(Blue Fire 05) Heartless [A]

by Scott Prussing

  “At least we’ll both be done after tomorrow,” Cali said. “Then it’s a party hearty weekend.” She looked at Leesa and smiled. “Well, it will be for me, at least.”

  Dominic dropped the book back onto the table and turned his head toward Leesa. When he spoke, his voice was low—he obviously knew they were not alone up here today.

  “So, what is so important that you needed to talk to me even with all this work you have to do today?”

  “I need to ask you about a dream I had last night.” Leesa hesitated, a bit embarrassed about what she was about to reveal. Her fingers began twirling nervously in her hair. “It was a dream about Rave.”

  Cali broke into wide grin. “You’re blushing big time! And doing that hair thing, too. You had a sex dream, didn’t you? C’mon, admit it.”

  Leesa felt her cheeks grow warmer. She did not need to remind herself to keep her voice low, not when she was talking about something like this.

  “I, uh, wouldn’t call it a sex dream, not exactly. But, yeah, there was some fooling around,” she admitted.

  “Details,” Cali said. “Let’s hear some de…” Dominic froze her with a look. “Sorry,” she said meekly.

  Dominic looked back to Leesa. “What is it about the dream that concerns you?”

  “Well, first off, it seemed so real. And there was magic in it, too. Strange magic.” Leesa smiled at the recollection of the wondrous place called Azure—where in heck had she dreamt that up from? “I don’t know if it was one of my magical dreams or not.”

  She pulled her fingers from her hair and clasped her hands together atop the table. She didn’t see the need to add that in some ways she hoped it was a magical dream, because it was definitely a dream she would love to have come true.

  “And you are worried that if the dream was a magical one, the xenorians might be able to detect the magic?” Dominic surmised. “That’s why we’re here in the library?”

  Leesa nodded. “Yes. Exactly. Do you know whether they could?”

  Dominic leaned back in his chair. His eyelids drooped half-closed as he thought about the matter.

  “I doubt they can sense the dream itself,” he said after a few moments. “The magic of dreams remains inside your head—it does not reach into the real world. The black waziri cannot detect my dreams, and my evil brethren are closely in tune with my vibrations. So, I do not think the xenorians would be able to sense yours.” He leaned forward and fixed his eyes upon Leesa’s. “That is, unless you used your magic to summon the dream. In that case, you would be using active magic. You did not do that, did you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Leesa pursed her lips. “But I’m not sure.”

  Dominic’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, you are not sure?”

  Leesa explained about the message she had sent to Rave through Max, and how Max had replied with four barks and then licked her cheek. She could tell by the look on Cali’s face that Cali was loving this part of the story.

  “A few weeks back, I was studying the chapter on dreams in my book of magic,” Leesa told Dominic. “The book said that to summon a dream, you need to concentrate on what you want to dream about as you fall asleep. I wasn’t trying to summon a dream last night, but the last thing I thought about before falling asleep was Max’s four barks meaning Rave had replied “I love you, too,” and that the lick was a kiss from him. I’m worried that might be a form of using my magic to call forth the dream.”

  Dominic nodded. “I see your predicament.” He stroked his salt and pepper goatee with the fingers of his right hand. “But there is no need for you to worry, I do not believe. Active magic must be consciously summoned and directed. Unconscious yearnings are like the dream itself—they remain inside your head. No one can detect them. Not the xenorians, nor the black waziri.” He smiled. “In this, at least, you have nothing to fear from the xenorians. You were wise to be concerned, though, and to seek my counsel about it. When in doubt, caution is always a wise choice.”

  Leesa breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Now that you’ve gotten all that out of the way,” Cali said, “how about sharing some of the juicy details from your dream?”

  “Ha! Fat chance,” Leesa said, smiling demurely. “But I will tell you it involved a sheer gossamer gown and a magical bed hanging from some trees.”

  “Really? A magical bed? That’s totally cool.” Cali winked at Dominic. “Our little girl is growing up so fast.”

