenna,” she implored him. “She gave me a choice of finding a volkaane to destroy me or a vampire to turn me. I chose vampire.” She rose up onto her toes and kissed Marcio on the cheek. “Surely, you are glad I did.”
Marcio smiled. “Yes. I’m very glad.” He turned to Jenna. “I suppose I must thank you as well, then.”
Jenna returned his smile. “Well, I’m glad that’s settled—because I may need your help.”
Marcio arched an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Can we sit? This may take a little time to explain, and I’ve walked many miles today.”
“Of course,” Kristi said, realizing she had already forgotten what it felt like to be tired.
“You two can sit there,” Jenna said, indicating the fallen tree. “I’d like to face you. Marcio, could you bring that rock over here for me, please.”
She pointed to a large boulder on the far side of the small clearing.
“I’ll get it,” Kristi said. She bounded over to the rock and lifted it easily, carrying it back to Jenna and Marcio and setting it down a few feet from the log. She still thrilled to her new strength and loved any chance to use it.
“Thank you,” Jenna said, sitting down on the rock while the two vampires settled onto the log. She was pleased to see they still maintained their extraordinary strength. If they agreed to help her, and she decided to go forward with her plan, they were going to need it.
43. THE BOUNDARY
Early Wednesday afternoon, Leesa was hanging out in Cali’s room. They had both just gotten back from their classes and were catching each other up on their respective days. Cali had turned on her stereo and Gotye was whining about “being cut off” by somebody that he “used to know.” Leesa liked the song’s catchy beat and especially liked Kimbra’s vocals when she cut in near the end.
Leesa had tried to keep herself busy since getting back from her meeting with Dominic. Unless she was mentally rehearsing her part in the upcoming mission, which she did many times a day, she didn’t like to think about it; staying busy and enjoying her friends was the best way to try to put it out of her mind. Spending time with loved ones was especially important now in case things turned out badly. For that reason, she’d had dinner with her mom and brother the night before. She was pretty sure she had hidden her anxiety, although Bradley had looked at her funny a couple of times.
Cali was telling Leesa about something humorous that had happened in her biology class when Leesa’s cell buzzed. She looked down at the screen—it was the call she had been expecting and dreading. Standing up, she put the phone to her ear and moved across the room to the open doorway. “Be right back,” she mouthed to Cali as she stepped out into the hallway to take Dominic’s call.
“Where are you?” Leesa asked him. “Have you found the boundary?”
“Not yet,” Dominic replied, “but I have to be getting close. I’m just west of Meriden. Since we know your magic was weakened in Middletown, the boundary must be somewhere in between.”
“I understand,” Leesa said. Meriden and Middletown were only ten miles or so apart.
“Timing will be critical,” Dominic said. “The black waziri are not far behind me now. You need to get started, so you can be close by when I find the boundary. Drive a few miles outside of Middletown and wait in your car. I’ll call again when I locate the edge of the magic.”
“Okay. I have your box with me and the car is right outside. I’ll leave now.”
“You remember what you have to do, right?”
Leesa smiled, thinking about her near constant thoughts about her upcoming role.
“Yep. I’ll be ready.” Scared as hell, she thought silently, but ready.
“Good girl,” Dominic said. “I’ll call as soon as I find the boundary.”
The phone went silent in Leesa’s ear. She returned to Cali’s room.
“Stand up,” she told Cali.
Cali looked puzzled as she got to her feet. Leesa wrapped her arms around her best friend.
“I love you,” she said, squeezing Cali tightly.
“I love you, too,” Cali said, returning Leesa’s hug and then pushing herself back to arm’s length. “So why am I not liking the sound of this?”
Leesa sucked in a deep breath. “There’s something I have to go do. It might be dangerous.” The words sounded ridiculous as soon as they left her mouth. She wondered if she had ever made such a complete understatement before. “That’s all I can tell you.”
Cali stared into Leesa’s eyes. She wanted to question Leesa to try to learn more, but she pushed the thought down. She knew Leesa would tell her more if she could.
