Cursed Relic: (Witchling Wars: Vampire Echelon Book 1) Read online

  He laughed. A deep throaty laugh that made me increasingly uneasy.

  “You and I both know that’s not true, kruxa.”

  Then just like that, the vision was over. The world had color again and I was chilled to the very core of my bones.

  Kitty was flying around frantically in the parking garage.

  “What did you see, nanna?” she asked, knowing the blank face I made when I had visions meant more than me just being in a deep state of thought.

  “Nothing,” I replied.

  “I know it wasn’t nothing.”

  “No, I mean I saw nothing. There was only a black hole and I was trapped inside of it. But I could hear Victor again.”

  “Eerie,” she said. “You couldn’t make out anything else?”

  I let out a heavy huff and climbed into my Jeep. “No. Nothing else.”

  I placed a small piece of paper on my tongue and let the vixra blood on it dissolve. Once I could feel the extra surge of magic running through my veins, I pulled out of the parking space and then the exit of the parking garage. Kitty followed me as I drove onto the main street. I went straight for I-70 to start the long trek up into the mountains with Kitty flying in the air above me as I drove. Like a guardian who truly thought she could protect me if something went wrong. Unfortunately, her powers were limited to cawing to draw attention if I needed help.

  The air got cooler and crisper as I drove through the weaving hillsides and up the large expanse to see the Rocky Mountains in the distance. It was still dark outside. The morning commuters hadn’t gotten up yet to conquer the busy streets, leaving their mountain retreats to head for work in the city that lit up in a bright array of gold in the distance.

  The pre-dawn hours of the early morning were the best time to hunt unless there was a large event like the concert going on. Most vampires had already fed and were headed back to their ‘nest’ as Tobias called it. An appropriate name if you ask me, given they behave like animals. I could potentially follow them if I managed to find one and discover where they were hiding. My vision showed me the way. Now I just needed to be sure before I ventured down a dark tunnel that I had never been inside before.

  I drove down the highway with one hand on the steering wheel as Kitty soared above me. My other hand was on my lap with my palm facing up. If there were vampires about in a certain area, my magic would tell me. It would seep through my palm to protect me. Like a natural defense. Only it was a natural defense that often caused kruxa trouble in the past. When I was young it would come out of my skin to warn me of danger. Not a good thing during a time when witchlings and sometimes innocent humans were burned at the stake for such things. Most humans thought of magic as nothing more than some pop culture reference. Thank goodness. Although, I often wondered if we had it any better now than we did then. Humans used to burn us. Now they didn’t believe in us. But if they knew now that we existed with all the technology they had amassed, it could be even worse than my dreaded memories of the burning times. And unlike centuries ago when they were afraid of us, they might not fear us anymore.

  I turned on an exit once I was deeper in the foothills. It wasn’t until I reached Georgetown an hour up the highway that my magic started to stir in my palm, swirling in the darkness and warning me that danger was near. In other words, a vampire was close by and I needed to be on my guard. I got off the highway and parked the car behind a few trees off the road. I reached into the back of the Jeep and took out my leather belt. The cylinder Arthur gave me was attached to it. The sword that was only visible through magic. Along with my .380 with magic-infused bullets to paralyze a vampire if he or she ran from me. I couldn’t move as fast as a vampires but I certainly would put up a fight if I had to encounter one.

  But tonight wasn’t about killing a vampire. It was about following them. Finding a potential nest and learning whatever I could.

  I took the cylinder into my hand and held it tight. My magic was ready to shoot through the blade and make it as powerful as possible should I have to swing it. I didn’t let my magic get that far ahead. Not just yet.

  “Where to?” Kitty asked as she soared above me.

  “I’m going to let my magic decide,” I answered. “Just keep close by but far enough away if something dangerous should happen.”

  She did as I said and watched me from a nearby tree. I trudged my way through the woods, letting my magic swirl at my side in a faint glow as I walked.

