Devils and Dragons
Author: Theophilus Monroe
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Urban Fantasy; Paranormal; Supernatural; Young Adult; Witches; Teen; dragons
Description: There's power in dragon blood... It's also delicious! No one really knows what to do when a dragon shows up in town. I called the exterminator. He hung up on me. I guess it's up to me to take these monsters on... I have to use their magic against them. It's the only way I can stop them. Only now that I've had a taste of dragon blood, I can't get enough. Tapping into such a force comes with a cost. It's changing my heart. So many urges. So many desires. I still can't believe what I've done. I'm not only losing myself. I'm losing him.
Rights: Copyright &#x00A9;2022 byanonymous

Theophilus Monroe’s Legacy Club members get
free books, free behind the scenes
photographs and unique items to accompany
the books.

Members are always the first to hear about

Theo’s new books and publications.

See the back of the book for details on how
to sign up and receive a free Gates of Eden book!

Copyright

Copyright © 2022 by Theophilus Monroe.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Design

Proofreading/Editing by Mel: https://getproofreader.co.uk/

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For information:

www.theophilusmonroe.com

Chapter 1

Zale's muscles glistened in the moonlight as he and his sea dragon blasted through the surface of the water. His upper-half did, anyway. His bottom half was all tail. The wyrm he rode transformed into a regular dragon, sprouting wings once it cleared the surface.

I gave Drayke a swift kick.

You can kick harder than that! The wyrm-turned-dragon spoke to me using a connection we’d established through my bloodwitchery. Not even most of the Fomorian Wyrmriders could communicate directly with the beasts. Joni, aka La Sirene, was the exception.

I huffed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

My hide is almost as thick as your entire body. I think I can handle it.

“You asked for it!” I kicked Drayke as hard as I could.

That’s more like it!

Drayke chased after Zale and his wyrm, Smauk. I clutched my dragon’s reins. I squeezed my thighs around his sea-silk saddle. It wasn’t meant for someone with legs. It was more like a side-saddle, built to accommodate a merman’s tail. I wasn’t some southern or Victorian belle whose “virginal” status needed protecting. How would a young maiden in those days explain herself? Sorry, hubby, I know you were expecting I’d still be a wholesome maiden on our wedding night, but my horse deflowered me years ago. I don’t think you’ll ever quite measure up. Sorry to be the one to tell you!

I didn’t have a tail, and I wasn’t a virgin. Sitting that way felt weird and unstable, anyway. I was a badass vampire dragon rider! Huzzah!

No sooner did I have the thought and Zale and his scaly companion made a hard right-turn. Drayke followed, his tail spinning out behind him. The next thing I knew, the dragon was no longer under me. I was flying through the air. I belly-flopped into the Gulf of Mexico.

Ouch! I could hear Drayke from quite a distance, even though I couldn’t speak back to him through the connection. It was a one-way deal. I consumed a few drops of his blood—more delicious than you would think—and it allowed me to reach out with my will and read his mind. It didn’t work in the reverse. Still, he had no problem understanding me the regular way provided I was within an earshot.

I looked off at a distance to see Mercy, Mel, and Sarah applauding my less-than-graceful landing. They took The Little Ship of Horrors, a small yacht Mercy inherited from Nico, each night to watch my training session with Joni, Zale, and our respective wyrms.

I extended my right hand and middle-finger as high as could in their direction as I treaded water. At least I’d worn a bathing suit this time. The night before, well, let’s just say I underestimated how difficult it was to hold on to a flying dragon—even with vampiric strength.

Learning to hold on while Drayke blasted through the skies was a part of my training. Moving at those speeds, it doesn’t take too many falls and crashes into the ocean to teach you how to hang on.

Drayke circled me above. Zale doubled-back to check on me. His biceps bulged as he dove with Smauk. The beast’s wings disappeared the moment it contacted the water. Joni and Nammu—her wyrm—flew past Drayke and led him back to me.

“Sorry about that,” Zale said. “You were doing so well. I figured you could handle an advanced maneuver.”

I chuckled. “I appreciate the confidence. My saddle sucks ass.”

Zale smirked. “If it sucked on your ass, I don’t think you’d have such a hard time staying on it.”

I grinned and tucked a few strands of hair behind my ears. “Fair point. Water’s cold, by the way.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Zale smiled widely. “I’m used to it.”

Damn, I thought. Could he be any cuter with those dimples when he smiles?

Zale flapped his tail against the side of his dragon—nothing like a swift flutter of a guy’s tail to remind you he isn’t the man of your dreams.

I could hear Joni’s hoots and hollers as she and her wyrm flew alongside Drayke.

“Nice moves,” Joni said. “Do you know Jagger?”

“Thanks for the Maroon 5 reference.” I snorted. “I was going for a reverse four-and-half times somersault in pike position with an extra twist. I really thought I’d win the gold that time.”

Joni jumped off of Nammu and did what I suspected must’ve been something similar to the dive I just described. She came up behind me, her tail back in place where her legs were before.

I glared at her. “Show off.”

Joni splashed me a little. “I’ve lived in the ocean for a few years now. I’d say that gives me an advantage.”

“What’s that feel like?”

“Diving into the ocean?”

I shook my head. “Changing between legs and a tail. Can all the Fomorians do that?”

“They can. Fomorian magic is powerful stuff. Since I’m half-human, though, I have an advantage the others don’t. I spent my first two decades of life as a normal girl. I’ve had more practice walking with legs than swimming with a tail.”

I glanced at Zale as he took off back into the sky on the back of his dragon. Joni caught me.

“He’s easy on the eyes, isn’t he?”

I snickered. “I guess so. It’s just…”

“Never chased tail before?”

I laughed. “Not literally. And usually it’s the boys chasing after mine.”

Joni winced. “I’m sure most of them find out that they’re in for a little more than they can chew when they go after you, Hailey.”

“I can chew them just fine!” I giggled.

“My point exactly!”

I tilted my head. “Didn’t Mercy bite you and turn you once before?”

Joni nodded. “She did. So long as I have access to Fomorian magic, though, all my vampirism goes dormant. I’m even good under sunlight now. The sun drains my Fomorian magic a little faster, but I can make it most of the way through an overcast day with no problem at all.”

“And on a sunny day?”

Joni scratched her head. “Half a day, give or take.”

I snorted. “Damn. I need some of that juice.”

“I’m unique. You know, my primary ability is as a siphon. I absorb and amplify the magic around me. Unless you have that skill, I’m not so sure you’d be able to wield our brand of magic.”

I shrugged. “Probably not. A girl can dream, though, right?”

“Are you talking about being able to go out in the day, or are you back to talking about Zale again?”

“Both!”

Joni laughed. Even her laughter had charm about it. “Drayke is coming back around to grab you. We’re going to try this again. Can you tap into a little more strength from his blood?”

I nodded. “I’ll need another bite. If he’s up for it.”

Joni nodded. “Just remember, right behind his ears. That’s the only place your fangs will penetrate. And make sure you get his consent first.”

“I’d never bite without consent!”

Joni huffed and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, right.”

“Hey! I may not leave them much of a choice when I harness my victims with my allure. But they do consent. Frankly, I think most boys are pretty easy, anyway. I don’t even need my allure. A little bat of the eyes, show a little leg, and they’ll do just about anything.”

Joni smiled widely. “Mermen are the same way. Except for the legs part. Show them a nice set of fins, and a mermaid who knows what she’s doing can have most mermen wrapped around her tail. All mermen ever think about is satisfying that thing between their scales.”

I tilted my head. “How do merpeeps do it, anyway?”

Joni raised an eyebrow. “Merpeeps? The term is merfolk, Hailey. Merpeeps makes it sound like we’re sugar-coated Easter marshmallows.”

“Well, my question remains. I’ve been staring, you know. Zale isn’t wearing a damn thing, but I see nothing in his anatomy that might be useful if he ever wanted to do the dirty.”

Joni laughed. “I had the same curiosity when I first came to Fomoria. Didn’t even realize half my ancestors were merfolk. The fact I exist, though, shows that it is possible for a merman and a human to hook up.”

My eyes shifted back and forth. “You still didn’t answer the question. What does a merman use, you know, when he’s aroused…”

“Am I interrupting something?” Zale asked as he and his sea-dragon swam up beside us.

I gulped. “Nothing at all.”

Joni laughed. “We were just talking strategy. You up for an experiment?”

I tilted my head. “Joni! I’m not ready for that…”

Joni glanced at Zale whose furrowed brow revealed he had no clue that I’d been gawking at him during our sessions, or that I’d been asking Joni about his dickey-doo. “It’s just one bite, Hailey.”

“A bite… are you sure he’d be… oh! You mean biting Drayke?”

“Did you think I was going to ask you to bite Zale’s…”

Zale gulped. “Bite my what?”

Drayke slithered through the water behind me. It was a convenient exit from what was becoming an awkward conversation.

“Bite my what?” Zale asked again.

“We weren’t talking about you!” Joni piped up. “Get over yourself, honey. We’re training here and all you can think about is Hailey’s lips all over your, you know…”

My eyes widened. “So, anyway! How about we try that maneuver?”

Zale smirked. “The maneuver in the air? Or the one Joni was talking about?”

I stared at Zale blankly. I turned to Joni and narrowed my eyes for a split-second before fixing my eyes back on Zale’s. “You know what? I need to hold on better. If we’re going to face Corbin over land, I can’t risk falling to the earth.”

“Right,” Joni said. “She’d probably survive a fall, but it could take a while to heal. And if she landed on anything pointy, well…”

“I get it,” Zale said. “We wouldn’t want you to get poked with anything pointy.”

I gulped. “Right. Definitely not!”

Chapter 2

The dragon blood did the trick. I don't know what it was. It must not have been the same dragon blood Corbin drank—that stuff changed him into a dragon. Maybe the difference was the sort of dragon I was working with. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Corbin was seven hundred years old and I was only twenty-three, including my first sixteen years as a human. The more dragon blood I consumed, the more in sync I was with Drayke. It was almost like we were a single being. I felt what he felt, and vice versa.

We only had a couple of hours to train every night. The trip out to sea and back again took longer than the time I had to work with Joni, Zale and the wyrms. Still, we were doing the best we could. Bringing the dragons ashore could be problematic for several reasons. We also had to get far enough out to sea that we could train unnoticed.

All of it might have been for nothing. Was Corbin still a dragon? Not likely. The effect of the dragon blood probably wore off. When I bit Drayke, it only gave us the connection we needed for half an hour, if that. Still, we had to be ready to fight Corbin if he started soaring over the city and blasting the people of New Orleans with fire breath.

The wyrms had an acid breath. Not all of them. Joni's wyrm, Nammu, didn't. Drayke was a part of the second litter Nammu had since she emerged from the void—the birthplace of dragons. Dragons were the original guardians of the realms. Before there were gatekeepers, like the legendary Merlin, there were dragons who ensured that people couldn't travel freely between earth and the otherworld.

Drayke dropped me back off at The Little Ship of Horrors. Mercy and Mel were waiting for me with shit-eating grins splitting their faces. Sarah was snoring on a deck chair.

"What are you two looking at?"

Mercy and Mel exchanged glances.

"That wyrmrider bloke's fine, isn't he?" Mel asked.

I shrugged. "He's alright."

"Please." Mercy snorted. "You couldn't stare at him more if you shot your eyes out of your head and stuck them up his ass."

I tilted my head. "That's an awfully strange visual."

Mercy shrugged. "You'd be the one looking up his ass."

I rolled my eyes. "He's sexy, I admit."

Mel held out her hand. Mercy sighed and handed her progeny a hundred-dollar bill.

"Told you!" Mel grinned.

"What was the bet?"

Mercy shook her head. "I told her I thought you were still too hung up on Connor to admit you found another man attractive."

I shrugged. "Well, he isn't exactly a man."

"Good point." Mercy snatched her money back from Mel.

"Hey! I won that fair and square. You can't get out of the bet on a technicality."

Mercy grinned. "Watch me."

Mel shook her head. "The substance of the bet is clear. Hailey has a thing for the wyrmrider. So much so she wants to be one. You know, she wants to ride Zale's worm."

I laughed so hard I snorted. "I suppose the whole 'wyrmrider' thing does sound a little dirty."

Mel shrugged. "You're basically going from a wolf to a fish. That's what I'd call scaling up!"

Mercy groaned and rolled her eyes. "I see what you did there."

I giggled. "It's not like I'm dating the dude. I can't live in his world. He can't live in mine. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy the view while we're training."

"Technically, that's not true," Mercy said. "Annabelle went to Fomoria for a spell. They have a magic that can grant a person the ability to breathe underwater, albeit temporarily. And Fomorians can shapeshift pretty much however they like. That means they can have legs. You could take Zale on a date if you wanted to. You might have to spritz him with salt water periodically, or better, sponge bathe him constantly. Even the humid air of New Orleans is too dry for a Fomorian's complexion."

I scratched my head. "Eczema is gross. I get it."

Mel snickered. "I can think of less enjoyable things to do than sponge bathing that filet of a man."

"Yeah, that would be a blast for a whole two minutes."

"That's not accurate," Mercy said. "I think I could spend two minutes around his pectoral muscles alone."

"You're both missing the point. I barely know the guy. He's hot from the waist-up. That's hardly a foundation for a relationship. I don't even know what he's got going on between the ears."

Mel huffed. "Does it matter? I'm more curious about what he's got going on between the scales."

"I'm not saying I don't share that curiosity. It's sort of like the kind of curiosity that might lead me into a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. Not the kind that stokes the fires of passion."

"You don't know that," Mercy said. "Still, Hailey, when Connor said he needed space and I told you that there are plenty of fish in the sea, I didn't expect you'd take me literally."

A half-grin formed at the corner of Mel's lips. "Talk about angling for a rebound man."

I narrowed my eyes. "I swear, Mel. You must've been a dad in a past life."

"The fish puns are all right there on the surface, begging to be hooked. It's not like I have to dive in too deep to find them."

I grinned a little. "I suppose there is something alluring about Zale. If the situation was different, you know, species-wise, he'd be quite the catch."

"Look on the bright side," Mercy said. "You've already seen him. There's no chance of getting catfished."

Mel sighed. "I thought we agreed never to mention that again."

Mercy laughed. "You agreed never to mention it again. I didn't concur. Do you really think I could let that one rest?"

I tilted my head. "What are you guys talking about?"

Mercy had the widest grin on her face I'd ever seen. "So, get this. You know how Mel has been on my case about how we could start using the Internet to identify prospective meals?"

I bit my lip. "Sure. You had me prepare a report to the council on the risks and benefits of hunting prey online."

"Right. Anyway, Mel signed up for a dating app."

I rolled my eyes. "A dating app?"

"Sure," Mel said. "I love clubbing for meals. Sometimes, though, if I'm really hungry, it's a hassle. How much easier would it be if I could text some guy to meet up for a good time, meet him in a private spot, and have my way with him?"

"Let me guess. Didn't work out like you hoped."

"I swiped right on what looked like the perfect guy!"

"That was the problem." Mercy snickered. "He was too perfect. Tall, dark, and handsome. Mid-twenties. Posed in front of a Ferrari."

I laughed. "What guy in his twenties who isn't a professional athlete owns a Ferrari?"

"That's what I said!" Mercy blurted out.

"You did not," Mel said. "You told me he looked delicious!"

"Yeah, the guy in the picture did!"

"Let me guess. He wasn't the same guy you ended up meeting."

Mel shook her head. "He didn't drive a Ferrari."

"Oh, come on, Mel. That's not the worst of it. Tell the complete story."

"Let me guess?" I asked. "Tall, dark, and handsome didn't really describe him?"

Mel shook her head. "More like short, spray-tanned, and old enough to be my dad. He smelled edible, I suppose."

"Sure." Mercy laughed. "If you have a craving for tuna and Cheetos."

I winced. "That's a nasty combination."

"Look," Mel said. "We had bad luck. That doesn't mean it was a bad idea. Next time I swipe right, I'll make sure he looks good, but not too good."

Sarah emerged from the underbelly of the yacht as Mercy steered us back toward shore.

"You guys talking about Floyd?"

I snorted. "His name was Floyd? You thought a guy named Floyd was going to be young and handsome?"

Mel shrugged. "Floyd Mayweather isn't bad looking."

"I'm pretty sure he's pushing fifty, Mel. He's also an elite athlete. You will not find many Floyds out who've still got it going on."

Mel shook her head. "Well, the blood ages fine. That's what we were after."

"Is that why you gagged before you bit him?" Sarah asked.

Mel gasped. "You were watching?"

I chuckled. Sarah had a unique ability. As I understood it, it started out decades ago as an ability to feel the death of any vampire around the world. Not the most desirable gift a vampire might acquire over time. It left her as something of a recluse, hiding away in a cabin in Rhode Island. To not only see but feel the death of every vampire around the world must've been a horrifying experience. Sarah didn't like to talk about it. Not like I could blame her. Now, after we struck a deal with Baron Samedi—the Loa responsible for creating vampires originally—her ability was refined. Now, while she still sensed a vampire's death, the pain was absent from her experience and if she wanted to, she could tap into the sight of almost any vampire. She had to know who she was looking through. Unless it was a vampire recently staked. She sensed that every time. It was a pain, literally, but it was also a handy skill.

Unfortunately, it didn't work with vampires older than she was. That meant her skill couldn't help us find Corbin directly. He was turning new vampires on the regular, but he was leaving them to fend for themselves. If they saw him, we'd find him. Still, it was a trail we could follow. Corbin was clever, though. It was just as likely he was leaving newbie vampires out and about to lead us astray as it was that their existence would lead us closer to the self-proclaimed vampire king.

To take the yacht to harbor from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Ponchartrain took too long for us to manage the trip nightly. Mercy docked The Little Ship of Horrors at a harbor to the east of New Orleans, closer to the Gulf Shores.

Mercy owned a condo near to there. It was one of many properties that Nico left behind. I'd never been there. Mercy said she hadn't gone there in years. When you're limited to nights, the beach doesn't have the same appeal it does for humans. We couldn't sunbathe, for obvious reasons, and moon bathing didn't have the same appeal. Still, the condo was in decent shape, all things considered. The place needed a good cleaning. Cobwebs were everywhere. Nothing four vampires with our enhanced speed and nothing else to do during the day couldn't handle.

We packed snacks for our nightly trips to meet up with the wyrmriders. Usually a couple of tourists, ideally a pair or group of friends, or random loners whose absence wouldn't be missed overnight.

Looking for meals in the French Quarter wasn't difficult. It was even easier, I found, for a group of bikini-clad vampire chicks like us to lure a fair share of mildly inebriated young men on a yacht for a night on the gulf.

The trips out to sea were fun. When you're a vampire, you never really grow out of playing with your food.

Presuming you hunt your prey well and your meals don't catfish you in advance. Most humans are edible. In a pinch, I could choke down anything. Given my choice, though, I'd take a young college boy or a clean-cut businessman. A pious young man was sure to satisfy my sweet tooth. If I wanted something spicy, I'd find a bad boy with a track record. I avoided lawyers and politicians. They left a sour taste in my mouth. I suppose all the bullshit they bathed in spoiled the flavor. Not that there wasn't the occasional tasty attorney or congressman out there, but it was a numbers game and it was hard to tell until you took the first bite what you'd get. If you get a carton of strawberries and a few are covered in mold, there might be a few sweet ones you can salvage, but is it worth the risk? Best throw out the carton and eat something else.

I hadn't sampled the night's delicacies. After tasting dragon blood, everything else was bland. Mel was satisfied. Mercy had fed the night before. She only had a couple bites. She didn't have any complaints. I took care of the memory-wiping spell. As long as we were out at sea, they were already coming to by the time we reached the harbor. For all they knew, they'd joined a few hot females out at sea but got so drunk they forgot all the fun they didn't have.

We made our way back to the condo before sunrise.

Mel brought her gaming system along. She and Sarah were already on the outs with their "guild" for missing their nightly raids. They had to make up for it by "farming" digital supplies for the guild during the day. I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded lame. I wasn't interested enough to press. At least they had something to do.

Mercy and I brought along several grimoires that mentioned magic related to dragons. So far we had found nothing that explained how a vampire who drinks dragon blood might become a dragon, or at least take a dragon's shape along with its fire-breathing ability.

I wasn't optimistic the grimoires would explain it completely. There was very little about vampires in any of my books. Apart from Mercy and myself, there weren't a lot of vampires interested in the craft. There weren't a lot of witches who got themselves tangled up with vampires. That Mercy and I both became vampires wasn't entirely by chance. We were both influenced and led down both the witchcraft and vampiric paths by our former mentor, and my ancestor, Moll Dyer.

Our best bet if we hoped to sort out Corbin's dragon-shifting ability was to cross-check anything we could find about magic related to dragons with what we know about vampires. While we knew a lot more about vampirism than Moll, I thought it might be worthwhile to dive into her spells. She was the only witch I knew of who had such an interest in how vampires might tap into a level of bloodwitchery that common witches couldn't. Whatever the mystical cause of Corbin's change, it was worth considering it from the perspective of blood magic.

There was also the question of how Corbin got ahold of dragon blood to begin with. Most species of dragon aren't native to earth. They are otherworldly creatures, designed to guard and govern the boundaries between various planes of existence. When one is brought to earth, which has happened several times in history, some kind of spellcraft is usually involved.

