Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1) (10 page)

A
fter they returned
to the waterfront, Caine parked his bike under an oak. He climbed off, and Rosalind followed him across a patch of grass by Salem Harbor. The briny wind kissed her face, skimming over her tattered dress.

She had no idea what they were doing now. It wasn’t like he’d filled her in or anything. But she had a bad feeling he might change his mind about his promise to help her exorcise the spirit. He seemed to think she was making a terrible mistake, but he wasn’t the one who had to feel the flames when the ring came off.

He paused before a small gray stone in the ground. Chanting, he flicked his wrist. She gasped as a dark, steep-peaked house glimmered into view. She had to catch her breath at the illusion—or maybe it was the other way around. The house’s invisibility was the illusion.

Caine opened a red door into a hall, warmly lit by candles. “My other home. The secret one.” He motioned for her to enter, and she followed him into an ivory-walled hall. “Right now, you’re the only person who knows this exists. Aurora will be only the second person. If you’re still going to insist on rejoining the mage Hunters, I’ll have to steal this particular memory from you before you leave. Or I’ll have to kill you. Your choice.”

Rosalind cocked her hip. “I don’t really like the idea of you rooting around in my brain.”

“What are you afraid I’ll see?”

She toyed with her ring.
You’d slaughter me if you knew the terrible thing I did
. She pushed the thought away. “It’s more that I don’t particularly want brain damage.”

“I’m an artist of dark magic. I’d leave all your computer science jibber-jabber intact.”

“Mmm. Sounds like you really know what you’re talking about.” She frowned. “When are we going to see the sybil? Where’s this nightclub?”

“We’ll go tonight, once Aurora gets here. Hopefully, none of Elysium’s patrons have heard about your little incident with Bileth.” He motioned for her to follow him into a high-ceilinged living room. “In the meantime, let me introduce you to my parlor.”

Parlor.
It was a strangely old-fashioned New England word for a delicately beautiful place. Silvery wallpaper covered the walls, decorated with ethereal spider-web patterns. Midnight-blue curtains hung from bay windows overlooking the water, and candles burned in silver candelabra. The entire place was impeccably tidy. He probably had cleaning spells to do the work for him.

She sat on a deep blue sofa, smoothing out her tangled hair. She looked like a mess. At least the tattoos had faded from her skin, but her dress was hanging off her—probably shredded around the time she threw herself at Caine.

He sat next to her, and she glanced at him, trying not to stare at his beautiful features, his strong jawline and glacial eyes. “I think I might remember you. I remember glimpses from when we were kids. I remember someone like you on the beach. A young boy with gray eyes.”

He eyed her cautiously. “I’m older than you. My memories are a bit clearer.”

Curiosity bloomed in her mind. “What do you remember? What were my parents like?”

“Powerful.”

He wasn’t giving details, and she had the unsettling feeling they’d done something terrible to him.

A sigh slid from her. “I remember feeling loved. Even if my parents were witches, I felt safe then. But you weren’t safe. They threw you out.”

He gazed into the candle flames. “Nothing I didn’t deserve,” he said, so softly she barely heard him.

A lump rose in her throat. “You were just a kid.”

“Is that so?” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “You don’t think like a Hunter with all that empathy of yours.”

“Maybe the Brotherhood isn’t as bad as you think.” She thought of Mason, making a mental correction. “Some of them are awful. But most of the Brotherhood made me feel like I had a home again. I felt valued, and important. I had a place among them. They give me a purpose.”

“Is it worth your life?”

“They have to take me back. I don’t have anything else,” she said.

“That’s quite a lot of faith you put in them.”

“It’s not so much faith. It’s more like—”

“—A desire,” he said. It was the same phrasing Ambrose had used, but on an incubus’s lips, the word had an entirely different association. Her mind burned with the memory of his lips on hers, of her body pressed against his, fingers coiled into his hair.

But he’d put a stop to their kiss. It was stupid, but she almost felt the sting of rejection.

“You know when I kissed you earlier?” She flinched at her own question.
Shut up, Rosalind.

His lips curled in a faint smile. “The image is fresh in my memory.”