  The woods were deathly quiet. A sort of quiet solitude I once loved when living near nature in Scotland and now it made me wary of who might be watching from afar.

  My magic got slightly stronger as I made progress up the hill and over a few rocks. I wondered if parts of these woods had even seen a human footprint in a while. Many of the smaller mountain towns once served as mining towns. But many were long since abandoned by time and technology making way for jobs that didn’t require such hard labor. Not to mention danger.

  We were still relatively close to the highway but the commuters hadn’t started heading out for work. So it was nearly quiet enough for me to listen for the slightest of noises. The only sound I could hear was my footsteps. Which meant one thing. The wind vampires created as they ran with ungodly speed wasn’t anywhere near me. The vampires were close but they had stopped. They were watching me. And my magic wanted me to know so as it weaved through my fingers, itching to protect me from oncoming danger.

  I felt for the sword at my side and pulled it out of my leather belt. I held it up in a ready stance as if it were a wand. As though I could thrust it out and a spark of magic would emerge from the tip.

  The sound of whispering invaded my ears. But not normal whispering. The sort vampires made as they ran, hunting anything with a heartbeat that could satiate them. My magic wove through the blade and it appeared out of nowhere, ready to strike should a vampire attack me.

  I could hear which way they were running. And to my surprise, they weren’t coming after me. They were running away from me. Had they seen me and decided I was an actual threat? Unlikely.

  I headed in the same direction they were running only to climb up toward a large hole in the side of the mountain. A hole that could only be one thing. The entrance to a mine. The one from my vision. And I had little doubt it went deep inside the mountain.

  ‘Not a bad place to hide from the sunlight.’

  Vampires only got the power to walk during the day if they drank from a dying kruxa and absorbed a piece of their magic. And for whatever reason, it never occurred to me until that moment that this could very well be a trap. If there were more vampires inside the mountain than I could take on at once, I could easily become bait so a vampire could become a day walker. Only I was an immortal kruxa bound to the vixra for eternity. Meaning they could kill me over and over again until every single vampire inside could walk in the sunlight.

  ‘He set a trap! Victor set a damn trap for me!’

  Hunting alone didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

  “Watch out!” Kitty’s voice rang in my ear as she cawed above me.

  The ground beneath my feet started to shake as if an earthquake was about to take hold of the mountain. Only this quake was happening below my two feet. My legs swept out from under me and I fell through a black hole. The more I free fell the more I thrashed about trying to cling onto anything I possibly could. But there was nothing. I thrust my left hand down and pushed my magic through it as fast as possible, slowing my descent just enough to hit the ground beneath me with a loud smack but not fast enough to break a leg once I crash landed. That didn’t stop me from toppling to the dirty ground and scraping my wrists along the way.

  I must have fallen at least one hundred feet. Enough to seriously hurt or even kill a human who didn’t have magic on their side to break their fall. Or immortality that would heal their broken limbs for that matter. The scrapes on my wrist were gone in a matter of seconds.

  I groaned in frustration as I gathered myself up, taking my ce
ll phone from my pocket and turning on the flashlight along with my magic in my other hand for whatever light I could manage to summon.

  The space was like a funnel. A large hole that must have been used by miners in the past to bring goods up to the surface faster. It was long abandoned now. And the small hole to my left leading into the mine had been walled up. Maybe over a century ago.

  ‘Yep, definitely a trap. And definitely what my vision was trying to warn me about. Perfect. Just perfect.’

  I started hyperventilating at the realization. My magic sensed the danger as well and didn’t hesitate to start spiraling out of my palm.

  I put the cylinder back on my belt, grateful that I hadn’t actually activated the blade. Knowing my luck I might have fallen directly on it and sliced my chest open.

  ‘That would have been a mess.’

  “Are you okay, nanna?” Kitty cawed far above me. Her voice was barely a whisper in my mind from that high up.

