Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 2) (22 page)

“Boo,” she said, breathless. “Just when this apology was getting good.”

He stroked his hand down her face. “I’ll apologize thoroughly later, “ he promised, the wicked look in his eyes scorching her to her toes.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she replied. “Now let’s get out of this vile place.”

They were turning to head down the hallway when the whole building shook. Logan threw himself over her like a shield. Concrete dust showered down upon them.

“I don’t think the building is collapsing,” she said, eyeing the pillars that the crazy telekinetics had blasted holes out of.

“It’s not,” he replied as they stood. His expression was dark. “But they’ve caved in our tunnel exit.”

In other words, they were trapped.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Blood Orb

ALEX GLANCED AT the pile of rubble that covered their escape route. If she hadn’t allowed herself to get so caught up in that kiss, they would have made it out.

Or just made it far enough to be crushed beneath several tons of concrete, screaming in agony as the ceiling continued to pour down upon you, your bodies bleeding out the final drops of your mortal shells,
her dragon pointed out.

Thanks for that uplifting piece of poetry.

You’re welcome. I always do try to be uplifting.

Despite herself, Alex snorted. Logan gave her a curious look.

“My dragon says we got lucky the tunnel didn’t collapse on top of us,” she summarized.

“Indeed.” Logan pulled her toward one of the staircases. “It appears the Convictionites managed to work out our plan.”

“Well, we did break into their architect’s house,” she said as they ran up the steps. “And after they moved the Blood Orb and the hybrids to this building, they must have known we’d be interested in infiltrating it.”

“Yes, but their speed in figuring out exactly how we would do it is unprecedented. Usually, they take much longer. As it is, they seemed to know our plan before we did.”

“Are you saying they wanted us to break into this building?” she asked.

“Perhaps. The Sultan mentioned my mother wanted to capture you.” Ice dripped off his aura. “And experiment on you.”

“That’ll be the day,” she said as they reached the top of the stairs.

Their conversation was cut short by the mass of guards clogging the lobby.

“You go left,” Logan said, his eyes never leaving the guards.

“And you?”

“I’m going through them.”

Before she could utter a protest, he dashed forward. Waves of knives streaked out from his hands. Where were they all coming from? Either he was really fast at reclaiming his thrown knives, or he had them tucked away in more places than was humanly possible.

Not that he was entirely human. The speed and power with which he tore apart the enemy line was nothing short of extraordinary. In a matter of seconds, it was all over. He turned to glance back over his shoulder at her, a dozen dead Convictionite soldiers at his feet.

“See? No reason to worry,” he told her.

“I wasn’t worried.”

“No? You looked concerned when I ran toward the guards.”

“I was not so much concerned as annoyed at being left behind,” she replied. “I can’t move as fast as you.”

“And I can’t shoot magic out of my hands.”

She smirked at him. “No one is perfect.”

They’d made it out of the building. Alex followed the magic trail of Naomi, Marek, and the hybrids. She wasn’t familiar with their individual auras, but her quick magic count told her they’d all made it. She and Logan met up with them outside of the entrance into the abandoned station—or what was left of it, anyway. The gate had been torn clear off its hinges. It lay in a warped heap on the sidewalk.

“Is everyone all right?” Alex asked Naomi.

“Yes. We made it out before the tunnel collapsed.”

“The tunnel is completely blocked?” Logan asked her.

“The tunnel, the station.” Marek stepped forward. “The Convictionites caved it all in.”

“It was that old homeless guy,” Naomi told them. “We saw him and a bunch of Convictionites as we came back through the tunnel. We didn’t have time to stop the charges they’d set, but Marek and I blasted them with Fairy Dust Wind.”

“So, the homeless man is really a Convictionite agent?” Alex asked.

“
Was
a Convictionite agent.” Marek looked at the collapsed underground entrance. “Now he’s a dead Convictionite agent. And he still stinks.”

“A Convictionite,” said Logan, waving their procession to continue moving down the sidewalk. “That explains the odd smell he had.”

“That odd smell was rubbish,” Marek told him.

“He was hiding from me, covering up his Convictionite scent.”

