Magic Edge (9 page)

“Ok.” Alex slid a knife down to the tip of each jacket sleeve, where she’d be able to hurl them quickly if the need arose. “Let’s do this.”

Side-by-side, they stepped into the doorway. Alex scanned the room, finding Drake immediately. But he wasn’t alone. He stood in a sea of big and buff vampires, every single one of their eyes glowing with demon-charged power.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Vampire Gunner

“DRAKE,” SAID THE biggest of the vampire muscle men.

From the way the rest of the vampires were looking at him, he was the clear leader of the pack. His body was bathed in leather, his skin aglow with magic aftershave. Yeah, that’s right. Demon vampires shaved, most of them at least twice a day. The demon powering their strength and speed also shot their hair growth into overdrive. Alex often wondered if they minded that little side effect.

Drake’s weird hybrid magic went haywire. It split and sizzled like a torn power line. “Wait, Gunner. Please. I need more time.”

Gunner the vampire gunner? Either his parents had the gift of foresight, or Gunner was really bad at picking stage names.

“Time’s up. We want our money now.”

“So this is a shakedown?” the vampire elf said, his magic letting out an uneven belch. It smelled like junkyard parts and day-old sweat—certainly nothing like the usual flowery aroma of the fairies.

“It will become a beatdown if you don’t show us our money fast, you sniveling halfbreed.”

“It’s not here.” As Gunner pulled back his fist, Drake winced. “Wait! I’ll have it soon.”

“We’ve heard that before. Haven’t we, boys?” Gunner asked his gang.

All the men nodded—and the two female vampires too.

“Soon,” Drake said quickly. “Real soon. I’m just waiting to get paid for those Orbs.”

“You stole the Fairy and Vampire Orbs?”

“With my group, yes.”

Gunner chuckled. “You must have a death wish. The Vampire Covenant is out for blood. They insist that they will find whoever is responsible for stealing the Blood Orb. And if they don’t find you, Gaelyn’s supernatural exterminator will. The Paranormal Vigilante, wasn’t it?”

“People are calling her the Black Plague,” one of the female vampires told him.

“The Paranormal Vigilante won’t be a problem. At least not for long,” Drake said smugly. “I bit her. She’ll either die or transform. Whatever the case may be, she’s out of the picture.”

“A scrawny weakling like you took down the infamous Paranormal Vigilante?” the vampire with the mohawk asked in pure disbelief.

“Yes.” Drake grinned, the little liar.

“I hope she turns,” another vampire said. Tattoos covered every inch of skin on both his arms. “That Vigilante is hot.”

“I’d love to see what’s under all that leather she wears,” added Mohawk.

Ew. And double ew.
Alex resisted the urge to inform them that they weren’t her type. First of all, she preferred living men. And secondly, those demonic eyes were just creepy.

“Don’t do it,” Logan whispered to her.

“Do what?”

“You know what. I saw your hand reach toward your sword.”

“My fingers were stiff. I was just stretching them out.”

“Sure you were.” Though his aura rippled with amusement, his face maintained its granite mask. “The vampires haven’t noticed us yet. Let’s not do anything reckless.”

Alex made sure he was looking at her before giving her eyes a long, slow roll. As she returned her attention to the vampires, she could have sworn she heard him chuckle. Gunner’s gang was still discussing her. Half of the vampires were verbally undressing her. The other half of them were debating how best to kill a vigilante.

In other words, she hadn’t missed a thing.

“Ok, settle down, guys,” Gunner said, interrupting a particularly vile vampire who was talking about his previous vigilante conquests—both on the battlefield and in the bedroom. “We need to concentrate on the matter at hand.” His white-iron gaze shifted to Drake.

The vampire elf squeaked in alarm. “A week. Give me a week.”

“Well,” Gunner said with a lazy yawn. “I just sipped from a tasty fairy this afternoon, so I’m feeling generous. You have one day to bring me my money.”

“Ok,” Drake replied, slouching in defeat.

Gunner gave him a rough slap on the back, then walked off to look after his weapons. The other demon vampires followed. Drake watched them put their guns together with almost morbid fascination. Or maybe that was his deer-in-headlights look. His eyes did a nervous sweep of the room, freezing when they fell on Alex and Logan standing in the hall.

