Blood, Smoke and Mirrors (2010) (6 page)

A vampire fell away from the fray in the street, stumbling and then scrambling about searching for something on the ground. After a moment I realized it was looking for the rest of the severed arm that had rolled under a parked car. My stomach heaved and I swallowed hard, looking down at my feet and trying to shove that image out of my brain.

"C'mon now, that had to hurt," Lex teased the armless vamp. "Why don't you just take your hand and go home?"

"Only a flesh wound," the vampire growled as it stretched to reach beneath the car.

Like the worst part of a horror film, it was morbidly fascinating, and I couldn't help but watch. They were stronger, faster and outnumbered him, but somehow Lex held his own. While the vampires were slashed and bleeding, the guardian didn't have a scratch on him. Yet.

"Come out and play, little Cat," a new voice crooned. Turning my attention away from the fight, I found four strangers pacing around the edge of my shields. Necromancers, from the awful smell of them. They circled me like hungry sharks, searching for a weak spot in my shields. Yeah, good luck there. It'd take a lot more than four necromancers to get through my shields, as long as I stood still and concentrated. Unfortunately I couldn't stand there all night, and it'd be a real long walk to my apartment with them trying to sabotage me the entire way. Not a happy thought.

"No thanks, I like it here."

"What's wrong? Afraid?"

Oh, please. Like that was going to tempt me into throwing a temper tantrum and let them jump me. I wasn't falling for that lame trick. I put my hands on my hips and smiled again, more confident this time as I glanced over the speaker. Another sad fashion disaster dressed in black from head to toe, the necromancer reminded me of one of the many reasons why I hate the goth trend: it was created and nurtured by vampires. The woman wore a ridiculous getup of black lace and vinyl complete with spider-web hose and a corset top, doing her best to look dark and mysterious. She'd make a fabulous vampire stereotype when they killed her.

"I'm real scared of that outfit. Was there a sale at Hot Topic?"

Apparently I hit a nerve and she snarled at me. I opened my mouth to toss another witty insult at her, but was interrupted by a distinctly male sound of pain cutting through the tumultuous noise of the fight, too deep to be a faerie's voice. My panic level rose as I smelled the scent of strong magical blood. Lex had fallen to one knee.

Charging into the fray, I rushed to Lex's side. My shields bent perilously inward for a heartbeat before rebounding and hurling vampires out of the way like undead bowling pins. When I reached him my shield stretched and enveloped Lex. My brain paused for a heartbeat to wonder about that bizarre detail, because really it should've bounced him out of the way as well since I hadn't had the good sense to drop them before reaching his side. Deciding to ponder that later, I focused on the set of claw marks slashed across his midsection as I hauled him to his feet.

"This qualifies as distracting me," he growled in annoyance.

"What? You're hurt, you need help."

"Barely a scratch. Ol' no thumbs there, now he needs a medic." He nodded at a nearby vampire who was indeed missing his thumbs and most of his fingers, which were scattered around his feet like fat, pale worms.

My stomach bolted up near the back of my throat and I realized we were in trouble, because I was sure I couldn't shield and retch at the same time. "I think we should let him set an example." I nodded at the faerie-sized blur darting in and out of the mob.

"No, we're not, and I was doin' fine on my own."

"We need a new plan." Poking at his wound, I tried to gauge how severe the damage was, accidentally coating my fingers with his blood in the process.

"Had to call a guardian and your pixie buddy, eh witch? Not strong enough to defend yourself," another new voice commented. I spun around to watch in morbid fascination as the limb-impaired vamp reattached his severed arm.

"And you? Needed a hand?" Lex drawled. "Now you, stay here," he ordered as he glared at me. He lunged toward the vampire, and the two circled each other in a frenzied dance. "You tired yet? You'll run outta blood 'fore I even break a sweat," he taunted the vampire.

"Kitty!" Tybalt called out to me as a vamp landed with a thud at the faerie's feet.

"What?"

"Better idea. Conjure sunlight!"

"What?"

"Just do it. Invoke Apollo, trust me," the faerie ordered.

