Her massive owl flew ahead of us through the dark streets, and I immediately felt ridiculous wandering the streets of New Orleans with a woman who looked like she’d stepped off a Tarot card. She wore boots with pointed toes, skirts swirled around her ankles and her uncountable necklaces and bracelets tinkled in the quiet. All she needed was a broom and a pointy hat.
“I have several hats,” Vivienne commented crisply. “None of them are pointy.”
“Ha ha. Get out of my head,” I snapped in reply. I supposed I should have felt guilty, but it served her right for snooping. She did look ridiculous. I shoved my hands down into the pockets of my leather jacket. “How much farther?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“What?”
“What does your witchmark tell you?”
I stopped walking to focus on what was going on with my body. I’d been running on adrenaline since I’d arrived in New Orleans and with the way my magic had been prickling its way through my veins the moment my feet touched the sidewalk, I felt like I was about 10 seconds away from a magical outburst with every minute that passed.
When I had found Vivienne, my witchmark had calmed, and I’d felt nothing when we’d been sitting in her shop. But now that we were out in the streets, it was starting to itch again, to pull me in Maia’s direction. How had I missed this before? Had I been so consumed with everything else that was happening around me?
“Don’t blame yourself, Ophelia,” Vivienne said quietly. “She was hidden from us, even from the Goddess’ sight. She has told me, there is something else at work here.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, trying to focus on my body underneath the rushing of my magic and the way it pounded in my ears. The sun was coming up and the sky had begun to lighten. They would be hiding; Maia knew that she had to keep Lacey safe. I took a deep breath and reached out just a little with my barely tethered magic.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the street in my mind, the buildings looming on either side, the pale glow of the streetlights. Behind me, Vivienne Surette muttered something I couldn’t hear and I tried to ignore her. The picture shimmered and started to change, growing sharper, as though I’d opened my eyes. I tried to keep my breathing steady as Vivienne’s familiar flew into my vision. But it wasn’t a flesh and blood owl, it was the same creature, but he was made of the same green mist that the other witch conjured when she worked her spells.
Okay then.
The misty owl took up a perch on the balcony of one of the buildings that rose above me and let out a thin screech. I shuddered and tried to see farther down the street. A narrow alleyway drew my attention, and the sounds of footsteps running on the cobblestones startled me.
“Don’t open your eyes! You will lose the vision!” Vivienne shouted from far away. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried to concentrate on the vision. It was cracked at the edges, I’d almost lost it. I gritted my teeth. Come on. Maia.
Two figures ran into view, like the owl, they weren’t real, they were shadows made of colored mist. One was blue, and was most definitely Maia. The smaller figure running just behind her was red… Lacey. I almost called out to them, and then remembered that I had to bite my tongue and watch. It was as though I was watching the memory of the street playing out in front of me.
Maia pointed to the alleyway and dragged Lacey along behind her. As they ran headlong down the street towards the alley, I tried to follow, taking a few steps forward before I felt Vivienne’s hand grip my arm, holding me firmly in place.
“Wait,” she hissed. The word echoed in my head and I stood as still as I could, my pulse racing.
I watched Maia disappear through a doorway, Lacey following close behind, but she looked over her shoulder, as though checking for something, or making sure they weren’t being followed. The door slammed shut, and I saw a flash of blue light as Maia secured the door with her magic. I’d taught her that. I felt a surge of pride to see Maia using her powers for something other than skipping work or avoiding paying for the subway.
I don’t know how long I waited, but something appeared at the edge of my vision, another misty figure, hugging the walls of the buildings. The mist that outlined its form was dark red. Another Laudan?
“Another Laudan,” Vivienne affirmed, echoing my thought and I gritted my teeth. “He is much older… impossibly old.” Her voice sounded dreamy and far away, and I tried to put more of my focus on this new threat. There was no way he could be anything else. Lacey had a knack for getting into trouble, and tonight was clearly no different.
