Mind Games

Mind Games

a Cassie Scot novel

by Christine Amsden

Twilight Times Books

Kingsport Tennessee

Mind Games: a Cassie Scot novel

This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are used fictitiously and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Christine Amsden

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

Twilight Times Books

P O Box 3340

Kingsport TN 37664

http://twilighttimesbooks.com/

First Edition, April 2014

Cover art by Ural Akyuz

Published in the United States of America.

For my husband, Austin, who always believed in me.

He’s all the magic I need.

I would like to give special thanks to all those who struggled through early drafts of this book: Laurel Amberdine, Linda Amsden, Stephen Amsden, Leah Cypess, Crystal Layne Futrell, Austin Morgan, Kat Otis and Mike Reeves-McMillan.

Your insights helped bring Cassie to life.

E
VAN BLACKWOOD REACHED WITHIN HIMSELF FOR
the magic – vast, untamed, and yet somehow vital – roiling just beneath the surface. It was as much a part of him as the blood coursing through his veins. And tonight it was the only thing that might save his life.

He channeled the untamed energy into an invisible shield a moment before a curse struck with what could only have been deadly intent. The glow of energy meeting energy lit the overcast twilight sky, casting an ominous glow across the door of the rickety shack behind him. The strength of the blow forced some of the shield energy to reverse course, creating a feeling reminiscent of a static electricity shock – except it hit every blood cell at once.

He gritted his teeth against the pain, willing it to pass quickly. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. That had been way too close. If his shields had come up a second later…

Focus.

Murmuring the words of the sleep spell he had readied for just such a battle, Evan scanned the line of white pines sloping down the steep hill, looking for his attacker. It was hard to make out anything in the dim light offered by an overcast evening sky, but then he saw something flicker off to his right. He clamped down hard on his instinctive response to lash out at the first sign of danger. This could be a trick. A brief look through his special glasses told him that the flicker of movement had, in fact, been mere illusion.

He maintained both his shield and his sleep spell, wondering how many attackers were out there and what other tricks they knew. His special glasses helped him spot two more illusions, but so far they hadn’t helped him see the truth.

The camera-mounted glasses had been Cassie’s idea, though Evan had never thanked her for the concept. Since magical illusion was a form of mind magic and cameras had no minds, they could see through it.

There. In front and just off to the left. Tying a whisper of energy to his prepared words, he cast the spell in what he hoped was the right direction. Then he held his breath until it hit its target.

The dark figure crumpled to the forest floor with a soft thud. One down. But how many to go?

Evan was getting better at combat magic, but tonight had him fearing he might not be good enough. His pacifist mentor, Henry Wolf, had refused to teach him, leaving him to learn on his own. At least his innate gift of telekinesis was well-suited to confrontation. It gave him an edge he felt no qualms about using. It did not, however, make him anything like invincible.

Most spells took time, preparation, and materials to cast, but with a little advance preparation, he could keep some spells ready to use at a moment’s notice. Shields were a common defensive strategy employed in this way, but Evan had been the one to hit on the idea of using the sleep spell as an offensive technique. Not only was it faster and easier to pull off than the more common stunning or black-out spells, but it carried less risk of permanent damage to the victim should things turn out to have been a simple misunderstanding.

In this case, there was no misunderstanding. The man now sleeping in the woods would have killed Evan with his death curse had Evan not defended himself. He could still feel the residual tingles here and there, though the shock had long-since worn off. He’d rid the woods of a low-life blood mage, and so far he wasn’t even breathing hard.

Don’t get cocky
, he chided himself as he continued to scan the woods with both the camera and his own eyes. He still hadn’t gotten through the wards on the shack behind him, which was both good and bad. It meant that despite its shabby appearance, someone wanted to protect this rickety pile of lumber nestled in the Appalachian Foothills. But it also meant the guard now sleeping in the woods undoubtedly had allies of indeterminate number and strength.

Evan tensed, listening for the sounds of anyone else waiting to ambush him the moment he let down his shields. He couldn’t break through the wards with his shields up, making him a perfect target. Not for the first time, he wished he had backup, but Scott Lee refused to leave Eagle Rock at the full moon and Evan refused to let this wait another three nights. Dark sorcerers often carried out blood rituals at the full moon, which meant if he didn’t get inside that shack tonight, someone would die. He only hoped it wouldn’t be him.

Evan had put in a call to the local magical leadership, now unified under Alexander DuPris – an ambitious sorcerer with dreams of uniting the country. But they hadn’t given him anything aside from a vague, “We’ll see what we can do.” So he was on his own.

Taking a deep breath, Evan lowered his shields and turned back to the door hanging slightly off its hinges. To the naked eye, it wouldn’t look like much of a barrier. Even someone experienced with traditional protections would miss the power on this door if they did not also possess a sensitivity to magical energy. There were no plants, herbs, or runes here. There was only raw magical power, bolstered by the blood of the innocent. It was an unhealthy sort of energy, not at all in tune with the natural world.

