Magestorm: The Reckoning (3 page)

6

The morning sun crept over the hills in Thauma and Charles charged into the council room.  Elisabeth rolled her eyes as he stormed up to where she sat and waited for her to acknowledge him.  Since he wasn’t going away without speaking to her, she finally glanced up at him.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got three patrols that didn’t check in.
 We need to get a search party out there immediately.  It could be the mage.”

“Where did these parties go missing?” She went back to looking over the spell book, wondering just how powerful she would be once she memorized them all.
  There was little interest in Charles’ concerns.  It was doubtful Dhane and his friends were nearby.  By now, she expected they had moved to another continent.

“One group was North.
 The other two were at different distances out East.  That’s nine vampires missing.”

Slapping the book shut, she tossed it on the table and leaned back in the chair.
 This was beneath her, and really the whole reason Charles and Sebastian had high positions in the council.  They were supposed to handle these things themselves and only bother her with important things.

“
Did you talk to Sebastian about this?”

“
Of course, but that animal could care less.  He won’t raise a finger unless you order him to.  His laziness will be the downfall of what you’ve built here.”

With a huff Elisabeth stood up and grabbed the book.
 She walked to the wall and locked it inside a safe.  Finally she marched across the room towards the door.

“Fine, I'll
go and speak with him.”

She trudged down the hall and stopped at a room near the
rear of the Grand Hotel.  Loud music was coming from within, completely drowning out her knocking.  A quick check of the handle revealed the door to be unlocked.  Inside, the room was a mess, with clothes strewn everywhere.

“Hello?”

There was no answer, so she ventured
in further.  This room was combined with the next, merging Sebastian’s with Rachel’s into one larger apartment.  A short hallway now existed between the two, which Elisabeth ventured down.  As the music grew quieter behind her, there were different sounds behind the door ahead.  It was cracked open, so she pushed it and found the werewolf she was seeking, but not alone.

Rachel was completely naked, hands tied behind her back and a gag in her mouth.
 Leaned over a table, her man was behind her, pounding into her with utter force.  Grunts and groans escaped her as he alternated tugging her hair, slapping her ass, and clutching her breasts while not losing rhythm.

“When you two are done, I need to talk to you, Sebastian.”

In stride, he looked over, nodded, and continued.
 Elisabeth shook her head with a grin and walked back to the other room.  She turned down the stereo and cleared a spot to sit down on the couch and wait.  The pounding and grunting came to a halt, and a few minutes later the shower turned on, and then the werewolf walked into the room. He grabbed a bottle of wine, and took a swig from it.

“Aren’t you going to put some clothes on?”

“Why?
 Like this is the first time you’ve seen me naked.”

Smiling, she stood and walked over to him.
 She slid her hands across his broad chest, down his defined abs, and around his waist.  With his strong arms, he picked her up and kissed her.  His body was so hot against her that it made her want to strip down.

“How long does it take her to shower?” she asked coyly
as he put her down.

“A long time.
 I put her in there still tied up.”

With a grin, Elisabeth pushed him down onto a chair.
 He unfastened her pants and yanked them down to her ankles.  She slid them the rest of the way off and climbed on top of him.  The penetration was nearly all she needed, him being the largest, thickest she ever had inside of her.

“Get busy,” he ordered, slapping her bare
ass hard.

Slowly she tried to stand back up, only to have him yank her back down, hands clutching her waist.
 They repeated their game until she was biting her lip to try and stay quiet.  Rachel would kill them both if she found out, but Elisabeth simply couldn’t resist.

With a muffled cry, her legs turned to jelly and she collapsed on him.
 He grinned and tossed her off of him and onto the floor.  Then he grabbed her hair, pulled her towards him and gave her a final order.

“Finish it.”

This was the one part she hated.
 It was too big to comfortably fit in her mouth, but he pushed that on her whenever possible.  Once he had finished, she washed her mouth out in the sink.  He walked over and put his arms around her from behind, kissed at her neck, and slid a hand between her legs.

“Don’t you ever get enough?”
 She sounded exhausted.

“Never.
 Besides, it was you that came here to get fucked, did you not?”

“No, that’s actually not the reason I’m here.
 That was just a… bonus.”

He laughed and let her go to get dressed.
 With another drink of wine, he waited for her to continue with her real reason.

“It’s about the missing vampires...”

“Oh God, Charles came whining to you.”

“Of course he did.
 We need them for now, at least until we find and kill the others.  Then you can dispose of them however you see fit.  Until then, can you send a couple of your boys out East?”

Slowly he nodded, not happy, but he would do it anyway.
 The vampires, with their sheer numbers, did have their purpose for now.  He hungered for the day he could be rid of them, however.

“Good.
 Now, why don’t you swing by the council room later for some private strategy discussions, if you can get away.”