“Then you had better call me the second it’s over,” she said instead. “I’ll be worried sick about you until you do.”
“I will, I promise. It’ll probably be at least a few hours, though. Maybe more.”
“I don’t care. And I don’t care what time it is, either. You call me as soon as you can.”
“Deal.” Leesa hugged Cali one more time and then limped from the room.
She hurried down the stairs and out to her rented car, which was parked right in front of the dorm. She dropped her purse with the all important box inside it onto the passenger seat and settled in behind the wheel. A moment later, she was heading toward the campus exit, driving toward whatever fate awaited her.
While Leesa headed west from Middletown, Dominic was driving slowly east, his eyes carefully scanning the air ahead of him for any sign of magic. He wasn’t sure exactly what he would see when he came to the edge of the zone of weakening magic, but he was pretty sure he would recognize it. The immense amount of power necessary to drain seemingly all magic over such a wide area could not be hidden from someone who knew what to look for—and he was someone who knew. So were his black brethren, but he was counting on the signs being so faint and his enemies so focused on destroying him that they would not notice, at least not until it was too late.
Every mile or so, he left the highway and drove in varying directions on side streets, just to delay his pursuers, who would be driving much faster than he was. If he kept going in a straight line, they might overtake him before he was ready. As he had told Leesa, the timing of all this was going to be critical.
Finally, he spotted it: a very faint shimmering in the air, almost like waves of heat radiating up from the road, but far less visible than real heat waves would be. He eased over onto the shoulder and stuck his head out the window for a better look. There was no doubt. The magic was there, less than a hundred feet in front of him.
He got out of the car and walked slowly forward, careful to stop a good ten feet from the almost invisible curtain of magical energy. He studied the area on the other side of the boundary carefully, looking for the perfect place to set his trap. There was a small diner up ahead on the left side of the road, but the right side was mostly trees. Interspersed with the leafless deciduous trees, he saw several small stands of green mountain laurel. The closely packed leaves would provide some cover for Leesa after she activated his avatar. The place wasn’t perfect, but it was better than he might have expected. There was even a slight incline he could roll his empty car down. The tiny dip would carry the vehicle across the boundary while he hid on this side. It would be one more piece to draw his pursuers into the danger zone.
He stroked his beard with his fingers, thinking. It was now or never. He had to decide whether to go ahead with his plan or to forget about it and simply keep fleeing from his enemies. Both choices had their pros and cons, but either way, he had to move quickly.
He spun around and strode back toward his car. Pulling his new cell phone from his pocket while he walked, he punched in Leesa’s number.
44. THE STAGE IS SET
Leesa pulled into the parking lot of the diner Dominic had told her about. When she turned the engine off and looked up the road, she saw him standing on the opposite side of the highway, a hundred feet or so away. He gave her a curt nod to acknowledge her arrival and then poked his head and arms into his car through the driver’s side window. A moment later, the car began rolling slowly forward, coming to a stop on the shoulder of the road about ten paces from where Dominic stood watching. As soon as the car stopped rolling, Dominic gave Leesa a quick thumbs up—the signal they had agreed on that she should proceed as planned.
She grabbed the ivory box from her bag and got out of the car. After waiting for a truck to flash by, she hurried across the road and found the spot Dominic had described to her. The old oak tree—almost twice as thick as any of its neighbors—was just barely visible from the highway. Its gnarled branches spread wide in every direction, and Leesa could imagine the huge canopy of shade they would provide when the leaves grew back. She imagined the tree had probably been left standing sometime far back in the past while its neighbors were felled for lumber and to clear farmland. When the field was abandoned, the woods had grown back around the oak, leaving a small clearing around its base where not enough sun penetrated to give life to new growth. None of the second-growth trees came close to matching the size of the majestic oak.
She looked around and spied several small green patches of mountain laurel, just as Dominic had described. One of the groves, perhaps thirty or forty feet from the oak, seemed a bit thicker than the others. She decided that one would be her hiding place. Moving quickly now, she limped to the base of the old oak and set Dominic’s box down onto the ground. She pressed her index finger against the silver front plate.