On top of all that, there was still the whole mystery as to why dragon blood didn't impact me the same way. Initially, before we started training, the thought was that I might use a little blood from the Fomorian wyrms to counter Corbin. It didn't work that way. It gave me a bond with Drayke, though, that made us a potentially formidable force. Provided we had enough training to fight together in a way that didn't end up with yours truly splattered all over the ground.

When Sarah wasn't playing games with Mel, she was using her abilities to connect to the various younglings Corbin was leaving in his wake. Since these newbie vamps weren't dragons, or dragon-snacks, we had to assume that Corbin wasn't stuck in dragon form all the time. Still, I suspected he'd use it again sooner rather than later. When he did, we needed an effective counter-strategy. Hence, all my work with the wyrmriders.

Though, all of it could have been an enormous distraction. If Corbin had another plan, what better way to keep us occupied than to leave us obsessing over how we might defeat a vampire dragon?

I sat on the bed at our temporary residence that Mercy and I were sharing. I crossed my legs as I surrounded myself with stacks of grimoires. Mercy hopped up on the bed. I had to steady one of my stacks. She nearly knocked it over. It may have looked like a random stack of books, but I had them organized. I had a strategy, and I was working with it.

“Anything I can help with?”

I nodded and grabbed a grimoire I’d already examined. I figured she might pick up something I’d missed. Mercy flipped a page. It was an old book I'd picked up from an antiquities dealer on eBay. The book claimed to contain the secrets of Morgana Le Fay, the witch of the King Arthur tales. "It's hard to tell what of all this is pure bullshit and what might be useful."

I shook my head. "Good luck with that one. I've pored over that book for hours at a time. The magical system the book describes is so foreign to me it might as well be written in Pig Latin."

Mercy raised an eyebrow. "If it were in Pig Latin, I could make it out."

"Why do they call it Pig Latin anyway? It's not like it's based on actual Latin. Pigs don't speak it, either."

Mercy shrugged. "Pig priests, maybe? If this really is about Morgana Le Fay and her magic, maybe your druid friends up in Missouri would know more about it."

I nodded. "I thought about that. I've been meaning to reach out to them ever since I got that book, but never got around to it. Unless the book has something that will help us understand what Corbin is up to, it can wait."

Mercy shook her head and closed the book. "There are a lot of dragons mentioned in the book, but nothing about their magic or how someone might tap into it or wield it, much less use their blood to become dragons."

I shook my head. "Joni became a dragon once. She siphoned a curse that had turned someone into a dragon. There are a lot of curses associated with drinking blood."

"Those who hoped to demonize vampires made most of them up."

I nodded. "Well, yeah. Still, it makes me wonder if there's not some connection between Joni siphoning that curse and becoming a dragon, and the way Corbin drank blood to do the same thing. If you think about it, when we drink blood we're something like a siphon. We draw on the power that coheres in human souls."

Mercy nodded. "Unless that soul isn't human. It still wouldn't explain why Corbin shifts, but you don't when you drink dragon blood."

"The hardest part about that is narrowing down what might explain the difference. Maybe his dragon is different from the wyrms on a fundamental level. Not every human soul bestows powers on vampires. Maybe it's the same with dragons. Some dragons might pass along different traits than others if a vampire drinks their blood. Some vampires gain different abilities even if they consume the same person’s blood. It’s just as likely that the difference has more to do with Corbin and me than it has to do with different dragons."

Mercy shook her head. "I thought he'd lost the ability to cycle the power of human souls. That's why he had to use Bianca to do his dirty work before."

I nodded. "That was human souls. Think about it. Have you ever met anyone who craved power more than Corbin?"

Mercy scratched her head. "I can't say that I have."

"It's an obsession. When he lost the ability to grow stronger by cycling the power he drew from human blood, do you really think he'd just give up?"

"He definitely wouldn't."

"I can't say if he knew about dragon blood before or only discovered how to use it after his abilities changed. Still, that blood had to be fresh."

Mercy nodded. "He took it from a nightstand in the drawer at that house. There's no telling how long it was sitting in there. But usually, at least with human blood, the power in the soul dissipates in less than an hour after it’s drawn."

I sighed. "I don't want to assume anything. Maybe dragon blood has a longer shelf life. Still, I have to think he got it sooner rather than later."

"Where are Alexandra and Salene?" Mercy asked. "They were working with him when everything went down. They might know more."

I tilted my head. "I doubt it. They looked as surprised as we did when he changed."

"I'm not saying they helped him summon a dragon, but maybe they picked up something about his behavior at the time that might give us a clue."

"It’s a long shot, Mercy. If Corbin was leaving the house where the witches were to go feed a dragon he had in a cave somewhere, I doubt he'd tell them that's where he was going."

"You're right. They probably know nothing. Does it really hurt to ask though?"

I snorted. "I still don't trust them."

Mercy closed the book and slid it across the bed toward me.

"The bottom line is, we've put all our eggs in one basket. We don't know if all this training you're doing is going to amount to shit. We might be preparing for a battle that will not happen, and all the while Corbin is planning something else entirely."

I nodded. "What do you propose?"

"We can't keep doing this. We're living here and spending more than half of each night ferrying your ass across the Gulf of Mexico. There has to be a better way to do this."

I scratched my head. "We can talk about it with Joni when we see her tonight."

"Alright. Either way, we have to get back. This is our last trip. If you need to train, we're going to have to come up with another arrangement."

Chapter 3

We boarded The Little Ship of Horrors for another night at sea. Mercy said it was going to be the last—at least with this arrangement. There was too much at stake to tie all of us up every night when Corbin was still out there planning who knows what.

What's a cruise at sea without good eats? On the menu for dinner were a couple of single doctors who were in town for a medical conference. They were older than what I typically went for. Mercy had a sophisticated taste. She liked her meat well-aged, marinated with a career and life-experience. She insisted it gave the blood a richer, more complex profile.

She might have been right. Bringing vampires like Mel and me a "sophisticated" meal was sort of like taking a five-hundred dollar bottle of wine to a fraternity party. It'll get the frat boys drunk. They'd be just as happy with a case of Milwaukee's Best. Mel and I would have been happy with a young and naïve twenty-year-old. Sarah was pleased with Mercy's choice. What can I say? Old folks. Some day I wanted to be one—but I wasn't in any hurry to get there. Not that it mattered so much when you were a vampire. Still, the notion that a vampire loses touch with her humanity in middle-age was frightening. Would I escape the vicious phase that Mercy endured during her early second century of vampirism? Could my bloodwitchery bypass it? In some ways, I'd advanced beyond middle age vampirism already. I gained a new ability. I could move objects with my mind. Sort of. I could call them to me. It was handy in the last fight we had with Corbin. I eliminated a lot of his younglings that night. It was also handy when we were watching television and I realized I'd left the remote on the counter. Beyond that, though, the ability was still untested. Most vampires don't gain abilities like that for a century or longer. I hadn't been a vampire for a decade yet and I had more power than a lot of vampire's Mercy's age.

Corbin was in another league of old. Seven hundred years? I couldn't imagine what that was like. Still, I'd got the upper hand on him a couple of times. It wasn't because I overpowered him. It was because he thought he was in love with me. I had the aspect of Erzulie. As the Voodoo Queen, Annabelle arranged a meeting with the Loa, and on her recommendation, Erzulie gave me her power. The one time I used the ability I ended up making a homicidal ancient vampire fall for me. Now, his love had warmed into a quest for world domination. Not that he didn’t have those aspirations before. Only now, he wanted to do it for me. He wanted to make me his queen. He was more determined than ever. It didn't matter that his love was false, that he only felt it because of Erzulie's power. He thought it was real, which meant he'd stop at nothing to do what he thought was best for me, his beloved. It didn't matter that I didn't want the future he planned for us. He believed it was best for me. So, out of "love," he disregarded my wishes. After all, daddy knows best. Not that I'd ever call him that. Creeper Corbin would probably like it if I did.

While Mercy, Sarah, and Mel were busy playing doctor with the physicians they'd abducted for the night, I steered the yacht to our regular location. I wasn't great at maneuvering the vessel closer to harbor. Mercy handled that. At open sea, though, there wasn't much I could do wrong so long as I maintained our bearings. Even if we missed it, the Fomorian Wyrmriders would know. They had some enchanted map of the gulf, apparently, that interacted with beacons and alerted them to any vessels in the vicinity of the underwater merkingdom. So long as I was heading in the right direction, they'd find us.

The wyrms could travel through what they called wyrmholes. As I understood it, they jumped in and out of the fabric of space—not outer space, just regular old space—and could reappear almost anywhere they wished. They could travel enormous distances easier than short ones. The fabric of space was pliable, but it could only bend so much. Imagine sewing a thread that connected one end of a large piece of thick fabric to the other. It wouldn't be that hard. If you had to create a sharp fold in a small space, the fabric just didn't bend well enough for them to move between short distances. Anything less than five or ten miles was difficult, if not impossible. Traveling from one place in the ocean to the other side of the world? No problem.

I didn't know how close we'd get to Fomoria. For all I knew, they could have been hundreds or thousands of miles away. They'd sense us coming. Joni and Zale would travel with their wyrms along with Drake through a wyrmhole and meet us somewhere in the open sea.

It was startling every time. I almost jumped out of my skin when they blasted out of the water on either side of our yacht.

I shielded my face from the water as it sprayed over the side of the boat. Nammu arched her serpentine body over the boat—dripping all over me—and Joni jumped off her back, landing on her mermaid tail on the deck.

I smirked. "Show off."

Joni chuckled. "Next time I'll do a somersault, turn my tail into legs, and land on both feet."

I grinned. "I'd like to see that. Where's Zale?"

"About a hundred feet under you."

Mel and Mercy came up onto the deck just in time. Mel snickered. "Don't you wish he was under you, Hailey?"

Joni chuckled. "You gotta crush on Zale?"

I sighed. "No, I don't! I made one comment about his immaculately toned pectoral muscles and they won't stop giving me shit about it."

Joni smirked. "I hear ya, doll. I'm pretty sure his chest is bigger than mine."

"This is going to be the last night we do this," Mercy said. "We can't keep coming out here every night while Corbin is out there making younglings."

Joni nodded. "Makes sense. I was beginning to wonder myself if we should reconsider the plan."

"You think we should stop my training for now?" I asked.

"Not at all," Joni said. "Until we know where Corbin got dragon blood and we're sure he can't get any more, I'm keeping the wyrmriders on full alert. It would be best if you were prepared to ride with us if the time comes."

"I think I'm doing pretty well, all things considered."

"For a landlubber, sure!"

I laughed. "Who you calling a landlubber? You grew up as a regular girl."

"It's not an insult, hun. Just means you aren't accustomed to the sea. You're right, too. Grew up on the family plantation close to Baton Rouge."

I nodded. "I know the story. Annabelle has told it to me dozens of times."

"Dozens?"

I sighed. "Yeah. Every time she tells it, it's like she forgets she's already told it to me before."

Joni shook her head. "I hate when people do that. Meanwhile, you're stuck noddin' along, pretending like you never heard it before."

"And Annabelle's not even old!"

Joni laughed. "Several years younger than me, truth be told. I'm sure she's just got a lot on her plate. Or she just wants to make sure you remember the story. It was as big a deal for her as it was for me. That's when she met Isabelle. I introduced them, you know."

I smiled widely and nodded. "I know!"

Joni snorted. "Right. You heard this before. Sorry."

"Yeah, yeah. When the caplata attacked your family, she ended up binding her sister, Isabelle, to Annabelle when she was just a little girl."

Joni nodded. "That's how they ended up sharing the same body."

I extended my fist with a thumbs up. "Got it! And together they can summon Beli."

Joni scratched her head. "True enough. Her soul blade might be the spirit of a dragon, but when I spoke to her she didn't have any clue where Corbin got his dragon blood, either."

I sighed. "I'm wondering if whatever dragon he got his blood from was related to any kind of dragon we even know about. None of my grimoires are helpful. When I bite Drayke, it doesn't affect me the same way."

Mercy slapped me on the back. "The more mystery that remains, the more foolish it is to put all our eggs in one basket. You can train tonight. Joni, make sure you cover whatever last lessons that Hailey might need in the event we have to call you to fight Corbin in the future. We'll be heading back to New Orleans tomorrow night."

Joni shrugged. "You can have your cake and eat it too, you know."

Mercy snorted. "What the hell does that even mean? Who ever has cake they don't eat?"

Joni smirked. "The point is that if y'all want to go back to New Orleans it doesn't have to mean the end of our training. Sure, it'll be an awful bother for Zale to adjust to having legs and all, but we can ride a wyrmhole to the swamps."

I tilted my head. "You'd go live in the swamp so that I can keep training?"

Joni nodded. "Why not? The way I figure, stopping this Corbin bastard is in our interest as much as it is yours. If he's going after dragon blood, well, we can't have that now, can we? I have a feeling Nammu and the rest of my oversized friends might take it personally."

I smiled. "Well, hopefully it won't be long. I can't imagine swamp water is paradise for merpeeps."

"Merfolk," Joni corrected me again. "And you're right. It's no paradise. But we all have to make a few sacrifices for the sake of taking down the big bad, don't we?"

Mercy raised an eyebrow. "Don't you have issues to deal with in your merkingdom? You know, merqueening, merpoliticing, mer-whatever?"

Joni waved her hand through the air. "Honey, we haven't had any real world-ending issues in Fomoria in years. Biggest issue I've had to handle in the last six months was a clog in the tubes."

I raised an eyebrow. "A clog in the tubes?"

"Merfolk have to poop somewhere, hon. No one wants to have their casual swim through the coral park interrupted by a floatin' Baby Ruth. Really spoils the mood. The tubes are like our sewers."

Mercy extended her index finger. "Too much information. So what's the plan? We'll meet you in the swamps tomorrow?"

I shook my head. "If you head back now, Mercy, you should get back to New Orleans before sunrise."

Mercy raised an eyebrow. "You'll ride your dragon there?"

"We'll take wyrmholes," Joni said. "We'll do our exercises out here for the night. I'll drop off Hailey in the swamp. We'll pick her up there again the next night. We'll be in and out."

Mercy nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Just make sure you deliver her to the swamps with enough time that she can get in before sunrise."

I rolled my eyes. "I can take care of myself, Mercy. I'm not a little girl."

Mercy grinned. "You're right. You aren't."

"Have a safe ride back to the harbor."

Mercy smirked. "It's not the ride to harbor that I'm worried about. We have to drive the hearse back to New Orleans."

I smirked. "Yeah, if the hearse died, that would be some kind of irony, right?"

Mercy raised an eyebrow. "Ironic? Maybe. A pain in my ass is what it would be."

Chapter 4

Mercy, Mel, and Sarah left on The Little Ship of Horrors. I suppose they could have traveled via wyrmhole with us, but then they'd leave the yacht and the meals they'd brought along for the ride at open sea. If Mercy took the yacht through the wyrmhole, well, she'd end up with her luxury vessel stuck in the swamp. Besides, now that we'd come up with a plan so that I could meet my wyrm in the swamp each night and travel via wyrmhole back to open sea to train, there really wasn't any reason to tie up Mercy and the others any longer. They had lives, after all, and there was still a chance all this training would amount to nothing, anyway.

Training with Joni and Zale was exhilarating. I could tell they were enjoying it, too. They did most of their training exercises in the deep. They were used to riding their beasts as wyrms underwater rather than as dragons in the open skies. There were several differences. In the water, the wyrms could turn on a dime and slither around the water, allowing their natural buoyancy to keep them suspended where they were. In the skies, they had to make wider turns. They needed their wings to stay in flight. We were all learning a little as we practiced our in-formations.

Joni's wyrm, Nammu, couldn't breathe acid like Drayke. Still, with a little dose of Joni's Fomorian magic, Nammu could create portals into the void. She didn't do it haphazardly, and certainly not in the sky. As Joni explained, the void portals are just as likely to let something nasty out as they are to suck something in. In the water, since she had command over the sea, she'd create strong currents to prevent anything from escaping the void and to carry anything she needed to get rid of into it. It was a last-resort way of dispatching an enemy. It was risky, and only the worst of the worst deserve to be sent into eternal nothingness.

We also didn't practice much with Drayke's acid breath. Soldiers don't play war games with live rounds. Any mistake might be deadly. We didn't want to risk getting Drayke's corrosive spittle on anything or anyone else. Instead, we practiced battle formations. Drayke was a good sport. He didn't mind it when I bit him. Most people didn't. A vampire's bite can be euphoric. It can also be deadly. Not so with Drayke. My stomach wasn't big enough to hold all his blood. His body was so large he metabolized any enzymes that typically made vampiric bites addicting to shifters, especially, but also most humans, without effect. Besides allowing us to communicate, Drayke's blood was also delicious. So long as he didn't mind, how could I object?

As a younger wyrm, though, Drayke's wyrmholes weren't as accurately targeted as Nammu's. He hadn't ever been so far inland before. Connecting a wyrmhole to a precise location took some practice and, ideally, familiarity with the location. Nammu had carried Joni to shore several times in the past. Sometimes so she could go as La Sirene, Loa and Queen of the Sea, to lecture at the Voodoo Academy. More often, so Joni could go visit Merlin, her son, who was being raised by a couple of druids in Missouri. One of the druids was the boy's father and Joni's ex. I'd met them before. They were good people, and Merlin was quite the kid. As I understood, in his future, he was destined to go back in time to become the Merlin of Arthurian legend. Given the power of both of his parents, I had no reason to doubt it. Because I'd met the world's first vampire, Niccolo the Damned, who was also Mercy's sire, and had worked with the world's first Werewolf, Cain, on multiple occasions, the notion that I'd also met the legendary wizard wasn't as unbelievable to me as it might be to most.

Once we were done with our exercises, Joni asked Nammu to cast a portal to Manchac Swamp.

"What do I do? Jump right in?"

Joni shook her head. "Drayke will take you through."

"He's coming with me? I thought you'd come back for me each night to practice."

Joni nodded. "I will. However, I thought it best if Drayke accompany you in case Corbin shows up. Zale will come along as well."

I smiled. "Probably a good idea to have someone with Drayke during the day."

Joni grinned. "He’ll stay with you. Drayke can handle himself. It's high time Zale learns how to work a pair of legs. As much as you need to practice flying on a dragon, if it takes all of us to take down Corbin and whatever dragon he might have under his thrall who is providing him with blood, it would be best if Zale gets accustomed to moving about on foot."

I chuckled. "Alright. Well, I suppose we'll make it work."

"Do you have a spray bottle, maybe a sponge?" Zale asked.

I titled my head. "Probably. Why?"

Joni laughed. "Like most Fomorians, Zale has spent his entire life under the sea. While he can shapeshift, his skin doesn't produce oil like most humans. He'll need a good sponging or spritzing with salt water periodically to maintain his youthful appearance."

I snorted. "To avoid becoming a mer-raisin?"

Joni smirked. "Something like that."

I shrugged. "Sounds good to me. Head back to the swamp when the sun sets?"

Joni nodded. "Make it a little later. Maybe eleven o'clock. That'll give you and Zale a couple hours to go out on the town after sunset. We'll still have plenty of time to train out at sea."

"Mind if I swim aboard?" Zale asked.

I smiled and patted Drayke's back behind me. "Plenty of room."

Zale hopped off his wyrm and, with a flutter of his tail, swam up behind me. He draped his tail over one side of Drayke and wrapped his massive hands around my waist.

I felt a tingle. I looked down to see a blue glow envelop his fingers. He was channeling magic. I looked back. Zale had legs. They were skinny legs. Like one of those guys who skips leg day at the gym.

I raised an eyebrow. "Don’t you cluck at me now."

"What’s clucking?"

"Because you've got chicken legs!"

Zale huffed. "Sorry. I thought they were human. I can try again."

I snorted. "No, they are human. I mean, they're skinny like a chicken's legs."

Joni laughed. "We can shape shift, sort of. We can't create muscle out of magic, though. We can match part for part. Tails for legs, for example. No short cuts for bulking up, though. Get some good southern cookin' in him, have him do a few squats and lunges, and he'll beef up quick."

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm supposed to be his personal trainer now?"

"You have legs, honey. You know how to walk. That makes you as qualified as anyone."

I rolled my eyes. "Alright. Well, this is going to be interesting."

"I'm not totally helpless," Zale said. "I can walk. I think. Maybe just barely. And you have vampire strength. If I need to hold on to you, I shouldn't be much of a burden."

I rested one hand on Zale's much larger one that he still had around my waist. "Nope. No burden at all."

With a huff and a puff, Nammu blew a spinning portal out of her mouth.

"Is that the wyrmhole?"

"Hold on tight," Zale said.

Drayke flapped his wings and flew straight into the wyrmhole. The next thing I knew, we were in mid-air over Manchac Swamp. I looked at the sky around. The moon wasn't full—at least we wouldn't have to deal with werewolves. They hung out in the swamp when they changed.

Drayke dove through a thin canopy of cypress trees. He spotted something.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

Drayke chomped at the water. He pulled a large gator out of the swamp and swallowed it whole. Then he belched—I could feel the vibrations between my thighs.

Sorry, Hailey. I was hungry!

Zale laughed. "Big boy has to eat!"

I patted Drayke on the side. "How'd it taste?"

Tough. Tastes nothing like shark or whale. Good flavor, though.

I chuckled. "You should try it blackened with cajun spice. I used to order it from time to time before I became a vampire. Splendid stuff. It tastes like chicken, but the texture is a little different."