With a wink, she strolled out the door and left the over-confident werewolf shaking his head.
 Women would be the death of him, he was sure, but he was going to enjoy the ride until then.

Sebastian strolled into the bathroom and glanced at the shower floor.
 Still sitting there, tied up, gagged, and soaking wet, was the witch he’d been sleeping with for some time.  She was glaring at him for leaving her like that.  He kneeled down and grinned.

“
Well now, you’re just as I like you… wet.”

7

The two vampire bodies from the cabin were dragged off into the woods and dumped over the edge of the cliff by Amber, while Cassandra and Samantha worked at cleaning up the blood splattered on the floor.  The next part of their plan involved moving further north and hoping Dhane was okay.  They wanted to search for him, but they had no clue where to start.  A small ounce of hope remained that he would show up before they had to go.

Amber returned and changed back to human form.
 Dawn had just arrived and they wanted to be on the road soon.  Having already packed for Cassandra and herself, Amber began to do so for Samantha and Dhane.  They would leave no signs that they had been there, if possible.

“Do you think Dhane will come back,” Samantha asked sadly.

“I’ve thought before that he was gone forever, and he’s always returned.
 I’d say chances are...”

“Good.”

Dhane stood in the doorway, blood splattered all over him.
 His face was expressionless, but there was exhaustion in his eyes.  The women all stopped what they were doing and watched him enter the room and walk over to the kitchen area.  He grabbed a glass and sat it on the counter.  A clinking sound made them all curious.  Without saying another word, he stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

“What the Hell is going on?”

Angry that he hadn’t provided an explanation, Cassandra stormed over to the bathroom and charged in.
 The blood soaked clothes were piled on the floor and the mage was in the shower facing away from her.  She was beyond boundaries at this point and yanked the curtain out of the way to confront him.

“What the fuck happened here?”

There was no reply, no response at all.
 He didn’t glance over his shoulder or pull the curtain back into place.  Instead he stood silently, lost in thought as the hot water rushed over him.

“Cassandra...”

Looking to the other witch, Samantha was holding the glass and looked pale
, as though she may be sick at any moment.  Cassandra walked over and looked down.  Inside there were fourteen vampire teeth.  The two vampires they had found in the room still had theirs, so where did these come from, they all wondered.  She was not going to let Dhane get away with not talking about it.

“Can you two give me some time alone with him?”

Amber and Samantha both
nodded and headed off to the other cabin.  After twenty minutes, the shower turned off and Dhane walked into the room to find new clothes.  When he didn’t begin an explanation right away, it was time for his former teacher to start grilling him.

“
Dhane, what happened?”

“The vampires
found us, so I had to put them down.”

“And?
 Where did you go after the fight here?  What’s with the vampire teeth?”

“Oh, those.”
 He couldn’t keep from smirking about that as he put on a pair of jeans.  “When I killed the ones that showed up here, I realized that more would come.  So, I found other patrols out East and extinguished them.  They’ll investigate those first, being more of their kind missing.”

Cassandra stood and walked over to him.
 They looked into each other’s eyes, the connection they had always shared was still there, and his smirk left.  She still wanted to know about the teeth, which was an atrocious thing to do to a vampire, especially since they had been alive when he did it to them.  He knew he had to tell her something, so he went with the truth.

“Revenge
, for Lila.  And I will feed them to Charles before I kill him.”

The coldness in his voice gave her a chill.
 Fear began to fill her, fear that the spell pages he’d been studying had changed him.  He was on the path to becoming another Algernon; that had to be it.

Calmly and sincerely, he smiled and put his arms around her and held her against him.
 He knew what she was thinking, and she was wrong.  Despite everything, he was firmly in control.

“Don’t worry, I’m not becoming him.
 I have you to help keep me grounded.  But this is not over, and Elisabeth, Heather, Sebastian, they will all pay for the friends they’ve taken from us.  Just have faith in me, as you’ve always had, and I will not let you down.”

She closed her eyes and returned the hug.
 Relief replaced fear after hearing his honest words, spoken with warmth in his voice.  Now, her thoughts of worry for him were replaced with anger towards their enemies.  And if Dhane could so easily dispatch this many vampires in a night, maybe they really did have a chance to overcome.  Just maybe.

8

Two werewolves in human skin stood in an alley shaking their heads.
 Before them were three vampire bodies, stuffed into a dumpster.  It was odd that they were hidden in this way, because it left evidence of their demise.  Leaving them in the sunlight would’ve cleaned things up nicely.  There would have been nothing but ashes, likely to have blown away in the wind by now.  But then, there was another oddity about the bodies.

“Ever hear of someone pulling the teeth out of vampires?” the
man in the Braves baseball cap asked.

“
I heard a rumor about someone doing that a long time ago.  He’s dead though, at least he’s supposed to be.”