“Illuminati verdus,” she said, imagining a yellow light on the tip of her finger.
She saw the yellow glow for just an instant before a blinding flash of silver light made her close her eyes. When she opened them, Dominic was standing in front of her, his back against the trunk of the tree. Not Dominic, she reminded herself—his avatar.
The likeness was startling. It was hard to believe this was not her friend and mentor standing there. It became even more difficult when the avatar spoke. It sounded just like Dominic.
“Well done, Leesa,” it said. “Now go hide. Our enemies are almost upon us.”
Leesa scrambled away and dove into the stand of mountain laurel. She stretched out prostrate on the ground behind some of the leafiest branches and pressed herself as deeply as possible into the layer of dead leaves that had collected there. The smell of decaying leaves and the damp earth beneath them filled her nostrils. Satisfied that she had hidden herself as completely as possible, she twisted her head so she could watch. From where she lay, she could see both the highway and the avatar.
Barely a minute later, a black SUV swung quickly to the side of the road. Leesa allowed herself a grim smile. This had to be the black waziri—there was no other reason for a vehicle to pull onto the shoulder here. Her smile turned to a frown as she watched four figures emerge from the vehicle. Dominic had said there were only two black waziri chasing him now. Who—or what—were these other two? She hoped Dominic had the power to deal with the unexpected extras.
Hidden behind the trunk of tree, Dominic also saw the four men climb out of the car. Unlike Leesa, he knew immediately the two younger men were apprentices to Tomas and Andre. While Makenzi and Matthew were nowhere near as powerful as their masters yet, they were dangerous nonetheless. He hoped the four wizards remained close enough together for him to deal with all of them at once. If not, he would have to take care of Andre and Tomas first, and then hope he still had time to dispatch the acolytes.
He watched as the wizards’ eyes fastened upon his avatar. He felt rather than saw the satisfied looks on their faces as they realized they had finally caught up to their elusive quarry. They took two confident steps forward and then abruptly stopped. Andre and Tomas looked quickly at each other. Dominic knew they had just sensed the weakening of their magic. Beyond the shock of such an unthinkable thing happening, they had to be wondering if he was
somehow behind it. The two black waziri edged a few steps away from each other and motioned their apprentices to spread wider still.
The avatar Dominic moved confidently toward them.
“I see that you have felt my spell,” it said, carrying on the charade even as Dominic himself would have done. “It is one of the last things you shall feel.”
“You do not possess the power to take our magic away like this,” Tomas said, though there was a tinge of a question in his voice.
Andre slid another few feet away from Tomas. “If you did,” he said, a bit more confidently than his companion, “you would have destroyed us already. I think that whatever magic has afflicted us has stricken you as well. Perhaps it is even the reason we have finally overtaken you.” He risked a careful smile. “No, I do not believe you have the power to defeat us.”
Andre nodded to Tomas. Both wizards lifted their hands threateningly toward the avatar.
Dominic stepped out from his hiding place behind them, careful to remain a few feet away from the shimmering boundary, which was even more difficult to see here among the trees. He raised both his palms toward his enemies.
“He may not have the power,” Dominic said. “But I most assuredly do.”
The black waziri and their two henchmen spun around at the sound of Dominic’s voice. He saw a look of understanding flash across Andre’s face. The dark wizard had undoubtedly seen the curtain of magic and guessed that it was the cause of his diminished power. He also recognized that by remaining outside the barrier, Dominic almost certainly retained his full power. Tomas realized it as well.
“Well played, old friend,” Andre said. “The avatar was a brilliant stroke. How did you fashion one without us sensing the use your magic?”
Dominic knew Andre was stalling for time, hoping some solution to his dire predicament might come to him. Dominic was not about to give him that chance by engaging in any dialogue. His enemies had no need to know he had created the avatar a hundred years before. They had no need of anything—save to finally pay for their treachery with their deaths. He gathered the full might of his magic, ready to annihilate his weakened foes.
Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) Page 22