Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 2) (9 page)

Logan darted down a narrow passageway, then up a building. Alex followed, using the windows and water pipes to pull herself up. Considering that she’d run through water, fought vampires, created a tsunami, had her head turned inside out by those iron bars, and thrown up into an underground river tonight, she made it to the roof in decent time.

“What now?” she asked Logan, searching for the vampires on the streets below.

A faint smile ghosted his lips. “I think our new fairy friend has come through. Look.”

The vampires raced past the building they were standing on, but they didn’t stop. A few seconds later, a second group in silk tunics stormed past, radiating fairy magic. They hurled rounds of Fairy Dust at the vampires’ heels, forcing them into a full retreat.

“Wow, Mr. Sleepyhead sure works fast once he’s awake,” she commented. Anger crashed through her momentary bliss at seeing the vampires flee. “There are still people trapped down there. We have to do something.”

He shook his head. “Not tonight. There are too many vampires still down there, and we’re not at full strength.”

“You’re right.” She wished there was something for her to punch—something softer than brick. “I’ll call Gaelyn. He can use his influence to tell the Vampire Covenant to raid those tunnels and take down the pirates. Using people as food slaves! If I ever get my hands on them… Logan? What’s wrong?”

He was oddly silent, even for him. And he was looking at her—and yet not really looking at her.

“Are you all right?” she asked, taking a step forward.

Suddenly, he surged forward. His body slammed hard against her. Stumbling back, her foot met only air, and she fell backwards off the roof.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Assassins

AS HER LIFE flashed before her eyes, Alex managed to muster up enough magic to summon some wind to cushion her fall. That just went to show that no matter how spent you felt, you always had a bit more in you. She landed on her feet—perhaps not softly, but at least without breaking her ankles. A dull pain burned in her arm. She brushed her finger across the fine slit in her sleeve. She was bleeding. It was only a few drops. The knife had only graced her skin. What knife? She’d been a bit preoccupied falling to her death to notice it.

Logan touched down opposite her, landing in a soft crouch. Cold fury burned in his eyes as they met hers. Had he finally snapped? Had the Convictionites regained control of him again? Alex shook out her hands, warming up her magic. She didn’t want to have to fight him, but she’d knock some sense into him if she had to. She pushed out with her magic, her heart sinking when it sizzled out. Damn.

“Alex,” he said, his voice strained.

A knife dropped from his hand. He turned, and she saw he had another one lodged in his side. He was normal. His aura was normal. She should have noticed that before, but she was just too worked up right now. Adrenaline wasn’t exactly a recipe for rational thought. She rushed over to him.

“Are you all right?” she asked, angling for a closer look at the knife in his side.

“I’ve had worse.” He yanked out the slim throwing knife and slid it into one of his own arm bands. “It’s just a superficial wound.”

“It doesn’t look so superficial to me,” she said, watching the blood gush from the wound.

He tore a long strip from his shirt, using it to quickly bind the cut. “I heal fast.”

“Convenient.” She turned to scan the area. “I don’t see anyone. Who threw the knives?”

“He’s gone.”

“Then let’s hunt him down.”

“That would be reckless,” he told her calmly.

“And right now I just don’t care. Someone tried to kill you.” Fire crackled on her hands, pushed out by her rage. “Let’s get him.”

“No.”

“No? Logan, I’m pissed off. I need to get him.”

“No,” he said again like it was his favorite word.

She growled at him.

“We will get him,” he told her. “Actually,
I
will get him. He didn’t try to kill me.” His voice dropped to a chilling whisper. “He tried to kill you.”

“What?”

“I threw myself in the way of the knives.”

“Thanks. I guess?”

“I am more resilient,” he said.

“I don’t know about that. I’m pretty damn resilient.”

“To magic. If the knife had pierced your heart—or your head—you could have died.”

Alex folded her arms across her chest, frowning. He was right. “Was it a vampire?” She sure hadn’t felt one up on the rooftop.

“No,” he said. “An assassin.”

“So let’s get him.”

“If you go after the assassin, he will try to kill you. Again,” he said. “For now, he is gone.”

“Did you hear where he went?”

“If I had, we wouldn’t be standing here chatting. The assassin would already be dead.” Logan started walking. “He covered his trail with magic. Some sort of bottled spell.”