“Don’t even say that name.
  It’s obvious who did this.”

The man with a ponytail and goatee turned to his sports-fan friend and
cocked a smile.  It was only to try and hide his nervousness.  The great wizard was long dead, but it appeared his son could be taking up the mantle now.  If that was the case, it wasn’t a good proposition for anyone, least of all those who had driven him into hiding.

“We need to report b
ack immediately.  Sebastian will want to see this first hand.”

They closed the lid and headed down the alley.
 Changing to werewolves often meant they had to ditch their clothes, so they didn’t carry cell phones.  These days, phone booths were getting very hard to find.  Eventually they stopped at a motel and slipped inside.  Finding a phone within, they dialed the Grand Hotel quickly.

“Sebastian?
 It’s Teddy.  We found three of the missing vampires.  No, they’re dead.  They were de-fanged.  Yeah, you heard me right.  They’re in an alley off of Pyre Street.  Okay, we’ll see what else we can find.”

He hung up and shook his head to his partner.
 They got a room at the motel and headed back out on the hunt.  This time they searched for Dhane, or any member of his group.  By noon, they would be joined by a half dozen other werewolves, and nightfall would bring waves of vampires.  If Dhane was anywhere in the area, he would be found.
             

“Who was that?” Rachel asked Sebastian suspiciously.

“The search party I sent out.
 They found some of the missing vampires, dead.  Their fangs were ripped from their mouths.”

“Jesus Christ!
 Was it...?”

The look he gave her was all she needed to know.
 A curse escaped her as she sat down.  This was the reason they were still hunting for the others.  They needed to be sure he was dead, so he couldn’t come back with the strength of Algernon, or maybe even greater strength.  It seemed their time may be up; how could he grow powerful enough to take them on without the spell book?  Sebastian grabbed a jacket and a duffel bag, threw in a couple changes of clothes, and headed for the door.

“I’m going to let Elisabeth know what’s going on, and then get out there with more men.
  I need to deal with this first hand.”

She nodded and waited for him to leave.
 After ten minutes, she hurried back to the bedroom and pulled out a laptop computer.   It was the first chance she had alone since their last sexual romp, and she needed to check on something.  Pulling up a video player, she activated the playback on a security camera.  Anger rose to fury as she watched her lover fuck another woman, and not just any woman, but the head of their group now.

“You son of a bitch!”

Slamming the laptop closed, she had to force herself not to go confront Elisabeth.
 By the looks of the video, this wasn’t the first time, and was likely not going to be the last.  He was going to pay for this, even if it killed her.  That whore would get what was coming to her, too.  Hell, fury, woman scorned and all of that.
 

“Elisabeth,” Sebastian
loudly beat on the door of the suite with his fist.  The door swung open and the witch flashed a sly smile.

“Back for more already?”

“I wi
sh.”

He stepped inside and closed the door.
 Tossing his duffel on floor, he sat in a chair wondering just how she was going to take this.  There was no sugar coating it, however.  There simply wasn’t time.

“Some of the vampires have been found.
 I believe Dhane killed them and left them for us to find.  We need to start a full scale search of that area immediately.”

“WHAT?
 Tell me you’re joking.  That boy killed off vampires?”

The werewolf
nodded his head.  Elisabeth picked up a phone and dialed a set of numbers quickly.  A voice answered and she directed the person to report immediately.  For almost ten minutes she paced around the room anxiously, until finally Charles was knocking at the front door.  She swung the door open, and then started pacing again.

“What is so important?
 I sleep during the day, you know.”  Then he noticed Sebastian sitting in a chair and rolled his eyes.  “Let me guess, you decided your wolves are too busy to search for missing vampires.”

“No, they found your vampires,” Sebastian responded as he stood and walked over to stand face-to-face with the vampire prince
, though he was nearly a foot taller than his counterpart.  “Problem is, they were de-fanged and killed.”

“
Say that again...”  His heart began to race and his face filled with fury.

“Calm down Charles, we’re dispatching more werewolves there immediately.
 When night falls, we need your vampires swarming the area, searching for any signs of the mage.  We have to hit this full force.”

Without responding, Charles stormed out of the room.
 The other two looked at each other with confusion.  All Sebastian could do is shrug.

“If he’s not willing to send his own people, why should
I send mine?”

Charles returned suddenly, wearing a necklace that Sebastian immediately recognized.
 It was the same necklace the vampire’s brother, Victor, had worn when he come to see the werewolf and make their current alliance.

“I’m coming now; the others will follow at nightfall.

Sebastian grabbed his bag and Charles followed him
out the door, down to the lobby, where more werewolves were standing by, ready for the hunt.  Once they were gone, Elisabeth went back to the vault and grabbed the spell book.  She wasn’t letting the book out of her sight right now, just in case Dhane really was hunting them.  At least with this she had an advantage over him.