Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 2) (20 page)

The vampire fairy laughed out loud. “Says the mage who wore leather leggings to go on a rescue mission.”

“So the mages captured you?” Alex cut in quickly.

“Not without a fight, they didn’t,” replied Xanthus. “I almost had them, but then a second group joined them. Humans. They activated some device that took out my powers. Gave me a hell of a headache. So I went down, they swooped in, and I ended up in this little slice of purgatory.”

“It sounds like the device we keep coming across,” Alex commented to Logan. “Like the one I just took out.”

“Thank you for that,” Xanthus said. “This is the first time in two days I can hear myself think.”

“What do the Convictionites want with you?”

“Convictionites? Is that what they call themselves?” Xanthus asked. “Well, I’m not surprised. It sounds exactly like the sort of name those sanctimonious sociopaths would choose for themselves. What do they want with us, you ask? They want to figure out how to control us.”

“But they already can control vampires with the Blood Orb,” Naomi said. “And if they got the other three Orbs of Essence, they could control mages, fairies, and the otherworldly too.”

“But not hybrids,” Alex realized. “Hybrid supernaturals cannot be controlled by the Orbs of Essence, can they?”

“They were talking to one another about that while cutting into me. They thought I couldn’t hear them. Or they figured I’d never make it out of here alive,” said Xanthus. “And you’re right. They said the Orbs of Essence only work on full-blooded supernaturals. These
Convictionites
have some dusty old magic book that tells them everything they want to know about the Orbs. Except, apparently, how to control hybrids. Maybe there weren’t any hybrids two thousand years ago. Or whenever the book was written.”

“An old magic book about the Orbs of Essence?” Alex looked at Marek. “Ring any bells?”

“I’m not familiar with any book that covers only the Orbs of Essence. I’ll ask my brother Adair. He practically lives in the library.”

“So the Convictionites are experimenting on hybrids in the hopes of figuring out how to control them.” This just kept getting better and better. Depraved psychos. “Have they had any luck?” Alex asked Xanthus.

“Not as far as I could see,” he replied. “They took blood samples, cut into us to see how our bodies handle pain, sometimes before making us fight, sometimes after.”

“They made you fight one another?” Naomi gasped.

“The magic in our blood reacts differently during combat.”

“It’s like the blood tests we’ve been running on Logan, testing his magic patterns under different circumstances,” Alex told her. “We’re trying to figure out how to break their control over him. And the Convictionites are trying to gain control over the hybrids. In some ways it’s the same thing. Just in reverse.”

“But we know how to break their control, Alex,” Naomi said. “You.”

Alex shook her head. “When I break their control, it only lasts until the next time. It’s not permanent.”

“What if we could find a way to make it permanent? Then they couldn’t control supernaturals anymore. They couldn’t control Logan.”

“I’m not sure how to do that.”

“Maybe you just need to
unleash
your magic.”

And link with her dragon like the Dragon Born book mentioned. That was an idea.

“For now, let’s just worry about getting these people out of here. Logan,” Alex called to him. “How much longer will it take to open those cells?”

Logan didn’t look up from the mass of cables. “I’m working on it. This isn’t as easy as it looks.”

It looked like a nest of chaos to her. She couldn’t help but tease him anyway. “Macgyver would have already had those doors open with nothing more than a paperclip and a wad of gum.”

“Things are a lot simpler when you’re a fictional character,” he said cooly. “Be patient.”

“Uh, ok. But just so you know, we’re about to have company. One minute.”

The alarm roared to life. She could feel Convictionites flooding the cavernous hall at the center of the basement.

“Make that half a minute.”

Marek joined her beside the door. “Let’s get them.”

“Marek and I are going to go play with the guards,” she told Logan.

“Have fun.” He frowned at a bubblegum-pink wire. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

Throwing him a silly salute he probably didn’t even see, Alex headed out of the room with Marek to meet the encroaching guards. Dressed in blinding white uniforms, the Convictionites were running through the central chamber toward the hallway. Alex put up a fire barrier in the doorway, blocking their path. Marek poured his own fire magic onto her barrier. The flames blazed out, consuming the guards whole. The staccato crackle of the roaring fire drowned out their short-lived screams.

