I needed to keep her away from me.
Every time I fought a vampire in close range, things got dicey.
Tasha dodged the lightning again and managed to edge the tiniest bit closer.
Sweat dripped down my back, and I tried backing up. But it’s hard to keep the momentum required to push your sword forward while backing up, so Tasha was closing in on me even while I directed lightning strikes at her.
She waited for an opening, and got her chance when I finished a diagonal slice and had to adjust my katana.
She struck like a snake, jabbing at my neck with one hand and following it up with a stab at my gut. I ducked to the side and tucked myself into a roll. About a month ago, Josh spent a week teaching me the proper way to roll, so my shoulder struck the ground first and I popped upright with my sword ready and a lightning bolt charged.
Tasha had to retreat as I used my magic and created a lightning bolt that struck from the sky and shook the ground with a peal of thunder. It was the same neon blue as all my magic and was blinding, even though I had raised an arm to block the worst of it.
As soon as the last sparks of the bolt fizzled out, I dropped my arm and stabbed my sword forward. It crackled with electricity, but I realized I was too late.
Tasha had charged in and was about even with my katana. She ducked to the side to avoid it—and its electric tendrils—entirely, and reached for my throat.
Panic buzzed in my blood. Recalling one of the illustrations from my musty book, I yanked on the magic in the air. “No!” I shouted. Rather than trying to channel the magic into anything, I pulled it raw through my body and flung it out in front of me in a sheet of blue.
I thought it might make Tasha pause, or maybe burn her a bit at the worst.
Instead Tasha slammed into it with a painful crunch. Her legs gave out underneath her, and she sagged to the ground with a pained groan as blood that was far too dark to be human trickled from her nose.
Without me funneling into it, the blue magic evaporated. “Oh my gosh—Tasha, are you okay?” I crouched at her side, trying to get a good look at her nose in the flickering light of the lampposts.
Tasha gave me a thumbs up with her free hand—she clutched her nose with the other. “This is your win, Miss.”
“Don’t even start,” I growled. “We have to get you inside—and there’s no way this counts—”
“Every match counts, Hazel.” Celestina made me jump when she appeared at my elbow, peering down at her underling. “Is it broken, Tasha?”
“Yeah.”
“Badly?”
“It’s probably going to take an hour to heal.” Tasha’s prim and proper voice was oddly muffled by her hand.
Celestina nodded in satisfaction. “Take the rest of the night off, then.”
“Yes, First Knight.” Tasha slowly stood, then forced herself to bow first to Celestina and then to me. “Thank you for the fight, Miss.”
I made a noise in my throat, but before I could say anything Celestina slapped me on the back, almost knocking all the air out of my lungs. “That’s our wizard,” she said cheerfully.
Tasha nodded—which looked awkward since she was still clutching her bleeding nose—then limped her way back to the house.
I wiped sweat off my forehead with my free hand—as a wizard I always had a naturally high body temperature, but using magic put it into overdrive. “Celestina, this is ridiculous. There’s no way I could have beaten Tasha,” I said. “Everyone’s been going easy on me—is this rank just a farce because you guys feel bad I got beaten down by Solene before I unsealed my magic?”
“No—we haven’t been able to openly discuss that matter,” Celestina said. “It gives His Eminence anxiety.”
“HAH! As if!”
Celestina grinned, acknowledging the absurdity of her statement, then twitched her expression back to something more serious. “However, Hazel, your rank is very real.”
“That’s impossible. I’m a human, you guys are a race of immortal beings that Killian has trained for decades. There’s no way I caught up to you guys in a matter of weeks.”
“We’ve been training you for several months now,” Celestina corrected. “And you don’t give yourself enough credit. You were scrappy when we picked you up, which gave us a good foundation to work off. Combined with your magic, it was guaranteed you were going to be lethal once you were unsealed. Killian wouldn’t have brought you into the fold if you weren’t.”
That was a pretty good point, actually.
Killian would never waste his time if he didn’t think the payout was going to be several times the investment. He wouldn’t have been content at making me competent, he wanted a deadly wizard at his beck and call.
