She tucks a strand of her wavy hair behind her ear, twisting one of her many rings before finally making up her mind, and saying, “The only thing us mages have in common is we all hate blood mages.”
In all the supernatural communities, there is no stronger statement. Ask a shadow, light, storm and mountain mage what colour the sky is, and they’ll all give you different answers. Then fight a centuries long war for the sake of pride, so for them all to share even a single dislike is the closest thing to a miracle.
“One reason is we really hate a mystery we can’t solve,” Summer continues, “and that mystery is where the hell the beasts even came from. They popped up a few thousand years ago, being all gross and weird, and no one knows how or why. Then the second is they bring trouble to your door—you vamps, for example. Much easier to just leave them the hell alone.”
“Which begs the question.” My eyes connect with hers in the rear view mirror. “Why are you here?”
Rurik says nothing, but he shifts his attention from the outside to Summer.
“Apollo is my friend too, ya know,” Summer huffs. But after a pause her shoulders droop. “But fine, yeah. Normally I’d just tell my Sovereign, and as our leader she’d have to deal with this mess.”
I drive silently through the winding streets and wait for Summer to continue. The car’s gentle hum in the background, the headlights creating shadows out of the tall streetlights and hunched bins.
When she speaks next, her voice is so low it’s difficult to capture. “Golden told me about the drugs Emma and Jace wanted him to sell, and it gave me a really bad vibe.”
Rurik and I share a quick glance.
She shifts, the leather seat creaking, then a tug at her seatbelt like it’s too tight at her neck.
“We mages can be an uncaring bunch at the best of times. Selfish, really. Obviously we know half mage and human children are around, but why would anyone care to find them? They don’t know our traditions, or the spells to make them immortal. They live like humans and die like them, too.” Summer shrugs, as if to say ‘it’s sad but true’. “But those pills Golden describes…they sound like a potion. It tastes fucking awful, so normally its dried and rolled into pellets. Then, it’ll show if you have magic in your blood. So if Emma is using them…”
From the rear view mirror, I see a deep wrinkle in her brow as she thinks.
“She could be creating her own army,” she whispers, shivering and I suspect it has nothing to do with the cold. My own chest freezes. Can I turn Golden into a vampire with this threat looming over our heads?
Before I can ask more, a putrid, festering scent takes hold of my nose and tugs. My foot slams into the brakes, and without a word passed between us, Rurik and I jump out of my car.
Summer wrestles with her seatbelt, muttering a curse when it won’t unbuckle. We stalk through the night, drawn to the scent of rot like flies to a carcass.
Perhaps in the daylight this area, lined with motor shops and greasy cafés, is busy—roller doors rattling open, air a syrup of hot oil and sweat, the clink of tools while cars are repaired. But now midnight has long taken hold.
The quiet is unsettling—not even a squeak—and Rurik’s comment about rats being ‘little bags of blood on scurrying legs’ rings louder than the oppressive silence.
The hushed tones of voices catch my ear and I press my back to the cold brick wall. Rurik is next to me, Summer kneeling—her smoky tendrils swirling in the air before vanishing.
She shoots her head up, and whispers, “Two mages.”
We need a plan, last time we ran into two mages my heart was nearly ripped out while Ramy was skewed. But before I can even open my mouth Rurik is gone, which follows a cry of pain and a fist meeting flesh.
“Fucking hell,” I growl and turn the corner to find a brown-skinned man with a shaved head on his back, clutching his stomach. Rurik’s hand around a pale white woman’s neck. Bolting forward, my foot presses into the fallen man’s neck to keep him pinned to the filthy ground.
“Tell me where Apollo is!” Rurik snarls, his deadly fangs bared, sharpening each word, grip around the woman’s neck so vicious his knuckles turn white. The woman flails, nails clawing at his sleeved arm.
“Damn, Rurik, let up!” Summer calls as she jogs over. “She can’t bloody speak with you choking her.”
His large fist tightens, lips peeling back. Then, with a rumbling sneer, his hand relaxes enough the blood mage can suck down lungfuls of air. For a moment I thought he was going to kill her.
‘Not a great loss,’ I think and press my foot harder on the squirming man. But a hostage speaks louder with someone to lose.
“These ones aren’t from the crash,” I tell Rurik and Summer.
“L-let Eric go!” the woman begs, voice raspy.
My foot presses down harder. “Answer our questions, then maybe I won’t snap your boy’s neck.”
The man, Eric, whimpers, going deathly still like a deer whose only defense is hoping the predator can’t see him.
“Before we get with the killing,” Summer quips. “These two are new, babies have more magical energy than them.”