Something cracked under Evan’s onslaught, a tiny gap in the flow of energy, but he could work with it. He began chipping away until the crack grew deeper and wider, creating a hole in the protection. Almost there. He just needed a few mores seconds…

Suddenly, Evan flew backwards, thrown by the force of an enemy he hadn’t seen or heard until it grabbed him around the neck and yanked him away from the door so hard that his feet momentarily left the ground. He slammed his shield into place, but too late – the attacker had followed him to the ground, landing atop him chest to chest. The man was inside the shield range, using extraordinary strength to pin Evan to the ground.

Evan wasn’t exactly a small man. He was over six foot tall, and he regularly worked his body alongside his magic. Yet this enemy had him immobilized as easily as if he were a small child. He wasn’t a small child, though. He was a full grown man with a powerful gift that he used instinctively whenever he felt fear or anger. It wasn’t something he had to exert effort to do. He scarcely had to think, and the things around him went flying.

Evan could not remember ever feeling so much fear – at least, not for his life. His only thought at that moment was to get his attacker away from him. He thought it with such force, with such raw panic, that his enemy should have gone flying, but instead it thumped a few inches to the side, fighting against Evan’s hold.

That’s when Evan recognized it as a vampire.

It didn’t look any different from a human, except for the feral yellow eyes that only manifested when it hunted. Evan had missed them at first as he’d fought for his life. Other than that, it was just a man – and not even a particularly big one.

“Crap,” Evan muttered, trying to hold it still with his will as he backed away. He knew he couldn’t hold the thing for longer than a few seconds. And he hadn’t prepared himself for a confrontation with a vampire. No crosses. No holy water.

It shouldn’t be here. Vampires didn’t usually get close to a community of sorcerers. And the tiny town of Appalachia was comprised entirely of magic users united under a powerful and, in Evan’s opinion, somewhat dictatorial council. No normals allowed.

Whatever
should
be didn’t change the truth. There was a vampire. And Evan had about two-and-a-half seconds to think of a way to fight it before it tore his throat out.

The seconds passed. Nothing occurred to Evan. The vampire broke free and lunged at him once again, fangs bared. Evan closed his eyes, wondering if this would be it. The only weapon he had left to him now was the anti-venom potion he had taken as a child. It would keep him from being thralled or turned, but it wouldn’t keep him from dying. Not unless this vampire knew nothing about it and he could pretend, as Cassie had once done, that he was under the vampire’s spell. Enjoying having his blood sucked out.

He shuddered. He might have had an obscene amount of magic at his disposal, but he didn’t think he could play that convincing a game of make believe. And it would kill him.

In that moment of certain death Evan felt regret, almost as sharply as he felt fear. In his mind’s eye he saw dark blue eyes, rich auburn tresses, and a wide mouth that often seemed to smile even when things were going wrong. Cassie would live the rest of her life without understanding why he had left town in such a hurry. He had abandoned her to the belief that he had turned against her, been bribed away from her, or fallen victim to some kind of spell.

It wasn’t true. He had merely been tipped off to the fact that he had wronged her beyond his ability to repay. Or acknowledge, even to himself.

He had been in denial.

The revelation, startling and belated, came to him in lieu of his life flashing before his eyes. He thought he’d left Eagle Rock to think or to find a purpose. Now he knew it was because he hadn’t been ready to tell her. He hadn’t even been willing to admit to himself that somehow, over twenty-one years ago, before either of them were born, the magic that should have been hers had instead gone to him.

He had lived with that magic, with that awesome power, his entire life. He thought he had always used it well. He was still trying to use it well, risking his life to save others from dark sorcerers. It was his, dammit! It hadn’t been his fault – he hadn’t even known – and now the magic was a deeply ingrained part of his self.

None of which seemed as important on the brink of death as the idea that he at least owed her the truth.

Saliva dripped onto the throbbing pulse point in Evan’s neck. He closed his eyes, felt the first touch of the vampire’s fangs, and then…

Something threw the vampire off of Evan with enough force to knock the wind out of both of them.

Gasping, Evan struggled to sit up. He searched for his rescuer but saw only a blur of moving darkness barely distinguishable as two separate beings. One was a vampire. The other… Evan had never seen a vampire hunter in action before, but he knew that one had just saved his life. Only vampires and the hunters who destroyed them could move like that.

Finally, there was a strangled cry and the action ceased. One figure slumped to the ground, a stake protruding from its chest. The other figure, breathing heavily, worked an axe free of his belt to chop off the vampire’s head. The separation of head from body was what truly killed the vampire. Otherwise, there was a chance it could reanimate when the stake was removed from its heart.