“It feels like we’re taking it easy on you because you’ve grown skilled at such a fast rate,” Celestina continued. “And I am not only referring to your magic abilities. Before you unsealed your magic, you almost managed to stop the murderous Unclaimed—a foe other vampires had fought against and lost to—by yourself.”
“Yeah, but Solene wasn’t the same caliber as a Drake Family vampire.”
“But you still did it. And it still counts,” Celestina said. “Hazel, you demand a perfectionism from yourself that none of us expect. Don’t you realize? You stopped Tasha with one attack.”
I frowned a little. “Yeah, that was…unexpected.”
“What was it?” Celestina asked. “I saw blue magic, but I don’t recall you doing anything like that before.”
“It was pure magic. I filtered it through my blood and didn’t try to form it into an attack, just flung it out in front of me,” I said. “In the book the Paragon has lent me, there’s a picture where a wizard is holding swords made of magic. Since there aren’t any words, I can’t tell for certain if there is anything special about the magic, but based on the other pictures I thought it seemed like the blades were made of raw magic. I thought if raw magic was strong enough to form swords, a blast of it might be powerful enough to knock Tasha off balance.”
I scratched my chin as I considered the matter. “But it did so much more than that, which opens up the possibilities. I wonder if I could use raw magic to create a shield…it technically should be more stable than electricity.”
“Ahhh, yes. I saw your lightning strike.” Celestina turned to the cleared area where Tasha and I had fought, zeroing in on the burnt husk of a bush that had taken some of the lightning bolt damage. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I would prefer that you refrain from blowing Drake Hall to smithereens in your efforts to win your match.”
“One bush hardly counts as Drake Hall.”
“Only because you fought Tasha outside instead of inside,” Celestina countered.
“Fair enough. I’ll apologize to the gardeners tomorrow.” I stretched my arms above my head. “But instead of another match, could I try to re-create that magic shield?”
Celestina tilted her head. “I suppose so.”
“Great, thanks! Oh—and Celestina?”
“Yes?”
I scuffed my foot on the burnt lawn. “When do you think I could have a night off so I can go check out my parents’ lockbox at Tutu’s?”
“You’ll need a vampire escort,” Celestina said.
“The fae won’t jump me at Tutu’s,” I snorted. “The staff would kill them first.”
“No, but once you exit Tutu’s it is quite possible the traitor who controls your House may be waiting to jump you.”
I grimaced. “Oh. Yeah, that’s true.”
“Indeed,” Celestina said. “And you may have a night off as soon as you clear it with Killian.”
“But Killian knows I need to go to Tutu’s—he seemed fine with it.”
“Yes, but he may wish to go in with you.”
I squinted at her, confused. “Why?”
“I don’t quite know,” Celestina admitted. “But I don’t intend to question it as I might be able to get a pedicure or something while he’s off playing with you.”
I laughed. “You’re the best, Celestina.”
“I train for it.”
The car rolled to a stop in front of Tutu’s Crypta & Custodia. To humans, it would appear rather benign: a brick building with glossy red trim and spotless picture windows.
But those of us who were supernaturals could see the truth.
The building really was made of brick, but every square inch of the place was covered with glowing seals and wards.
Tutu’s was founded by a dragon shifter.
Dragon shifters are super rare—I don’t know if even a hundred of them are alive today—but they are also supremely powerful because they’re the only kind of shifters capable of casting magic.
As a result, they were pretty enterprising, and filthy rich. Tutu’s was actually a chain…store I guess you could say. But it was also the highest rated option for magical lock up because of all the wards its dragon founder put on her buildings. Wizards and fae couldn’t pass through dragon seals, and she shored up her other openings with wards from fae, and hired enough shifter, fae, wizard, and vampire guards to staff Fort Knox.
I climbed out of the car and turned around, surprised to see that Killian was also climbing out of the vehicle. “I thought you said you weren’t coming in?”
“I’m not.” Killian looked at Tutu’s with great disdain. “The inside is so gaudy it’s offensive. Besides, I have a meeting I have to phone in to.”
“Then why aren’t you staying in the car?” I asked.
Killian raised an eyebrow at me. “Is there a reason you want me to stay in the car?”
“No, it just makes the most sense.”
“Then stop worrying about my business and go see to yours.” Killian put his back to the building—which hummed with magic—and answered a call on his smartphone.