32 | Dante
Ican’t tell if the thunder in the air is due to Zeph’s mood or an actual storm, but it adds a certain eerie atmosphere as we stride through the darkening streets, scouting for the vamp controlling the crowd surrounding Silver and the mages.
“How easy do you think it’ll be to find this guy?” I ask.
Zeph grunts. “No idea. Better hurry though.”
His words are almost immediately followed by a boom that sounds not unlike a minor explosion.
“That’s my girl. Sounds like Silver’s brought out her thunder blast again. I hope she knocks the fuckers’ heads clean off.”
“Head to higher ground, you think?” If I was using my coercive powers, I would want to see the people I was controlling. And to be influencing so many people, they must be somewhere up high.
Inspecting the area, I can see the tallest building in the vicinity looks to be an office building that’s currently empty and for sale. A line of windows is visible, facing the city square and my sharp eyes make out the shadow of a figure.
“There.” I jerk my head toward it, and Zeph nods, moving faster than I would have thought possible.
The building is empty and clearly is midway through a remodel. The carpets have been torn up and there are paint swatches on the walls.
Which is good. It means the building should be empty. The elevator is out of order, so we have to take the stairs up, our feet echoing off the walls of the narrow stairwell. Whatever hope we had for making a silent entrance is dashed as we thump-thump our way all the way up to the top of the building.
There, we find the puppeteer. He’s standing with his back to us, his focus on the street outside. And I feel rather than see Zeph stiffen beside me as he takes in the vampire dressed in a gray suit and loafers.
“Stop where you are,” the vamp says in a lazy drawl.
We both come to an immediate halt, not wanting to reveal that the cheap bracelet around my wrist and the necklace around Zeph’s thick neck are nulling his mind control magic.
“Thought you’d come to watch, did you? It is the best view in the house, after all.”
He turns and his eyes and smile both widen.
I take in his appearance. He’s one of those people that gives off oily car salesman vibes. Hair that’s dark and slicked back away from his forehead, a cravat and pocket square. An overly jovial tone that has my shoulders stiffening.
“Now this is a surprise,” he says.
I vaguely recognize him as someone fairly high-up in the vamp food chain, but then I quickly realize it’s not me he’s talking to. “Zeph, my boy, I didn’t expect to see you here. Come to see your old man in action, have you?”
A rumble of thunder sounds from close by and this time I don’t know if it’s coming from Silver, or a result of Z’s discomfort.
“How long have you been involved with Simpson?” Zeph’s voice is a hoarse rasp and I have no idea how to make this situation less uncomfortable for him. He clearly knows the vamp and doesn’t have fuzzy feelings toward him.
“He’s a fool, but he’s a useful fool. His visions of what this city could become are certainly something. I’ve been trying to persuade your mother for years that it makes sense for us to climb higher in society, but she’s always been one for pulling the ladder up behind her. It took me a long while to recognize that my potential was being squandered. Not anymore, though. Once we take over the city, Simpson will have served his purpose and I will take my rightful place.”
Oh great, another megalomaniacal vamp. Just what this city needs.
“You were at the Solstice Ball,” Zeph says. “You were the one that stopped the Archarcans from acting when the monsters broke in. And you’ve been at the Archarcan council meetings too. I’m guessing you’ve been influencing them, stopping them from taking action.”
The vamp scoffs. “As if any of them would have leapt into action to defend their fellow man. Magic-users are a selfish bunch, as I’ve been telling you for years. Were you in attendance at the Solstice Ball? I didn’t realize that people from your part of the city were invited, but you ought to have said hello to your mother, at least.”
Zeph’s hands are bunched into fists on either side of him and he’s clenching his jaw hard enough to grind his teeth to dust.
Something clicks into place in my brain.
His aversion to vampires.
How he sees us as selfish, filthy bloodsuckers that can’t be trusted.
This must be the man responsible, his stepfather. I’m sure I remember a vague conversation we had weeks ago when he glossed over the details and simply explained that he’d had to escape his family as a young teen.
I hadn’t realized that it was a vampire with mind control powers he had to escape from.
A sense of cold calm descends over me just as lightning licks through the air outside. He’s about two seconds from completely losing his cool. But that doesn’t matter. I have plenty for both of us.
“Still no better control over your magic, eh? Your lessons need to resume, boy.”
Zeph remains silent, but I’ve had enough of this. We need to stop the vamp in front of us before the crowd outside does serious damage.