The dark red figure lurched against a wall, and the thought struck me that the Laudan might be injured. But what could do that? There weren’t very many ways to kill a Laudan, and Maia and Lacey sure as shit weren’t equipped for that kind of maneuver. I watched silently, my hands curling into fists as the Laudan clambered clumsily up the wall of the building that Lacey and Maia had disappeared into. The window on the second floor was broken, and as he crawled inside, my eyes flew open.
“We have to do something! They’re here, and they’re in danger, get your fucking hands off me!” I jerked my arm out of Vivienne’s grip and ran headlong down the street towards the alley and the building they were in. From the look of the façade, the lower level had once been a martini bar, but it had obviously been abandoned years ago. For Lease signs were plastered on the windows over remnants of yellow CAUTION tape.
I jumped up onto the raised sidewalk and pressed my hands to the dirty windows and peered inside.
The interior of the bar was a ruin. Tables and chairs were broken and overturned and the carpet was stained or burned in countless places. The shattered mirror wall behind the bar reflected my pale face, and I was startled to see how strange my face looked. I was all cheekbones and furious worry, but I’d worry about that later.
“Maia!” I thought I saw movement in the dark and I slapped my hand against the window. A pair of pigeons exploded from their roost on the window frame above me, raining down dirt and nest remnants onto my head.
“Fuck,” I muttered, brushing away the filth before peering through the window again. Nothing. I rubbed at it with my sleeve and considered breaking the window to get inside.
“You can’t go in there alone,” Vivienne said from just over my shoulder, making me jump.
“Shit, you have to stop doing that,” I gasped. “I’m going in there no matter what you say.”
“I’m not trying to stop you; I’m just trying to stop you from going in and doing something stupid because you’re too stubborn to ask me to help you.”
I fumed silently. If she was reading my thoughts, she knew how I felt about her calling me out already. “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “How do you propose we get in?”
“Perhaps a door,” she said with a smile. I looked over my shoulder, the sky had lightened even more.
“Fine, pick a door. We’re running out of time.” My vision had shown me that we were only a few minutes behind the old Laudan. He was already inside, and Maia and Lacey were already vulnerable.
A crash echoed through the building, and the window shuddered under my hands.
“Get me in that building now.”
“This way,” Vivienne was already walking around the corner of the building, and I dashed after her. Behind an open dumpster that smelled like it hadn’t been emptied in ages Vivienne had found a door. By the time I’d skidded to a stop beside her, she’d already worked her magic into the lock.
“Do you know what we will be facing in there?” I asked quietly, her hand on the doorknob.
“Nothing as dangerous as I am, that’s for damn sure,” I said quickly. “Open the fucking door.” Vivienne made a face at my swearing, but I definitely didn’t care. All I cared about was getting to Maia.
“I’m being very serious, Ophelia,” Vivian said sternly. “You don’t know what we’re about to walk into. Have you had dealings with these creatures before?”
“You could say that,” I said
with a rueful smile. “The sun’s coming up, so he’ll be weakening, and he’s limping, that means he’s injured. I don’t know how they did it, but he’s at a disadvantage. And against three of us? He doesn’t stand a chance.”
I didn’t tell her that I was worried about the powers hidden behind the old Laudan’s injured façade. What if it was all an act? I’d never fought an ancient one before. Just the new bloods. Freshies who didn’t know their asses from their elbows. I’d need Maia’s help, and Vivienne’s, whether she liked it or not.
“Three of us? You’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of your Goddess given powers, and the child? She is too young, she is still manifesting. We cannot count on her powers to be reliable.” Vivienne let out a sigh. “But it will have to do.”
She pushed the door open, standing back so I could enter first.
“Yeah, it’ll have to do,” I muttered before taking a deep breath and stepping over the threshold into the bar.