“Ah, looks like your vigilante is alive after all,” Gunner commented, giving Alex a playful wink.

“No, no, no,” Drake muttered, wringing out his hands. “This can’t be happening.”

“I don’t think she appreciated being bitten,” said Tattoos. “Looks like she brought along an assassin to help her kill you.”

Drake’s eyes shifted from Alex to Logan. Panic tore at his magic, sending out rocky waves of broken energy that bit at Alex’s skin like a shower of pebbles. He shot a blast of crimson and silver Fairy Dust at the overhead lights, frying the system. The vampires playing with their guns grumbled in protest, but no one else seemed to care. Their kind was a nocturnal breed after all; they could see just fine in the dark.

The door at the other side of the room opened, flooding the area with UV-free daylight. As Drake rushed through the door, Alex sprinted forward, trying to catch him. She caught the door by her fingertips, throwing it open again. Her pulse pumping hard, she ran across the shooting field. Logan came up beside her, and together they tried to close the distance to Drake.

“And we have a champion, folks! Breena for the Fairy Division!” the loudspeakers roared.

The audience broke out in applause, and enthusiastic cheers poured down from the stadium seats. A bow-wielding fairy with bouncy golden hair looked up at her adoring fans and waved, her flower crown sliding sideways. A group of enamored human men in the front row whistled at her. She blew them a kiss, then turned, the skirt of her powder-pink lace and chiffon mini-dress bouncing against her thighs as she moved. Drake plowed right past her, angling for a door on the other side of the field.

He never made it.

Fire poured down from above, drenching him in flames. Horrid, tortured screams erupted from his mouth, the pain and terror of his dying cry turning Alex’s stomach. Completely ablaze, the vampire elf ran a few steps before smacking against the wall with a decisive crunch.

Alex looked up. An enormous airborne dragon circled the stadium. He opened his mouth and flooded the field with fire.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Field of Fire

STREAMS OF FIRE rolled across the field, cascading like smashing rapids. Screaming fairies fled into the building. Two men lifted Breena, the fairy champion, onto their shoulders and carried her to safety beneath the audience’s chorus.

“Save the fairy princess. Save the fairy princess,” they chanted over the crackle of fire.

But as soon as Breena was inside, her spell shattered. Her adoring audience took their first clear-headed look at the dragon, then stampeded down the stairs in a raging panic.

“Ideas?” Logan asked Alex. “Monsters are your specialty.”

They were the only two people left standing down there. The fire that had consumed most of the field hadn’t reached them yet—but it was spreading fast.

Alex looked up. “That’s not a real dragon.”

“Of course not. There are no dragons anymore. It’s dragon magic summoned by a mage.”

“No,” she said, reaching out her hand toward the bonfire of flames. “It’s not even that. It’s an illusion.”

“It sure looks real.”

Ah, but sight was only a tiny piece of the magic pie. It was easiest one to fool, though. “Reach for the flames. They’re not hot.”

Logan extended his hand slowly, then quickly pulled it back. “They are hot.”

“Really? Odd.” Alex waved her hand through the flames. Magic prickled at her skin.

“Your hand is on fire.”

“Is it?” she asked, looking down at her arm. Sure enough, flames licked up and down it. She shook it out, and the phantom fire dissolved.

“Does this have something to do with the super-secret magic you’re pretending you don’t have?”

Uh, probably. Oops.
“No. I’m just more observant than you.”

“Well, I observed that dragon setting the vampire elf on fire.” Logan pointed at the charred corpse across the field. “He’s dead.”

“That was real fire.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Maybe a mage piggybacked a spell on the illusion.” She shrugged. “Don’t you think it’s awfully convenient that he happened to be set on fire right before we were going to talk to him? And then there were the thieves who attacked us. And the bartender at Impulse who was found dead before anyone could ask him anything about the Orbs.”

“You think this is a conspiracy,” he said.

“I sure as hell don’t think it’s a picnic. Someone is after the Orbs. And I think it’s pretty obvious that someone will do whatever it takes—kill whoever it takes—to get what they want.”

“There’s someone up there.” Logan nodded toward the now-empty audience seating.