“I was just wondering, since you’re an incubus…” Why in the gods’ names was she bringing this up? She’d lost all her impulse control since she started hanging out with demons. “Why did you stop me? I thought incubi fed off—” She cleared her throat. “You know.”

He arched an eyebrow. “
You know
. Is that what you call it in the Brotherhood?”

Her chest flushed. She had no idea why she’d gotten sidetracked by this conversation. She should be focusing on the sybil right now, and finding a way to piece her life back together. “You know what I mean.”

He ran a finger over his lower lip, studying her. “Why did I stop it? Because you weren’t in control. I can tell you it took a tremendous amount of restraint on my part.”

Rosalind stared at him, entranced by the flickering candlelight dancing over his skin.

“Hello?” Aurora’s voice broke the silence.

Rosalind let out a long breath, letting some of the tension uncoil inside her.

“Caine!” Aurora shouted from the doorway. “Am I invited in?”

“Of course you’re invited in,” he said.

Beaming, Aurora glided into the living room. “So
this
is the secret lair of the great shadow mage.”

Rosalind arched an eyebrow. “Vampires can’t enter without an invitation? I thought that was a myth.”

“It is,” Aurora said. “But I just feel awkward barging into someone’s house. I mean, Lilu led me here—but she’s a bird so it wasn’t, like, a proper invitation with words. And I didn’t want to be a third wheel in case you were banging.”

“You’re welcome here,” Caine said. “Bileth won’t find this house. He may track us to the waterfront, but we’re invisible to him.”

Aurora threw herself down on a chaise lounge. “I would have stayed to help with the fight, but I had a feeling you’d be doing that bone crunching thing, and I didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. You need to tell me everything that happened.” Her eyes landed on an oak liquor cabinet, and within moments, she was across the room, rooting around the glass bottles. “I’ll need a cocktail for this.”

“Bileth knows I’m a Hunter,” Rosalind said.

“How the hell did you make it out of there alive?” Aurora pulled out three Martini glasses, laying them on a tray. She filled them with whiskey. “You must’ve blinked your big eyes at him to charm him. Showed off a little of that perky cleavage.”

“Not exactly,” Caine muttered. “She impaled him with a fire poker.”

Aurora whirled, the tray of cocktails in her hands. “She did
what?
”

“I’m a Hunter,” Rosalind said. “I hunted him. I didn’t know he was some kind of demon royalty. And I was worried about Caine.”

Caine quirked a smile. “You were worried about me? I thought you were a Hunter. I’m pretty sure I’m among your intended prey.”

Flustered, she plucked a cocktail glass off the tray. “Maybe, but right now you’re my one hope at exorcising the spirit.”

Aurora shoved a glass in Caine’s hands, before downing her own in one go. She collapsed into a chair. “None of that matters now. We’re all dead. For real this time. Did you know Bileth is known as ‘The Scalpel’ for the way he removes people’s skin just for fun?”

Rosalind’s stomach turned a flip. When Caine had been trying to convince her that demons and Hunters were somehow morally equivalent, he’d conveniently left out the bit about The Scalpel.

Caine traced his finger along the rim of his glass. “It’s not a good situation. And, to make matters worse, we can’t kill Bileth without provoking a major war.”

“If you gave him the Hunter,” Aurora said, “he might forget the whole thing.”

Rosalind tightened her grip on the Martini glass. “You can’t give me up. It wasn’t my fault. I thought I was helping Caine.”

Aurora arched an eyebrow. “You’re really caught up in this fault thing, aren’t you? Hasn’t anyone ever told you that sometimes bad things happen to good people?”

“We’re not going to give her to Bileth,” Caine said. “Ambrose would never forgive it—and anyway, the Hunter is growing on me. At least in the rare moments when she’s quiet.”

Aurora was already refilling her drink. “You’re directly defying Ambrose’s orders to train her, so I’m a bit confused why you’re suddenly worried about his forgiveness.”

“I wasn’t going to defy him entirely,” Caine said. “I have a solution that meets Ambrose’s needs as well as hers.”

This was the first Rosalind had heard of this concept. “Wait.
What
solution that meets both our needs?”

“Ambrose wants the mage’s spirit to survive,” Caine said. “The spirit will simply need another body. And I have a willing host who would gladly accept this power.”