“You can smell if someone is a Convictionite?” Alex asked him.

“Of course.”

Logan quickened his pace, leaving the bedraggled hybrids stumbling to keep up. They sure must have looked odd out there, three mysterious strangers dressed in black leading a band of escaped, blood-stained prisoners. As they passed a group of men in business suits, three of them turned to take photos with their phones. A woman in pink running togs jumped out of their way. She screamed in alarm when she toppled backwards over a vampire. Not even waiting to regain her balance, she sped off in jagged strides.

The vampire didn’t take chase, even though to many of them, a screaming, stumbling human was pretty much an invitation to open up an artery. He stood in place, grinning at Alex as a continuous stream of vampires poured out of the ground behind him. She pushed the hybrids to run faster. She knew that vampire—and that grin. He was one of the pirates she and Logan had seen in the underground waterway last night. It looked like he’d survived the tsunami and come looking for revenge. In fact, from the growing swell of vampires around him, a lot of pirates had survived it. Stupid vampires and their indifference toward breathing. What were they even still doing in the city? The Vampire Covenant was supposed to have already taken down their operation.

To make matters worse, the Convictionites hadn’t given up either. They gushed out of the Silver Castle, running toward Alex’s group. Rather than clashing with the vampires, the two groups joined together into a solid stampede. The vampires’ magic shifted from the bloodthirsty rage of vengeance to cool, controlled killers. Their eyes glazed over too.

“Get the hybrids out of here,” Alex told Naomi and Marek. “To the hotel. Quickly.”

As the rest of their group ran off, Logan and Alex turned and stopped to face the mass of vampires and Convictionites. They had to buy their friends enough time to get everyone to safety. Alex drew a wall of fire out of the ground, stretching the barrier across an entire city block.

“The vampires are being controlled,” Logan said.

She looked through the flames at the glossy-eyed vampires standing like complacent little soldiers amongst the Convictionites. “I know. But I don’t understand. We have the Blood Orb. How are the vampires being controlled?”

“Are you sure we have the real Blood Orb?”

“Of course I’m sure. I can feel it working its magic on the vampires.”
 

Logan unzipped her backpack and reached inside. “It’s glowing.”

She looked at the crimson glass orb in his hands. “It wasn’t doing that before. It only turned on when the vampires rose out of the ground.”

“Because it was a trap,” Logan said, realization dawning on his face. “This whole night has been one big trap. The Convictionites wanted us to infiltrate the Silver Castle. They wanted us to get the Blood Orb.”

“And to bring it past the vampires they knew were trailing us,” Alex realized. “They planned everything. But why? What is their plan?”

“A sacrifice,” Logan said. “Look.”

Alex looked—and immediately wished she hadn’t. Beyond the wall of fire, the vampire-Convictionite alliance had already broken down. The vampires ripped and slashed, feeding on the Convictionites. The battle was over in seconds. And then the vampires turned their crimson eyes on the horrified human spectators.

Alex grabbed the Blood Orb from Logan. She rolled her magic over the enchanted glass surface, desperately trying to break its spell. But everything she threw at it bounced right back.

The vampires had already torn into the fleeing crowd. They were massacring them in the most grotesque ways possible, showing the human world the kind of beast that was really living right alongside them. It was exactly as the Convictionites wanted.

Alex hit the Blood Orb again. She poured every drop of magic she had into the breaking spell. The instant her magic struck the Orb, the crimson threads began to unwind and dissolve, unraveling the string of spells binding the vampires. But her magic didn’t stop. It continued to break apart the bonds of enchantment that held the Blood Orb together—until it wasn’t together. The glass quaked, then shattered into dust, carried away by the wind.

Her first thought was how the hell she was going to explain to the Magic Council that she’d dissolved the Blood Orb. The ridiculous question fled her mind quickly, driven out by pain. The last of her magic drained out of her, and she dropped to her knees. Her raging wall of fire dissolved to smoke.

Dazed by the force of the magic-breaking spell, the vampires froze. And in those few seconds, their human victims struck back.

“We have to get out of here,” Logan told her.