  “Barely,” I mumbled, not sure if she could hear me but very sure that if I spoke too loud the vampires hiding inside the mountain would. If they hadn’t already when I crash landed. The sun was starting to peek over the foothills behind me just before I fell. Meaning if I was right, Victor would have me trapped all day long before he came out to fetch me.

  I leaned in closer to the wall of dirt to my left where the hole had been walled up and listened closely.

  I could hear them. Vampires don’t realize that their very being makes a sound. They don’t have a beating heart. But the blood from the victims they consume runs through their veins like its own life force. Magical beings have to hone their senses to be able to hear it. It took me decades. And yet, the first time I heard it I knew I would always recognize it if the space was quiet enough for me to catch it. It was a dead giveaway. A perverse form of magic. One that was distorted and dark. They were beings that rejected nature. The very order of life and balance was damaged by their existence.

  Until that moment, I had never heard the sound of their blood so clearly. It thundered inside the mountain. There were at least a hundred of them living in the tunnels of the mine. Nesting as Tobias had said. If I didn’t get out of there, I was a dead woman. Many times over if they each took turns to kill me so I could come back to life only to kill me again. Then hunting by night wouldn’t be such an inconvenience. They would have day walking abilities. All of them. Like a swarm of locusts feeding in broad daylight and potentially revealing themselves to the world.

  ‘As if life wasn’t interesting enough.’

  Kitty cawed above me, continuing to ask if I was alright in the small voice only I could hear in my mind. I didn’t answer her. I was too scared to make another sound just so I could reassure her.

  I let my magic flow to the bottom of the hole and swirl at my feet, hoping that I could use enough to propel myself upward and back to the surface. No luck. Even with vixra magic in my system, it wasn’t strong enough to get me out of there.

  I took a deep breath as I weighed my options. I could either stay there long enough for the vampires to find me in the morning or I could risk them finding me anyway by sending my magic up and out the hole, hopefully attracting attention to where I was.

  Not much of a choice as both would more than likely result in the vampires discovering where I was. But as I looked down at my cell phone to see that I didn’t have a single bar and it said ‘no service’ at the top left corner, the choice was made for me.

  I lifted my hand up in the darkness of the hole and let my magic spiral upward in a glorious stream of golden light, sending it flying up and out of the hole in a luminous glow that would hopefully draw some attention from the nearby highway.

  The sting of my magic slammed back down in the hole and knocked me over. I knew how much my magic could hurt when it was used against me but that didn’t stop it from shocking my body when it happened. It was like getting hit by the shock of five electrical sockets sparking all at once. I fell to the dirty ground right on my bottom.

  ‘What the hell?’

  I stood up again and tried launching my magic in the air once more only to have the same result. And this time, I fell hard, striking my tail bone and yelping a little too loud to remain discreet and whimpering from the pain until it healed. Panic quickly started to set in.

  ‘This is it. This was the vision I had in the parking garage.’

  A strong breeze engulfed the small space. No. That shouldn’t have been possible. Wind couldn’t pass through the hole. It was too deep and too confined. Unless…

  ‘Not possible. This is elemental magic. One of those vampires inside the mine is using magic. But how did they get vixra blood?’

  Something wet touched my hands. I brought one up to see it was covered in mud. Then I felt my jeans get completely soaked just below my thigh. I stood up, much to my tail bone’s displeasure as it slowly healed, and saw that the water had reached my knees at an alarming rate. Whoever it was, they might drown me. I shot my magic up into the air once more only to have it snap back and strike me again. Only this time, I fell backward into the water which was now up to my waist. It covered my entire body in a matter of seconds. Then it soared above me. I struggled to swim to the surface, pumping my legs despite the pain and only staying afloat for a few more seconds before it covered my head again.

  The more I struggled, the more it climbed up the length of the deep hole. I coughed and hacked as I tried to keep up. There seemed to be a current underneath my feet, pushing me up along with the water as it continued to climb. All the way to the top of the hole until I was spurting out of it as though someone had clogged a drain beneath me.

