With the Dawn (Faith of the Fallen)

by Cassandra Sky West

  The women all nodded.

  “Go left when you leave,” said one of them. “There’s an elevator. You need a key to use it. Mist—Bella,” she spat, “keeps one under the bar.”

  Alexi nodded. “Thank you.”

  Each of them turned and disappeared through the door without looking back.

  “Savanna, you still there?” Alexi said.

  She preferred their telepathic communications to talking to the air. It felt weird and even stranger still when Savanna’s voice came out of nowhere in response.

  “I’m here.”

  “I found where Dupree is, and I’m going up. Make sure you two are ready when I come out. I might need the help.”

  A brief search under the bar and she found the key behind a bottle of expensive cognac.

  Key in hand Alexi left the room. The directions the women gave her were spot on. The elevator beeped softly when it opened. Inside, the panel told her she was on the eighth subbasement floor. From here the elevator traversed all eight subfloors and six surface floors. She inserted the key and turned it then pressed five. The doors closed, and the elevator lurched up. Alexi took a deep breath. She hoped she was ready for this.

  ***

  The elevator doors opened into a long hallway. Alexi stayed in the box. Tight security was difficult to circumvent. However, it was only as good as the person who designed it. The elevator’s emergency hatch popped open with no effort. Alexi crouched and leaped up. She landed on the roof of the lift. The next floor was only ten feet above. A ladder for emergencies carried her to the doors she wanted.

  She grunted with strain as she pulled the heavy security doors apart. They were designed to open via electricity, but immense physical strength would do in a pinch.

  The office beyond was vast. Plush carpet covered the floors, and expensive-looking paintings lined the walls. Opposite the elevator was a massive window that covered the entire wall. The setting sun sat squarely in the center, casting pink rays into the room. Alexi jumped back reflexively, wincing from the burns she expected to have, but she was unharmed. Cautiously, she passed her hand through a nearby spot of sunlight.

  Nothing.

  The window wasn’t completely transparent. A film of some kind covered it.

  “It’s not really glass.”

  Alexi startled at the sound of Dupree’s voice. At the center of the room was a large oak desk, and behind that was an impressive chair that swiveled around to reveal the thin vampire master.

  “I like to watch the sunset,” he said. “A guilty pleasure perhaps.”

  Well, stealth was out of the question.

  “I found him,” she whispered to Savanna, trying to come up with some kind of plan. “Meet me on the north side of the building.”

  Dupree moved with astonishing speed to the front of his desk. Alexi stepped back to a combat stance.

  “Americans,” he said with a smirk. “Shoot first, ask questions later? I don’t suppose I could convince you to join me.” His tone told her that he already knew the answer.

  Fear knotted her stomach and squeezed her lungs. She pushed it down with a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time. If she charged him, she could take him by surprise.

  “You don’t even know what you are,” he said. “Or how powerful we can become. I’ve lived for two thousand years. Do you think you are a threat to me?”

  Alexi charged. The world turned sideways, and she slammed into the wall. She hadn’t even seen him move.

  Damn it. This isn’t going to work.

  She worked her jaw back into place. The blow would have completely taken her out of commission if she hadn’t just fed. There was only one way she was getting out of here alive—and she just needed to buy enough time for the sun to go down. Just a few more minutes. She glanced at his desk. A few papers and odds and ends were scattered across its face, along with a golden chalice filled with dark blood. It smelled rotten to her nose.

  “I know what you’re planning,” she said, glancing nervously about.

  “Good. Then you know you can’t stop me. No one can, not even the wretched Fae understand the power I wield.” As he spoke the beating drum in her head returned. She took a step forward, and he held his hand up.

  He uttered a word she didn’t understand. Her head pounded as arcane energy washed over her. Unseen hands lifted her in the air. Bonds she couldn’t see or feel squeezed her until she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even wiggle her fingers. He had put his hand in the goblet. He pulled his fingers out and let the blood drip down to the carpet.

