"So is it just the extremely illegal age-reversal hexes, or is there some other shit I should know about? Got any Undead puppets? A few skeletons in the closet, maybe? Or should we talk about your cellar full of thralls?”
The necromancer scowls at me and lifts his hands, his next powerful death magic spell crackling in the air around him. But I'm ready to get this over with and get through all the asinine paperwork bounty hunters have to fill out these days, so I decide to end it here and now. As soon as his dark magic starts to flood the air with fatal fumes, I summon my holy magic into a suit of armor.
It's my favorite party trick because it makes me pretty damn invincible.
Too bad I didn't have it summoned when that siren got into Jada's head during the Battle of the Citadel. She's tried to apologize for shooting me so many fucking times that I've asked her quintet members to help me change the subject anytime it comes up.
The sorcerer rears back in confusion when I walk through his mist of death with no trouble. The faint white light of Arati's blessing glows around me as I grip the sorcerer by his frail arm, twist him around, and slam his chest into the nearest wall.
He shouts. My eyes glow again as I sense that my touch just triggered an amulet around his neck—a defensive decapitation spell—but it bounces harmlessly off the holy magic still protecting me. Before the sorcerer can do anything else, I pull out a good old-fashioned elephant tranquilizer and plunge it into his right shoulder muscles.
After a millisecond of struggling, he collapses, out cold.
Tranquilizer darts can kill humans, but I've yet to meet a legacy that they fuck up too badly. And if he does wake up with some shitty side effects, it's no skin off my back. This sleazy fucker is wanted for a reason.
The magic armor around me fades, and as usual, exhaustion quickly sweeps over me, making the ache in my head worsen. Holy magic can be draining. I'm just turning toward the dead vampyr, ready to get my knife back, when I hear something.
Thanks to my one useless ear, it takes me a solid second to identify the sound as the floor creaking from the adjoining room.
Shit.
I turn fast and fling myself aside, just barely avoiding getting sawed in half by an air elemental's deathly sharp wind attack. I'm scrambling to prepare my own exhausted magic as he moves into the hall with me. More of his element stirs around us toward me?—
But there's a blur to my left, by the stairs, and suddenly the elemental is on the ground. His shrill scream cuts off immediately, turning into a gurgling, swallowing sound.
It all happened so fucking fast. When my eyes catch up, I stare at the back of Ian Boone's head. He's already drinking the last of the life out of the air elemental. Finally, he releases the other legacy's now bloodless, pale corpse and straightens slowly, turning to stare at me with fresh scarlet blood dripping down his chin.
14
ASHER
Shit.
I've never seen a vamp drain someone that fast. I fucked up by not bringing anything to take on an out-of-control, bloodthirsty thrall—and I can only summon Arati's protective blessing every few hours before I need some serious rest.
But Ian isn't lunging toward me. He's just watching me with dilated pupils, looking disoriented but a hell of a lot better now that he's fed.
His nostrils flare slightly. He looks first at his bloodied, dismembered previous master, and then at the caster whose head is still bleeding out into a pool on the wood floor. The freed thrall swallows hard, stark hunger eclipsing his features.
I've been around enough vampires that I'm the furthest thing from squeamish about their diet. I nod at the dead caster, trying to ignore the throbbing that intensifies in the right side of my head.
"Open bar, on the house. It's not like a dead man has any use for blood, anyway."
Ian still doesn't move, aside from wiping the blood off his chin with a trembling hand. His brown hair is mussed, and helooksunhinged, but he's trying to stay in control.
Weird. Thralls that have just been freed usually have absolutely no impulse control around blood.
"You've been missing for over a year," I tell him. "You missed a lot. Shit's pretty different out there now. Everett Frost sent me to look for you a long time ago."
At the mention of Everett, Ian Boone's blue gaze moves back to me. When he finally speaks, his voice is so hoarse it hurts my ears. Pretty sure he hasn't talked in a long fucking time.
“H—his…is she…” Ian Boone scrapes out, struggling like what he's trying to ask hurts more than his voice. "Still alive?"
"Is who alive?" I clarify.
Gotta admit, his ability to reign it in even this much and think for himself so soon after being freed from his vampyrish master is a good sign. Still, I note where my knife is embedded nearby in case this thrall goes off the rails, which could happen at any second.
I can't understand why Ian looks so tortured as he's trying to string words together. But when the first caster I tackled begins to rouse, the thrall reacts in the blink of an eye, fleeing so quickly out of this hallway that I don't even see what direction he goes. I hear the front doors of the estate slam open and grimace.
