Born in Fire (Fire and Ice Trilogy 1)

“Promise?” He grinned at me.

“With a knife, wise guy.” I turned back to Dizzy. “Where is he?”

“Trapped in the other room.” Dizzy gestured that way. “The mage tried to run when—”

Darius started walking. I ran after him, half staggering as I did so. “Don’t you do it, vampire!”

My mouth dropped open when I burst into the other room. All the mages were downed, lying sprawled out across the ground. Black explosive areas dotted various places. Casings lay strewn around, all but a couple opened.

The formally powerful, demon-toting mage stood frozen in the middle of the room, the mask torn off and a look of surprise on her face.

“It’s a girl,” I exclaimed. “It’s that girl! What was her name?”

“Tamara.” Darius stopped right in front of her, his glare intense. “How do we get her out of that?”

“You know who it is?” Dizzy asked, digging in his bag. “I was surprised it was a woman. I didn’t expect that.”

“Me either,” I said. “I don’t get to take down many women. But I’m all for equal opportunity in the crazy department. It’s good for business.” I wiped a strand of hair out of my face. “She lived across the street from one of the mages. We stood in her neighbor’s house and spoke to her. She had that freaking book of John’s! I had no idea. She didn’t seem very powerful. I had no idea!” I put my fingertips to my head and made like my brain was exploding.

“Here.” Dizzy blew some powder from his hand and onto Tamara’s face.

While she was waking up, I bent to her mask, which had skittered away and bumped against someone’s foot. Sure enough, it had a speaker system in the mouth to distort her voice.

“Did you see her face when she captured you?” I asked Darius. “Also, how did she capture you? That is newsworthy.”

His eyes were so hard that they looked like they could punch through walls. “She caught me when I was returning to the Brink. They must’ve been watching me. The spell was invisible. I didn’t know I’d been trapped until it was too late.”

“A real ego crusher, huh? Getting caught by a low-level mage…” I smiled tauntingly.

“She took the mask off to bleed me.”

Tamara blinked as her head came out of the spell. A look of fear immediately crossed her face when she noticed Darius.

“To bleed you?” A surge of jealousy came out of the blue. I took a step back. “Definitely in a bit of a pickle, here. I might need to be slapped on occasion.”

“She wanted to see if my blood would make her more powerful. After that, she tried to force a bond.” Darius’s eyes didn’t waver from her face. A death stare wasn’t the best way to get answers, though. Usually questions were more efficient.

“Right.” I pointed between Dizzy and Callie. “Vamoose, you two. We need to ask some questions you can’t know anything about. Check that side room. There was an extremely powerful mage, one without a demon trapped in her body”—I gave Tamara a look—“who was hoping someone would show her how to do magic.” Callie flashed me a confused expression. I put up my hands. “I didn’t have time to ask any other questions. She was on a retreat. That’s all I know.”

Callie stomped off, followed shortly after by Dizzy.

I turned to Tamara. “Boy oh boy, are you in a bind. We need some questions answered. First, how did you hear about the unicorns?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“She crashed a changing,” Darius said, easing into his cool demeanor. It meant bad things for poor Tamara. “She drank the elixir that readies a human for the change. We are more open at changings. Someone clearly shared information they shouldn’t have. I have an investigation underway.”

“Why would someone crash a changing?” I asked.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to be immortal?” Tamara challenged haughtily.

“I am. Or could be, if I wanted to hang out in the Realm. Wait.” I held up my hand to Darius. “You’re going to give her the special vampire send-off, right?”

“What’s the special vampire send-off?” Her eyes shone.

“Death, Tamara. Horrible death.” I shook my head. “You should know better than to piss off vampires.”

“She will not have a chance to utter your secrets,” Darius said.

“Great. So how’d you find out she was at a changing, and then, how’d she get out?”

“The elixir is not designed for magical people,” Darius said. “It doesn’t react with their blood the same way, and they can stay conscious. They’d die during the change, but a dosed witch or mage would be left with enough presence of mind to leave beforehand. She should’ve been noticed when the elixir didn’t work, but someone was not doing their job. I discovered this when I went back to the lair, dug into our records, and questioned some of our faction. It is being looked into in more depth.”

I sat on the ground, dead tired despite Darius’s blood still surging through me. If not for him, I’d probably be unconscious. “So she learned of the unicorn blood, which not even newbies usually know about, and figured out how to get more?”

“I reached a stalemate trying to find out where they keep the unicorns,” Tamara said. “Luckily, their deal with the demons helped me out.”

Fear shot through me. “What deal with the demons?”

“Vlad is working on something.” Darius’s eyes left Tamara for a moment and landed on me. “I am not a part of it.”

“How do the demons know about the unicorns?” I asked. “And, Tamara, why did you need to wipe out the—” It all came together. “You wiped out the footprints because you drew a circle in one of those meeting places. Using a sentry as your sacrifice, you summoned a demon there. You didn’t want to leave any more clues than you already had.”

“Clever girl.” Tamara smirked. “Those serpents in the water are helpful for getting rid of bodies. Then there is my smaller foot size. Everyone always assumes the leader of a movement is male. It has helped me fly under the radar. Even the people in my neighborhood—my own coven—overlooked me. I was a mage in my own right, but they treated me like a witch. They didn’t bat an eye when John was supposedly chosen instead of me. Everyone always assumed John had more power because he threw his weight around. He was louder, that was all. I had the most power. I should’ve led. Should’ve been respected. Not him. I was planning to do away with him, but you took care of it for me. Thanks for that.”

“That’s what you call sleeping with a black widow, I guess.” I grimaced. “But covens aren’t about a leader. They’re about the unity of combined power. That’s what makes witches great. They develop a community and share the bounties. Mages tried that, and the corrupt Mages’ Guild is the result.”

She analyzed me for a moment. “You and I could rule the world. With your connections and my ability to amass a magical army, we’d be unstoppable.”

“You’re an idiot and your army is dead.” I glanced up at Darius. “But still, how did the demons know about the unicorns?”

Darius shook his head slowly. “That is a question for Vlad. There must be a leak of information somewhere. It could be disastrous if the demons know how tied we are to the unicorns.”

“I bet Vlad is setting himself up to rule,” Tamara said. A spark of opportunity lit her eyes as she looked down at me.

“Vlad most certainly is,” I said, ignoring the look. She wouldn’t be around to use me. Darius, on the other hand… “But not by giving the secret of the unicorns to the demons. Ruling means amassing a larger number of vampires, and losing the unicorns would be detrimental to that need.” I rested my hand on my chin, thinking. “You would’ve created a circle based on the need for information at the start, right?” I asked, looking up at Tamara.

“I don’t understand,” Darius said.

I slowed down. “Circles don’t just call demons. They can be used to call all sorts of things. In this instance, what she really needed was information. So she did a calling based on her need for information, in the form of a demon. That’s pretty vague, though. It would call a demon with any sort of information that might be useful to her. Clearly she got lucky and called a demon that knew how to get to the unicorns.”