The vampires had snapped out of their dazed state. Anger oozed out of them. Anger at the dead Convictionites. Anger at the spell that had bound them. Anger at the humans throwing trash cans and shooting bullets at them. The vampires turned that anger on the only one of those three still left.

“You can’t help them,” Logan said as they swarmed the humans.

The fighting had spread across multiple city blocks now—and it wasn’t stopping. If anything, it was accelerating, racing more and more out of control.

“Come on.” Logan pulled her to her feet. “Can you run?”

She nodded mutely and followed him. They ran all-out, outpacing the fighting. Alex could still hear the chaos of screeching cars, of strangled screams, of blood-curdling cries. She closed off her mind, concentrating on keeping pace with Logan. Running was easier than thinking. It was simple—a lot like killing monsters was. Or at least it had been that way once, so long ago.

With running, there was only one direction, one goal. They just had to get back to the hotel and then… And then what? Would the bloodbath on the streets stop? And even if it did, how could the damage done to the peace between the supernaturals and humans ever be repaired? Would there be war? How many more would die?

No thinking. Only running,
she reminded herself.

Maybe it was her sapped magic. Maybe it was her insistence on keeping her eyes forward, trained on that single goal. Or maybe it was just his supernatural speed. Whatever the case, she didn’t notice Logan jump in front of her until it was too late. Unable to react fast enough, she tripped over him, their limbs tangling together as they continued to roll a few more feet. When they finally stopped, she disentangled herself and jumped up.

Logan groaned and turned over. And that’s when she saw he’d been shot in the chest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Bottled Mage

ALEX’S DEAD MAGIC flared to life again, fueled by pure, undiluted fury. She knew he was nearby. Shadowstalker. That accursed assassin. She probed with her magic, trailing that vacuum patch of artificial nothingness to find his hiding spot.

Ha! Got you!

She wrapped a lasso of wind magic around that nothingness, dragging it out of the shadows. It was a man dressed in head-to-toe black, his face wrapped to cover all but his dark eyes. He stumbled forward, just managing to stay on his feet.

Alex’s second spell knocked the gun from Shadowstalker’s hand. “Are you all right?” she asked Logan.

“I’ve been shot in the chest,” he said drily. “Of course I’m not all right.”

“He won’t die,” the assassin spat, his words as bitter as rotting broccoli. “Slayer is a freak. You can’t kill him. I’ve tried.”

Alex snagged her magic on the corner of his face wrap, and the black fabric unraveled, floating gently to the ground. It revealed a young face, a teenager’s face. He couldn’t have been older than twenty. His face was still pockmarked with acne.

“Do you know him?” she asked Logan.

He peeled himself gingerly from the pavement, rising even more slowly. Any other man would have already been dead.

“No,” he said. “Shadowstalker joined the Assassins’ Guild only a few years ago. We’ve never met.”

“Oh, but we have,” the assassin sneered. “Years ago. In Vienna. You killed my parents. I watched you do it.”

Logan touched the blood on his chest. “You were the boy.”

Shadowstalker nodded. “That’s right. After you killed my mother—and my father—you turned your murderous eyes on me.”

“Murderous eyes? You’re an assassin, boy. It’s not all jumping off buildings and donning black. How many people have you killed?”

“My parents weren’t warlords or monsters! They were good people.”

“Good people?” Logan’s laugh could have wilted steel. “Your parents were abducting children and selling them into slavery, boy.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Your parents were monsters. Don’t act so surprised. A great many people in this world are.”

Shadowstalker’s hands shook. He might have been young, but he was armed like an assassin. In addition to the bands of knives that clung to his body, two guns sat inside the holsters at his hips. He also wore a thick belt with various pouches that smelled like magic. That must have been his bottled magic, powders and gases and other sorts of prepackaged spells.

“
You
are the monster,” seethed Shadowstalker. “I grabbed my mother’s gun and shot you in the chest. You didn’t die. You just got right up and continued to stalk toward me. If my parents’ guards hadn’t stormed into the room, you would have killed me. As it was, you turned tail and jumped out of the window, disappearing like a coward into the night.”

“You are mistaken,” Logan said. “I could have killed those guards.”