31. The Slayer
The Slayer
Scarlett was right—again. I give Adam a little time with the body and Iris let me hold her at night and cup her cheek.
Progress with my mate is going tremendously, but of course, there are three very strong vampire slayers out there trying to rip us a part.
It seems like their bloodlines have wised up over the years, no longer treating this like a curse and more of an advantage.
These slayers have spent far more cycles in the mortal lands than me. They understand this place better, and have spent more time killing than I have. It doesn’t matter if they are better than me, I’ll just have to outwit them. I have my witch and her familiar, and regretfully, I also have Adam.
“Seriously, dude?” he snipes.
“Yes, seriously. Do you know how annoying it is to have someone in your head all the time?”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
I belt out a laugh, and Iris looks over at me with a raised eyebrow. She used magic to make a bunch of Adam’s things small and put them in a backpack. We rode his motorcycle home and I’ve got to say, I actually like the device. It seems much easier to use than a car.
“Adam and I are just getting more comfortable with one another,” I say and Iris shakes her head.
Scarlett scampers over to me, rubbing her head on my leg, and I pick her up, placing her on my lap and petting her soft fur, before placing a kiss on the top of her head.
“You’re a genius,” I whisper to her.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she replies and Iris doesn’t even seem to notice.
She’s staring down at the spell book, even though she can’t read any of it.
Just seeing the book makes me shiver, knowing the pain it would cause if I touched it.
“What’s she doing?” I ask Scarlett. Iris doesn’t like to be bothered when she’s doing important magical things.
“She’s trying to figure out its magical signature. If all the books were created by the same witch, that might be a way to locate them.”
“She’s brilliant.”
“Ugh. This fucking book,” Iris exclaims, getting up out of her chair and starting to pace. “I need more witches to help me crack this.”
Iris pauses her pacing and looks at me. “You’ll need to be on your best behavior.”
I point to myself. “Me?”
“Yes. Either you need to let Adam take over or you need to promise to be polite as you possibly can when I have Violet and Ember over.”
I crinkle my nose. Sure, I saved the witch from being bled dry, but I still don’t like the fact she keeps the company of vampires.
“See. There can be none of that.”
“You will not invite that vampire into our home,” I tell her, just as a precaution.
“Of course I won’t,” Iris says plainly and it soothes something inside me.
“Then I will be the best behaved vampire slayer you have ever seen. I vow it,” I say, touching my heart.
“Okay, stop being cute, we have work to do.”
My grin is wide.
Cute.
While I do not think that’s the word to describe me. I’m a strong, fierce, handsome slayer, but I’ll accept cute as long as it pleases my mate.
Iris gets on her phone, chatting animatedly with her fellow witches while I pet Scarlett. She nips me when I pet her the wrong way and directs me on the correct way.
My witch begins putting things in place, lighting candles with a flick of her wand, and drawing patterns on her dining table.
“Should I ask if she needs help?”
“Definitely not,” Scarlett tells me. I listen to the fox as she is always right.
It isn’t long before two witches are strolling up the stairs into her apartment. The pink-haired one, Ember, smells like a foul vampire and I do my best to not show my disgust. The other one, known as Violet, has an interesting signature, part wolf, part witch.
If Iris and I had children would they be part slayer and part witch?
“No. Absolutely fucking not,” Adam chimes in my head and I sigh, because he’s probably right and I would never want to impose this curse on a child.
Both of the witches pause and stare at me where I sit, petting Iris’ familiar.
“You’ve already met Ember, this is Violet. Violet, this is the Slayer… and Adam.”
“Uh. Hello,” the witch with black and white hair says.
“Hi,” I repeat and her eyes widen at the timbre of my voice.
“Right. So I’m trying to see if I can find the sister spell books of this one. I’m guessing that if the same witch created all of them, they will have a magical signature and that will help us find them.”
Violet and Ember look at each other and then back to my brilliant witch. “You need to find them, because?”
“Right. I thought I updated you through text,” Iris says.
The two witches look at her dubiously and I realize my witch rarely asks for help and tends to internalize things. I will be there for her for whatever she needs.
“Right…yeah about that. There’s a group of vampire slayers who want to kill my Slayer and take me as their mate or something worse,” Iris says.
“Your Slayer, huh?” Violet says with a grin, and I decide I like that one.
“That would be me,” I say with a smile.
“Yeah, mine,” Iris says softly. “It’s a long story, but we’ve found out who the other slayers are currently using as vessels, but we don’t know where their families are hiding their books. We need to find the spell books, figure out how to destroy them, and…”
“Kill the motherfuckers for daring to hurt my mate,” I finish for her. She gives me an exhausted look, but doesn’t correct me as she looks at her coven members.