  “You think I have only one weapon?” He held his hand up and balled it into a fist. Blood dripped from his palm. “You are a remarkable creature. I wish you were more useful to me.”

  The world jerked sideways. Alexi felt the window slam against her and shatter. The last rays of the day touched her back and she screamed as her flesh blackened and burned. Her stomach lurched as gravity took hold and she fell. The building rushed by as the ground careened up at her.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Feed her, Victor,” said Savanna. She sounded afraid. Alexi struggled for consciousness.

  Where was she? A car. She was in a car.

  “Stop,” Alexi managed. Blood came up with her words.

  “Hold still, Alexi. Just eat.” Victor’s smell, the soft scent of body wash and man, enveloped her as he pushed his wrist against her mouth. Alexi drank deeply—but only enough to heal her wounds from the fall. Once she could think blinked several times to clear the fog. Her tongue flicked out to heal his wrist. His face lit up when she smiled at him.

  “You okay?” asked Savanna from the driver’s seat of their “borrowed” car which lurched around a corner. The I-5 sign flashed by.

  “Savanna, pull over.”

  “Alexi, are you out of your mind? We’re getting you home,” Victor said. “Savanna—what are you doing?”

  “Sorry, Vic. I do what she says,” Savanna apologized meekly as she pulled the car over onto the side of the road.

  “Vic, I adore you, but now is not the time for you to be all protective,” Alexi said.

  “You just fell six stories. It seems like exactly the time.”

  “I’m a big girl, Vic, and I make my own choices. I don’t need you to be all paternal.”

  “I’m not—”

  Alexi’s look silenced him with a grunt. She would soothe his hurt feelings later. Right now, there were bigger things afoot.

  “Savanna, this Dupree—the vamp in charge—he used magic.”

  Savanna turned around in her seat. “I take it you don’t mean the way you use it,” she said quietly.

  “No, it was powerful. It wasn’t like the glamour they project or the way we can control people with our voice.” Alexi cleared her throat. How do you fight something like that? “It felt like Illyana, in my head. There’s this pressure I feel whenever magic is around me. It’s like a headache. If I push against it, I can kind of counter it. That’s how I saw the vampire at the club for what he was. It’s a glamour they project. I don’t even think they know they do it. I broke Bella’s glamour, and she went crazy. But Dupree—he picked me up with his mind and threw me out the window.”

  Savanna chewed her lower lip for a moment. Alexi could see the wheels turning in her brain, trying to find a way to make it fit.

  “That’s not all, he had a goblet of blood on his desk, he dipped his fingers in it when he used his magic.”

  Victor’s hand grazed Alexi’s thigh, and she threaded her fingers through his, rubbing her thumb across his knuckles to reassure him. She didn’t need him making her choices for her or throwing around a bunch of demands and dictates, but she appreciated his concern and his willingness to put himself into harm’s way for her—and then his willingness to back down when she asked. That seemed rare and precious. She squeezed his hand twice. Thank you. She hoped he understood.

  Savanna drew her dagger. “Don’t move, Alexi.”

  “What?”

  Savanna
seized Alexi’s hand and slashed the blade across it. Alexi hissed, jerking her hand back. Not for the first time she wondered how Savanna could harm herself again and again, as calmly as though she were filing her nails or brushing her hair.

  As in response to her thoughts, Savanna took a deep breath and then buried the blade into her leg. The breath came out of her all at once, but she didn’t cry out.

  “Savanna—?”

  “Sorry. It’s important,” Savanna whispered, her eyes squeezed shut. A glow of arcane energy enveloped her. When she opened her eyes, they were endless pits of violet power. She slapped her hands together.

  Alexi felt the pressure again. Her head buzzed like a circling gnat. Savanna murmured words that were unintelligible to Alexi’s ears, but the power in them was unmistakable. The violet energy reached out to Alexi, then pulsed as it climbed through the car back the way they had come.