Or maybe not so empty. “Is there?” She squinted into the stands. Sure enough, a cloaked figure lurked in a dark corner. “What do you want to bet that he’s our illusionist?”

“Assassins don’t bet,” he replied coolly. “We act.”

A gunshot echoed inside the dome. Alex scanned the area, honing in on a quartet of men standing at one of the four doors that fed into the field. They were all human, but they had really big guns.

From the way the humans were staring into the flames, they knew the fire wasn’t real. But not because they could see through the illusion. Someone had told them. The fake heat was still bothering them. They were keeping to the edge of the field.

“Ok, you go
act
on those gunmen,” she told Logan as she took off running toward stairs that led into the stands. “I’ll take care of our hooded friend.”

She sped up those stairs as fast as she could push herself. Seeing that running up stairs was a regular ingredient to her workouts, that was pretty damn fast. Her stubborn streak certainly didn’t hurt either.

It wasn’t enough.

She reached the right level, but the cloaked figure had already fled. Somehow. Alex didn’t see any clear escape paths. Above, the dragon lingered on for a few seconds before its fiery form began to fade—then just winked out. A few more booms echoed off the glass walls, followed by a series of pained grunts. Logan sure hadn’t wasted any time.

Metal scratched against the rough concrete floor, and Alex looked down to find a broken piece of silver beneath the toe of her boot. Other pieces—also broken—were scattered in an uneven circle, right where the cloaked figure had been standing. She slid on her leather gloves, then plucked one of the pieces from the ground. She held it lightly between two fingers, careful not to let the spiked edges puncture her gloves. Who knew what sort of magic was on them.

“Alex.”

“Stop. Don’t step on anything. I’ve found evidence here,” she told Logan, turning the metal piece in front of her eyes. Magic always left a footprint. The question was whether her undeveloped powers could find it. “This is where the illusionist was standing.” She pulled a felt bag off her belt and used her dagger to sweep the pieces into it. “We need to collect them and figure out what they mean.”

“Alex,” he said again, his voice uneven.

She spun around just in time to catch him as he fell. Blood drenched the front of his left pant leg, where a bullet had torn through his thigh.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Pixie Magic

EVERYONE HAD FLED the Glass Dome—including the medical personnel—so there was no one to take care of Logan’s wounds. Alex patched him up as best she could, dumped him into the passenger seat of his Maserati, then screeched out of the parking lot like an enraged hell beast.

“You’re driving my car,” Logan muttered, his eyelids sliding down.

Alex grabbed the ice scraper from the door pocket; it was black. She rolled her eyes. Assassins. She reached over and poked him in the shoulder with the dull end.

“Damn it, woman!” he shouted, jumping in his seat. At least his eyes were open again. “Are you insane? You don’t just go around poking assassins.”

She shrugged. “If you don’t want to get poked, then stay awake. I know someone who can fix you up, but you need to hold it together until we get there.”

“I hope you don’t mean that dragon summoner you work with. I’ve seen what happens when he tries to heal people.” Logan paled—or maybe it was the blood loss.

“No, not Marek. He’s not even here right now. I’m bringing you to Daisy.”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Daisy Goldcast.”

This time, he definitely paled. “That might not be the best idea.”

“Please tell me you didn’t kill anyone she cares about.”

“I didn’t.”

“Or otherwise assault, torture, or maim them.”

“No.”

Alex spun the car into a sharp u-turn, sliding across the tram tracks to speed down the other side of the road.

“Slow down. There’s a speed camera up ahead,” he warned her.

“You’ve been shot, and you’re worried about a speeding ticket?”

“Yes. If this wound doesn’t do me in, the speeding fine just might. They charge a percentage of your income.”

“That bites.” Alex slowed down, sticking her tongue out at the speed camera as they passed. “I hear a grumpy old ghost is running the transportation department nowadays.”

“I doubt the city government would hire a supernatural.”

“The guy ran the department when he was alive. Then one day, he woke up dead. They tried to fire him—you know, on account of his being dead and all. But he wouldn’t have it. He haunted the city government meetings until they caved in.”

“You have a unique imagination, Alex.”

“Who me? Nah, I’m blunt as a stone.” She poked him once more because his head was starting to drop again.

“You’re testing my patience,” he growled. “Poke me with that thing once more, and I’ll snap it in half.”