The issue is, the jewelry that’s currently protecting me from his influence is also stopping my own coercive power from manifesting. Zeph is standing as though he’s frozen to the spot, and although it can’t be because of the vamp’s magic, it’s clear it’s past trauma, making his body react without his conscious control.
“Now, come closer so you can watch as things get interesting.”
“Zeph,” I say hurriedly, keeping my voice as low as I can. “You need to do something. Silver’s out there and she needs us. She needs you to use your magic.”
He glares at me, his eyes filled with a wild fury I haven’t seen in him before. “If I let it loose, I don’t think I’m going to have control over what happens next.”
I shrug, slapping him on the shoulder. “Then lose control.”
There’s a second where he looks shocked and then terrified, but he quickly schools his features under a blank mask and takes a deep breath.
And then the storm mage lets loose. A cyclone of wind and hail blasts down from the sky from out of nowhere, shattering the windows and raining inside. It’s tumultuous and messy as glass goes everywhere. I dive out of the way, dragging him along with me. Zeph’s stepfather lets out a yell and crouches by the wall, sheltering from the worst of it.
“I told you your magic would never get you far, boy. And now you’ll have to pay for that little display of insolence.”
It’s creepy, the way he’s talking to Zeph like he’s a child and not a man in his mid-twenties. His stepfather’s face twists into a nasty expression filled with malice.
“I said come. Here.”
The bracelet around my wrist grows hot, as I assume it works against his coercion. Instead of growing cooler though, it gets hotter and hotter until it reaches a point where it’s burning my skin. I pull up my sleeve as Zeph clutches his chest where the necklace must rest.
A surge of energy and power hits me, charging up my arm and into my chest.
Somehow, I just know that my magic will work against the vamp.
“Freeze,” I bark at him and a grim smile forms on my face as his features hold in place in a mask of stricken horror.
“How do you want to deal with him?” I ask Zeph. “You want to blast him in the asshole with your lightning, as I’m sure you’ve threatened to do to me in the past?”
Z’s eyes widen as he gazes from me to his stepfather and back again. “You’re controlling him right now?”
“I am.”
“Can he hear us?”
I nod. “I’m pretty sure he should know what’s happening. He just can’t control his body at the moment.”
“Good.” Zeph nods, rubbing the back of his neck with a shaking hand. “Then he deserves to taste his own medicine.” His voice is barely more than a hoarse whisper as he adds, “Make him hurt himself.”
A surge of anger goes through me and I have to get a firm grasp of my calm and my control and cling on tight.
“We’ve learned a lot about vampires recently, reading all the old tomes with the legends of our kind,” I tell the sack of shit in front of me, before turning my attention to Zeph. “And one thing that comes up over and over is how difficult it is for a vampire to truly die. But luckily, I came across one bit of text that was hidden deep down in the most boring book I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading. One that you found underneath Victor’s bed.”
He stares at me, clutching the back of his neck as my words sink in. “You found something? All those fucking books and you actually found an answer?”
It was sheer luck I had happened upon it while we were coming up with the plan to break Silver out from her cell. But it was laid out all the same. Fate, finally granting us their favor.
“Beheading is certainly an option. We knew that one already,” I reply. “But I was thinking that’d be a messy affair. First though, let’s see what happens when a vampire falls from a three story building.”
Zeph’s eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I turn my attention to the pathetic vamp in front of me. “Step out of the window.”
His face doesn’t change as he follows my instructions exactly. I briefly wonder if this is going to fuck up my relationship with Zeph, considering his past with a vampire using mind control over him. But ridding the world of his particular vamp has got to be worth it.
We both stand there, slightly shell-shocked as his stepfather just... steps out of the window and falls over sixty feet. He doesn’t make a sound, apart from the thump and crack as he hits the hard ground.
“What is it then? The way to kill a vampire that’s not via beheading?” Zeph asks.
“Lightning.” I grin. “Not in the asshole, though. Directly into the heart should do it.”
Zeph’s face breaks into a malicious grin, and he chuckles under his breath. It seems fortuitous that the answer to the question we’ve been searching for is one that he can administer. He can be the one to end his tormenter and seek his own justice.
It seems only right.
Together we head down the dilapidated staircase to the frozen, broken vamp lying in a heap on the ground. Zeph then takes a steadying breath, and he bares his teeth at the vamp.
The vampire’s hair stands on end, a warning of sorts right before a bolt of pure lightning forks from the sky and hits him square in the chest.
“How’s that for controlling my magic, asshole?” Zeph spits at him as I let my compulsion drop and the vamp’s head falls back.
Stone-cold dead.