  “Oh, mother,” Savanna whispered, violet eyes wide. “What have you done?” The light in them faded, and the arcane aura winked out.

  “It sounds bad,” Victor said.

  Savanna looked at both of them. She opened her mouth, then closed it. A deep breath and then another—and then she finally managed to speak. “He used blood magic.”

  Victor cursed.

  “What? How?” Alexi asked. “I thought—”

  “I don’t know—not exactly. Like everything magical, there’s a residue to it, and you’re covered in it. There’s his, which is disgusting and tainted, and there is my mothers. I don’t know how, but she’s behind this. The amount of power needed to do what I saw in my vision would be immeasurable.”

  “How many people would that take?” Alexi asked.

  Savanna shook her head. “Not people. Only witches can use human blood to cast spells. He’s using something else.”

  Understanding dawned on Alexi. “The goblet of blood on his desk—it smelled foul. It wasn’t rotten human blood. It was vampire blood. That’s why they tried to chop my head off when I woke up. They were collecting the blood to do some ritual.” Alexi froze. There had been hundreds of beds under the club. Hundreds. Most of them were empty. She closed her eyes to focus on the memory of the room. The people she did see were wearing dirty clothes. Deeply tanned, unwashed . . . homeless.

  “When will they do whatever they’re planning?” asked Alexi.

  Savanna glanced at the sky through the windshield. “Tomorrow at midnight would be my guess. It’s the fall equinox, and magic is strongest then. I can see the ley line from here.”

  “What are ley lines?” asked Victor.

  “Veins of power that flow through and around the earth. They amplify magic. It’s why places like Seattle and Portland are full of witches. A powerful ley line runs through both of them. In the summer, it’s above Seattle. During the fall equinox, it migrates to Portland.” Savanna gestured with her hands, showing how the line swiveled laterally. “When it moves, the energy will be in flux. Witches from all over the world wait for the spring and fall to cast their most powerful spells. All that excess energy can be siphoned off and focused. You almost don’t even need blood at that point. Really, you just need it as a catalyst to start the spell. Once it’s going . . . you just use the ley line.”

  “But if you have blood anyway—”

  “Even more power.”

  “But even with vampire blood, how?” Alexi couldn’t fathom a world ruled by vampires. One with them in it was bad enough.

  “My mother found a way to teach vampires blood magic,” Savanna whispered, covering her face with both palms. “And they’re going to use it to end the world.”

  “We can’t beat him in a stand-up fight,” Alexi said. “We need help.”

  “From who?” Victor asked.

  Alexi smiled. She had an idea of who might be willing to help out.

  ***

  “You’re joking.” Connor looked to the three people in front of him. They stood behind the bakery. It was early enough that the workers were all inside making doughnuts, and no one was there to start deliveries yet.

  Alexi’s grim expression told him she wasn’t trying to be funny. She had called him a few hours before sunup and asked to meet. He was risking a lot just by talking to Alexi. The higher-ups weren’t pleased with the publicity from the demon fight, and now there were rumors that the Seattle vampire community was on the move, snatching people off the street. There were some who looked at their temporary alliance with Alexi and the sudden vampire activity as more than coincidence.

  Could he trust her, though? She’d done nothing to warrant distrust, except for being a bloodsucker. Years of working for the Arcanum had burned a dislike for her kind into him. But it had also taught him to trust his gut. Right now, it told him she was being honest.

  He looked to Sing. His partner rubbed his jaw.

  I know how you feel.

  “Everything we have says vampires can’t use blood magic,” Connor said. “How did she teach them?” Details would go a long way to convincing his bosses that the intel was legit. If he were being honest with himself, he knew no amount of information would be enough to get them to act immediately. They would want more info, more time. They would want to form a committee and send less compromised agents to investigate.

  As it was, he and Sing were persona non grata at the company right now. The only reason they hadn’t been relieved was Monique. She went to bat for them, but she made it clear that they were to have no further contact with vampires. At least until they got the mess sorted out.