“More are coming,” Alex said as a rush of magic slammed against her. “Mages.” She swallowed in air. “Not good. Not good at all.”

“What is it?” Marek asked.

“Their magic is off the charts.” She shook out her hands, pouring more fuel on the magic fire. “Uh, honey,” she called back to Logan. “Are you about done in there?”

“Soon.”

She sighed.
Assassins.

You have to love those monosyllabic responses.

Yeah,
she told her dragon, snorting. “So, I don’t mean to rush you, Logan,” she said as one of the Convictionite mages nuked her fire barrier. “But we have company. Self-hating mage zombies touting some powerful artifacts that have boosted their magic.”

She threw up another fire barrier. Marek topped it off with tendrils of snapping, sizzling electricity. It looked like a bunch of pink electric eels had gotten trapped inside the barrier. Alex poured on a thick layer of cold-burning snowflakes. They glistened, a diamond crust across the barrier’s surface.

“Just finished,” Logan declared.

The new barrier was withstanding the mages’ onslaught—so far.

“Bleeding hell, Alex, your magic is potent!” Marek exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

She looked back inside the room. All the glass cells were open, and Logan was helping the prisoners to climb down. Naomi handed them magic drinks and sprayed healing magic over their wounds. If they were lucky, the hybrids might soon have the strength to walk. There was no way they’d be fit to fight.

“We have to get to the Blood Orb,” Alex told Logan. “Quickly. More Convictionites are streaming down here with every passing minute.”

Logan turned to Marek. “Can you and Naomi get the hybrids out through the tunnel?”

“Yes.” Marek shook out his hands. Magic erupted from them. Cords of purple-gold lightning slithered up his arms, glowing, popping, crackling.

Alex and Logan sprinted down the hallway. As they reached the burning barrier, she changed the pitch of the magic around them, wrapping it into a cushioning bubble. Instead of burning to a black crisp, they passed right through the fire, charging toward the surprised mages on the other side. Disoriented, the mages’ line split open, and Alex and Logan passed into the big chamber. They launched a cloud of knives, cutting down the mages still in their path.

“This way,” she told Logan, darting down the hallway that would lead them to the Blood Orb.

Behind them, geysers of fire spit out of the floor, twisting together to form the limbs of a dragon. Marek’s summoned beast pounced high into the air, then touched down with the force of an earthquake, cutting off the Convictionite mages. Magic crashed and crackled off the high ceilings.

“Our path is clear,” Alex told Logan. “Marek is keeping the Convictionites busy.”

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t know. Marek’s dragon felt pretty angry,” she said as they entered the room with the Blood Orb. “I think he’ll be able to hold them off for a while. Hopefully. Look.”

She pointed at the pedestal the Orb was sitting on. A pale green barrier enclosed it, buzzing like a mage high on Fairy Lily. Obviously a little spell the Convictionites’ brainwashed mages had cooked up. Alex didn’t even comment on the absurdity of an anti-magic organization using mages to cast spells to secure a magical artifact they’d stolen. She was so over their hypocrisy. Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated on ripping apart their barrier.

As she unraveled the magic holding it together, she vaguely sensed Logan springing into action to fend off the guards that were streaming through the door on the other side of the room. It looked like Marek’s dragon hadn’t kept them away as long as she’d hoped. Or there were just too many guards down here now.

“This entire building is full of blind spots,” Logan grumbled. “Every room has multiple passages into it. An absolute nightmare.”

Alex ripped the final thread of the barrier, and it crumbled to pieces. A stream of thousands of tiny green magic beads poured down the pedestal, winking out of existence before they touched the floor. She snatched up the Blood Orb and stuffed it into her pack. Now all they had to do was make it out of here.

Yeah, right. Easier said than done. Guards streamed inside from both entrances. Logan cut left as she moved right, both of them launching knives in deadly silver waves. Alex quickly ran out of knives, so she turned to throwing magic instead. Together, they managed to clear a path out of the room.

As they backtracked down the hallway, Alex reached out with her magic, sensing for Marek. Alex could feel him weaving a continuous barrage of spells, his magic strained yet still running hot. The problem was the army of Convictionites she felt streaming down from the upper levels. This was turning ugly fast.