"That's the second time you've mentioned chickens," Zale interjected. "First regarding my legs, now concerning Drayke's meal. What's the deal with you and chickens?"

I laughed. "I don't have a deal with chickens. You've seriously never seen a chicken before?"

Zale shook his head. "It's a bird, right?"

I sighed. "You have a lot to learn, buddy. First, we'd better get out of the swamp and back to Casa do Diabo before sunrise."

I hauled Zale off Drayke's back. His knees buckled when he hit the muddy ground. I grabbed his arm and steadied him. "Careful. Walking in the marsh is a challenge for anyone. Especially for someone getting used to a new pair of legs."

Zale bent over and cupped some water in his hands. He splashed it on his torso, leaving a trail of algae behind. "Ugh!"

I laughed. "Yeah, I wouldn't use this water to moisturize. Let's get you out of here. You think Drayke will be fine here all alone?"

Zale was watching Drayke over my shoulder. He smirked. I turned to look. Drayke had another alligator between his massive jaws.

"I think he'll be just fine."

I grinned. "I suppose for a dragon, a swamp is like an all-you-can-eat buffet."

Zale tilted his head. "What's a buffet?"

I furrowed my brow. "You don’t have buffets in Fomoria?"

Zale shrugged. "We have plenty of places to eat. I don't know about any kind of buffet."

I grinned. "Let me guess. Seafood only?"

"Of course. What else would someone eat?"

I grinned. "Ever hear of ice cream?"

Zale tilted his head. "La Sirene has mentioned it. I never knew what it was, but I know she misses it."

I chuckled. "I bet she does. Come on. There isn't a good spot open this late, but I've got a tub back at home. I have to warn you, though. Once you taste ice cream, you may never want to leave."

Chapter 5

Zale was at least a foot taller than me and twice as broad. His legs were no bigger than mine. Now, I have nice legs. I'm not too humble to admit it. They used to be darker than they were. Vampirism comes with an unfortunate side-effect of pasty skin. Still, they were rather shapely considering the fact that during my human years I wasn't much of an athlete. I was more of a bookish girl.

Zale's legs, while roughly the size of mine, were straight, hairless, and gangly.

Full on dragon blood, I could have carried Zale on my back with no problem. That would have defeated the purpose. He needed to learn to walk. I steadied him as we walked the first couple miles. At that pace, though, we would not make it back before sunrise.

"Hop on, big boy."

Zale raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You've walked enough. I can go a lot faster carrying you."

"I must weigh twice what you do. We aren't in water. Are you sure you can?"

I grinned and flexed my arms. "Vampire strength!"

Zale sighed. "Alright, I guess we don't have a choice. It's just..."

"What? Too much of a man to let a girl carry you?"

Zale winced. "Yeah. It's kind of embarrassing."

I smirked. "Don't worry. No one will see us. Who are you worried about impressing, anyway?"

Zale rubbed his brow. "Only you."

I smiled widely. "Are you blushing?"

"No! Of course not. I don't blush. Do I?"

"You are blushing. It's cute."

Zale grunted. "Cute. That's great."

"It's a compliment. Take it for what it is. Don't sweat it. Your manliness isn't in question."

Zale chuckled. He climbed on my back. I wrapped my arms around his little legs and took off. It didn't take long before I noticed something rigid poking me in the small of my back. Getting used to having legs wasn't the only thing Zale was going to have to learn how to manage.

Without pants, I suppose, there was no hiding his state of arousal. I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to point it out. He was doing enough pointing for the both of us. Besides, piggy-backing his way across New Orleans completely naked was embarrassing enough.

We arrived at Casa do Diabo. I unlocked the front door. Zale pushed his private parts between his legs and squeezed them together.

I snickered. "I think we have some man clothes in storage. Old shit Nico left behind. I'll get you something you can wear."

"Thanks." Zale was about three-shades redder now than before. I didn't have the heart to tell him that pushing himself between his tightly compressed legs made him look like a woman. Still, it was an image I wasn't likely to forget any time soon.

Nico was a good-sized man in his day. His torso wasn't as hulking as Zale's, but given the merman's diminished condition, squeezing him into the dead vampire's old pants wasn't a problem. Nico's t-shirt was about two sizes too small. It hugged Zale's muscle-bound body well.

"We can get you something that fits better, later."

Zale shrugged. "I haven't worn material like this before. It's soft and comfy."

I nodded. "We should probably get you some water, or maybe a little lotion."

"What is lotion?"

I smirked. "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose."

Zale tilted his head. "Huh?"

I laughed. "Sorry. I couldn't resist. It's from a movie."

"A movie?"

I sighed. "Of course, you don't know what a movie is. You have shows in Fomoria?"

"We have singers and comedians. They give live performances every week."

I nodded. "A movie is like a show you can watch on a screen. You can see it as many times as you like. Ever hear of a television?"

Zale shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

I pointed at the large television we had mounted to the wall. "I'll show you how it works. We'll be stuck in here most of the day, might as well get used to it."

"Can I watch the show about the lotion and the hose?"

I grinned. "Sure. Though, Silence of the Lambs might be a little much for your first excursion into the universe of human entertainment. We can work up to that."

"I will watch whatever you like. I'd like to enjoy the things you enjoy, Hailey."

I smiled. "That's sweet. I'm sure we can find something we'll both like. Something with dragons, perhaps."

Zale tilted his head. "You have dragons who give shows?"

I chuckled. "Not exactly. Most of the dragons in movies are computer generated or animated. Some are more realistic than others."

Zale probably didn't know what animation was, or even computers. He didn't question it. I put on The Hobbit. I was pretty sure there was a dragon in that movie. After that, maybe I'd put on Aquaman. He'd probably get a kick out of how merfolk were depicted in the film. The Little Mermaid was out of the question, if only because I didn't want to have the music stuck in my head the rest of the day. Then again, Ariel figuring out how to use legs for the first time might have been relatable.

Whatever the case, I was getting anxious. Mercy and the others still weren't back. I didn't have my phone on me. I'd left it on the yacht in my pants. Before we left, I didn't think to grab it. I figured Mercy would bring it back with her.

I looked out the window. The sun wasn't up yet, but it was creeping over the horizon. I had a spare phone in my room. It was a part of the family plan. It had an extra, active SIM card, so it worked. The phone was old. I had to suffer through the interface of an iPhone 9. It was like I was back in the stone age.

I plugged it in and gave it a minute to get a little juice before I powered it up.

All the vampires on the council had an app that let us track each others' locations. I wasn't sure how it would work, since my active phone was probably sending a competing signal to the app.

They left my phone on the yacht. Go figure. You'd think they'd have the courtesy to grab my shit before they left. The app showed Mercy, Mel, and Sarah about an hour away. They would not make it in time. Perhaps they'd stopped at a motel. I enlarged the map. The car was on the side of the highway. There weren't any exits or structures nearby.

I sent Mercy a text and waited a minute for her to respond.

Nothing came back.

"Damn it, Mercy. Check your damn phone."

I knew she couldn't hear me, but cursing her out-loud made me feel better. I texted Mel and Sarah next. Mel would respond right away. That girl was on her phone like a fly on shit. She never took more than a few seconds to respond. No messages came back.

There was a chance they realized they would not make it before sunrise and found an abandoned barn or something to hide in until nightfall. If Mercy or Sarah left their phones in the car, it wouldn't have been a surprise. I couldn't believe that Mel would forget hers though.

I called Annabelle. She was probably in her office. She had a direct line wired there.

The phone rang three times.

"Hello?"

"Annabelle!"

"Hailey? What's up?"

"It's Mercy and the others. I'm back home. It's a long story, but their car is stalled on the side of the road about an hour away, and they aren't responding to my texts."

"Did you try to call?"

I pressed my lips together. "No."

Annabelle laughed. "One second. I'll call her from another line."

Annabelle put me on hold. "Voodoo" by Godsmack played back at me. Appropriate, I thought. Annabelle had a thing for old school alt-rock. I found myself nodding along to the beat before Annabelle clicked back onto the line.

"She's not answering. Do you have any reason to think she didn't just find a place to take shelter for the day?"

I sighed. "Mel wouldn't leave her phone in the car. My gut tells me something is wrong."

"You tend to have a sixth sense about things like this. I'll tell you what. I can't get away right now, but I'll send Pauli. He can get there faster than I could, anyway."

"Right. Good idea." Pauli was a vodouisant with the aspect of Aida-Wedo. It gave him teleportation abilities. He could get there and back in a few seconds. "I'll send you a screenshot of the location."

"Give me a half an hour. He's probably in bed. You know Pauli. He was probably out most of the night shaking his ass on the French Quarter."

"Alright. Let me know as soon as you know something."

"I'll do you one better. I'll send him straight to you."

I nodded. "Works for me. Thanks, Annabelle."

"Sure thing. How's the training going with Joni and the wyrmriders?"

"Not bad. Just so you know, one of the wyrms is hiding out in Manchac Swamp. If you get any reports of dragons or whatever, it's probably Drayke."

Annabelle chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind. Talk to you soon."

I hung up the phone. I unplugged the charger and took it back down to the living room so I could plug it back in there. Zale was tapping on the screen. "Hello? Can you hear me?"

I snickered. "It's an actor, Zale. He's not actually inside the television."

Zale tilted his head. "He isn't? I was wondering how all that stuff fit inside a skinny little box."

"It's a projection. That movie was made years ago. I don't know where the guy who plays Bilbo Baggins is right now, but he's not inside the television."

"Is it magic? I don't understand how this is possible."

"It's technology," I explained. "There's nothing magic about it. I can see why it might seem that way though."

"Fascinating."

I sat down on the couch next to Zale. The screen transfixed him. It was adorable. I hadn't seen the movie for a few years. In fact, I was probably still human the last time I'd watched it. I'd read the book more recently. Given the sweeping landscapes and massive structures depicted in the film, it was a wonder that Zale thought for even a moment that all of it was contained inside our sixty-four inch television. If I remembered right, the dragon Smaug appeared in the first few minutes of the film. Perhaps Zale assumed everyone inside the television was miniaturized. Magic can do some pretty cool things, after all. Since the film featured a powerful wizard, it was an understandable deduction.

I sat and watched as a crowd of dwarves piled into Bilbo's home in the shire. He hadn't even started his adventure yet when a flash of rainbow light appeared between the couch where we were seated and the television. Pauli stood there wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

"I found the car."

I stood up. "Are they okay? Did you find Mercy and the others?"

Pauli shook his head. His eyes widened and he glanced at Zale, licking his lips. "Who's the hunk?"

I sighed. "Pauli, this is Zale. Zale, Pauli."

"Pleased to meet you," Zale said. "Now would you step aside? We're watching a show."

Pauli grinned widely and plopped down on the couch between us. "Strangest thing. Mercy's hearse is in a ditch. The grass ahead of it was all withered."

I tilted my head. "Burned by dragon fire?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"What about the inside of the car? I think their phones are still there."

"As are their clothes. Maybe they went streaking."

I snorted. "Streaking down the highway?"

Pauli shrugged. "I've done it before. It's good fun."

I shook my head. "That's not Mercy's style. Corbin must be involved."

"Well, let's not leap to conclusions! There are a lot of reasons someone might leave their car with no clothes."

I scratched my head. "Name one reason that someone other than you might find to strip down and take off down the highway?"

"I was walking around naked earlier," Zale said.

"Yeah, because you didn't come from Fomoria with clothes and you had just changed your tail into legs."

"Shut up!" Pauli exclaimed. "You're a merman?"

Zale nodded. "I am."

Paulie extended his open palm to me. "High five for getting freaky with fish boy!"

I snorted. "We aren't getting 'freaky,' Pauli. He's here because we thought it might do him well to get used to working with legs. We might need him when we take down Corbin."

"So, all work, no play?"

I nodded. "That's the plan. Stay focused, Pauli. Was there anything else you noticed that might help us figure out what happened?"

Pauli scratched the back of his head. "Well, their clothes were still belted into their seats. It was kind of like that Left Behind movie, but with vampires."

I chuckled. "I'm pretty sure there wasn't a vampire rapture."

"Dragons are the original gatekeepers," Zale said. "Perhaps whatever dragon's power Corbin absorbed can teleport people into another realm."

I raised an eyebrow. "Without their clothes?"

Zale shrugged. "Wyrm portals don't work that way. Who's to say that another dragon's magic doesn't?"

"Not even my abilities teleport people out of their clothes," Pauli said. "If I could do that, oh, the fun I could have!"

I grunted. "Whatever happened, we have to find them."

"Think about it," Pauli continued. "I could find a hot guy and take him to my place and he'd be ready to go. No need to get in someone's pants when you can get them out of them."

Zale grinned. "You'd like it in Fomoria. No one there wears pants."

"Yeah, but you're missing all the fun parts!"

"We are not! Everything is there. It just doesn't poke out like it does now every time I look at Hailey."

I face-palmed myself. "Good Lord."

Pauli giggled. "If Hailey won't ride your worm, I'll give it a go."

Zale smirked. "You're not my type."

"A lot of guys say that the first time," Pauli said. "But you know what they say. Once you go Pauli..."

"Then what?" I asked.

"I don't know. I can't think of something that rhymes with my name and fits. But you get the point. I ruin men for women everywhere."

I rolled my eyes. "Keep telling yourself that. I'm going to go look for a spell that might help."

"What are you going to do?" Pauli asked. "You're stuck inside for the rest of the day."

I shook my head. "I don't know. I have to do something."

"Why don't you go poke around in your books while I take Zale out to play?"

Zale scooted over toward the edge of the couch, putting as much distance between himself and Pauli as possible.

Pauli looked at me and winked. "The fun ones always play hard to get."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Zale said. "I'm here for Hailey."

"You've never ridden a real wyrm until you've mounted Pauli's!"

I huffed. "Must you refer to yourself in the third person? It's annoying."

"Meow!" Pauli hissed. "I'm just playing. Sort of. There's no sense keeping him cooped up inside. If we go out together, we might be able to figure something out."

Zale shook his head. "I've done enough walking for the day. I need to give my legs a rest, anyway."

"Honey, most of the boys can't walk when I'm through with them. Besides, I can take you on a rainbow ride anywhere you want to go."

Zale grunted. "Thanks. I'll pass."

"If you want to help, Pauli, go tell Annabelle what you found out. Ask her to call me if she has any ideas that might help."

Pauli took a deep breath and stood up from the couch. "Can't blame a boy for trying. And I showed up in my favorite drawers."

I narrowed my eyes. "I wish you hadn't. You really should cover that up. I think little Pauli is poking his head out, looking to play."

"Of course he is! And he's not so little, honey."

"I can shapeshift too, you know. That means Pauli Peter really is one-size fits all."

I snorted. "You nicknamed your, you know, Pauli Peter?"

"Pauli Peter, buttocks beater. Tried a wife but didn't need her. Didn't care for that fishy smell, figured a man would do as well."

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you write that just now?”

"I've been working on it for a while. I'm thinking of publishing. All the nursery rhymes rewritten with a little Pauli pizazz."

“You haven’t been married, either.”

Pauli shrugged. “But if I was, I imagined she’d smell like tuna.”

I snorted. "I’m not saying women smell great all the time. On average, though, we certainly smell better than most men.”

“Not the kind of men I hook up with!”

“What kind of men don’t you hook up with, Pauli?”

Pauli pinched his chin. “Good point.”

I smirked. “I’m not sure published poetry is in your future. If I were you, I wouldn’t quit my day job."

"Bitch, please. Pauli don't work. Pauli's got a sugar daddy!"

I shook my head. "I don't want to know anything more. Just go tell Annabelle what's going on. If Corbin took Mercy and the others, he did it for a reason. He can't hurt Mercy. They have the same sire, and Nico forbade it. He can't violate that bond. Still, he's up to something. I just don't have the slightest clue what it could be."

Pauli nodded and snapped his fingers. “Pauli out, bitches!”

Paul disappeared in a streak of rainbow colored light.

I looked at Zale. He was shaking his head. “That guy is obnoxious.”

I giggled a little. “Pauli is harmless. He likes to see if he can get a rise out of you. If not the kind of rise he’s hoping for, then the sort that leaves you feeling uncomfortable. He finds it amusing. Obnoxious? Definitely. All in all, though, he’s a good guy. With his abilities, we might need him if we’re going to find Mercy, Mel, and Sarah.”

“What do we do while we wait?”

“You can keep watching your movie. I’m going to try a tracking spell and do a little more digging through my grimoires. I’m not optimistic my spell will work. If they’re more than a hundred miles away from us, I won’t be able to track them. Still, it would be foolish not to try. Corbin’s goal is clear. He wants to rule the world and make me his queen. If he isn’t in the city with Mercy and the others, it’s just a matter of time before he comes back looking for me.”

Chapter 6

The worst part about tracking spells was that I had to find something of the target's DNA. Since Mercy, Mel, and Sarah all lived in the same place, finding something from one of them wouldn't be a problem. Presuming that they were abducted by Corbin—charred ground near the hearse was a compelling piece of evidence—if he kept them together in the same place, there was no need to track them all. Besides, I needed my wand for this particular spell, and I could only direct the spell toward one target at a time.

Still, acquiring a little DNA from all three of them wouldn't be an issue. They all had hairbrushes, after all. Besides, while loose hair isn't exactly appetizing, when it comes to DNA sources, it's probably the least nasty kind I could come up with. Loose hair is ew. Snotty tissues or loose toenail clippings are OMG ew. There's a difference.

The only thing I wasn't sure about was how well the spell would work targeting a vampire. As a vampire, I could tap into the power in human blood more effectively than other witches. That's because the blood of my victims mixed with my constitution. That also meant targeting a vampire, especially one who recently fed, was complicated. That meant I was bound to have better luck targeting Mercy or Sarah who didn't feed as regularly as Mel. Since Sarah was a neat freak, she wasn't as likely to have much hair in her brush. Mercy wasn't exactly a slob. Her personal hygiene was within acceptable parameters. She was a little lazy, though. She often left her hairbrush sitting on the vanity. She'd clean it out periodically, but certainly not every time she brushed her hair. It made the most sense to use Mercy's hair to target my spell. She didn't feed more than a couple times a month and she had more hair available than Sarah whose brush didn't have more than a couple stray strands she'd inadvertently left behind.

Mel's hairbrush was more hair than brush. Still, she fed almost every night. I'd use her hair as a last resort. I was just as likely to pick up the remnants of whoever she'd fed upon recently as I was to locate her.

I retrieved an extra wand from my bedroom. My usual wand was with my clothes I'd left on the yacht. I hadn't used this one for a couple of years. It didn't have any of my most recent spells incanted into it but the tracking spell was one Moll taught me before I was a vampire. It would do the trick. I yanked a wad of hair from Mercy's hairbrush and held it in my left palm. I took my wand in my right hand and pressed the tip into the hair.

"Spirits above and powers below, lead us to the one who made this grow."

A red energy flowed from my hand through my wand. The power expanded around Mercy's hair. After it attuned itself to Mercy's DNA, the magic would return to my wand and if Mercy was anywhere within a hundred miles, it would glow if I pointed my wand in the right direction. It was like a compass. Rather than sensing the magnetic pull of the north pole, it would direct me to Mercy. That was how it was supposed to work anyway.

The magic returned to my wand. It should have stayed there, but it continued to spread up my arm. I dropped my wand. I hoped that would break the spell. It didn't.

I could feel the magic spark like flint striking steel. My arm lit with a flame that came from somewhere else, a fire too hot for human flesh to endure. If I wasn’t a vampire, it might have burned off my arm.

"What the hell?" I shook my arm, but it did nothing to stop the magic from spreading up my shoulder and across my torso. The burning sensation reached my head. I tried to scream, but my ears were ringing so hard I couldn't tell if any sound was coming out of my mouth. It was like someone had cut open my skull and poured a pot of boiling water inside.

My vision flashed between my room and bright open skies. Zale stumbled into the room and wrapped his arms around me as both of us hit the floor.

All I saw next was the blue sky. The same burn filled my body. It felt like lava under my skin. My skin was warm, but my back ached as if someone had shoved a burning thorn into me.

I looked around, but I wasn't controlling the direction my head turned. I was a dragon. My wings were burning, but my hide protected me from the sun. Three other dragons were flying around me. Two smaller dragons and one large one. I recognized the big dragon—that was Corbin. I couldn't forget this image of his dragon-shifted form charging after us in the streets of New Orleans.

My spell showed me what Mercy saw—almost too well. It didn't show me where she was. It took me into her vision. I was seeing through her the way Sarah saw through other vampires' eyes.

Now I knew what happened to Mercy and the others. Corbin changed them, somehow. Why were they flying with him? Was he also manipulating their minds? I'd expected that even as a dragon, Corbin would have to take cover under sunlight. The sun burned, but their dragon form was resilient. How was I going to find them, much less save them from Corbin, if they were free to move about during the day?

I couldn't tell where they were. There wasn't a building in sight. They weren't in the city. They were flying over a bayou. It wasn't Manchac Swamp. If it was, I could have seen New Orleans in the distance. If my spell had the same limitations now that it always did, they must've been within a hundred miles. That was something. Still, there's a lot of marshland in southern Louisiana. Finding them based on what I saw in the moment would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

My vision flickered back to my room. I was staring at the ceiling. It flashed back to Mercy's dragon sight for a split second, then I was back. A large hand was on my shoulder. Zale had lifted me into my bed.

Another hand was on my other shoulder. I turned my head. Annabelle was there.