  Dominic could only smile and shake his head in amusement.

  15. MIDIGHT MEETING

  It was nearly midnight when Leesa and Cali finally gathered up their books and headed home from the library. Except for two brief food breaks and a short walk after dinner, they had been studying all day. Leesa was exhausted—she was afraid if she spent any more time studying, she would be too tired to take her tests. She was going to set her alarm early and squeeze in some last minute studying in the morning, but for now, she was done.

  The night sky was starless and a cold breeze blew into their faces, but Leesa noticed neither. She was too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. When she got this tired, her limp sometimes became an issue and she had to be careful not to trip. Cali seemed to sense this, because she had hooked her arm inside Leesa’s without saying anything. Arm in arm, they trudged back to their dorm, too exhausted to even talk much. The walk seemed longer than Leesa remembered, but finally she saw the dorm up ahead. Plenty of windows still glowed yellow, mute evidence that lots of girls in her dorm were still awake and cramming for their exams.

  As they approached the corner of the building, a dark form suddenly detached itself from the black shadows against the wall and glided toward them. Leesa’s heart felt like it had jumped up into her throat as adrenaline shot through her veins. She took a quick step back, unsure what to do, flinching as an equally startled Cali grabbed her forearm and squeezed.

  They both recognized the newcomer at the same time. Clad entirely in black, Stefan’s pale face seemed almost to float in the darkness. His black eyes were like holes in his face, and his soul patch looked like a tunnel into his chin.

  “Stefan, you scared the crap out of me,” Leesa scolded, her heart still racing. At least she was no longer exhausted, she thought, not with all that adrenaline surging through her veins.

  “I’m sorry,” Stefan said. “I’ve been waiting for you. My kind prefer to remain invisible while we wait—especially if we are waiting for a girl who has a volkaane for a boyfriend.”

  Leesa breathed in a slow, deep breath, tying to slow her pounding heart. Stefan was as handsome as ever—the second handsomest guy she had ever met, after Rave, of course. His sensual, sexual pull was undeniable. As always when she felt it, Leesa wondered if the attraction was simply from his exotic looks and lean athletic body, or if there was some special vampire thing behind it. It didn’t matter, though. No matter how mesmerizing Stefan might be, she had given her heart and soul to Rave, and nothing was ever going to change that. Stefan wanted her—he had made no secret of it. He had even bargained Bradley’s safety to get Leesa to agree to become his vampire consort. She had agreed, but thankfully the deal had fallen through when Stefan tasted the taint of grafhym in her blood. Still, he had followed through on his end of the bargain and released Bradley. That by itself was enough to put her in his debt, but he had also saved Cali from Edwina and had been one of the vampires who had dispatched the black waziri less than a week before.

  So she stilled her temper and resisted the urge to chastise him further for scaring her half to death.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Ahem,” Cali coughed. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Stefan turned toward Cali and flashed his most sensual smile.

  “Of course, how rude of me.” He took Cali’s hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  Cali thrilled to feel of his co
ld lips against her skin. This time, however, Stefan did not stop there. He let his fangs extend slightly and pressed the points into the back of her hand, skillfully keeping the pressure soft enough so he did not break the skin. Still, a streak of icy pleasure and pain flowed into her.

  Cali’s eyes widened in shocked surprise at the unexpected sensation.

  “What was that?” she managed to ask.

  Smiling, Stefan let go of Cali’s hand. “Just a little reminder for you that some things should not always be trifled with.”

  Cali looked down at her hand and saw two tiny indentations left behind by Stefan’s fangs. Her skin was still tingling. The pain was gone now, but the pleasure lingered.

  “Wow. I’ll say.”

  Leesa had used the brief interlude to gather her thoughts.

  “We can’t talk here,” she told Stefan. “It could be dangerous.”

  Stefan’s eyes flicked back and forth warily and he sniffed the air. “Are Rave and his friends nearby? I do not sense them.”