“You know, I could break that magic,” she said. “Then we could follow his trail.”

Logan stopped, looking at her like he was debating something with himself. Probably trying to sort out his desire to protect her with his overwhelming need to hunt down that assassin. Anger won.

“Do it,” he told her.

Alex nodded, reaching for her magic. It came immediately, bubbling to the surface. Breaking magic came more naturally to her than any other type. She felt for the hidden trail, tugging at the edges of the spell. She was about to rip it to shreds, when Logan stumbled into her. She caught him, her magic snapping back into her with a sharp crack. She looked down at his wound, which was bleeding through the bandage. It was bleeding out everywhere.

“Only superficial, you say?” She wrapped her arm around him, leading him toward the street.

He coughed. “Apparently, the blade was poisoned with powerful magic.”

“Which you are not as resistant to as I am,” she told him, waving down a taxi. “I’m getting you back to Marek’s house. There’s healing magic there.”

“We must find the assassin.”

“You are in no condition to fight. We can kill him tomorrow,” she replied, helping him into the taxi.

In retrospect, those probably weren’t the ideal first words for the taxi driver to hear from her. All the blood wasn’t helping either.

“Out. Be gone with you. I don’t take your kind,” he spluttered.

“Americans?” she asked him with an innocent smile.

Ok, so maybe Logan wasn’t American. She wasn’t sure exactly what he was. He had more passports than an intelligence agent. She was pretty sure at least some of them were legitimate, though.

The taxi driver was not amused by her innocent act. “I don’t take supernaturals. You’re nothing but trouble.”

Alex sighed. Lately, the anti-supernatural sentiment had been growing in Europe—and in London especially. There had already been a few lively protests in Hyde Park. It wouldn’t be long before people started throwing more than just words. The Convictionites were probably already starting their victory dance. Well, not if she could help it.

“Now see here,” Alex told the grizzled old taxi driver. “My friend is injured.”

He spun around. “He’s bleeding out all over my cab! Get out! Get out, get out!”

Groaning in pain, Logan reached into his jacket. He pulled out a bound stack of bills and tossed them at the driver. “Drive. Divination Street, Kensington.”

The driver looked from the money, to the blood, to Alex’s sword, then back to the money again. He turned back in his seat and screeched off down the road, proving that money was more important to him than principles. Of course, he could probably buy a new cab with the amount Logan had thrown at him. His so-called principles wouldn’t buy him anything but a knuckle sandwich.

When they got to Marek’s house, Alex and Logan hardly had enough time to hop out of the taxi before the driver roared off down the road. Maybe he was afraid his fellow supernatural-haters would catch him lingering on a mage street.

All the lights at Marek’s house were off, so he and Naomi must have still been checking out the other location on the Convictionite list. Alex hoped their night was going better than hers. She hurried downstairs, rummaging through the cabinets to find the healing supplies. God, she wished Daisy were here. Her pixie friend could heal any wound pretty much instantly.

“Do you want a potion, a salve, or a spray?” she called to Logan as he came down the stairs with uncharacteristic slowness.

“Potions, salves, and sprays? How many different healing items does Marek have?”

“Well, you know what a wretched healer he is.”

“Thankfully not first hand.”

Alex snorted. “There are some glittery patches too, but I was sure you didn’t want one of those.”

“You were correct. I’ll take any of the other three.”

“I’m glad you’re not being stubborn about this,” she said, grabbing a bottle of spray. “Now take off your shirt.”

He pulled the tattered shirt over his head, tossing it into the garbage can. “You’re always demanding that I do that, yet never rewarding me.” His smirk dissolved into a rapid stream of profanities as she sprayed the bottled magic all over his wound.

“The bleeding seems to have stopped,” she declared when the bottle was finally empty.

“Blast it, Alex. That hurt.”

She arched her eyebrows at him. “The spray just helped your body cure magic poisoning, heal internal damage, and stitch your lacerated skin back together. All in the matter of a few minutes. Of course it hurt.” She pointed at the door that led to the training area and bathroom. “Now, off you go. Take a shower to wash off the blood and dirt.”

“You could come with me.”