  Two hands reached under my arms and brought me upright. It took me some time to catch my breath before I could look up to see who it was, fully expecting to see a vampire ready to sink his teeth into his final meal before heading into the nest before the sun rose over the horizon.

  I was only half right. It was a vampire. But not one that wanted to kill me. At least not yet.

  “Tobias?” I coughed as his name came tumbling out of my mouth.

  He scooped my wet hair out of my face and took my chin under his hand. His touch sent shivers down my back.

  “Steady yourself,” he said. “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”

  “Why did you stop my magic?”

  “Because you damn near revealed where you were.”

  “What other choice did I have? You weren’t there to help me.”

  “I’m always nearby, Georgeanna.”

  “Can we take this to the car, please?” a man with a heavy German accent said from a few feet away. When I looked over to him I saw someone I didn’t recognize. But I didn’t need my magic to tell me he was a vampire. And oddly enough, another one that didn’t mean me harm. My magic would have spiraled out of my hand if that were the case.

  Tobias took my arm and led me away, pushing me forward with his vampire speed as the other man followed along behind us. Once we finally got to the car I understood why he was in such a rush. The faint sound of vampires inside the mountain wasn’t so faint anymore. In fact, it was getting closer. They were running straight toward us. It didn’t seem to matter whether I used my magic or not. They had heard us and were headed right in our direction.

  “Get in,” Tobias ordered, shoving me in the passenger seat of my Jeep as he took the wheel.

  “Who is this guy?” I asked about the blonde man climbing into the backseat.

  “Christophe. Remember the friend I mentioned to Arthur? You didn’t think I’d come out here on my own, did you? That would be foolish,” Tobias responded.

  ‘Kind of like how you let me hunt on my own, you prick.’

  Christophe didn’t hesitate to thrust his arms upward and launch the roof of my Jeep several feet in the air.

  “Do you mind?” I hollered.

  “Not at all,” Christophe stated as if his actions were obvious. “I will need the extra space.”

  “For what?�
�� I yelled.

  He gave me a sly grin and held his arms outward in a ready position as Tobias started the car and we sped away. I peered back to see forms starting to move away from the trees and down the road of the small town that was still sleeping. But not for long. More vampires than I could clearly count in the dark were running down the dirt road right for us. Their faces were wild. Practically demented. Their fangs were out and ready to tear at our throats. They looked like wild beasts. Animals that no one could control. The remaining vampires of Tobias’s coven didn’t have him as their leader anymore. Or their guide. And vampires without a leader to control their impulses were some of the most dangerous creatures on earth.

  We barely got up to sixty miles per hour when one of the vampires launched at the car and tried climbing in. He never made it inside. A bright orange light exploded through Christophe’s palms and shot into the air directly at the vampire. There were flames catapulting right where the roof to my Jeep had been. The vampire instantly let go of the Jeep’s cage, landing on the street in a mass of burning flames.

  ‘Elemental magic? How did Christophe get that? How is he controlling it?’

  More vampires appeared and ran toward the Jeep. Christophe continued engulfing them in a sea of flames shooting through his palms, creating a pathway of fire right behind us as Tobias sped up toward the exit to get back onto the highway. When I finally allowed myself to tear my eyes away from the dozens of vampires chasing after us I saw what Tobias was doing. He was trying to get around the hillside and onto the highway where the sun was steadily rising. And once he did, there was no need to leave burning bodies behind us. The few vampires who were too consumed with their cravings for blood continued to run after us, matching us in speed and leaping to get inside the car. Their feet never even touched the ground again before the sunlight hit their skin and their bodies were consumed with flames. And not the kind coming from Christophe’s palms.

  When I turned around again, Christophe was still watching through the distance for any that might be day walkers. That was when it struck me. Christophe was in broad daylight. He had killed a kruxa and consumed their blood. As had Tobias. I knew Tobias wouldn’t harm me. Much. Well, maybe for the moment. But I didn’t trust this other guy as far as I could throw him.