  “No, the danger isn’t from Rave.”

  Leesa doubted there would have been trouble even if Rave were here. The first time he and Stefan had encountered each other they were getting ready for a fight to the death, but she had stepped between them and forbidden them to fight. That had been the scariest moment of her life up to then, but somehow, she had succeeded in stopping them. Since then, Rave and Stefan had formed an uneasy alliance, using her as the middleman. Rave and two of his volkaane friends had helped Stefan destroy two super vampires whose powers had been magically enhanced by the black waziri, and Stefan had repaid the favor last week. Still, she thought it best to keep the two natural enemies apart, especially since they might think that whatever debts they might have owed each other were now canceled out.

  Tonight, though, she wasn’t worried about Rave showing up. She was worried about the xenorians. When questioning Cali, they had listed vampires among the things they hunted. Leesa did not want to take the chance that one of them might sense Stefan’s presence—for his sake as well as hers.

  She grabbed his wrist. “Let’s walk a few blocks away and I’ll tell you all about it. And you can tell me why you’re here in the first place.”

  Stefan nodded. “Agreed.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Cali said.

  Leesa looked at her friend for a moment, unsure if she should expose Cali to any more possible danger. Cali obviously read her look, because she didn’t give Leesa a chance to say anything.

  “I’m not letting you walk back alone,” Cali said. “Stefan can’t walk you all the way back, for the same reason we’re leaving now—we need to get him away from the dorm.”

  Leesa knew her friend well enough to know it was useless to protest. Besides, Cali was right.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  The three of them fell into step, with Stefan in the middle, and headed back the way Leesa and Cali had just come.

  When they had gone three blocks from the dorm, they moved off the sidewalk onto a small, dark, grassy area next to a classroom building, which was locked and empty this time of night. Huddled near the side of the building, they were pretty much invisible from the street and were sheltered from the biting wind as well. Stefan did not care about the cold wind, of course, but he liked the concealment of the shadows.

  “So, why did we have to get away from your dorm?” he asked Leesa. “Were you worried there might be volkaanes coming around?”

  Leesa knew she had to be careful with her answer—she did not want to give Stefan any hint that the volkaanes’ magical fire had been weakened. If the vampires knew that their long time foes were vulnerable, they might decide to go hunting.

  “No, not that,” she said after a moment. “Rave has been gone for more than a week, and I don’t expect him back for a little while yet.”

  If Stefan was at all curious about Rave’s absence, he gave no sign of it, for which Leesa was glad.

  “What then?” Stefan asked. “If not volkaanes, what should a vampire be concerned about?”

  “Have you ever heard of xenorians?”

  As usual, Stefan’s black eyes remained expressionless—black mirrors, Leesa usually thought of them as, except when they shifted to bottomless dark pools—but the skin around his mouth and eyes tightened almost imperceptibly.

  “I have,” he said. “But what do you know of them?”

  “Three of them came to our dorm to talk to me a week or so ago,” Cali said. “We’re afraid they may still be around, or that they might come back.”

  Stefan stared at Cali. “Why would xenorians be interested in you? You are a mere human.”

  “I know…lucky for me, huh? One of them—a woman—touched me to see if I had any magic. Of course, I don’t.”

  Stefan thought for a few seconds and then turned to Leesa. “I’m guessing they must not have talked to you then, right?”

  Stefan’s question took Leesa by surprise. She had expected him to ask why the xenorians were there in the first place. She wondered why he would assume they had not spoken to her and worried that perhaps Stefan knew more about her than he had ever let on.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, fighting to keep her tone neutral.

  “If the xenorian had touched you like she did Cali, I think she would probably have detected the grafhym in you. And if she did, you might not be standing here now.”

  Relief flooded though Leesa. She hadn’t even thought about the taint of grafhym in her blood—she had far more magic inside her for the xenorians to detect than that small bit. But Stefan clearly did not know that. She didn’t think he would use her secret against her if he ever learned it, but she was glad he did not know.