I shrugged, not sure where Tybalt was going with his request, considering sunlight doesn't hurt vampires like it does in movies. Instead of burning them into a pile of ash it gives them severe sunburn, but hey, I didn't have much else to do while inside my shields, so I decided to run with it. Grabbing my lighter, I held it tight in my right hand, and after sorting through the collection of symbols hung around my neck, I found my sun medallion and clutched it in my left. Holding the button down on my lighter, I turned the flame up to its highest level and held it aloft.

"Great Apollo, drive your chariot hence,

Burning bright for our defense.

Life from light, push back the night,

Chase the darkness from our sight."

Honestly, I wasn't quite expecting the result I got. I figured the spell would give me a little bit of sun like the one that had illuminated the room beneath the faerie mound. Instead a small supernova formed from the fire in my hand, a bright white light that blinded me for a moment with its pure intensity. I squeezed my eyes shut as piercing inhuman howls split the summer night. The awful scent of burnt flesh and toasted vinyl filled my nostrils, and I flinched at the heat building up in my grasp. My brain warned me that it would be a smart idea to drop the lighter a split second before it exploded.

I shrieked, shaking my open hand back and forth as lighter fluid and melted plastic rained down on me and scorched my skin. The light died, but I was in too much pain to care at that point. My hand was on fire, I was sure it had to be, even though I hadn't opened my eyes to actually look at it. The pain was all the information I needed right then.

When I was tackled to the ground I realized my shields had dropped in my distracted state. I mentally resigned myself to the fact that my dumb ass had gotten myself killed, and I braced for the inevitable.

"Catherine!"

"Kitty? Kitty!" Tybalt's voice assaulted me as I was shaken back and forth and battered by two sets of hands.

"Fire, on fire!" I squeaked.

"I know," my cousin answered. For a few seconds more the battering continued until finally the assault ended.

"Are you all right?" Lex asked.

"On fire! Hello!"

"You're not on fire anymore, Kitty," Tybalt assured me.

"I'm not?"

"Nope."

Slowly, I opened my eyes, peering down at myself. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I had some very nasty burns on my right hand, with a sprinkling of minor ones on my arm and across my torso. Thankfully my clothes seemed to have taken the worst of it.

"Great idea, Tybalt. 'Invoke Apollo.' You lit me on fire, damn it."

"Only a little. You lit the vampires on fire a lot more."

"We need to get her home. My truck's this way," Lex interrupted us. He scooped me up into his arms and began to carry me away like a slender damsel in distress, something I certainly am not.

"Whoa, whoa, put me down, you're injured."

"You distracted me."

"I did not. Put me down."

"Not a chance, honey," he drawled. I briefly considered the childish response of biting him to get my way. The thought of biting reminded me that the area had somehow become vampire and necromancer free.

"Where'd all the dead people go?"

"Ran home to their mamas, I imagine, after the toasting you gave 'em. Never seen that trick before. You'll have to teach me that one," Lex explained, seeming impressed.

"Yeah, it was perfect until you lit yourself on fire too, Kitty."

Wonderful
. From now on I'd just have to light myself on fire every time I got attacked, and all would be right in the world.

"Hey, Tybalt, that doesn't count as part of the test, does it?" I asked.

"No, but I'm sure they'll give you at least a night to yourself after that last one."

"Oh good."

The three of us approached an SUV. The lights flickered as it chirped and the doors unlocked. The car was black. I suppose I should have expected that.

"What happened to your pickup?"

"Needed a change. This one's a hybrid." When we reached the SUV, Lex set me on my feet and opened the passenger side door for me. "After you, Miss Baker."

I brushed myself off before climbing into the car, and I noticed I'd picked up even more blood that wasn't mine. "You're still bleeding."

"It's only a scratch."

Frowning, I got into the car and he shut the door. Tybalt let himself in behind me and climbed into the backseat, and then leaned forward to stare wide-eyed at the million-and-one electronic gadgets scattered across the dashboard.

"Ooh, what does that do?"

"Don't touch anything."

"Though I do appreciate the light show, I was doin' well enough on my own," Lex drawled as he plopped into the driver's seat.

"Uh-huh. So those slashes across your ribs are what? A pre-existing shaving accident?"

"Don't worry about it."