  “I don’t know the details,” Savanna said, “but I promise you, Connor. If anyone could do it, it would be my mother. Alexi saw their leader do it. If they can use vampire blood to power their spells—combined with the ley lines, the equinox, and my vision, please believe me when I tell you . . . the end is nigh.”

  Connor nodded. There was something innocent and trustworthy about Savanna that made him want to believe her. She saved your life, and she could’ve killed you. He’d thought about that night a lot since it had happened. His arm was still in a sling from being frozen. The little witch with the violet eyes wasn’t evil. She could have killed him, and no one would have questioned it.

  Connor looked again to Sing for help, and his partner shrugged.

  “I told you. We have some . . . issues,” Connor said.

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Sing interjected.

  “Our hands are tied. We’re still under review for working with you in the first place. Blood magic and vampires are on the ‘not ever, even in hell’ list. The only reason we haven’t already been retired is that our boss is in our corner.”

  “And we saved lives . . . and killed a demon,” Sing added.

  Connor shook his head. The situation stunk. He could see his frustration mirrored in Savanna’s eyes. “I’m sorry, but you know as well as I do what witches and vampires are. The Arcanum has a thousand years of data that say one thing. You two show up, and you make the powers that be nervous. You’re anomalies, and that scares them.”

  Savanna’s shoulders slumped, and Alexi sighed. Victor threw up his hands and turned away.

  But how much did his career really mean, when the end of the world was on the line? The end of the world. Almost on cue, R.E.M. started singing their refrain in his head.

  “Sing, did you set the alarm before we came up here?” Connor asked, not looking at his partner. The smaller man’s eyes widened for a moment before a grin split his face.

  “You know, I totally forgot,” Sing said. “We were only going to be up here for a minute, right?”

  “I’m really hungry. Let’s go have some breakfast . . . for an hour or two,” he said, looking squarely at Savanna. “I’m sorry we couldn’t help. I would love to give you access to the armory on sublevel three, and I would have really enjoyed letting you into our computer systems, but without this”—he held up his access card—“you’ve got nothing.”

  He dropped the card. It fluttered to the ground to land in a pud
dle.

  Alexi grinned. Savanna mouthed the words thank you.

  “Now, ladies and gent, good luck saving the world.”

  He didn’t look back. The two agents made the corner and turned away.

  “Shouldn’t we go with them?”

  “And do what? If the Arcanum found out they would send people to stop us . . . I don’t see how there’s anything else we can do.”

  They walked in silence for a moment before Sing spoke again.

  “You didn’t tell her.”

  “When she asked me to find out about her past, she didn’t know she was about to go save the world,” Connor said. “She’s about to go fight a master vampire and probably more than a few of his friends. If she doesn’t win, it might be the end for humanity. The last thing she needs to know right now is that she has a daughter that will die along with the rest of us.”

  ***

  Alexi tried the security card on the door. It beeped and let them in. The bakery was just as it was before. They found the elevator and swiped the card again. It beeped and opened obediently.

  “This is progress, but we still don’t know where Dupree is, how to stop him, or if we even can,” Alexi said. She handed Savanna the access card. “Use their computers and see what you can find. Victor”—she motioned to the big guy—“come with me.”

  Alexi left Savanna at one of the terminals to do some research while she looked for the armory. The stairs were in the back of the office, behind the elevator and water cooler. She took them down two levels and through a double door, like the last time she was here. Warning placards were plastered on a large, red door.

  “Victor, would you be so kind?”

  He grinned at her and then shifted. It had been a while since she had seen him do it, but it still gave her goose bumps. Skin and muscle melted and fell like water as his whole form sunk into a puddle and reformed as a wolf. He towered over her in this form as well. A shiver of fear rippled down her spine, her primal brain recognizing the danger standing in front of her.

  Victor roared as his claws dug into steel. Muscles tensed, and metal tore. The frame detached from the wall in a shower of debris and dust. Sunlight poured through the door, and Alexi stepped back into the shadows.