"You back with us?" Annabelle asked.

I pressed my eyes shut and opened them again. "He turned them. Corbin turned them."

"We already know he's been turning vampires," Annabelle said.

"Not that. He turned Mercy! Mel and Sarah, too!"

"What do you mean? They're already vampires. Are you sure you're well?"

I clenched my fists. "He turned them into dragons. I don’t know how he did it. I could see through Mercy's eyes. They were flying with him in broad daylight."

Zale sighed. "They're following him because he's the alpha."

Annabelle snorted. "We're talking about dragons, not werewolves, right?"

Zale shook his head. "I don't know about werewolves. Among the wyrms, Nammu is the alpha. She's the first. The rest are her brood. They follow her lead. It's how La Sirene can control the entire legion. She speaks to Nammu. Nammu directs the others. It's one reason the wyrmriders are so formidable."

I shook my head. "I can't imagine that Mercy would go along with that."

"It's not a matter of what she wants to do," Zale explained. "It's a kind of compulsion. She won't have a choice so long as Corbin's directions are clear. Outside of his commands, though, she and the others might have enough flexibility to undermine him."

I bit my lip. "That makes sense. Mercy has had the same experience with her vampiric compulsion abilities. Shortly after she became the high chancellor of the vampire council, she went to Europe to get Corbin and the others on board. That was then. This is now. To hear her tell the story, it was such a nightmare that she won't even use those abilities now unless there's an emergency. She says it brings a darkness out of her that she'd rather not awaken."

"That's because Mercy has developed a conscience," Annabelle said. "She's never been the monster she believed herself to be. Screwing with someone's will can lead anyone to a dark place."

I sighed. "With Corbin, I'm not sure he cares. He's already in a dark place. He's embraced it."

"He's after you," Annabelle said. "He probably thought you were in the car with the others."

"I'm sure that's the case." I sat up in my bed. My head spun. My stomach churned. "I'm hungry."

"We might be able to get some fresh blood from the Vilokan Asylum. We have donors to help with the youngling vampires there."

I shook my head. "Even if Pauli brought it here, and I drank it, it's not what I'm craving."

Zale took a deep breath. "You desire more dragon blood."

I nodded. "I haven't had cravings like this in years. That spell took a lot out of me. I don't know how much longer I can wait."

"You can't go back to the swamp," Zale said. "The sun is out."

"I know. But if I'm hungry enough, you won't be able to stop me."

"Can we get some blood from the dragon and bring it here?" Annabelle asked.

Zale nodded. "It is possible."

"Get Pauli," I said. "It needs to be fresh. If it takes too long to bring it here, it will lose its potency."

Annabelle nodded. "I'm on it. Zale, can you keep Hailey company until we get back?"

"I can try."

I rolled out of bed and grabbed some chalk. I quickly drew a sigil on the ground. "Annabelle, I need you to invest this with a little power. If I do it, I'll be able to break it. It will keep me here until you get back."

Annabelle nodded. She pressed her hand to the sigil I drew and released some green magic into the mystical prison. "I'll hurry."

"Please do. If I don't get some blood in my system, soon, it'll mess with my mind. This prison should hold me, but it won't silence my abilities."

“I’ll be here,” Zale said. He was about to reach out and touch me, but I shot my hand out to stop him. If he put his hand inside the sigil, he’d be stuck there with me. He nodded with sudden understanding. “I’ll stay right here with you.”

Chapter 7

I sat in my sigil, cross-legged. Zale sat on the edge of my bed watching me with wide, concerned eyes.

I fixed my eyes on the door. I shifted my gaze to a stack of grimoires in my closet. I couldn't look at Zale. If I did, I was afraid all I'd see was his merman blood. It wasn't what I was craving, but when a vampire is consumed with bloodlust you don't see people and personalities. You see walking, talking, blood bags. Dragon blood was what I wanted. It was what I needed. If I was loose, I'd bite anything I could to give me the strength to get to the swamp. The sunlight wouldn't stop me. It wouldn't kill me. It would scar me for decades. Vampires can heal from most injuries faster than humans. Sunburns are the exception. Full of blood, I might last a few minutes without ill effect. I'd have to drain Zale completely to make it even that long. The scary thing was that I wouldn't care. Not at the moment. Once I had my fill, once I got the dragon blood I craved, the guilt would wash over me like a tidal wave. Or, maybe it wouldn't. This blood was doing something to me. I thought it was merely a delicious way of forming a bond with Drayke. Now, I wasn't sure. Not after I cast that spell and saw the world through Mercy's dragon eyes.

"I can hear your heartbeat." I grunted.

Zale tilted his head. "Sorry?"

I shook my head. "It's not like I could ask you to stop."

"Would it be easier if I left?" Zale asked. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you alone right now. If it's easier for you if I leave--"

"No, please stay! Just talk about something. Anything that doesn't remind me of dragons, or blood, or dragon's blood, or how tasty it is, or anything to do with being a vampire."

"I could talk about Fomoria."

"Just don't talk about the wyrmriders. That involves dragons."

"I was born there. Never lived anywhere else."

"No shit, Sherlock. You're a merman and there aren't a lot of places you could go."

"Not true," Zale said. "Fomoria has several other outposts all around the world. I've never spent a night outside of our Fomoria."

"Until now." I smirked.

"Right. I suppose I spent the night training with you."

"Training..."

"Right. Sorry, that involved dragons."

"Tell me about your family."

"My father was also a wyrmrider. Sorry, didn't mean to mention that."

I scratched my head. "I didn't think the wyrmriders had been around that long?"

"He died a couple years ago. There was a zombie shark epidemic. Nasty business."

I winced. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I never knew my mother. She was exiled by the former king."

"The king before Joni?" I asked.

Zale nodded. "It's a long story. Suffice it to say, King Conand liked to pretend he was a benevolent monarch. He had little tolerance for outsiders."

"Your mother wasn't a mermaid?"

"She was," Zale said. "Her father wasn't. He was human. It was forbidden. Thankfully, my mother came out with a tail. When she gave birth to me, she shifted back into human form during labor."

"Didn't she drown?"

Zale shook his head. "The priestess intervened. She used a spell that saved her life. It allowed her to breathe. It's the same magic that La Sirene used the first time Annabelle visited us. However, one of the midwives reported what happened to the king. After I was born, and tested to ensure that my mer-nature dominated, he had my mother expelled. I was raised by the priestess."

"Where did your mother go?"

Zale shook his head. "There is an exile colony of merfolk a few miles off the coast of Haiti. I was told she went there. After La Sirene became queen, she took me there to find her and welcome the people there back to Fomoria. I was told my mother was killed by harpooners ten years before."

I sighed. "I'm sorry to hear that. That's horrible."

Zale nodded. "I never knew her. It was disappointing. I won't say it didn't depress me for a time to learn of her fate. Still, I never knew her. All I could mourn was the idea of a mother. I couldn't mourn my actual mother because I never knew her."

"Still, that's a kind of grief I'm not sure I could possibly comprehend."

"I was already a legionnaire. I focused on my training. I worked my way up until they selected me to join, you know, the group of people who ride certain creatures who should not be named."

I snorted. "I know what you mean."

"Sorry."

I shrugged. "No, it's alright. Hearing you tell your story is helping. I'm sorry if it's painful for you to talk about."

Zale shook his head. "It's not so hard, really. I'm at peace with it."

"Why were you raised by the priestess if your father was still alive?"

"My father was a prized member of the king's legion. The king would have exiled me along with my mother if it were not for my father. He interceded on my behalf. The cost of allowing me to stay was his continued service. I saw him from time to time. He was kind but distant. I think I reminded him too much of my mother."

"So you followed in his footsteps?" I scratched my head. "Finflaps, I mean?"

Zale chuckled. "I suppose you could say I did."

I pressed my lips together. "What's it like having legs? Taking a human form for the first time, knowing you have a little human in your family tree, must be meaningful for you."

Zale shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it like that until now. I guess you're right. I've never thought much about my grandfather's life before. I've always had a lot of mixed feelings about it all. The tryst between my grandparents was ultimately what got my mother exiled, despite the fact she didn't have any say in it. I always hated that. Then again, I wouldn't exist if that never happened. How can I resent my history when it's a part of who I am?"

I sniffed. "I've often wondered what my life would be like if I'd never discovered Moll's grimoire. If I never did that spell, I'd have grown up like a regular girl."

"Do you regret what you did?"

I shook my head. "I can't say I do. I love my life. I like what I've become. At least I did. This craving, now... it's awakening a part of my vampiric nature I never really had to deal with."

"You're doing well."

I smiled. "Thanks to you."

"Are you sure drinking more dragon blood is the best idea?"

I took a deep breath. "What choice do I have? I need it to maintain a connection with Drayke. Besides, I might be handling myself well for the moment, but if I don't get it soon, no amount of conversation will be enough to distract me. I need it."

"What are you going to do when this is over? If you're hooked on dragon blood, short of Drayke staying here and feeding you forever, you're going to have to get past this, eventually."

"Eventually, yes. I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, I need it. If Corbin can change vampires into dragons, I doubt that Mercy and the others are the only ones. He's probably making more, even as we speak."

Zale shook his head. "Hopefully not too many more. The wyrmriders are formidable, but we have our limits. If his dragons outnumber us, and he can replenish his forces by recruiting more vampires into his brood, we might only have one chance to stop him."

My stomach growled. "Back to your family, maybe your life in Fomoria. I don’t know how we got back on this topic, but my hunger is coming back. I'm not sure how much longer I can last."

Zale nodded. "Maybe I can tell you about the time we defeated the zombie sharks."

"Mercy was involved in that ordeal. She's told me some of it."

"I can tell you about some of our battles. It was epic."

I chuckled. "I'm sure it was. I'd love to hear about it."

Chapter 8

I wasn't sure how someone could make a war with zombie sharks sound boring. It wasn't the events that Zale described, or even his enthusiasm about his role in it, but the incessant and irrelevant details he was compelled to inject into his story that gave the impression it wasn't so much a war as a series of unfortunate, devastating events separated by long periods of thumb-twiddling. Maybe Zale wasn't the best storyteller I'd ever met, but there was a charm to it all. He was droning on and on, telling me about how he flossed his teeth with kelp between zombie slayings, to distract me.

It was sweet. Granted, it was more like an attempt to woo me by reading me entries out of the dictionary than a collection of sonnets, but it was the sentiment that counted. Note to self: if a man ever intends to romance me in the future I should let him know I prefer Shakespeare to Webster.

Then again, maybe romance had nothing to do with it. Zale wasn't great at hiding the fact that he found me attractive. That ship sailed at full mast when he rode naked on my back across New Orleans.

My attraction for him was growing by the minute. At the moment I wasn't sure if it was because I liked him or wanted his blood. Then again, the blood I really wanted was dragon blood, and I didn't find Drayke remotely attractive. Then again, the last guy I liked was a part-time wolf. Zale was half-fish. Was I really working my way through the animal kingdom, leaving their furry or scaly hearts broken in my wake?

Distractions are good. Especially when I'm hungry. The cuter the distraction, the better. In that respect, Zale was ideal.

A flash of rainbow colored light in my peripheral vision arrested my attention. Pauli in his boa constrictor form and hung from Annabelle’s shoulders. She had a bag of blood in her hand. I sprung to my feet.

"Gimme! Gimme!"

Annabelle laughed and tossed me the bag. I tore it open and gulped it down. My hunger pangs faded instantly. I resisted the urge to belch. A handsome merman was present. A girl doesn't let the bodily functions loose until she's had at least a couple dates.

"Are you good?" Annabelle asked.

I nodded. "I'm satisfied for now."

Annabelle touched the sigil beneath me and dispelled it. I stepped out of the circle and sat on the bed next to Zale. Pauli flopped off of Annabelle's back and onto the floor. He slithered his way over toward Zale and wrapped himself around his ankle. He started squeezing repeatedly.

Zale lowered his eyes. "What is he doing?"

I smirked. "I think he's snake-humping your ankle."

Zale shook his leg. "Get off of me!"

Pauli uncurled himself from Zale's leg. He re-shifted into his human form. His very naked human form—with a few inches added to his special bits.

Annabelle sighed. "Stop showing off, Pauli."

Pauli groaned and reduced the length of Pauli Peter to a more believable size. "You're no fun."

I reached into my closet and grabbed a nightgown. I threw it at Pauli. "Put this on."

"It has lace! I love lace!"

Pauli wrapped my gown around his body and did a little spin.

"How was Drayke?"

Annabelle shrugged. "Compliant. I don't think he'll be doing much flying tonight."

I tilted my head. "Why not?"

"He overstuffed himself on aligator."

Zale waved his hand through the air. "He'll be just fine. Dragons have a high metabolism. I've seen wyrms eat entire whales before. They're sluggish for an hour or two, but then they're back to their vigorous selves. Watch out for the dung, though. You wouldn't believe the amount they can produce."

I smirked. "That doesn't sound at all pleasant."

Pauli shrugged. "What's the big deal? Everybody poops. Haven't you read the book?"

Annabelle laughed. "In that case, Drayke is just fine. Skittish, perhaps."

"What do you mean by skittish?" Zale asked.

Annabelle shrugged. "His ears wouldn't stop wiggling. It was distracting."

Pauli extended his index finger. "Not as distracting as the size of his--"

"Pauli!" I stomped my foot.

"What? For once, I was a little jealous. And strangely excited."

Annabelle rolled her eyes. "Don't be weird, Pauli."

Zale grabbed my hand. "Their ears twitch when others of their kin are near. Drayke probably didn't even realize he was doing it. Most of the wyrms don't even know what it means. After a while, when they've been around each other long enough, the twitching stops."

I grabbed my wand. "I need to do the spell again. If Corbin has Mercy and the others near Drayke, we have to stop him."

Annabelle grabbed my hand. "That's not an option. Not after what happened last time."

"She's right," Zale said. "Even if the dragons are circling the swamp, there's nothing you could do about it. Not until the night."

I bit my lip. "If Drayke can sense the other dragons, even if he doesn't realize it, they must be able to sense him, too."

Zale shook his head. "Wyrms also communicate on a psychic, subconscious level. If Corbin has Mercy and the others, they must know that Joni intends to open a portal come nightfall to bring you back to sea for training."

I clenched my fist. "They aren't circling to attack Drake. They know I'll be back tonight. They're waiting for me."

Someone knocked on the door.

"Annabelle, would you check that? I would, but you know, sunlight and all. It's probably just the Jehovah's Witnesses again. I swear, you ask them one little question and then they won't leave you alone. You suddenly become a prospect."

Annabelle smirked. "If they only knew who they were dealing with."

"I know, right?"

Annabelle chuckled. "I'll be right back."

"And I'll go use the little girls’ room," Pauli said. "I need to drain the snake, if you know what I'm saying."

I rolled my eyes. "Down the hall. First door on the right."

I scooted closer to Zale and took his hand in mine. "Thank you for earlier."

"For what? Boring you with my life's story?"

I grinned slightly. "It wasn't all boring. I don't know if I could have made it through that if it wasn't for you."

"It was nothing, Hailey. And even if it was, you're worth the effort."

I leaned over and kissed Zale softly on the lips. He kissed me back. Our lips parted, and we fell back on the bed.

The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupted the moment.

Annabelle was standing at the doorway. Connor was next to her.

"Connor!"

"Hi, Hailey."

Pauli stepped up behind Annabelle and Connor and waved his hands through the air. "Awkward!"

I snorted. "Connor, what are you doing here?"

Connor shook his head. "It's okay. I'm sorry. I wasn't here for you. I was supposed to meet up with Mercy. You know, since I have to get a bite from time to time. Ever since you bit me, you know, since I'm a shifter."

"Right. You're addicted to the bite."

"I wouldn't have come if I knew Mercy was gone. I wouldn't ask you to do it. It's just the withdrawal."

"I understand. Look, Mercy won't be back for a while. Hopefully sooner than later."

"I know what happened," Connor said.

I cocked my head. "You do?"

"Annabelle told me."

"Right. Of course she did." I stepped over to Connor. "Give me your wrist."

Connor held out his hand. I took it in mine and lowered my fangs to his skin. I took a bite. His blood flooded into my mouth. It was tastier than I remembered. It wasn't dragon blood, but there was something similar in the flavor. I took an extra gulp before I released Connor's hand.

Delicious. The thought flashed through my mind.

How did you know I was eating? Drayke's voice responded in my mind.

Connor took two steps back. "What the hell? Who is in my head?"

I squinted. "What are you talking about?"

"You said I was delicious."

I shook my head. "No, I didn't. I thought it."

"Then someone else asked how I knew he was eating."

"That wasn't me. It was a dragon. You can hear us?"

Connor rubbed his brow. "Dragons talk? You hear them speak?"

I shook my head. "Just those I feed on and it doesn't last long."

"You're feeding on dragons?" Connor huffed.

"I just drank a little bit of your blood. Don't tell me you find it repulsive."

Connor scratched his head. "It's not that. Understand, when I woke up this morning, I didn't think dragons were real. Now you're telling me that there's one in the city and you can talk to it if you drink its blood?"

You can talk to me too, whoever you are.

Connor chuckled. "And that I can talk to him as well?"

"It's like you're a conduit," Annabelle said. "It's remarkable. If you were to bite someone else right now, I wonder if they'd also be able to join in on the conversation."

I smirked. "Are you volunteering?"

Annabelle winced. "Not exactly."

"I think it's more than that." Zale stood up from the edge of my bed. "Dragons speak to one another through an energy. I always figured it was psychic energy. La Sirene can speak to dragons because she once became a dragon. She siphoned the magic of someone cursed to dragon from. It left something of a shadow of the dragon within her. What if when you feed on Drayke it does something similar? Something of himself remains with you."

I tilted my head. "When vampires feed, we accumulate a portion of one's soul."

Connor cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt. But did you take a part of my soul when you drank my blood?"

"It's not like that," Annabelle said. "Blood is a renewable resource. It contains something like a copy of your soul, like it has a replica of your DNA. That's what vampires receive. Your actual soul is fully intact."

I nodded. "What she said."

"If that is so," Zale continued, "your connection to the dragon is not much different than La Sirene's is to Nammu and the wyrms. The only difference, it seems, is that you must feed more regularly to maintain it, while for her it is permanent."

I scratched my head. "That might not be true."

I'd left my wand sitting on my bed. I thought about it and visualized it coming to me. That was an ability I'd gained recently. My wand flew into my hand."

"Impressive," Zale said. "Witchcraft?"

I shook my head. "Not exactly. It's one of my vampiric abilities. It came from the soul of someone I fed upon. It doesn't always happen, but if I gain a new ability, I can retain it and tap into it more effectively if I cycle the power of the soul within me."

Connor snorted. "That doesn't mean you might become a wolf shifter like me, does it?"

I bit my lip. "Probably not. I don't sense anything like that when I taste your blood. Now that I think about it, the sensation I receive when I bite Drayke isn't all that dissimilar to the one I felt when I fed on the human whose soul gave me my telekinetic ability. If I cycle this blood, if I focus on it and use my magic to integrate it more fully with mine, I might be able to make the ability permanent."

"What about your cravings?" Zale asked.

I sighed. "I don't know. It might help."

"Could it make your cravings worse?" Annabelle asked.

I pressed my lips together. "It's possible, I suppose. Cycling blood isn't something I've done often. I only learned how to do it recently. It's a technique Corbin uses to gain abilities faster than other vampires. Sometimes it takes days, even months, after an initial bite before a vampire manifests a new ability. Even then, of course, it's rare. Most vampires only gain one or two new abilities every century. My bloodwitchery changes the game. I can tap into the power of blood I consume. There's always something there I can use, but it doesn't always mean I have a new ability long-term."

"I thought you said this wasn't witchcraft," Zale said.

"I'm a package deal, Zale. It's not always so easy to separate my vampirism from my bloodwitchery. As a vampire, I have a more intimate connection to blood than most witches. As a blood witch, I can draw more from the blood I drink than most vampires."

Connor cleared his throat. "Does this mean if you cycle the blood and you make this ability to speak to the dragon permanent, that I'll be able to do the same thing forever?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. The ability comes from the dragon blood. It's that ability that also connected you to me and the dragon when I sampled your blood."

Connor chuckled. "I think you took more than a sample."

I grinned. "Please. You've never seen me at a Costco. Before I was a vampire, I used to go there all the time and make my rounds to all the sample tables. I'd take two or three from each table if I liked it. That place is so busy that sample ladies hardly ever notice. If you play it right, you can get an entire meal out of it."

Connor chuckled. "So, you're saying I'm your new Costco? How sweet."

I grinned. "Something like that. I'm sorry, Connor. I've been rude. How are you doing?"

Connor shrugged. "A little better every day. I lost my father and my girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend anyway, at the same time. I don't know if I'll ever get over it totally. I'm coping."

I sighed. "I'm sorry if my bite got you more involved in this than you'd like. I know you were trying to keep your distance."

Connor winced. "Every time we meet, Hailey, it's like my life gets turned upside down. The first time, when your spell made me a shifter. Now, most of my pack is in disarray and people died."

I took a deep breath. "I get it. Look, it's probably best if you just move on. Ignore whatever you hear from Drayke and me. If I'm right, our voices will fade over time. Like I said, I didn't intend to involve you in any of this."

Connor looked past my shoulder at Zale, then met my eyes with his. He took a deep breath and nodded. "It's my fault. I just didn't know Mercy was gone. I'm sorry about that. I wish there was something I could do to help."