Resisting the urge to comment on the idiot macho nature of men, I sat silent while Tybalt pestered Lex about what all the buttons did. It was a short drive to my apartment, and the trip was uneventful. Lex paused to grab a gym bag out of the back of the car before we headed into the building. Once we were safe inside my place I escorted Lex into the kitchen to tend his wounds at my breakfast table. Magicians heal injuries faster than the average human, but even we can catch an infection if it's bad enough. No telling where those vamps'd been. They were probably crawling with all kinds of nasty undead cooties.

"We ought to take care of your burns first," he insisted as I plunked down my first-aid kit.

"I just need a new shirt. This one's trashed."

"No, your hand should be bandaged. Give it here and have a seat." Before I could protest he gently took hold of my injured hand and turned it over to examine it. I sat in the chair he pulled out for me and surrendered to his demand. "Explain to me how you lit those vamps up."

"Is that what I did? I was a li'l distracted by being on fire at the time."

"They're char-grilled. It was great!" Tybalt exclaimed from his perch on the edge of the sink.

"Which, I might add, I've never seen before. You drag a vamp out into the sunlight and it gets sunburned, it doesn't burst into flames. What you did is something out of fiction." Grabbing a tube of antibiotic ointment from the kit, he unscrewed the cap and poised himself to squeeze some onto my burns. "This'll probably hurt."

"Yeah, I figured that. Go ahead." To my credit I didn't shriek when the gob of ointment hit my skin, and I kept my composure while he spread it over the angry, reddened wounds. "Tybalt, the spell was your idea. You ever hear of that kind of reaction happening?"

"Sure, that's why I had you invoke Apollo. Magic sunlight's got a chance to do it when it's properly blessed, and the caster's strong enough."

I stared incredulously at the faerie. "Why haven't you mentioned this before?"

"Thought you knew about it."

"Nobody knows about it."

"It's not my fault you humans forget things so easily. You all used to know about that," he pointed out, a scolding tone in his voice.

"Great. Anything else you want to share with the class?"

The faerie blinked and looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head. "No, not really."

"Those vamps didn't die, did they?"

"Nope," Lex replied. "Just ran off like someone lit their tails on fire." Finished with the ointment, the guardian wound a thin gauze bandage around my hand.

"So they're going to be extra mad later, pretty much?"

"More than likely."

"Wonderful."

"They'll be less mad than if we'd killed any of them though, so it's not that bad. And no paperwork. There you go, all set," Lex proclaimed, releasing my hand.

"Thanks. Your turn," I said, as I got to my feet.

"I can take care of it."

"It'll go faster if I do it. Guardians may know a thing or two about first aid, but witches are natural healers. Now let me see."

For a second it looked like he wanted to argue with me, but then he shrugged. Slipping his coat off, he placed it on top of the table, and it made a loud clunk as Lex set it down. Next he removed the torn, bloodied black T-shirt, and I blushed from the roots of my hair down to the tips of my toes. Lord and Lady, I'd forgotten just how gorgeous that man was--or rather I'd repressed those memories. But hell, I'd seen him naked, so I was sure I could survive a few minutes of shirtlessness without making an idiot of myself.

"What did this?" I focused my attention on the marks. Five evenly spaced slashes had gouged through his shirt and into skin. Just deep enough to need stitches, they looked really painful.

"Vampires can grow claws when they don't feel like using fangs to draw blood. Short, stubby claws your average shapeshifter would laugh at, but they get the job done." Lex grimaced, shrugging again.

I nodded in reply and set about dealing with his injuries. I dabbed at the cuts with a clump of gauze soaked in hydrogen peroxide to clean off the blood. The tough guy didn't even flinch, good for him.

"I'm going to need a few more things to close these up a bit, unless of course you'd rather I break out my sewing kit."

Lex winced at the thought of me stitching him up, and I couldn't blame him. It's not something I'd be eager to try either. "Go ahead, I'll wait."

Leaving the two males alone in the kitchen, I ducked into my bedroom and rummaged through my ritual supplies. Normally I'd light a green candle for healing energy, but I'd had more than enough fire for one night. Instead, I raided my collection of rings and slipped a moonstone and silver ring on each finger of my right hand. Moonstone's not normally associated with healing, but it's my zodiac birthstone, so it gives an extra kick to my magic (something I needed at the moment). The rings and my bandages combined to create a ginormous fashion faux pas, but I didn't care. Returning to the kitchen, I found Lex and Tybalt chatting about the finer points of decapitating vampires.