“Then let’s get to work,” Ember says; she gives me a soft smile, I do my best to return it, but I’m sure it looks odd.
The three witches sit in a circle, holding each other’s hands. It makes me slightly jealous as I wish to hold my witch’s hand. That will be the next step I take with her.
Suddenly the temperature of the room shifts colder. The witches chant repeatedly. Adam shivers and I realize this must be reminiscent of my summoning, and there’s an ounce of guilt there.
I, however, look on with amazement as the witches continue their chant, the flames of the candles around them growing as the spell starts to take hold.
Iris’ eyes are closed, and I watch in awe as the spell book in front of her burns a glowing orange shade, almost like a beacon, in a way. This must be the signature she spoke about.
They continue their magic incantations a few more times, before finally letting go of one another's hands. The flames die down and the temperature in the room goes back to normal.
“That was magnificent,” I say, and I enjoy the small smile that takes over Iris’ face.
“Wow. I’ve never seen a signature like this before,” Violet says, examining the book.
“It must be damn near ancient,” Ember chimes in.
“Now what?” I ask, confused because obviously the glowing part is awesome, but how does that help us find the books?
“Now we can use a locator spell to find traces of the same magic,” Violet responds.
All of the witches seem in awe of the spell book all the while it fills me with unease.
“And what about destroying them?” I add in and all the witches look at me.
“Maybe it’s possible with the power of the coven?” Iris suggests. “It’s designed to not be destroyed at the hands of humans or the slayers, but maybe since we share the same magic with our ancient coven members, we would be able to?”
“I’ll dive deeper into it,” Violet promises.
“I can have vampires on standby if you need help with the slayer situation,” Ember says, and I slightly grimace. Scarlett bites me as Iris answers for the both of us.
“That would be wonderful. Now, let’s see, where should we start?”
The witches work on the locator spell, which takes more finesse with maps and chants. I just sit back and watch when three orange glowing balls tell us where we need to go.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Violet says as they look down at the map.
“Fuck,” Iris hisses.
I can’t sit back any longer as I approach the table, standing next to my Iris, wanting so badly to hold her.
“What is it?”
“These aren’t going to be easy to obtain,” Iris says, pointing to the map. “The first spell book is at the mayor’s office in New Orleans. The next is in fucking Alcatraz? The last one looks like it’s just buried in the middle of nowhere, Texas.”
“I can teleport to all of these places,” I tell her, not wanting anyone to get harmed. She should stay here in the wards where it’s safe.
“You can’t touch the books,” Iris reminds me and I sigh.
“The coven will help keep the shop open, and we’ll be on standby at a moment’s notice. You need to discreetly get the books and bring them back here. We’ll work on additional wards to protect them,” Ember says.
Without thinking, my hand slides to the back of Iris’ neck. She shivers and turns to me. “If for a single moment, anything looks unsafe, you leave and get to safety, do you understand?”
She nods her head and I find that her friends are all staring at us.
“Where do we start?” Iris asks, glancing down at the map.
I don’t let go of her neck. I have a general idea of which slayer is inhabiting each body and I know who we should do last.
“The mayor's office last. We start at whatever this Alcatraz location is,” I suggest.
“It’s an island prison off the coast of San Francisco. Why would they hide it there?” Iris asks.
None of us have a clue, but this is something that has to be done.
Her two friends press their heads together, imparting what seems like a safety spell onto my witch.
I find that I can’t dislike the pink-haired one.
Disappointed in her choices, yes, but it’s not her fault fate brought an old, smelly vampire into her life.
“If anything goes wrong, you portal to the closest place you can and ward yourself,” Violet tells Iris.
“We’ll keep this place safe and we’ll be waiting for you. Keep her safe,” Ember says.
“With my life,” I tell her, looking at the map. I haven’t been there, but Adam has a general idea of the location and what this place looks like. “It’s going to take a lot of energy to teleport this far. We need a rendezvous location.”
Violet looks down at the map and clicks around on her phone.
“This house is empty right now. These are the coordinates and the street view. Is that enough?”
“That is good,” I say, both Adam and I memorizing everything about the location. It’s on the mainland from the prison, close enough that I should be able to take us both there if we get into danger.
“Alright then. So, we’re doing this?” Iris says, a lilt of worry in her voice. I squeeze her neck in assurance and nod
Iris packs my spell book in a satchel and I wrap my arms around her, visualizing where we need to go and I whisk us away to the island prison.