“Who?” Aurora asked.

He sipped his drink. “Me.”

Rosalind straightened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The mage’s mind will break you. It was physically painful. Her body was on fire. And can you really handle another soul?”

Aurora glared over her Martini glass. “What do you care what happens to him? Once you run back to the Brotherhood, it will be your job to ram an iron spear through his heart. You get that, right?”

“I won’t come for him, even if he doesn’t erase my memories.” It was the first time the thought had ever occurred to her, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew them to be true. Even if he was a demon, he’d done nothing but help her so far.

The longer she spent with the demons, the less she wanted to hunt them.

“Oh, really? You won’t hunt him now, and he’s growing fond of you?” Aurora’s eyes raked over Rosalind’s dress. “Did something happen between you two? And would that something have anything to do with the state of your clothes, and the fact that you both smell like you’ve been rolling in dirt?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rosalind said.

Aurora rolled her eyes. “I was wondering how long it would take. At least maybe now that she’s taken the edge off, she can relax a little and listen to some sense.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Rosalind said. “We were trying to take the ring off to see what would happen.”

“I get you. I haven’t ‘taken the ring off’ in weeks and it’s making me crazy.” Aurora sloshed her drink.

Rosalind blushed. “I meant literally. My actual iron ring.”

Aurora’s face brightened. “Thank the gods. Taking that off is the first good thing I’ve heard you say since I’ve met you. You’re going to let Caine train you, like Ambrose said?”

Rosalind tightened her fist. “It’s not possible. There’s something wrong with the spirit. She was on fire, and so was I.”

But Rosalind was almost starting to see Aurora’s point. With
a demon lord hunting her, she needed the protection of someone powerful. Once she exorcised this spirit, there would be no more Caine and no more Ambrose.

Only the Brotherhood, who wanted her dead.

Her chest tightened. What if Caine and Aurora were right? What if the Brotherhood would never accept her innocence?

Aurora glared at her. “You’ll be on fire if you run back to the Brotherhood, but I don’t see that stopping you.”

“Caine already made that point.” She sipped her cocktail, which tasted of straight whiskey. “What is this?”

“A Manhattan,” Aurora said. “Except I forgot the bitters and that other stuff, so it’s just the whiskey.”

Caine’s eyes darkened, his body tensing to a predatory alertness. In a fraction of a second, he was at the window. “There’s a Hunter nearby.”

Josiah?
Spilling her bourbon, she leapt up and rushed to the glass. She peered into the dim harbor walk, but she could see no one out there.

Caine stared. “He’s not that close. He’s prowling somewhere around Essex street, a few blocks away.”

“What if it’s my Guardian?” she breathed. “I haven’t been able to contact him. I destroyed my phone when I went through the fountain.”

“What if it’s your executioner?” Caine asked. “Or what if they’re one and the same?”

This was her chance to find out what the Brotherhood were thinking. What if they’d changed their minds, and Josiah had come to deliver the news?

She dug her nails into her palms. “I need to see for myself.”

“You must have lost your mind,” he said. “You want to show yourself to a mage Hunter?”

“Yes. I need to find out where I stand.”

He pressed his palm against the window, studying her. “I’m not letting you go alone. It’s too dangerous. Also, I can’t risk you passing along information.”

“Fine.” She had no idea how Josiah would react to learning that she was actually
living
among the witches. There would be no way to hide it if he met Caine, whose entire body hummed with magic.

“I’ll have to erase his memory after,” Caine added.

“He’ll never agree to that.”

“I don’t need him to agree.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This Hunter could tell me what’s going on with my case. Maybe they’ve forgiven it by now.” If nothing else, she needed to know if Josiah might sell her out. She’d rather find out now than later.

Caine nodded at the door. “Let’s go.”

Running a hand through her wild hair, she followed him out his front door, and they stepped out into the cool spring air. The wind rushed over her skin as they stalked down a street lined with weather-beaten wooden homes.

Cringing, she cast a quick glance at her outfit.
Ugh.
She looked like some kind of vagabond stripper. “With all the magical spells at your disposal, I don’t suppose you have one that could mend a dress?”

His gray eyes roamed over her body. “Of course I do. But I don’t see the point. You look perfect as you are now.”