Revealed in Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

One

The sky was a light, fluffy shade of purple, and a lone vulture sailed through it lazily. The scavenger looked down on the scene below, a twisted wooded path leading nowhere, flanked by manic clowns, their pointed teeth dripping with blood and their mouths curled up into horrible sneers. Up ahead, an elephant perched near the path, a large bullet hole in its neck and its chest awash with deep, flowing crimson. It was about ten minutes from bleeding out. I’d make sure it died right next to Cahal, whose favorite animal was the Brink elephant.

All of this was for Cahal, the incredibly tough warrior druid who was duty-bound to his lethal skill set until he found his perfect mate, something that would release him from his curse and allow him to settle down with his mate and produce plump children, or whatever he planned to get up to. Maybe he didn’t want kids. Maybe he just wanted an elephant. It was hard to say with him.

The best assassin in the world, and he thought the duty was a curse. What a tragedy.

I’d offered to trade his lot in life for mine.

No dice.

I cracked my knuckles and patted my thigh, looking for one of my daggers, only to remember I didn’t have them. Dang it, that was right—no weapons allowed for this training. It was magic only.

Taking a deep breath, I fashioned another vulture and waved it to life above us, sending it toward Cahal. He was waiting along the path somewhere, underneath his least favorite color, surrounded by one of the only things that made his bowels watery, near his favorite animal in the stages of bleeding out.

Some might call me a real asshole for shoving the guy’s worst nightmares in his face. Those people would be right. It was great fun watching him squirm. Just as fun, probably, as kicking my ass was for him. At least, I assumed that was why he always did it with such gusto.

“Here we go.” Magic pumping through me, I started to run along the path, speeding up the gestures and jeering of the clowns. Maybe that would distract Cahal a little, and I could get a few more punches in before he threw me against a tree.

All of this had been fashioned with my magic, of course. The clowns weren’t real. I would never shoot an elephant—I liked those big sons of bitches. Purple sky? Weird. But my father could construct worlds, and I needed to learn how to do it too. I’d gotten pretty good at it, much to Cahal’s unwavering delight.

He didn’t love my sarcasm, though.

A pasty-white swamp monster jumped out from behind a clown, its mouth open and saliva dripping from the wicked fangs in its black gums. It—or he, in this case—spread his clawed hands and prepared to get his ass handed to him.

I flung air like it was knives, opening slashes in the sides of his chest, my aim now a work of art. Which was good. I didn’t want to kill my boyfriend, after all. He was great in bed, so it was worth being cautious.

A block of air punched him in the kisser, and then I was on him, sweeping his legs out from under him before fashioning a sword made of air. I hacked down, but he rolled at the last moment, hopping up and stabbing his claws forward. I arched, barely missing a few puncture holes before I slapped him with air and sent him flying. He scraped the solid air with his claws, but my power was pulsing at a demonic mid-five level, edging closer to hitting level six, which was where my father sat, at the top of the hierarchy. It would take Darius a while to get through that air, and by then I’d be facing a god-touched druid, the likes of whom the world had never seen.

At least, I liked to think of him that way. It made me feel better when he bested me.

A clown jumped on a pogo stick to my right, somehow staying on while waving her arms in the air and squealing. What a freak show. I might be laying it on a little thick.

Around a reaching bush covered in lollipops—Cahal was trying to ditch the sugar, worried about his boyish figure—the path opened up, and there he stood, a blindfold over his eyes, holding a wicked black sword with a curved blade. Light gleamed off the point, the moonlight bright enough to paint that nightmare.

I sent a small whip of magic, snapping the blindfold off him. The cloth fell away as he turned slightly to face me. Another blindfold waited under the first, secured tightly to his head. He could always sense the direction of my magic. It was really annoying for sneak attacks.