The door opened into the kitchen, a simple fit out with a moldy deep fryer, a pizza oven, some long-dead coolers that smelled like rotting food and a flat top grill caked with grease and black gunk. Delightful.
Vivienne followed close behind me, the tinkling of her necklaces and charms echoed strangely in the empty kitchen. My witchmark itched, we were on the right track. All at once, I felt that familiar twist in my spine. The ceiling above us creaked.
Upstairs.
“I felt it too,” Vivienne said, I looked over my shoulder to see her rubbing the back of her neck. Her witchmark must be tingling too.
I whirled and ran through the kitchen, not caring that I was making noise.
Let the bastard find me first instead of them.
As I kicked open the door that led to the bar and ran through, I heard another crash from upstairs, and the sound of running feet. “Maia! Lacey!” I shouted for them, fighting through the obstacle course of broken chairs and tables.
A scream echoed down the stairs and the thundering sound of running feet echoed above our heads. There was another crash that reverberated in the floor underneath my feet.
“Lacey!” I cried, flinging a chair aside. My magic surged forward and my palms erupted with purple fire.
“No,” Vivienne stopped my progress yet again, her hand firm on my elbow. I turned to look at her, anger and fear coursing through me. The other woman was calm, wreathed in the green mist of her magic. “Wait.” She whispered the word and I thought I was going to burst into flames when I heard it.
“Wait? What the fuck are you talking about! They’re in danger and I have to help—“
Another scream cut off my angry words, and a wide eyed Maia jumped through the door that led to the stairs. “Ophelia!” She cried out when she saw me, stumbling over a broken chair in her effort to get to me. “Ophelia, thank fuck, there’s—“
“I don’t care,” I said, “get behind us.” Maia did as she was told, scrambling over a fallen table to hide behind Vivienne.
Lacey ran through the door, but she was looking over her shoulder and crashed into my chest, almost knocking me over. “Fee!” she shrieked, her eyes full of panic. “Fee, oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god... he’s coming... I don’t know what to do, we tried... Maia tried...”
“I lit him on fire and he didn’t die!” Maia shouted from behind Vivienne.
I pushed Lacey behind me and braced myself for what was coming. I was grateful that they were both alive, because as soon as we were done here, I was going to fucking kill them.
15
Maia
I tried to ignore the chills the crash we’d heard sent through my spine. The blue light of my magic illuminated the space a few feet in front of us. It was impossibly dark, and it stank like dead rats and moldy cardboard.
“What is this place?” Lacey hissed. “It stinks.”
“Storage?” I shoved a box with the toe of my boot and the clinking of empty bottles rattled off the walls. There was rustling in one of the dark corners to my left. Rats. I fucking hate rats. “Let’s get out of here and see what this place is.” I lifted a hand to illuminate Lacey’s face. She winced at the light, her silvered eyes gleaming oddly in the blue glow. She nodded, but I could see that she was just pretending to be brave.
“Come on, it’ll be okay.”
I led the way out of the storage room, grateful for the light my magic generated. Lacey might be able to see in the dark, but I was clumsy as fuck and I needed all the help I could get.
I felt a tug on the edge of my jacket and looked back to see Lacey’s wide-eyed face staring up at me. “Maia,” she said quietly. “I’m really sorry this happened. I shouldn’t have brought you with me... this is all my fault.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said with what I hoped was a reassuring tone. “Besides, if you’d been alone, who knows what would have happened... that guy... that Laudan... he’s dangerous. I’m glad we’re together.” I was glad. I might not have gotten what I wanted out of this trip, but at least we were together and could watch each others’ backs. There was no telling what could have happened to Lacey if I wasn’t there.
I rubbed my neck absently. I’d never been bitten before... well, not since pre-school, but that didn’t really count. Plus, Brittney Baker didn’t have razor sharp fangs.
We stepped out of the storage room together, and Lacey’s nose wrinkled as the smell of the next room hit her. “It’s a bar...”