"No offense, buddy," Pauli slapped Connor on the back. "You're a wee little wolf. Ferocious in your own way. We're dealing with dragons here. Compared to them, you're cute and cuddly."

Annabelle smirked. "This coming from a guy who shifts in and out of snake form. If anyone has a reptile inferiority complex, it's you."

Pauli smirked. "There's a difference. I have rainbow magic. I can teleport."

"So can dragons," Zale added. "They can form wyrmholes and move from place to place."

Pauli waved his hand through the air. "Honey, I don't have to put my wyrm in anyone's hole to get where I want to go."

I snorted. "As if you wouldn't."

"Bitch, please. I do it for fun! I don't do it in order to get around. I get around so I can do it!"

Zale stood up and stomped the floor with one of his chicken legs. "Hailey is not a bitch!"

Pauli turned and raised an eyebrow. "You only wish you could be my bitch."

I smirked. "Don’t take it personally, Zale. for Pauli, 'bitch' is a term of endearment."

Zale tilted his head. "How very odd."

Paul giggled a little. "She's right. If I didn't like you, I'd call you something much worse. Like a mother fucker."

Zale tilted his head. "But that would not be accurate. I am not currently involved with any one who has previously given birth. Then again, I cannot see why this is an insult. Many good husbands who have had children but still enjoy intimacy with their wives are precisely those you describe. If I am ever to have children, I should hope very much that my future-spouse would allow me the privilege to be a mother fucker."

I snickered. "He has a point, Pauli."

Connor crossed his arms. "Using the term 'bitch' so haphazardly is also disrespectful to female wolves."

Pauli looked around the room. "Y'all being a bunch of bitches right now."

Annabelle chuckled. "They're just messing with you."

I smirked. "A little taste of your own medicine, Pauli?"

Pauli snapped his fingers. "Honey, when I screw with people, I'm not messing. I'm making art!"

Zale cleared his throat. "Can you still speak to Drayke, Hailey?"

"I believe so. Let me check. Hey Drayke, buddy. Are those ears of yours still twitching?"

Now that you mention it...

Zale was looking at me with wide eyes. I nodded. "He says they are."

"Tell him to stay still. We need to reach La Sirene before she comes through the wyrmhole tonight."

I bit my lip. "Couldn't Drayke just make one himself and get out of there?"

Zale nodded. "He could. He might not get as close to Fomoria as he hopes. He's still young."

Annabelle shook her head. "Besides, if he leaves, I'm betting Corbin and the others will leave as well. This might be the only chance we have to try to get Mercy, Mel, and Sarah back. The only advantage we have now is that we know where they are and they don't know that we know."

I nodded. "I agree. If they leave again, Corbin will be in total control about how and when we meet them again. This gives us a chance to come up with a plan."

Connor waved at me as he turned to leave. "Thanks for the bite. I'll leave you all to it. As you all made clear, slaying dragons is a bit out of my league."

"We're not trying to slay them. Well, one of them, perhaps. We're trying to save them."

Connor nodded. "Still. There isn't much I can do here. I'll try my best not to listen in to your conversations. As if I could help it. It was nice seeing you again, Hailey."

I smiled. "Yeah, good to see you, too."

Connor left the room. When we heard the front door to the house close again, Pauli started laughing. "Holy shit. That was some kind of tension."

I sighed. "Yeah, you were right before. It was a little awkward."

"He seems like a nice young man," Zale said.

I grinned. "He is. But he walked in on us kissing. Connor and I, well..."

"You have a history."

I shrugged. "Barely. I mean, it's complicated. We weren't ever a couple, if that's what you mean."

"But you still desire him?" Zale asked.

"Told you!" Pauli said. "I wasn't the only one who sensed the tension between you two!"

I huffed. "It was unfortunate timing. There was no tension. Besides, I think he might be able to hear me right now, so I'm going to shut up."

Annabelle grinned. "That's probably wise. For now, we must figure out what we can about how Corbin changed Mercy and the others into dragons. If we're going to meet him in the swamp tonight, we need to have a plan to change them back again."

I nodded. "First, I need to try to cycle this power while it lasts. If I start craving dragon blood again, do what you have to do to stop me."

"I will," Annabelle said. "I trust you. You'll let us know if that becomes a problem. You did last time."

I nodded. "I will if I can. Still, I think I might need this power. So far, I've only been able to speak to Drayke. If I cycle the power and gain the ability more permanently, I might also be able to speak to other dragons."

"Like your vampire friends?" Zale asked.

I nodded. "Exactly. Now, if you all could give me a few moments of quiet, I could use it."

Chapter 9

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I told myself to relax and took a few deep breaths. The power was there. It was ready to be cycled. I opened myself up to the dragon blood. I imagined a hole in my core I could open and close, like a round drain. I turned the valve and the power funneled down into the drain, swirling around and around all the magic I would need, waiting to be drained again.

Sweat beaded up on my brow. I was feeling a little weak. I wondered whether it was because my supply of dragon blood was so small. The magic was still swirling around me like a mini tornado. I focused on it, trying to make my will a part of it. I tried to pull it towards me, to force it to change me.

Speaking to Drayke was one thing. If this ability allowed me to tap into the wavelength that all dragons communicated through, it would give me a chance to reach Mercy. Of course, unless I could target Mercy directly—I doubted that dragon telepathy came with phone numbers—Corbin would hear anything I told her. I’d have to be clever. Maybe I could speak in words, in a language, that only she’d understand. Magic words. Not abracadabra or shit like that. No witch I’d ever known incanted spells using words like abracadabra, alakazam, or bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Still, Mercy and I learned the craft from the same witch. With just a few words of one of Moll’s infamously corny incantations, Mercy would know what spell I was referring to. Then again, if it were so easy as using a spell we already knew, Mercy would have probably freed herself already. Still, if I could piecemeal bits and pieces of different incantations together, I might tell Mercy something that Corbin wouldn’t comprehend.

If I could find a spell, something that might undo whatever magic Corbin used to turn Mercy and the others into dragons, I might not need to cast it on them directly. All I’d need to do was to communicate the spell to Mercy. If I could do it in such a way that Mercy would know it was a spell, but Corbin wouldn’t, he couldn’t use his alpha compulsions to stop her.

That meant, first, that I had to master this magic. I didn’t know for sure what the effect of cycling dragon magic might have. My body wasn’t merely human; I was resilient. As a vampire, I could take a beating, physically and magically speaking. After that, I had to find a spell that might undo the magic that turned Mercy and the others into dragons.

I continued breathing deeply and visualizing the dragon blood swirling around in my core, pouring into the deepest parts of my spirit. The more I turned that valve, the wider I made the hole, the more intimate my connection to the power in Drayke’s blood. I didn’t want to let it in too quickly. If you are pouring a glass of milk, you don’t just open the jug and turn it upside down over your glass. Tilt it carefully, make sure it flows in at the proper rate so it doesn’t spill out all over the table.

I’d never cry over spilled milk. Spilling dragon blood all over my spiritual insides, though, could have consequences beyond what could be comprehended by a few shed tears.

As a general rule, when you’re dealing with a source of a mystical power you don’t know much about, it’s best to proceed with caution.

When I focused my mind I found myself in a vast expanse. It was almost like I was in outer space except not really--it was more like in the original Star Trek shows where they made it look like the stars were flying past the Enterprise almost like snowflakes in order to simulate the model ship's movement.

Can you hear me?

I can hear you, Drake responded. When he spoke, one of the star-like lights pulsed with the sound of his voice.

His affirmation didn't mean anything. I could hear him before I tried to cycle the dragon blood through my spirit. That I saw him in this vision, whatever it was, was different. If Drayke was one of the stars, did that mean each of them represented another dragon? Some of them must've been the Fomorian wyrms. Nammu, Smauk, and the others I'd never met.

Hailey? Is that you, my love?

My chest tightened at the sound of his voice. It was Corbin. I didn't respond. I didn't want him to know I could communicate with dragons. I focused on the glowing ball of light that represented Drayke's voice. I reached out and touched it. It swelled again with a glow when I made contact.

"Drayke?"

It's me.

"Is anyone else in here?"

No one else responded. It's only me, Hailey.

"Sweet. I think I figured this out."

I do not understand.

"I absorbed the power of your blood. The same power that lets us speak has connected me to what looks like some kind of tunnel of stars. Some of them moving past me like a blur. The others are fixed in the sky ahead. I can reach out and touch them. I think it's some kind of a psychic network that links dragons, wyrms, and other dragon-like creatures all across the world. Corbin responded to me a moment ago when I shouted into the expanse. Now he can't hear me because I'm touching the light that corresponds with your voice."

The others must not have responded because your voice was not familiar. Only those who know you, who have met you before, will be able to hear you.

"So I can't talk to all dragons?"

I don't know. This map you speak of is unusual. I do not share that experience when I speak to my kin.

"How do you know how to find who you're talking to?"

I cannot say. How do you know who you're talking to when you're in a crowded room and you wish to speak to a single person?

I shrugged. "You make eye-contact. You stand close enough to the person to make sure they can hear you. I don't really think about it. It's sort of obvious."

It is instinct. That is how we also speak to our kin. When we first meet another of our kind, we form a bond. I can connect to that bond again at any time we are near.

"So there are limits. You can't talk to dragons on the other side of the world, or in another realm?"

I cannot. Perhaps the stars flying past you are those you cannot touch. You sense them. You know they're out there somewhere. Trying to count them, or contact one of them, is impossible. Those that are fixed in front of you might be those wyrms or dragons who are near enough to reach.

"There are so many. How can I possibly make out who is who?"

Again, I do not have the visual representation of the link I share with my kin that you do. I cannot explain how it might work for you. I can only tell you how it works for me. Did you see which star glowed when Corbin spoke?

I nodded. It was a gesture done out of instinct. I doubted Drayke could see it. I wasn't even sure if I was standing in this network or examining it from without. It was sort of like wearing a set of virtual reality goggles. I saw my hand when I extended and touched Drayke's star, but it didn't feel quite like my hand. I was controlling it but if something smashed it I doubted I'd feel a thing. It was a strange and disorienting sensation.

I squeezed my eyes. I could feel them open and close, but it didn't change the vision in front of me. Clearly, I was viewing this dragon psychic network through my mind's eye, not my actual eyes.

"Drayke, I have a question. Zale said that dragons have an alpha. If I speak to one, will anyone connected to the same alpha hear me."

No. However, the alpha can hear anyone who speaks to any of those beneath her. When La Sirene speaks to Nammu, Nammu speaks to us. When she speaks to me, or Enki, or Smauk, or any of the other wyrms, Nammu hears it as well.

"Is that the case if she's in another dimension, say, in the void?"

No. If she were to go to the void, and she has occasionally, her control over us fades. Another may emerge as alpha with the consent of the rest, but we may also remain without an alpha until she returns. The same principle applies over great physical distances. We can speak because we are not far apart. Corbin could hear you for the same reason.

I gulped. "I'm seeing maybe a hundred stars floating in front of me I could touch."

They are not my kin. Still, I sense there are many dragons nearby.

"Do they belong to Corbin? Are they all vampires that he's turned into dragons?"

I cannot say. However, if you have not seen dragons in your city in the past, I'd say it is likely. If there are so many dragons nearby, it's unthinkable that they'd remain hidden forever.

"And if I reach out and touch just one of them, Corbin will know it."

If our suspicion is correct, then yes. This is a problem. If there are a hundred or more, they will outnumber my kin. Even with the full force of the Fomorian Wyrmriders, we could not defeat them head-on.

"Nammu can open a portal to the void, correct?"

She can.

"Then perhaps we don't need to defeat all of them. If we can get rid of Corbin, and if his dragon-magic is what's holding the others in their dragon forms, will the others become regular vampires again?"

I do not know. I have never encountered dragons like these before. This is something new. They are not purely dragon. I cannot even say what sort of dragon they might be. They are also vampires as much as they are dragons. Still, I believe your plan is the best chance we have to stop them. La Sirene and Nammu should arrive come nightfall.

"I think I can connect to you here at any time. If Corbin or any other dragons show themselves to you, let me know. I'm going to spend the rest of the time I have left trying to figure out a way to undo whatever spell is binding them to their dragon forms."

Chapter 10

I blinked my eyes a few times and my vision returned to normal. The psychic dragon network was still there. Tapping into it was as simple as it might be to turn my head and look another direction, only it was a look within. Cycling Drayke's dragon blood worked even better than I'd hoped. I couldn't reach out to Mercy. Even if I randomly chose the right light, the right star that represented her presence, Corbin would hear anything I told her.

I still didn't know a good spell to free Mercy or any of the other vampires—there were probably dozens of them—from dragon form. One reason for that was I still didn't know exactly how Corbin pulled it off. What I knew was that somehow Corbin pulled Mercy and the other ones out of their car, even out of their clothes, before they became dragons. Zale believed some kind of portal was involved. That might have explained how Corbin took Mercy and the others from the car. It didn't give me any clue as to what mechanism he used to transform them into dragons. My best guess was that whatever dragon blood Corbin used to make himself into a dragon, he gave them as well. I could pull the blood out of a vampire's body. The problem with that was I didn't know how to focus a spell that would target only the dragon blood within them. If I exsanguinated them—which I could do—they'd become feral vampires. While some ferals could become regular vampires again after they fed, it was more likely they'd remain feral indefinitely. I couldn't do that to Mercy, Mel, Sarah, or any of the other vampires Corbin recruited into his brood.

I straightened out my shirt and tucked my hair behind my ears. The television was paused. Bilbo Baggins' face was frozen in the middle of a word. It wasn't his most attractive look. Not that I found Bilbo attractive ever. I mean, he was a hobbit. Then again, given my recent history with men—ranging from a few lust-filled encounters with a sociopathic vampire to sleeping with a wolf-shifter and making out with a merman—I might have settled for a nice, stable, hobbit with a sense of adventure. The big furry feet would be a major barrier. Then again, at least he had feet rather than paws or fins.

"Did it work?" Connor asked.

I tilted my head. "You're still here."

Connor nodded. "I could hear your conversation with the dragon. It didn't feel right to leave."

Pauli was gone. Annabelle was leaning against the front door. Zale was on the couch, resting his legs.

Connor rested a hand on my shoulder. "I know there's nothing I can do. Not really. Still, it feels like I should try. I have some pretty acute senses. If you can't talk to Mercy, I know her scent. I don't know if she smells the same now. Maybe she does, though."

I nodded. "That's sweet. You're still talking about going after dragons as a wolf. It's not an even match."

"I'm not saying I'll fight them. Are you listening to me at all?"

I sighed. "I'm sorry. You're right. Maybe you can help. I just can't ask you to. You've been through enough."

"I wouldn't still be here if I didn't want to help, Hailey."

"He's right," Annabelle said. "If he can tell for sure that Mercy and the others are with Corbin, if they're circling the swamp, it might impact our strategy."

"When La Sirene and Nammu come through," Zale added, "it would be helpful to know which dragons we're dealing with. If we can identify Corbin, Nammu might be able to get to him quickly and send him to the void. It would be helpful to know how close the others are. So far as I know, La Sirene and Nammu haven't done this outside of the ocean before. If the wolf can tell us where the vampire friends are, you can pass along the message to Drayke. Drayke can tell Nammu. Corbin won't hear a thing."

"I'm willing to do whatever I can to help," Connor said. "I know it's painfully obvious, but this is clearly a trap. Are you sure that springing the trap is the best option? With your new ability, Hailey, you might be able to find Corbin another way."

I shook my head. "Unless we can get a message to Joni before nightfall, she's going to come through that wyrmhole."

Zale stood up. He steadied himself on the back of the couch. "I could go. I could take Drayke back to sea. I might be able to reach La Sirene in time. All we'd have to do is get close enough for Drayke to connect to Nammu."

I sighed. "If you did that, Corbin and the others would come after you. They'd pursue you. You'd never make it."

"I'm willing to try."

"I'm not sending you and Drayke on a suicide mission. We have a plan. I think it's our best option. I'm still working on a spell that might help."

"What are you thinking?" Annabelle asked.

I scratched my head. "Exsanguination is the only thing I can think of that might work. My theory is that Corbin has been infusing vampires with the same kind of dragon blood that he used to change. If there's a way I can isolate that blood, and only the dragon blood, I might pull it out of them. The problem is, I don't know how to do that. I'd need the same blood, a sample, to target my spell. We already know Drayke's blood won't do. I've already consumed it and didn't change."

Annabelle tilted her head. "Even if Nammu can't send Corbin into the void, we might be able to get some of his blood. Pauli could teleport on him and, wham bam, thank you, ma'am."

I shook my head. "Corbin's blood is mixed with the dragon's just as it is with the others. We'd need the blood from the original dragon, whichever one Corbin has hidden away somewhere that he's using to turn the others."

"The dragon must be nearby," Connor said. "Can you sense it like you could the others?"

"There are too many dragons. I can't tell them apart. The only way I might reach the dragon that Corbin has would be to scream out to all of them and hope the dragon responds. If I do that, Corbin will hear it."

Annabelle raised her eyebrows. "Maybe we want him to hear it."

I scratched the back of my head. "That's not a bad idea. We let Corbin think we're coming for his dragon. If we find out where it is, Corbin will have no choice but to leave the swamp to stop us."

Zale grinned. "In the meantime, La Sirene and Nammu can call the rest of the wyrmriders through the wyrmhole. It might give us a fighting chance."

"I'll still head to the swamp in wolf form," Connor added. "If I can pick up Mercy's scent and she leaves, we'll know he took the bait."

Chapter 11

Pulling this off was going to be tricky. If we were going to lure Corbin away from the swamp, we had to really sell the ruse. At the same time, I had to be there when Joni emerged with Nammu so I could ride Drayke and we could go after him with the full force of the wyrmrider legion.

Some people say that magic isn't real. They've seen enough on television to believe it's all an illusion. Smoke, mirrors, and sleight of hand. So far as witches go, it's convenient. When we do our spells, even if people see what we do, they discount it as a trick. They want to know how it was done. Of course, we never tell. A magician never tells his tricks. Witches never reveal their secrets, either. With illusions, though, witches don't need magic tricks. I needed to make Corbin believe I was really going after his dragon.

I needed another witch. It didn't have to be a blood witch. I could do the spell. Simple transmutation. With bloodwitchery, I could make someone else look like me. It wouldn't last for more than a few minutes—unless a witch took my place and could use her skill to retain the power of my spell long enough to make it work.

After all Alexandra did before, albeit under Corbin's influence, she owed me one. Besides, she'd wanted me to join her coven for years. I'd told her if she helped me beat Corbin before I'd help her rebuild her coven. So far, I hadn't followed through. The house where her coven met no longer had a roof. Corbin blasted through it when he turned into a dragon. Alexandra and Salene barely got out of their house alive when Corbin turned himself into a dragon. Helping them rebuild their coven by recruiting witches had to wait. Their house needed rebuilding first. We'd texted back and forth a few times. Alexandra said she'd let me know when they were ready to start gathering again.

I had to believe she'd want to help. Corbin used and manipulated Alexandra and Salene as much as the rest of us.

My spare phone was fully charged. I took it off the charger and sent Alexandra a text. She replied more quickly than I'd anticipated. She and Salene were renting an apartment only a few blocks away while their house was being rebuilt. I didn't tell her much over text message. All I said was I needed help. She sent me her temporary address.

I couldn't go out during the day. That didn't mean I couldn't teleport by sigil. I drew a sigil with salt-infused chalk on my living room floor. I snapped a picture with my phone and sent it to Annabelle. It was the only text I'd sent her in a while. When she was in Vilokan, her phone didn't get service. She still had one. I handed Annabelle the chalk.

"I'll be here. When you get there, duplicate the sigil exactly in Alexandra's apartment."

Annabelle nodded. "I know how it works."

I grinned. "Of course you do."

Annabelle and Connor helped Zale up and took him with them. He was still wobbly on his feet.

I waited in my sigil. It only took about twenty minutes before the magic swirled around me and I found myself standing in the middle of Alexandra's apartment.

It was quaint. Alexandra was waiting for me with a wide grin splitting her face. "Welcome!"

I chuckled. "Nice place. Where's Salene?"

"She's working for one of the restaurants on Bourbon Street. We both are. We're saving up the money to fix the house. It's my day off. Do you need her as well?"

I shook my head. "One witch will do. How do you feel about transmutation?"

Alexandra grinned. "It's fun when you can pull it off. Tricky, though. The most I've done is turn a toad into a frog."

Annabelle grinned. "That's not nothing."

Alexandra rolled her eyes. "So far as normal witches go, it's fairly advanced. I assume a blood witch can do a lot better."

Alexandra poured cups of coffee for all of us and set a loaf of banana bread on the table. I helped myself to a piece. It was delicious. It wasn't dragon blood, but I appreciated baked goods. Zale devoured his piece in just a few bites. Connor and Annabelle had barely touched theirs before Zale took a second piece.

I explained the plan. I was a little nervous Alexandra wouldn't want to do it. It's one thing to practice transmutation on toads. It's another thing when it's your own body that's affected.

Alexandra took a deep breath. She stood up from the table and took a whole five steps into her kitchen. She grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and set it in front of Zale.

"Have any more?" Zale asked. "My skin is getting dry."

"There's a shower in the bathroom. Have at it."

"Brilliant! Thank you!" Zale stood up and, using the wall to steady himself, made his way to the bathroom.