Yes, please.
She needed a shower almost as much as he did. Not that she’d be able to concentrate on cleaning with Logan standing stark naked next to her. Focus. She really had to focus.

“I need to call Gaelyn.” It took a monumental effort not to sigh.

“Well, if you change your mind,” he said, his voice trailing as he swung a towel over his shoulder.

She ogled at him until he disappeared into the bathroom.
Now back to work,
she told herself, dialing Gaelyn. The pirates still had some prisoners down in the tunnels. The fairies might have chased the vampires away from their own embassy, but they probably weren’t up to infiltrating their underground hideout. She only hoped the Vampire Covenant was. It was their job to make sure their own kind behaved—and to take care of the fallout when they didn’t. At the moment, they were doing a pretty piss-poor job of it.

“Alexandria,” the old immortal answered. “How is your search for the Blood Orb coming along?”

“Not so well. Logan and I went to a location we stole off the Convictionites’ computers. There are several hundred vampire pirates hiding out in one of London’s covered rivers. They’ve modified the tunnels to hold prisoners: humans and supernaturals they plan to sell to other vampires as food.”

“That is troubling.” As usual, Gaelyn’s voice was a smooth monotone. Alex had never even heard him get upset.

“We freed some of them—a group of fairy-mage hybrids—but there are still more prisoners down there.”

“I’ve heard about your daring rescue.”

“Oh?” That didn’t seem possible. They’d escaped the tunnels not even an hour ago.

“You created a magic tsunami, Alexandria. That didn’t go unnoticed. The force of your magic pushed some of the water above ground. Several streets that sit over the old River Fleet experienced sudden and unexplained flooding.”

Oops.

“The Mage Triad has dealt with the situation.”

“That’s good,” she said. “But the vampire pirates are a much larger threat than a few puddles. The Vampire Covenant needs to deal with those pirates before things deteriorate further.”

“There are humans down there?” Gaelyn asked.

“Yes.”

Gaelyn was silent for a few seconds before he spoke again. “If the Convictionites discover this, they will spin it to turn more people against us. It’s already starting to happen. The tides are turning against us.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“I will talk to the Vampire Covenant about raiding the tunnels.” He paused. “Is there anything else?” Something in his tone told Alex that he was sure there was. There was no hiding anything from someone who counted his birthdays in millennia.

“An assassin tried to kill me tonight,” she told him.

“In the tunnels?”

“No, after everything was over. He threw knives with magic-poisoned blades.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Logan jumped in the way. He was hit instead.”

“Is he all right?”

“I sprayed him with healing magic, and his enhanced abilities have helped him heal the rest of the way.”

Alex took a few steps forward. She peered past the half-open door to the training area. Logan had just stepped out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Her gaze slid down his chest, down the hard curves of lean, agile muscle. Her eyes dipped to the taut ridges of his stomach. He’d worked so hard to get that body. It would have been a crime not to ogle at it—discreetly, of course. And with minimal drooling.

“Alexandria.”

Gaelyn’s voice in her ear was a harsh slap back to reality. She turned her back to Logan, even as he peeled off the towel.

“Yes?” she asked Gaelyn.

“I am concerned by this new assassin.”

“We’ll find him.” Alex stole a covert peek back at Logan. He was dressed now, but in only a loose pair of pants. No shirt. The man sure did know how to put on a good show. He jumped up, catching his hands on a wall bar. He began doing pull-ups.

“Oh, come on. Now, you’re just doing it on purpose,” she muttered softly.

“What was that?” Gaelyn asked.

Ok, not softly enough. “Logan and I will get the assassin. And the Blood Orb. And save the hybrids. And all the hundred other things on our todo list.”

“Hybrids?”

“Yeah, my friend Naomi is here. Apparently, tons of hybrids are being kidnapped all over the world, including her cousin here in London. There’s been evidence of the Convictionites at some of the kidnapping scenes.”

“Quite troubling.”

“Quite,” she agreed, watching Logan’s pull-ups. He’d already passed thirty, and he wasn’t showing any signs of tiring yet. “In any case, Gaelyn, I’m going to treat myself to a shower now. Trust me when I say everyone around me will appreciate it. Blood, mud, sweat, and water of dubious origins don’t make for a lovely aroma.”