They reached the central chamber. Here, a dozen mages surrounded what remained of Marek’s dragon, blasting it with a storm of elemental and telekinetic magic. It was a good thing dragons were so resilient. Other mages lay in crumpled heaps on the floor, victims of its mighty magic. The dragon wasn’t doing so well, though. It had been blasted so many times that there was little left of it. Marek was holding the shining silver threads of the dragon together—barely. He stood behind a flaming barrier. Blood dripped from his nose, splashing against his shirt.

The mages had stopped shooting, but the low chant now emanating from them sounded even more ominous. The scents of flowers and cinnamon bit at Alex’s senses. She knew that scent: Fairy Lily, one of the most potent magical drugs in the world. It gave mages and fairies an immediate—albeit temporary—magic boost. It also got them sky high and batshit crazy. Which possessed them to try all manner of harebrained schemes. And ultimately led to mercenaries like Alex stepping in to knock them back down to earth. Not that she minded. There were way worse assignments. Like clearing out garden gnome infestations. Or cleaning up the messes she’d made. At least fighting supernaturals doped up on Fairy Lily was never dull.

All at once, a wave of magic blasted out from the mages. It slammed hard against Marek’s dragon, blowing it apart into a fireworks explosion of magic and light. His barrier winked out as he collapsed to the ground. Alex hastily threw up another barrier to protect him. She hoped Naomi had already gotten the hybrids out through the tunnel. But with the dragon defeated, the Convictionite mages had lost all interest in him. They turned to Alex and Logan. Their eyes burned with magic and malice; their auras thumped like a stampede of spells.

Logan was already moving. He circled around the mages. Some of them turned to track him, lashing out with their magic. The few spells that managed to hit him didn’t even slow him down. Someone must have neglected to tell them that he was pretty much magic proof. He smashed through their lines, knocking mages aside like they were paper dolls.

“Watch out!” Alex shouted as two telekinetics knocked concrete chunks out of the walls and catapulted them toward Logan.

He jumped out of the way, the stony masses colliding behind him. “You fools. You’re going to take down the building.”

The telekinetics didn’t heed his warning. They tried again, this time ripping material from the ring of thick pillars in the room. Concrete pummeled him from all directions, leaving no chance of escape. The sharp shards slammed against him again and again, never ceasing. They tore at his body and ripped through his skin. He gritted his teeth and lumbered toward the telekinetics, step by bloody step.

Hot fury bubbled inside of Alex, churning against the cold breath of vengeance. A deluge of flames and ice crashed against the Convictionite mages, drowning them in cold liquid fire. Again and again, she poured magic into the fire. The blue flames shot up ever higher, sending her adrenaline soaring.

“Alex,” a distant voice called out.

She blinked, and then Logan was in front of her. If the strands of hissing magic sliding across their linked hands bothered him, he didn’t show it.

“You’re bleeding,” she noticed as her eyes focused further.

A broken shard protruded from his forehead. Another was lodged into his neck.

Logan is hurt,
she told herself, even as her magic wrapped its seductive song around her. Her senses tingled and burned. She felt like she was bathing in pure ecstasy.

There are more Convictionites coming, Alex,
her dragon told her.
Now is not the time to go crazy.

You’re right.

She shoved back against the magic consuming her. Her magic reared and hissed, refusing to go back down, refusing to be tamed.

Down,
she growled, pushing so hard against her magic that it ruptured and snapped back into her. The hasty barrier she’d thrown up to protect Marek died out as her blue fire dissolved into a frosty mist.

“Let me see those wounds,” Alex said to Logan, heaving out deep breaths.

“All you all right?”

“Fine.” She grasped the first shard and yanked it out of his forehead. “Did that hurt?”

“No,” he growled, his voice scratchy.

“Liar.” She tugged the second shard out of his neck. “Can you fight?”

He gave her a look that could have split granite.

“Ok, ok. Calm down. I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, princess,” she said. “There are more coming.”

“Yes.” Logan turned toward Marek, who was stumbling to his feet. “Get going.”