Alexandra sat back down. She took a sip of her coffee.

"What do you say?" I asked.

Alexandra folded her hands on the table. She grinned. "I've always wondered what I'd look like as a blond."

I chuckled. "You'll look exactly like me. If I do this right."

Alexandra raised one eyebrow. "If?"

I smirked. "When I do this right."

We waited until shortly before nightfall. The only way Corbin would buy the ruse was if we moved at dark. Our timing had to be precise. I had to find his dragon, hoping it would speak to me, before Joni and Nammu showed up in the swamp. That wouldn't be a problem if I reached out to the dragon before the sun set.

There was no sense transfiguring Alexandra if I couldn't locate the dragon. We had the spell ready, just in case. I had my wand. All I needed to do was shed a little of my blood, spread it across Alexandra's face, and speak the proper incantation.

Connor shifted into wolf form and headed for the swamp. While he couldn't talk to me through whatever connection we'd forged, he could hear everything I said. He carried his phone with him in his mouth. When he sensed Mercy leaving the swamp, he'd shift back into human form and let us know.

Zale was refreshed now that he'd had a good shower. His legs also looked a little bigger than before. He was walking straighter, anyway.

I shifted my gaze. The stars reappeared.

"Dragon! The one in captivity! The one held by Corbin. Tell me where you are!"

Help me! a whispered voice replied. One of the stars pulsed with a radiant energy when he spoke.

Don't do it, love! Corbin shouted back. His star also flashed when he spoke.

"You have to stop this, Corbin. If you don't, I'll free your dragon."

You don't want to do that, Hailey! You don't understand what he is.

Help me, please!

I touched the dragon's star. "Tell me where you are."

It's a church. I'm chained to the floor.

"The church where the Order of the Morning Dawn was located? In the lower ninth?"

I do not know. There is a broken cross with shackles fixed to it.

I grinned. I couldn't believe Corbin was so bold as to hide his dragon in a place I knew. "I'm coming for you. I'll be there soon."

I released my finger from the dragon's star. "Really, Corbin? In the same church? What kind of hiding place is that?"

It's not a hiding place! It was where the sacrifice was made. You can't free the beast!

I snorted. "Why don't you try to stop me?"

I shifted my gaze back to the real world.

"It worked! The dragon is at the same church where Connor's dad and the Order of the Morning Dawn were operating."

"Are you sure about that?" Alexandra asked.

I nodded. "Completely. Corbin knows we're coming to free the dragon. We need to get going."

Alexandra nodded. "I'm ready."

I grabbed a knife from Alexandra's kitchen. I sliced open my finger and drew my blood in a sigil pattern over Alexandra's face.

I aimed my wand at her. "Spirits of shape and spirits of form make true the face of the blood that's worn."

It happened faster than I expected. Alexandra's hair turned lighter. Her skin went pale. My face was looking back at me.

I grinned. "I'd love to stand here and admire my own beauty, but we have work to do."

"We'll take my Camaro," Annabelle said. "Get to the swamp with Zale. Make sure none of the dragons see you. If one of them does, Corbin might figure out what's happening."

I checked my phone. "No word from Connor yet. I don’t know if he can still hear me or not. You’d think he’d be speaking updates, hint hint, if he could.”

Annabelle nodded. "I'm sure he'll be in touch soon. We can't wait around. Once Corbin sees us going to the church, he'll move."

I nodded. "The sun is almost set. You ready to go, Zale?"

Zale nodded and shook his legs. "I'm feeling stronger. I still can't run as fast as you can."

"I'll carry you if I have to. At least you'll have clothes on this time."

Zale grinned. "Yes. I won't go showing half of New Orleans my newly made butt this time."

I snickered. "To be fair, I was discreet when I ran your naked ass across the city before."

Annabelle and Alexandra took off. Zale and I waited a little longer. The second the sun was set, we left. I ran as hard and as fast as I could with Zale on my back. Joni and Nammu would show up at any moment.

I’ve got it! Connor’s voice echoed in my mind. I let Zale off my back. I needed a break and trying to carry on a psychic conversation with a two-hundred pound merman hanging on your shoulders is awkward.

“Well, there you are!”

Sorry. I’m not used to speaking through my thoughts like this. It’s not the same as speaking to other wolf shifters.

“By saying you got it, I presume that means you picked up Mercy’s scent?”

Yeah. She’s moving to the Lower Ninth Ward now.

“Is Corbin with her?”

I can’t tell. There are a lot of smells. I barely detected Mercy’s. There’s something rank overwhelming everything else.

“Let’s hope Corbin and Mercy are together.” Corbin was so insistent that we not free the dragon that I had to believe he was moving with her. It wasn't a sure thing, of course, but if we took his source of dragon blood away, his plan would fold.

Zale hopped on my back again and we took off for the swamp. I shouted back and forth to Drayke once we got into the swamp. He could hear me. I didn't have to touch his star. I still had a connection from the dragon blood I consumed before. I was able to talk to him as I had when I was training with the wyrmriders.

We found Drayke just as a giant portal of blue and golden energies formed near him. It was Joni's wyrmhole. I set Zale down on a patch of dry ground and climbed on Drayke's back.

"Can you tell Nammu what's going on? It will be faster than if I have to explain it all to Joni."

Of course I can!

Joni and Nammu shot out of the wyrmhole. I was going to say like two bats out of hell, but that would have seriously undersold the majestic sight of Fomoria's mermaid queen riding on a massive wyrm. Nammu shifted into dragon form as she reached the air.

She and Drayke locked eyes. The two dragons nodded at each other.

"Got it!" Joni said.

I tilted my head. "That was fast."

Nammu stuck her head back in the wyrmhole and pulled it out again. A couple of seconds later, Smauk flew out. He turned from wyrm to dragon, lowered his head, and Zale pulled himself up into his saddle.

"Clear the area!" Joni shouted. "Incoming!"

Drayke spread his wings and took off over the swamp. One by one, more wyrms and their riders shot through the wyrmhole.

Hailey! Connor's voice echoed in my mind. Mercy is turning around. I think they figured it out.

I grunted. "Drayke, tell Nammu and Joni that Corbin and Mercy are coming back. Get ready to blast Corbin into the void."

Telling them now.

Joni pulled back on her reins and took off toward the sky. As she did, another dragon blasted out from somewhere hidden in the swamp. He was large. It was Corbin. He was heading straight for Nammu's underbelly.

Corbin blasted a torrent of flames at Joni and Nammu. The flames didn't burn. Instead, they splashed around them. It wasn't fire—it was blood.

Corbin's blood breath flowed around Nammu and shot into Joni. Her body was overwhelmed by a black mist that swirled around her frame. The way it spun, it was like it was gathering her essence into itself. The mist expanded into an enormous cloud. A dragon shot out of it.

“No!” I shouted.

Joni had a vampiric nature. Mercy bit her a while back—she had to in order to stop the zombie shark epidemic. Some caplata had harnessed Joni's Loa aspect as La Sirene and was using her to control the sharks. Long story. Mercy told me part of it before—Zale filled me in on the other details. Joni's Fomorian magic kept her vampirism at bay. She'd said as much. That didn't mean she wasn't a vampire at some level. Corbin knew it. I don't know how, but he did. Now he changed her. He made her a part of his brood.

Drayke flapped his wings and shot toward Nammu.

Nammu released an ear-piercing cry.

Hailey, you're the only one who can speak to us. You have to lead us.

"Damn it!" I screamed. Back to the church in the lower ninth! We need the other dragon's blood!

Drayke passed the message to Nammu, who directed the rest of the wyrms. We flew out of the swamp and across the city. I saw Annabelle's Camaro parked in the church's lot. She was standing outside with Alexandra. She still looked like me.

Drayke landed next to Annabelle's car.

"Corbin got Joni! He turned her! We need the dragon!"

Annabelle shook her head. "There's no dragon here, Hailey. Whatever dragon spoke to you before either wasn't the one you were looking for, it lied, or it's already gone."

I heard a loud roar in the distance.

"We have to head out to sea and regroup. Corbin's coming for me!"

Nammu landed next to the Camaro. She lowered her head toward Annabelle.

Annabelle climbed on Nammu. She lowered her hand and helped Alexandra on to the wyrm. We took off and headed south. I didn't know where we were going. All I knew was that we had to get as far from Corbin as we could, as fast as possible.

Chapter 12

Joni Campbell. A one time southern girl, a druidess, a siphon who could suck out your magic and throw it back at you ten times harder. La Sirene, the queen of Fomoria. A Loa in her own right, she commanded the sea itself, used the power of the waves to do her will.

She was under Corbin's control. He made her a dragon. It wasn't the first time she'd been turned into one. Maybe she had a few tricks up her metaphorical sleeve—you know, since she didn't have actual sleeves—that she could use to undermine Corbin. Did he even know for sure who he was dealing with? Could he read her mind? Would he learn about the underwater merkingdom of Fomoria and the magic it contained? Could he use her to re-take control of the wyrms and assimilate them into his growing brood? We were flying out over the ocean. Could he bend her will and force the sea itself to rise up against us?

We soared over the ocean. The waves below were dark and displayed a fury that covered up, like a veil of turmoil, what must have been calm in the deep below. Then again, you never really know what’s going on at the bottom of the ocean. There was an entire kingdom of merfolk down there that hardly anyone knew about. What would happen if Corbin gained control not only of Fomoria, but its magic? Could he wield it already now that he had Joni in his thrall?

All these questions were running through my mind like a hamster on a wheel. At least we still had Annabelle. So long as I was here, we could communicate with the wyrms. If Corbin blasted me with his blood breath, there'd be no one left to rally the wyrms.

"Do you know a safe place we can go?" I asked Drayke.

Nowhere La Sirene could not find us. You must help us save our queen. We cannot flee without a fight.

I took a deep breath. "I know. I just don't know how. If I knew where the dragon that Corbin was really using was, I might be able to pull off an exsanguination spell. Now, though, I'm not sure. I’m not sure if Corbin has cycled some power from the original dragon, but he can breathe its blood as if it were his own. I still have to believe the original dragon is key, somehow. But will it’s blood suffice or is Corbin's blood breath what we need? If only I could find a way to get some of that blood and use it to attune the spell, I might be able to save the rest. If not, well, if we find the original dragon, I could try an exsanguination spell using his blood. That would remove Corbin from the picture at the very least. Then, it might be simpler to get some of his blood if he's just a regular, albeit, ancient and powerful vampire, but not a dragon."

So the plan is no longer to use Nammu to send Corbin into the void?

I shook my head. "I need the blood that changed the others to focus my exsanguination spell. If I don't and blast all the blood out of their bodies, they'll become feral. Even Joni, I suspect."

Perhaps her Fomorian magic will protect her from that. It has prevented her dormant vampirism from emerging until now.

I sighed. "I'm not going to risk her life on a 'perhaps,' Drayke. She's too important."

She's too dangerous if she's under Corbin's control.

Hey Hailey! It was a different voice speaking in my mind.

"Connor?"

Don’t get too far out to sea. If you do that, how am I going to be able to tell you where they all went?

"You're still tracking Mercy's scent?"

Why would I stop?

"Do you know what's happened?"

Hello. I'm listening in all the time. I can't exactly shut it off. Not until you finish digesting my blood, I guess. I mean, that is what you do, right? You digest?

I chuckled. "Something like that."

They aren't following you. Not yet, anyway. I'm not sure where they're going.

"Drayke, tell Nammu and the others to stay put."

Done.

I shifted my vision. I saw the stars moving together, heading toward one. I didn't know who the lonesome star was, but I had a guess. I reached out and touched it.

"Are you the dragon?"

My question was met with a screech so loud that if I'd heard it in the physical dimension, it might have blown my ear drums. I can't say how I knew it. This was the dragon that Corbin used. The problem? It didn't speak English. The nerve, you know? For some trans-dimensional reptile to be summoned out of wherever he came from and not bother to learn English? Come on! Even the Klingons spoke English.

"I think they 're going after the dragon we need. Keep your distance. We need to know where exactly this thing is."

That's the plan, Hailey. Already on it.

I smirked. "Of course you are."

Chapter 13

Head west. They're moving to the west. Faster than I can follow.

"Are they outside the city?"

Just outside but I won't be able to keep up. If you can't follow them, I might lose them.

"Drayke, have Nammu rally the others. We may need a wyrmhole back to catch up. Connor, give us a precise location. Something the wyrms can use."

They're flying over Lac des Allemands now!

"Drake, that's a lake to the west of the city. It's a little south of the Mississippi River."

Nammu will find it.

I watched as Annabelle and Alexandra flew by on Nammu's back. They both waved at me as they passed. Alexandra was still wearing a Hailey-shaped body. It wouldn't last for much longer. It impressed me that my transmutation spell lasted as long as it did. Usually spells like that last for seconds. That I'd pulled one off that lasted for an hour, if not longer, was a feat few witches before me could pull off. Then again, there weren't a lot of blood witches who had the advantage of vampirism to work with around the world.

Nammu exhaled a dragon-sized portal. She flew into it first. We followed. Smauk and Zale weren’t far behind. The other wyrmriders, whose names I didn't know, would come through one-by-one after that.

We popped back into existence over Lac des Allemands. The other dragons were pretty far ahead. Presuming that Connor wasn't dog-paddling his way across the lake I looked around to the shore. He was too small to spot from so high. "Connor, you nearby?"

Making my way around the lake. I'm at Pleasure Bend.

I snorted. "Pleasure Bend? Pauli would have a field day with that one."

There's a seafood restaurant here. The dragons are still moving west at a faster pace than I can keep.

"Why would they be flying to the West?"

Alexandra says she knows where they're going, Drayke said.

I raised an eyebrow. "She does?"

I can hear her. You might not be able to. She wanted me to tell you that it must be because the blood you used in your transmutation spell was still mingled with mine from your last feed.

I chuckled. "Brilliant. I wish I could hear her, but this will do for now. Where does she say they're going?"

There's a plot of land where Corbin had the witches move their house back when they were trying to extract the essence from the wolf shifters. She says there was a cave there. Corbin forbade the witches from entering it. He said he needed a place to be alone in thought. She thinks it might be big enough to hide a dragon.

I nodded. "It makes sense. He had that blood in the house after they teleported it back to its original plot in New Orleans. He must've picked up the dragon blood while they were Wizard of Ozzing their house all over God's green earth."

Nammu wanted me to tell you that Wizard of Ozzing isn't a proper verb.

"She can hear me? That's not fair!"

I'm channeling all your statements back through Nammu. She hears it at the same time.

"You aren't some kind of court reporter, Drayke. You don't have to relay everything I say. Just the important stuff."

How can I know what's most important? Best for you to decide that.

I smiled. "Fair enough. Does Alexandra know exactly how to get to this cave?"

She does.

I nodded. "In that case, we best let the dragons put a little space between us and them. With so many of us coming through that wyrmhole, it'll be a wonder if they don't sense us nearby already. Zale said something about ears twitching before."

We should be fine for now. They're at a good distance and still moving away at a brisk pace. If they sensed us emerging from the wyrmhole, they would have doubled-back.

"Still, we need to find a place we can land and regroup. It will be easier to come up with a plan if we can talk in the normal way. I'm guessing there's only one way in and one way out of this cave—at least only one entrance and exit large enough to accommodate a dragon."

The dragons won't fit inside, Drayke said. Alexandra says that if Corbin summoned the dragon from some other realm, he must've put it in a place he knew it couldn't escape. What better place than a cave that runs deep underground?

I nodded. "Corbin's plans might be conniving and insidious, but they're also genius. Depending on how deep in this dragon is, there won't be any way to save it."

Not entirely true, Drayke said. Since you can speak to us through me, you should be able to show us images as well. If you can get inside that cave Nammu should be able to make a wyrmhole to get in and out of there. We'll have to stay a ways back to pull it off, though.

I nodded. "Alright. Connor, you still nearby?"

I saw you all fly over me just a second ago. Head to the southwest. Lake Boeuf Wildlife Management Area isn't far. Obviously, it's near Lake Boeuf.

I grinned. "I didn't know you knew the lay of the land so well."

Connor chuckled. I'm shifting back and forth. I'm using Google maps to track our location. Besides, I grew up around here. You did, too. Though you haven't needed to find places to run free of interference with a pack on a regular basis. When we gather in the city as wolves it's usually just a matter of time before someone calls animal control.

I snickered. "Lake Beowulf, you said?"

Funny. It's Lake Boeuf.

"You're sure it's a safe place for the dragons?"

As safe as it gets. More than eight-hundred acres of bayou. All nighttime activities are prohibited. For those who aren't animals, anyway. They don't have any rules for dragons.

"Yeah, usually places like that don't. Dragons just don't like to follow the rules."

I can hear you, you know. Drake said.

I winced. "Sorry. Just joking around."

It's true. We aren't much for following the rules imposed by other species. It sounds like the best place we have to gather.

I tilted my head. "You have rules for your own species?"

Sure. Why?

"Anything that will help deal with these other dragons?"

I'm not entirely sure they qualify as our species. Vampires rarely concern themselves with human laws, I suspect.

I snorted. "I suppose not."

I highly doubt that vampire dragons are going to be much concerned with the traditions and decor of dragon society.

"You have societies?"

We're an intelligent species. Why wouldn't we?

I chuckled. "I suppose even apes have rules to govern their social lives. Not that I'm suggesting you're like apes. You're probably smarter than most humans. Then again, some apes are, too."

You're nervous about how to respond to the wyrmriders.

"Of course I am! I'm not La Sirene, queen of the sea. I'm a witch and a vampire."

Not that different than La Sirene, then. You were born human. You have powers that came from another place, something outside of Fomoria. You're not a queen, but Corbin certainly wants you to be his. And if not being a queen has you worried, you have the Voodoo Queen to back you up.

I took a deep breath as Drayke flew over Lake Boeuf. "She's not their queen. I'm not their La Sirene."

But you're our best hope for getting our queen back. La Sirene trusts you. More than that, she believes in you.

"Are you sure about that? I don't know her that well."

She told us before she gathered us together to train that you were the noblest and most talented witch she knew.

I grinned a little. "She said that?"

We wyrms don't follow La Sirene because she's a queen. We don't fight for her because she's powerful. In fact, she doesn't order us around at all. We fight for her because we believe in her. She believes in you. That's all that matters right now. The wyrms, presently dragons, and the wyrmriders will fight by your side as if you were La Sirene, herself.

I chuckled. "Thanks, Drayke. I appreciate the vote of confidence."

It didn't come from me. Those words I spoke just a second ago. That was from Nammu.

Chapter 14

The waters of the bayou in the Lake Boeuf area were a little cleaner than those in Manchac Swamp. Don't get me wrong. It was still swamp. The water was stagnant. It was so still that it wasn't all that hard to tell where the gators were. It was as obvious as a bug-splatter on a newly washed windshield. That didn't mean the water was clean. Compared to the Carribean waters the wyrms were used to, it was comparable to spending your life accustomed to the fresh ocean breeze in Puerto Rico and moving to L.A. Like rolling out of an oxygen chamber and into a porta-potty. It was survivable, even if just barely. Drayke was already used to it. Stink is like that. Spend enough time around it and you start to fit in.

The sense of confidence I had when we landed faded quickly. Nammu's words, relayed via Drayke, were inspiring. Maybe it was the water. Perhaps it was anxiety over the fact that a simple training exercise ended up getting their queen abducted and turned into a monster. Whatever the case, I didn't get the sense that the wyrmriders were as eager to rally behind me as the wyrms, themselves. A few of them landed and glanced at me with stern faces before looking away. Many of them were discussing things among themselves, gathered in little circles on the backs of their dragons.

The waters in the swamp weren't deep enough, or perhaps it was the water quality that prevented the dragons from resuming their wyrm forms. The dragons were looking at me with wide eyes as if expecting direction. The wyrmriders barely acknowledged my presence.

That little pep talk before came from Nammu. She believed in me. Still, I was the only one who could speak directly to the wyrms now that Joni was gone. The merfolk formed their own opinions, apparently, which I guessed was more along the lines of "none of this would have happened if not for her." I guess the wyrmriders didn’t know Nammu and the wyrms trusted me though.

Some of them were splashing their bodies with water. Many were gagging at the same time. They needed the water for their skin. There were times my skin was dry, and I needed lotion. That didn't mean any lubricant would do. For the merfolk, spreading swamp water over their bodies was probably a lot like spreading olive oil over my skin because I was out of lotion. It might take care of the cracked skin, but I'd end up smelling like an Italian restaurant afterwards. By the looks on the mermen's faces, this was even less pleasant than that. I couldn't see all of them. There were probably twenty riders on dragons spread around. I could swear, though, I heard one or two of them hurl. Hopefully, it wouldn't cause a chain reaction. That happens, sometimes. One person pukes. Someone else, so disgusted by the other person's puking, throws up. Vomiting like that can spread fast. It happened once back in school. In the cafeteria. Probably started by the mysteriously green hot dogs. If the swamp waters were repulsive now, I could only imagine how bad it would be if puddles of mer-puke were floating across it.

This wasn't the inspiring moment I envisioned when Drayke and I splashed down. I had visions of King Aragorn inspiring the legions of middle-earth. I could hear Mel Gibson's William Wallace declaring that they could take our lives, but not our freedom. I imagined the wyrmriders raising their tridents into the skies with roars and huzzahs as they followed me into battle.