“It hasn’t been a bar for a long time,” I muttered. Chairs and tables were splintered and strewn everywhere, and the long mirror behind the bar was shattered.
Lacey was halfway up the stairs before I realized she’d left my side. “Hey!” I called out softly. “Do you really want to go up there?” But she was already at the top of the stairs, holding the railing lightly. With a groan I followed her, taking two stairs at a time to catch up with her.
The upper floor was a large dining area, complete with a second bar that was still stocked with booze. If we were going to be stuck here until sundown, it might not be so bad. After what we’d been through tonight, I definitely needed a drink.
Lacey was staring out the window, the sky was lightening way faster than I’d expected. This was not good. “We can’t get out, can we?” Lacey’s forlorn question stabbed me in the gut.
“Nope. We’re kind of fucked.”
“You can go, get out the window and climb down the balcony... go and get help.”
“I’m not fucking leaving you here,” I said angrily. There was a crash of breaking glass, and Lacey darted to my side.
“He’s in here... he found us.”
“He was wounded, right?” I asked. Lacey nodded, her eyes wide and terrified. “Maybe we can use that against him. I don’t know what kills you... people... but we can sure as hell fuck him up.”
“Sunlight,” Lacey said, looking over her shoulder at the bank of windows again. The damask curtains had been ripped from the windows, and lay in shredded heaps on the peeling carpet.
“Is that it?”
Lacey shrugged and I suppressed a groan of frustration. “How do you not know these things?”
“Why should I? I’m not going around killing other Laudan am I? You’re ridiculous! Do you know what kills you? Did you know that when you get bitten by a vampire you burst into flames?”
“No... I didn’t know that.”
“See, exactly! Ridiculous.”
“Is that what happened?” I asked, I didn’t really remember what had happened after we got to that shitty house the old man had led us to. One minute I was sitting on a crappy chair, and the next Lacey was dragging me down the front stairs screaming in my face that I’d been bitten.
“Yeah... he bit you, and then I got blown into the piano, and the old guy was thrown against the other wall, and you were just... lying there covered in fire,” she looked up at me with the hint of a smile on her face. “It was pretty great to be honest.”
“Yeah... sure.”
“But it hurt him, yo
ur blood. It must be your magic... oooh, that has to be it. The magic in your blood, it totally affected him, that’s why he’s all slow and wounded!”
“I’m not letting him bite me again,” I said warningly. “So don’t even fucking suggest it.”
“No! He’s weaker... maybe something a little less conventional will work!”
“Conventional?”
Our conversation was interrupted by a guttural growl that came from the hallway and the old vampire lurched into the doorway.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
There goes our exit.
“You look like shit,” I said boldly, staring him down.
The old Laudan did look like shit. The black gore that had dripped over his chin and chest had soaked into his shirt and was matted in his beard. The sleeve of his suit jacket was smeared and crusted with whatever he had wiped from his face. Dark veins spiderwebbed their way across his temples and over his balding head. The old man leaned against the doorframe and gasped for breath before retching, his spine bending almost in half before he vomited a stream of dark oily liquid onto the floor. Lacey cried out and grabbed onto my arm, knocking me off balance.
That’s what my blood did to Laudans. He was fucked up... dying. Again.
Good.
The old man straightened, his hand gripping the wood of the doorframe tightly for support.
“You did this to me,” he choked out.
“No, you did that to yourself. You should know that you don’t fuck with witches. It’s like a rule or something,” I said sharply.
“In all my years, I have never encountered one such as you,” he said, his silver-shined eyes burning into mine before he turned his focus to Lacey. “And you, Áruló. Your blood is thin... you are a disgrace to our kind.”
“Well you’d better get used to it,” Lacey cried. “You old ones are dinosaurs. You’re going extinct, holding on to all your ‘blood secrets’ as if they actually meant something. They don’t mean shit.” Lacey glared at him. She stood firmly beside me, her fingers digging into my arm.
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