  “I’d forgotten about that—the grafhym thing,” she said. “You’re right, though. They haven’t spoken to me—and I guess it’s a good thing, now that you bring it up.”

  Stefan turned back to Cali. “So why were they there? And why did they want to talk to you?”

  “Three zombies attacked my floor a few weeks ago,” Cali explained. “The agents knew I was fighting one with a fire extinguisher.” She looked at Leesa, silently asking if she could tell Stefan more.

  “Go ahead,” Leesa said.

  “Rave and two of his friends broke the zombies’ necks,” Cali continued. “They didn’t use any blue fire, so there were no traces of volkaane magic for the xenorians to detect. After the zombies were immobilized, I stabbed one of them in the eyeball with my pen.”

  Stefan smiled. “Why am I not surprised? And knowing you, I imagine it was a somewhat distinctive pen—one that the authorities traced back to you.”

  Cali grinned. “You got that right. It had some purple fur on it. I didn’t want it back with all that zombie eyeball goo all over it, so I just left it in the thing’s eye.”

  Stefan’s eyes moved back to Leesa. “I think this may answer the question that brought me here.”

  Leesa looked at Stefan in surprise. “Really?”

  “Yes, I believe so. Am I correct in assuming that if Rave has been gone for a while, the rest of the volkaanes have also left the area?”

  Leesa hesitated. Once again, she did not want to provide the vampires with any information about the volkaanes that might be used against them.

  Stefan recognized her hesitation. “You do not have to answer. I know Rave would never leave you for an extended time like this unless all the volkaanes had departed for some reason. I will not pry about the reason behind their leaving.”

  “So, how are the xenorians related to what you wanted to talk to me about?” Leesa asked, happy to move the subject away from Rave and his volkaane brethren.

  “I’m looking into the disappearance of one of our coven’s most powerful members—a female named Leah, one of our High Council. I believe she is too wise and experienced to be taken by a volkaane, especially in this perilous time of Destiratu, but I wanted to make sure before I started looking for other explanations. I was going to ask you to see if R
ave knew anything about it.”

  Leesa nodded. What Stefan said made sense. Destiratu was a rare phenomenon that effected all things magical. It heightened both the blood thirst of vampires and the killing drive of volkaanes. Consequently, both races took extra precautions whenever Destiratu arose. Thankfully, it occurred less than once every hundred years.

  “You’re thinking the xenorians may have killed Leah?” she asked.

  “That now seems to be the most likely possibility, yes.”

  “Can they really kill a vampire?” Cali asked. “They didn’t seem all that powerful to me. Scary, yeah…but they don’t seem nearly as dangerous as you—no offense.”

  Stefan grinned. “None taken.” His expression turned serious once again. “The xenorians usually work behind the scenes, getting others to do their bidding, but it is rumored that some of them have secret abilities. I think three of them could have destroyed even a vampire as powerful as Leah, especially if they took her by surprise.”

  Leesa was not all that upset to hear there was one less vampire around, given all the trouble the creatures had caused her family, but the fact that the xenorians could kill a vampire as powerful as Leah made her worry about Rave. For the first time, she found herself hoping he would remain away a while longer.

  “I must go now,” Stefan said. “I need to let my coven know about this development. Thank you both for your openness.” Without waiting for any reply, he turned and quickly vanished into the night, the way only a vampire could.

  Leesa and Cali looked at each other.

  “I guess those xenorians are more dangerous than they seemed,” Cali said.

  Leesa frowned. “Yeah…I know. And that worries me more than I want to say.”

  16. REUNION

  The next two days passed in a bit of a blur for Leesa. Thursday she had her two exams, which she did okay, but not great on. Stefan’s visit had kept her up later than she had planned, making her a bit tired and sluggish during the first test, especially. She had crashed early that night and slept in late on Friday, but one night of extra sleep was not enough to offset a whole week of stress and studying.