Instead, I was met with grimaces and puke. One merman hung off the side of his dragon. Something sprayed out from between a couple of his tail scales. I would have found it gross if it wasn't for the fact that I was so damn curious about how all that worked. His mermanhood must've been hiding somewhere under there.

I scratched my head. "Connor, you out there somewhere?"

I'm here. Hiding in the trees, trying to avoid becoming a dragon snack.

I chuckled. "They won't eat you. I don't think. Nammu knows who you are. Sort of."

Sort of.

"She knows you're not some kind of hors d'oeuvre. Thank you for your help, Connor."

Enjoy your new boyfriend.

"Boyfriend? Who are you talking about?"

The fish boy you were kissing when I walked in with Annabelle.

I sighed. "That just happened. It was a moment. Nothing more than that."

I'm not angry, Hailey. I'm not your guy. I never have been. Not really. I was the one who said he needed space. This really isn't the time to talk about all this, anyway.

"You're right. Thanks again. We wouldn't be on the right track if it wasn't for you."

Be careful, Hailey.

I nodded. "I'm going after Corbin and a bunch of other vampire dragons. I don't know if there really is a way you can be careful about that. The very idea is reckless."

But necessary. Just don't take any unnecessary risks. There's something about this dragon blood in you, this connection you've forged with the dragons. I can sense it when I'm connected to you. I can't say what it is, but it doesn't feel right. It feels oddly like the spell you cast that brought Moll out of hell. The same one that made me a wolf shifter. It's like your're reaching into a realm you shouldn't. Be careful with that.

I nodded as I took a deep breath. There was something dark about the power I was reaching out to. Especially when I heard Corbin or the other dragon that was with him speak. I sensed it even as the hunger returned, the craving to taste dragon blood again. I was ignoring it. I dismissed the sensation as a part of the strangeness that's to be expected when trying something both magical and new. Connor was right, though. That very first spell, the one that used my blood to reach into hell and resurrect Moll, had a similar feel to it. "I will be careful. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

I won't be.

Zale was speaking to Annabelle. Each of them was mounted to Smauk and Nammu, respectively. Alexandra was still seated behind Annabelle. The darn spell still hadn't worn off entirely, but her hair was darkening.

I tugged a little on Drayke's reins. "Lets head over there. We need a plan, and it looks like they're already busy coming up with one."

Drayke huffed a little. He meant nothing by it. He was a dragon. He huffed. He probably puffed, too. He waded through the water—it nearly reached his belly—and took me over to them.

"What are you guys thinking?" I asked.

"We're worried about the dragon in the cave," Annabelle said.

Alexandra nodded. "When we were there before, whenever Corbin emerged from that cave, there was something different about him. He hardly spoke. I sensed a magic, something evil. However he summoned that dragon, he used something that might even be darker than blood magic."

"I want to go in with you," Annabelle said. "No portals. Nothing that might mix with whatever magic is going on in there."

"It might be best for Nammu to stay out here, anyway. If we need the wyrms and wyrmriders to fight, she should be ready."

"I agree," Zale said. "If you can get that dragon's blood, do it."

"I have Isabelle with me," Annabelle said. "That means I can summon Beli. He won’t appear as a dragon on earth, but I can use him to cut a portal out of there if we have to escape."

"Whatever is going on," Alexandra added. "The secret to it all is inside that cave. I’ll go with you and help you find it."

"I'll stay here to command the wyrmriders," Zale said. "I'd go with you, but I don't know if my legs would hold up."

"It's okay. You're needed here. The wyrms will follow my lead. Nammu told Drayke as much. The mermen, though, need you."

"We can stay here," Zale said. "This place isn't pleasant, but it's safe. How will you signal us if we're needed?"

I sighed. "I can speak to Drayke. He can tell Nammu."

"We still need to know what's going on. None of us can speak to the wyrms."

I sighed. "Connor, you still out there?"

I haven't left. I know I said I was going to. I just felt like I had to stick around to make sure everything was okay.

"I might need you after all. Can you pass a message on to Zale if I need you to?"

Absolutely.

I nodded. "Connor will pass along anything you need to know. He's in the trees just south of here."

Zale nodded. "Good luck. How are you two going to get there?"

"We can take Drayke. One dragon is less likely to be seen than a whole legion."

It will also make it easier for Nammu to connect a wyrmhole to my location, Drayke added.

I grinned. "Drayke agrees with that plan."

Drayke moved a little closer to Nammu, and Annabelle climbed over behind my back.

"Be ready for anything," I said. "We'll see you soon. Though, hopefully, we won't need you. If this exsanguination spell works, I hope to come back with Joni and the others."

"Good luck," Zale said. "We'll be ready to fight if we're needed."

Chapter 15

"Hanging in there, buddy?"

You think three ladies is too much for me?

I chuckled. "Just checking in."

I can handle three girls at the same time. No problem.

I smirked. I was pretty sure Drayke didn't mean it the way it sounded. Given the velocity at which we were flying, though, he was right. At his size, what was another two-hundred-fifty pounds, give or take?

Alexandra was our compass. She knew where this cave was. I was flashing back and forth in and out of my dragon vision to make sure none of Corbin's brood were moving in any way that might suggest they were on to us. There were so many stars in my vision, all crammed together in one place, that it was hard to tell how many there were. Whatever the case, it was more than we'd be able to handle if they sensed our approach. We were probably going to have to walk a few miles at least to avoid that problem. Once Drayke's ears twitched, we'd know we were close enough they could sense him. Then again, what's one twitch? They weren't expecting us. Drayke didn't even realize it at first when the dragons were circling above him in the swamp.

We also had the benefit of the cover of darkness. I couldn't put a lot of stock in it, though. Vampires can see almost as well in the dark as in the light. These were vampire dragons.

"I'm getting hungry."

Take a bite. It's fine.

I sank my teeth into the soft spot in Drayke's hide behind his ears. A few gulps of his scrumptious dragon blood and the hunger pangs disappeared. I released my bite. "Thanks! Much better!"

We were still a few miles away from Lafayette when Drake's ears started dancing back and forth. "We'd better land here."

"We're still a long way away," Alexandra shouted through the wind.

"Any closer and the dragons will sense Drayke. We're going to have to hoof it the rest of the way in."

Drayke landed in the marshes to the east of Lafayette. We climbed off his back and made our way through the trees.

"How many miles are we talking?" Annabelle asked.

Alexandra shrugged. "Five or six, I'd say. Maybe a little more. There's an empty patch of land just before we reach the town. That's where we took the house before. The cave is on the property. We should have good tree cover. If the dragons are flying around, there's a good chance we can reach the cave unnoticed."

"You've never been in the cave?" Annabelle asked.

Alexandra shook her head. "Corbin didn’t allow it. We knew he was protecting something there, but didn't have a clue what it was at the time. I don't know how far we'll have to go once we're inside. As a vampire, he could see in the dark and move fast. Only Hailey will have that luxury barring a spell to light the path."

"No spells," I said. "Joni is with them. She's under their thrall. She'll sense any magic we're wielding from a mile away. She might not tell Corbin, but I'd bet he's already told her to report anything she detects."

Annabelle sighed. "I'd say that's a strong possibility. I don't know how well she might resist."

"She should be able to act outside of any direct commands or compulsions Corbin has issued. The same is true of Mercy, Sarah, and the others."

Annabelle snorted. "We didn't think about Sarah."

"Shit," I said. "You're right. If I were Corbin, I'd have her watching me like a hawk. She can see anything I can see."

"Can she tell where you are if you see nothing?" Alexandra asked.

I shook my head. "She can't. Though, I bet they already know we're on the way. This is going to be harder than I thought. The one advantage we have is that Sarah doesn't know this area well. She hasn't been in Louisiana long. So far, all she's seen are the wyrmriders and a lot of swampland."

"What if you close your eyes?" Alexandra asked.

"Sarah won't be able to see what I see. Even so, there's the entire issue of walking and navigating a cave."

"We can guide you," Annabelle said. "My blade glows, but not with a magic Joni can siphon. I can use it to help us through the cavern."

I sighed. "This is going to suck donkey balls."

Annabelle snickered. "Stop. I'm a very visual person. I'll never be able to forget that picture in my head."

I giggled. "Sorry about that."

"On the plus side, I've used donkey balls before. They're a great catalyst for any number of spells."

I raised an eyebrow. "They are? How didn't I know this?"

Alexandra shrugged. "High and mighty hedge witch is surprised to find there's a few things she could learn from another witch?"

I huffed. "It's not that. It's just none of my grimoires mention jackass testicles. I did see a spell once that involved the scrotum of a baboon. I didn't bother trying it. All it was supposed to do was help a witch find bananas. Getting bananas from the supermarket seemed a lot easier than castrating a baboon."

Alexandra chuckled. "Was that the Grimoire Africanus?"

I smirked. "I believe it was."

Alexandra smiled. "I have a copy. Spells like that are ancient. They were useful for tribal people ages ago who needed food and had baboons to spare."

"Why his balls, though?"

"You don't know?" Alexandra asked.

I snorted. "Not really."

"Testicles produce semen. Semen gives life. That's a powerful force. It might not be like blood witchery, but when brewed with certain ingredients, the scrotum of any creature can make all the difference. It brings the spell to life, so to speak."

I took a deep breath. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe I could use a coven to help fill in some blanks."

"You're always welcome, Hailey."

I nodded. "After this is over, if we survive and dragon vampires don't take over the earth, maybe I'll take you up on that offer."

"It would be an honor to have you." Alexandra rested her hand on my shoulder.

I bit my lip. "So long as you're willing to have our meetings at night."

Alexandra laughed. "We usually do. Work schedules and all. Though we don't have as many members as we used to. It's just Salene and me for now. I'm sure we can find a schedule that will work for all of us."

"I think that's a splendid idea," Annabelle said. "Are we getting close?"

Alexandra nodded. "Just a little further. Hailey, will you be able to keep your eyes closed? It's tempting to open them and peek a little, especially if you bump into something."

"There's enough at stake I think I can manage. Still, a blindfold might be nice. Just to be sure."

Alexandra removed a scarf from her neck and tied it around my face. It was wide. It covered my nose as well.

"It smells nice. Is it a perfume?"

"I use lavender detergent. Your enhanced vampire senses and all, I'm sure that's what you're sensing."

I grinned. "It's calming. I like it."

Alexandra folded the bottom of her scarf up. "That's better. Your sense of smell might be important. Seeing as you can't see."

I nodded. "Right. I can smell dragon blood. If we're getting close to it, once we're in the cave, I'll know."

I held onto Annabelle's arm as she and Alexandra led me through a field. I knew we were in a field because the grasses were brushing against my pants.

"We're almost there," Alexandra said. "The cave will probably be wet."

"We'll be lucky if it isn't filled with water," Annabelle said. "Most caverns in this area are due to the elevation."

"There are a few caves in Louisiana," Alexandra said. "Ever hear of Wolf Rock cave?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"It's just one example," Alexandra said. "This cave is a bit of a mystery, though. The opening is small. We'll have to crawl through. It must open up to a larger atrium if Corbin is hiding a dragon in there."

When we arrived, Annabelle helped me to the ground. "Stay low, Hailey. Dont' bonk your head."

"Easy for you to say. You can see."

"Beli!" Annabelle said. "I can now."

"I'm right behind you," Alexandra said. "Just follow the sound of Annabelle crawling ahead of you."

I snorted. "Or her scent. Her ass is pointed right at me."

"I shower! You can smell my butt?"

I huffed. "It's a butt. It doesn't matter how much you wash it. It still smells like ass."

Annabelle chuckled. "Fine. Follow my stench, then."

I sighed. "Not exactly my idea of a good time."

We crawled for a good while. My knees didn't appreciate it. Neither did my noggin. There's no way to avoid hitting your head once or twice when you're crawling blindfolded through a cave. I was full on dragon blood. The pain faded quickly. The repeated pattern of bashing my knees into various rocks was still unpleasant.

"What is that?" Alexandra asked.

"I don't know," Annabelle said.

"What are you two talking about?"

"It's a big, red, bubbling pool," Alexandra said.

"But the room isn't big enough for a dragon. If it's the portal that Corbin used to summon his dragon to begin with, it must've come through small."

"Wait," I said. "There's an energy here. I can feel it."

"I sense something, too," Alexandra said.

"Get back!" I shouted.

"What is it?" Annabelle asked.

"It's something Connor said before. About the magic that created the wolf shifters, when Moll was pulled out of hell."

Annabelle gasped. "Are you saying that this is a portal from hell?"

"That's exactly what this is. I don't think it's just vampire hell, either. It's hell hell. When Corbin spoke to me through the stars, he said something about not freeing the beast."

"Wait," Annabelle said. "Are you saying he called forth the dragon, the beast from the book of Revelation?"

"I don't know. What I can say, though, is that the dragons he's making aren't merely the combination of vampires and regular dragons. If there is such a thing. Dragons are the guardians of the realms. The wyrms were the guardians of the void."

Annabelle nodded. "And Beli was among those who guarded Guinee, or Annwn. They were the protectors of paradise."

"These are the dragons of hell. When Connor is turning vampires into dragons, he isn't shapeshifting them. He's possessing them with devils."

"We saw Corbin drink dragon blood," Alexandra said. "That's how he changed."

"Blood can carry with it a person's soul. That's what vampires feed on. It can also carry with it a spirit. He took his blood from this pool, this portal. In it are the demons he's using to possess the vampires he's claiming. When he breathes on people, he's not exhaling the fire of hell. He's blasting people with the blood of hell, the blood of demons."

"It's still blood though, right?" Alexandra asked.

I nodded. "Absolutely."

"Then can you still use an exsanguination spell to exorcise the demons from the vampires?"

I sighed. "I don't know. I think so. These demons are dragons because they're here in the portal. They are the guardians of hell."

"Can we close this portal?" Alexandra asked.

"I don't know how," I said.

"I can't say for sure, but there might be a way," Annabelle added. "When I cut a portal using Beli into another realm, it will close unless there's a tether of some kind. Pauli can cast a rainbow into a portal, for instance, and hold it open. There must be something that Corbin is using to maintain it. If we find what that is, we should be able to close it."

I reached into the pocket sewn into my pant leg and grabbed my wand. I ripped off my blindfold.

"Hailey!" Alexandra said. "What are you doing?"

"I have to attune my exsanguination spell to this blood. It's the only way to save Mercy, Joni, and the others."

"But Corbin will know," Alexandra said. "They'll come after us as soon as Sarah tells him what you're doing."

I nodded. "I know. Let them come. Connor, have you been listening to all this?"

I can hear you.

"Tell the others. Drayke. Tell the same to Nammu. We're going to need the wyrmriders here as soon as possible. Try to circle the dragons when they assemble. I need them confined to as small a space as possible."

"That's going to take a lot of power, Hailey. Are you sure you're up for it?"

I sighed. "Alexandra, it doesn't matter. I have to do it. I don't know how Corbin is controlling these demon-possessed vampire dragons. If I know anything about demons, though, it's just a matter of time before they find a way past it. Once that happens, if you think Corbin's vision for the world was a nightmare, imagine a literal hell on earth."

Chapter 16

It took a lot of power just to attune my spell to the devil-dragon blood. When I did, I consumed most of the power I had from my most recent feed. I let Drayke know. He was going to have to break from formation and pick me up. There was no way I could cast the exsanguination spell without him. There was no way Alexandra could pull off the spell. She wasn't a blood witch. Even if she was, she wouldn't have the resilience I had as a vampire to cast it and survive. That meant I also had to avoid getting blasted by the blood that Corbin used to possess the other vampires.

Everything made sense. The reason Corbin could pull Mercy and the others out of the hearse with their clothes left behind was because these dragon spirits were just that—they were spirits. When they possessed a vampire, they had to pass through a spiritual form as they took shape. When he blasted Joni, she didn't just change shape. It wasn't the kind of transformation Connor endured when he became a wolf. It was a magical process. It was transmutation. The possession altered the vampire's matter and reformed it into the monsters they became. I could only hope that blasting the blood out of them with my spell would allow them to return to their usual forms. I had reason to believe it would. As with most transmutations, including the one I'd cast on Alexandra that had now completely faded—she resembled herself again—once the magic that causes it dissipates the original matter naturally seeks its original form.

Corbin knew how to cycle power from blood as I did. If he did that, there'd be no way to separate it. If he compelled the other vampires to do the same, my spell wouldn't work. There'd be no way to separate the dragon blood from the vampire's blood. Was Corbin smart enough to know that? Surely he understood the risks of cycling the dragon blood he consumed. Maybe he wouldn't cycle it himself. That wouldn't stop him from forcing the other vampires to do exactly that. All I could do at this point was hope he hadn't.

We didn't know for sure that Sarah was telling Corbin what we were up to. It was a reasonable assumption she would. It didn't mean that he'd get the message right away. I wasn't about to enter my dragon vision again and let him know what was up. We needed all the time we could get. There was only one way out of the cavern. If Corbin beat us to the mouth of the cave and blasted it with blood, he'd change me as soon as I crawled out.

"I'm faster alone," I said. "I'm going to crawl out ahead of you. Get out of here as fast as you can. Once I'm out, I don't think Corbin will be as concerned with the cave as he is with me."

Annabelle nodded. "We'll be right behind you."

Even with my enhanced vampiric speed, crawling was crawling. I could scurry a lot faster than Annabelle and Alexandra. I still wasn't sure I could get out fast enough.

I could see well enough in the dark to avoid bashing my head against the rocks again. That didn't mean my knees didn't suffer for it. I pushed away the pain and pressed on.

I reached the exit of the cave. Corbin wasn't waiting for me. From the shrieks I heard in the distance, I figured he'd be there soon. I looked to my left. A giant portal was suspended in mid-air. The dragons and wyrmriders were pouring through it one after the other. I looked to my right. I didn't see them. I shifted into dragon vision just long enough to see all the stars that represented Corbin and his brood of devil-dragons were moving together in one direction. It wouldn't take them long. Wherever he was, they must've been close to the cave.

The shrieks were getting louder. Those damned devil-dragons blended in with the night sky so well that even with my night vision, I could barely make them out. They moved like shadows soaring from a distance.

I looked back to my left. The wyrms were moving into a semi-circle. The formation must've been meant to surround the enemy and force the enemy into a concentrated position. I didn't know how many times I could cast my spell. I couldn't even do it once if I didn't get a little more blood in my system.

"Drayke! I'm out of the cave! Do you see me?"

I have you in my sights!

I looked and saw Drayke break formation from the others. He dove at me like an asteroid falling from space. I ran as fast as I could to meet him. I looked back. A shadowy figure was moving in our direction. It wasn't large enough to be Corbin. He was sending one of his dragons to intercept.

Based on its trajectory, I wasn't sure Drayke would reach me in time.

Drayke reared back, his wings spread behind him and unleased his acid breath at the dragon that flew toward him.

"No!" I screamed. "We don't know who that was? It could have been Joni or Mercy!"

I didn't have a choice. I'm sorry!

Drayke blasted into the ground in front of me. I climbed on his back and sank my teeth into his flesh. I drank as much as I could.

"You did what you had to do," I gasped for air. "Let's just hope it wasn't a vampire I know."

With a hard flap of Drayke's wings, we took off again into the skies.

"I need a clear shot. I have to try to hit all of them at once!"

Drayke circled around behind the wyrmriders as they spread around the approaching black mass that must've been Corbin's brood. I checked my dragon vision. They were all there. I still didn't have a clean shot. The wyrmriders were between us.

Can you hit them from above? Drayke asked.

I nodded. "I think so."

Corbin's dragons weren't attacking. Their blood-breath couldn't change the wyrmriders. They weren't vampires. At least, if it could, Corbin wasn't interested in possessing them. They'd have a different nature, even if they could become devil-dragons themselves. Maybe Corbin couldn't control them like he could the others. Whatever the case, it gave us an opportunity. I closed my eyes as Drayke flew over the formation. I didn't want Sarah to know where I was.

"Let me know when I have a clean shot!" I screamed.

I held onto Drayke's reins with one hand while I readied my wand. Exsanguination didn't involve any incantations. It was a blast of pure blood magic. I focused my mind, welling up as much power as I could. To cast my spell over all of them was going to take a lot out of me.

Now! Drayke shouted.

I aimed my wand at the dragons below. Looking down at them from above, their forms no longer blended with the night sky. I could make them out. I drew on as much power as I could. With a scream, I released it all from my wand. A red energy splashed around Corbin and the other dragons. Blood blasted out of their bodies like a hundred little geysers. It was beautiful, but also a little gross.

Their forms withered. They were changing. Were they becoming themselves again? I couldn't tell. There were so many of them and the air was clouded with a mist of dragon blood.

"Tell the wyrmriders to pull back! We don't want anyone to get sprayed. I don't know what that shit will do to them."

Got it... Drayke's voice faded in my mind. I'd used all the dragon blood in my system. My grip on his reins loosened.

I lowered my lips to Drayke's body, but I was too weak. I barely had the strength to bite. I missed the soft spot and hit his scales. My body slipped to the side.

The next thing I knew I was flying through space, straight through the bloody mist. I held my breath. There were demons in there. The last thing I needed was to become possessed by one of them just as I'd freed the others.

I didn't know if holding my breath would work. All I knew was that Corbin drank the dragon blood before. I didn't want to let any of it into my system.

I was going to hit the ground. The last thing I heard was a loud shriek. Drayke was trying to catch me. He wasn't fast enough. There was a loud thud. A violent crash like when two cars collide on the highway. A pain flooded over my body. That was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.

Chapter 17

Blood. I tasted blood. A whole mouthful. I swallowed it. It was dragon blood. I gasped for a second, afraid I’d just consumed the wrong kind of dragon blood—was I about to shift into one of Corbin’s brood? I opened my eyes to see Mel's red hair over my eyes. Her lips were pressed to mine.

I pressed her off of me.

"Cheers, Hailey!"

I snorted. "Were you giving me mouth-to-mouth?"

"We both were." I sat up and saw Mercy staring back at me with a wide grin. She had blood on her mouth. "I can see why you like this stuff. I've had my fill on dragon blood. Didn’t dare swallow a drop."

I gasped. "Mercy! Mel! Where's Joni? What about Sarah?"

Mercy pointed to the side. Joni was seated on Nammu's back looking as regal and charming as ever.

"Where is Sarah?" I asked.

"She's gone," Mercy said. "Corbin sent her after you to try to stop Drayke from picking you up..."

"And he killed her..."

I am sorry, Drayke said, his voice quivering.

Mercy shook her head. "It's not his fault. He saved you and you freed us. How are you feeling?"

I scratched the back of my head. "I ache all over. I think I'm doing alright. Good thing I'm a vampire. I have no idea how far I fell."

"We don't have time to mourn Sarah," Mercy said. "You didn't just free us. You freed them."

"The demons?" I asked.

Mercy nodded. "Corbin says he can't control them now. He used something like a sire bond to manage them before. He'd mixed a little of his own blood into what he used to turn us."

I turned and saw Corbin sitting on a rock. Several other vampires I didn't recognize were seated around him. All younglings, I assumed, he'd turned into vampires before he made them dragons. He was their sire. They were the only ones still loyal to him—a pathetic lot, if anyone asked me.

I clenched my fists. I stood up. My legs ached. My back hurt. My head still pounded. I didn't care. With all my strength, I charged after Corbin.

"Hello, love!"

I reared back and landed the hardest punch I could, square on Corbin's jaw. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Corbin hit the ground and rubbed his jaw. "Damn. You're a lot stronger than you look."

"You released demons, you asshole! Are you really so arrogant as to think you could command a legion of demon-dragons?"

Corbin narrowed his eyes. "Do you really want me to answer that question?"

I rolled my eyes. "Of course you're that arrogant. I've never met someone so pompous! So conceited!"

"It wasn't conceit, love. I didn't do it for myself. I did it for you."

"In what fucked up universe would you think that I'd want you to unleash demons and turn my friends into dragons?"

"I intended to bring you along. You could have commanded them alongside me. We could rule the earth and hell besides. You and me. King and Queen!"

"I told you before. I don't want to be queen of anything, much less your queen!"

Corbin stood up. He stepped toward me. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the lips.

I kneed him in the groin.

"Fuck you!"

"Right here? With everyone watching? Sure, if you're into that, I'm game."

I slapped Corbin across the face.

"Ouch! Stop that! I love you, Hailey!"

I stomped my foot. "I don't love you, Corbin. The only reason you think you love me is because of some magic shit I used on you once before. What you feel for me isn't real love."

"I don't care how it happened. I know what I feel. That it came from magic doesn't change how real it is for me."

"How many demons did you let loose?"

"You let them loose, love. I had them contained."

"Don't put this on me! You did this. How many?"

Corbin shrugged. "A hundred or so. I had the big one, myself. The beast of beasts."

I raised an eyebrow. "You drank Lucifer's blood? That's what made you a demon?"

"I made him my little bitch, that's what I did. I'm not evil, Hailey. With you, we could have conquered hell."

"And destroyed the earth in the process?"

"We wouldn't have destroyed it. We were going to make this world a better place for our kind!"

"For vampires, you mean."

"Yes, Hailey. In case you didn't notice, that's what you are. If you'd let go of your infantile sentimentality for the humans for just a moment, you could see the world I was making for you."

"You're one sick bastard. Seven hundred years have really warped your mind."

"It's clarity, love. It could have been ours. We could have ended hell. Tell me, wouldn't those humans you care so much about appreciate that?"

I snorted. "You weren't going to end hell. You were going to bring another kind of hell to earth. Guess what? It sounds like you did already. Unless you know how I can wrangle up Lucifer and a shitload of demons and put them back in their box."

"It's not a box. It's more like a puddle."

"I saw the damned portal, Corbin. That's not the point."

"The Voodoo Queen and that witch are trying to take them down as we speak. What do you think their chances are?"

"Not great! What's she doing, blasting them with her soul blade?"

Corbin shrugged. "Trying to, I'd wager. Just between you and me, I don't like her chances."

"There has to be a way to stop them. Don’t tell me you're so dumb to release the devil and a legion of demons from hell without a plan to put them back again if things went south."

Corbin smirked. "Deep south."

I huffed. "Stop being a smartass. How do we stop them?"

Corbin tilted his head. "Do you think you'll ever be able to love me?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question. I don't care if it takes a thousand years. Will you ever find it in your heart to love me the way I love you?"

I shook my head. "Not in a million years."

Corbin stared at me for a few seconds. "Then go back to your friends. Do what you have to do."

Corbin turned around to walk away.

"Do you really think I'm going to let you walk away from me like this?"

"What are you going to do, stake me?"

"Well, yes. That's exactly what I'll do."

"You'd never be able to catch me, Hailey. Vampires far faster and stronger than you have tried. Besides, you won't ever stop these demons without me."

I snorted. "Are you actually going to do something decent for once and help clean up your own mess?"

Corbin pressed his lips together. "I'll try."

"Sarah is gone now because of you!"

Corbin nodded. "I'm sorry about your friend."

"You're sorry? That's all you can say is that you're sorry?"

"What do you want me to say, Hailey?" Corbin turned and walked away. His younglings crowded around him. I clenched my fists. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Let him go," Mercy said. "We have bigger issues to deal with now. He'll get what's coming to him, eventually."

I nodded. "You bet he will. I'll make sure of it."

"I'm sure you will. Come on. Joni has a plan. She needs you on Drayke."

"A plan?" I asked.

"That's what she said. I don't know what her idea is, but she has one."

I sighed. "Let me guess. She wants to send them all to the void."

"That would be my guess. Is there a problem with that?"

I shook my head. "Yes, and no. We still don't know how Corbin is keeping that portal open. Those particular dragons were the guardians of hell itself. They were the ones who prevented those from coming and going as they saw fit. Unless we can figure out how to close that portal, even if we cast all the dragons into the void, there's no telling how many more nasty demons might emerge."

No sooner did I say it and the ground under my feet quaked. I widened my feet to steady myself.

"What's that?" Mel asked. "An earthquake?"

I shook my head. "I'm afraid it's worse than that."

The ground over the cave where the hell spring was split open. A geyser of bubbly, bloody liquid shot into the sky like a column of energy. Within it, hundreds of black figures, presumably demons, swirled around.

"Holy shit!" Mel gasped.

"Unholy shit," I said. "Lucifer just released hell on earth."

Chapter 18

"Quick!" Joni shouted. "If any of the demons come out and try to materialize, blast them. We're going to make a void portal at the top of the column. Anything that comes out of hell will go to the void instead."

I ran and jumped on Drayke. "Right! Send them out of the fire and into the frying pan."

"Exactly! You've got this!"

"How long do we have to do it? We can't maintain a void portal here forever."

"As long as it takes. Until the demons stop trying to come through."

I shook my head. "Even then, they could just start again as soon as we stop. You can't hold a void portal there forever."

"It's what we can do right now. One problem at a time."

I wasn't sure this was a great plan. All the demons that were freed when I exsanguinated them from the vampires were still out there. If they were pulling more devils out of hell, what would they do when they saw the wyrmriders sucking all their buddies into the void?

"Connor, can you hear me?"

He didn't respond. I probably used whatever power I had from his blood when I cast the exsanguination spell. It was a long shot, anyway. I just thought there was a chance he'd seen where the demons went and, maybe, he could track them. They probably smelled of sulfur.

Drayke spread his wings. He took off and started circling the column. Joni and Nammu flew over it. They channeled their power. Joni was glowing blue. She was siphoning the dragon's power, amplifying it, and redirecting it with a wand of her own to form a massive black portal over the geyser from hell.

I didn't see Zale and Smauk among the others. "Where's Zale?"

He and Smauk are tracking the other demons.

"Glad to hear they have that covered. Is that safe for them? What if they're spotted? I don't think they can handle that many demons alone. Hell, I don't know for sure if they can even handle one."

They're just tracking, Hailey. If the demons come close, they'll alert Nammu and La Sirene.

We continued circling the column. Black forms continued flowing up and down. None of them were moving toward the void portal. So long as they didn't escape, it was just the same. Hell was contained. In a mystical tube of blood that wasn't going anywhere.

It wasn't a complete failure. At least the demons weren't escaping—yet. It also wasn't a solution. The longer we circled, more dark devilish figures emerged into the column. Maybe the thing would pop and they'd fly into the void. Or, it would pop and they'd blast out of the thing from the sides and out into the world.

That's what we were supposed to handle. Acid breath. Nasty stuff.

I heard a loud roar. I looked up. Zale and Smauk were flying toward us. A giant creature made of flames was chasing them. A dozen more appeared in a blaze around him. Several of the wyrmriders broke formation and charged to meet Zale in mid-air.

"Drayke! We have to help!"

We can't! Look down!

I looked over the side of Drayke and saw Corbin. He was running toward the column. What was he going to do? It couldn't be good. If he broke that column open, there was no telling how many demons would fly out of it.

"We have to stop him! Can you blast him?"

I don't know. If I blast the ground around the portal, it might open it wider.

"Take me down to him. I'll take him out myself if I have to!"

I gripped my wand in one hand. Drayke crashed into the ground with a sound like thunder. I jumped off the dragon's back.

"Corbin!" I pointed my wand at him. "I can't let you do that!"

"It's the only way!" Corbin screamed back. He was holding a vial of blood in his hand.

"Hell no! I'll exsanguinate you again! You're not starting this over again."

"That's not the plan, love. I'm the bridge. I'm what's holding the portal open. I severed my spirit. I sent a part of myself into hell to create the portal to begin with. This is the only way to close it."

"And leave Lucifer and the devils on earth?"

"Trust me, Hailey! I told you I'd try to fix this. That's what I'm doing. If you don't want to rule with me, know that my love for you is real. If you can't love me back, if you can't be happy with me, then this is the only choice I have left."

"What are you saying?"

"Goodbye, Hailey."

Corbin drank the vial of blood. When he did, the largest flaming dragon above turned to smoke. It blasted down and over Corbin's body. It spun like a tornado around him and a black dragon, like the one he was before, flew out of it. He shrieked into the skies. The other flaming dragons charged after him.

They flew right past him and back into the portal. That wasn't all of them. There were more out there. How many? I couldn't say. He gathered those he could and spread his wings. He looked at me and nodded his dragon head before he dove into the portal himself.

He flew up and down the column, gathering the demons from within, then blasted headlong back into the ground.

The column disappeared into a puddle—just as it was before. Then the blood in the portal turned darker. I thickened. It stopped bubbling. It stood still, then turned into molten rock.

I fell to my knees and looked up at the sky. The wyrmriders broke rank and landed on the ground.

Corbin closed the portal himself. He sent himself to hell—and he was in control of Lucifer. I didn't think for a second that love was his only motive. If he could command Lucifer as a dragon on earth, could he do the same in hell? Had Corbin just made himself the new devil?

There was no way to know exactly what happened. I wasn't about to bust into hell to check it out, either.

Smauk landed next to me. Zale jumped off his back. I was surprised that when he landed, his legs didn't buckle. He reached down. I took his hand and he helped me up.

"Is it over?"

"I believe it is," Zale said. "You saved our queen. You saved your friends. You saved the world. Only you could have reached that vampire the way you did."

I shook my head. "I did nothing but break his heart."

Zale smiled. "There's a magic in that, I suppose. Love is a powerful thing."

Zale locked his eyes on mine. He was about to kiss me. I heard a howl in the distance.

I pulled back. "That's Connor. I have to go. There are more demons out there that we didn't catch. Annabelle and Alexandra are out there somewhere, too, trying to fight them."

Zale nodded. "I understand."

I could have climbed back on Drayke. Instead I ran toward Connor's howl. My legs churned like the blades in a blender. A nuclear bomb could have exploded in front of me and it wouldn't have stopped me. Okay, well, maybe a nuclear one would. But nothing short of that could have.

I saw a green glow and a white light. Two human figures emerged from the tree line. It was Annabelle with her soul blade and Alexandra with a white light on the tip of her wand.

Another howl. Connor bounded out of the tree line behind them and ran toward me. We stopped face-to-face. Connor returned to his human form.

I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him hard on the lips. He pulled me in close and kissed me back. I don't know what came over me. All I knew was that my heart desired him. He never left. He helped Annabelle and Alexandra chase down demons. He might have been a wolf, but he had the heart of a dragon.

He pulled away from the kiss and smiled at me. "We found and eliminated three of them. You should have seen Annabelle with that blade. She was a badass. And the witch helped, too. She blasted those demons with water and they fell right out of the sky."

I grinned. "You helped them find them."

"There are more out there. I don't know how many. Did you figure out how to close the portal?"

I nodded. "Sort of. Corbin did it. I'm not sure it's for the best in the long run. Who knows what he can do from within hell itself?"

"It can't be any worse than what he's done here."

I nodded. I looked down. "You're naked, by the way."

Connor smirked. "Want to join me?"

I smiled back. "Maybe later. We have an audience."

Annabelle and Alexandra made it to where we were standing. The wyrmriders on the backs of their dragons, including Zale, gathered around us.

Joni slid off Nammu's back.

Connor shifted back into wolf form. He didn't have clothes. It was probably for the best. I'm sure he felt awkward standing there in all his glory while two queens, a bunch of merman soldiers, and a group of vampires stood around us.

Joni placed her hand on my back. "We'll try to hunt down the others. We can still send them to the void if we can find them."

"Do you need me with Drayke?"

"It's up to you. It might be helpful. There's no telling how many are out there and what forms they might have taken."

Mercy sighed. "So Corbin is gone."

I nodded. "He drank his dragon blood again and took control of Lucifer. Who knows if he'll be able to maintain that in hell."

"Most of the dragons that guarded hell before are here or they're gone," Mercy said. "There might not be much to prevent him from opening a portal again from the other side."

I pressed my lips together. "He said he was doing this out of love. He said he realized I wouldn't love him. This was the only way to give me the world I wanted."

Mel snorted. "He always wanted to give you the world. Albeit in a screwed way where you and he ruled over all, with legions of vampires at your disposal. But he wanted to give you the world, no less."

I chuckled. "Yeah, how romantic. If you find mass homicide sweet."

"Mercy had a valid point," Annabelle said. "If Corbin really did this out of love, we're only safe from hell now, so long as he can retain control over Lucifer. I'm not sure how long that will last."

"Didn’t Lucifer command those dragons from hell already? Would it make much difference how many there are?"

"That's not exactly true," Joni said. "Those dragons might have been demons, but when they were in hell originally, they weren't evil. They were there to prevent Lucifer from escaping. Many beasts to keep the one in check. Even if Corbin took a few back with him, we don't know if they'll return to their original purpose. Even if they did, the power in hell will be out of balance in favor of the one who rules it."

I took a deep breath. "We'll just have to hope that Corbin can retain control indefinitely. And that he doesn't get any wise ideas after he's had a few minutes in hell to reconsider his decision."

Joni looked up at the skies. "With Lucifer gone, and Corbin not manipulating them, the dragons that are here might also return to their nobler natures. You can sense them now, Hailey. You can call to them. The wyrms, too, were originally meant to protect the void. They still do, only now they do so from this side of the divide between worlds. There are more threats these days from our world who might open the void than those within it. The same might be true of hell. You might need those dragons if anyone ever tries to open a hell portal again."

I nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

Annabelle tilted her head. "Are you saying we shouldn't have killed the ones we did?"

Joni shook her head. "I don't know. Only time will tell if those dragons remain a threat or not."

I kneeled down and touched the ground. "This was where Sarah was when she died."

Mel shook her head. "I can't believe she's gone. She was the only one of you stick-in-the-mud vampires who ever played games with me."

I smiled. "She had a good heart, even for a vampire. I'll miss her."

"We all will," Mercy said. "She was special. Especially to me. Even after I was turned into a vampire, even though she knew I wasn't buried there, she kept fresh flowers on my grave. All because she knew what happened to me. She knew who I was a long time before I even met her."

I shook my head. "She won't be in the same part of hell where Corbin is. She'll be in vampire hell."

Mercy shuddered. "It's a dreadful place. With her abilities, to sense the death of other vampires, to see through their eyes, it might be especially horrible."

Annabelle glanced at Mercy. "I took you there once before. When we went to save your brother. I don't know if I can cut a portal there again. It's not easy. I can try."

"She won't have a body to return to," I said. "If we brought her back, she'd have to come as a spirit. I might be able to help her materialize. I'll need to do a little digging."

Mercy nodded. "It's been done before. Perhaps we can do it again."

Mel clapped her hands together. "You're going to mount a rescue in vampire hell? Wait until I tell my guild!"

I narrowed my eyes. "I don't think that's information you can share with gamer geeks online, Mel."

Mel shrugged. "Maybe not. They’d probably just think I was talking about some other game. They still laugh when I tell them I'm a vampire."

Mercy tilted her head. "You told your online buddies that you're a vampire?"

"They're just a bunch of gamers, Mercy. Relax. It's not like they believe me."

I sighed. "I don't know about you all, but I'm ready to get the hell out of this swamp. Pardon the expression."

Joni hugged me. "If you need us, you can reach out to Drayke or Nammu at any time now."

I nodded. "I know. Thank you, Joni."

Zale stepped up to me. "It's been fun. I wish I could stay."

I hugged him. "You're special, Zale. I hope you find a mermaid who sees that."

Zale kissed me on the cheek. "You're special, too. It never would have worked between us, anyway."

I nodded. "You're right. Besides, I think my heart belongs to someone else."

Zale looked down at Connor. "He's a lucky mutt."

Connor growled.

I laughed. "I don’t think he likes being called that."

Mercy smiled. "I think he shares that sentiment. He is lucky."

"You're an impressive witch," Alexandra said. "I still can't believe you pulled off that spell. That's some kind of power."

I shrugged. "I cheated a little. You know, being a vampire."

Mercy laughed. "I'm a vampire and a witch and I don't think I could have done it."

I flexed my left arm. "What can I say? I've got magic muscles. Even so, I never could have done any of this without each one of you at my side."

"You saved our queen," Zale said. "Fomoria will forever be in your debt."

Joni smiled. "You saved my life. Thank you."

"You saved all of us," Mercy said. "And you probably saved billions of people who will never know what you did."

I shrugged. "They'd never believe it if they knew. A vampire and a witch who saves the world? That would be like the joker saving Gotham City. It would never make the comics."

Annabelle grabbed my hand. "The world needs tropes. People have a need to see things in terms of good and evil. It helps them sleep at night. Sometimes, though, the real heroes are the villains and the villains are the heroes."

I grinned. "In that case, if Batman ever shows up in New Orleans, he'd better watch out."

Chapter 19

I found the perfect spell to materialize a ghost. It took me a few weeks. Connor and I spent a lot of time in my room—some of it was devoted to poring over my grimoires. Probably less than half of it. One needed only a little imagination to guess what we spent the rest of our time doing.

I didn't bite Connor when he needed it. Mercy took care of that for him. It wasn't that he wasn't willing. I was more than happy to oblige under the right circumstances. Still, there was enough weirdness about a vampire and a wolf-shifter starting a relationship that adding telepathy to the mix seemed wrong. We had to build trust the old fashioned way, to communicate like normal people do when they're in a relationship. Like a gentleman, Connor thought listening in to my every conversation was a level of relationship-paranoia that exceeded that of scouring one's social media pages or checking a significant other's e-mail. Still, if we ever had an enemy and we needed to coordinate our strategies, we knew it was an option.

Annabelle also figured out how to cut a portal into vampire hell. It took her almost as long to do that as it took me to find the spell I needed. Of course, I probably would have found my spell sooner if I knew Annabelle could do it, and if Connor wasn't with me in the room while we were supposed to be doing research.

Mel was eager to join us on our rescue mission into vampire hell. Mercy nixed that idea straight away. Mel was still a youngling. Going to vampire hell could seriously screw with the progress she was making. Not every vampire returns from that place with all of her wits.

Mercy had an old totem she’d used the time she and Annabelle went there to save her brother. Granted, it didn't work like they hoped. Her brother attached himself to her instead. That's what earned Mercy a trip to the Vilokan Asylum for the Magically and Mentally Deranged for a time. Still, the totem was supposed to work. It involved a little voodoo and some bloodwitchery. Annabelle dressed the totem in oils. I had to use a little of Sarah's DNA to make the totem a worthy vessel for her to temporarily inhabit. Usually, bloodwitchery wasn't necessary. The problem was that we didn't have much from Sarah we could use. She was such a neat freak that I had to make do with only a couple strands of hair from her brush. We were reasonably confident it would work. All we had to do was find her, capture her spirit in the totem, and get out of there. Annabelle had to go along. We needed her soul-blade to cut a portal in and out of there.

Pauli showed up with her at Casa do Diabo for the task. He was going to use his rainbow magic to hold the portal open for us. Otherwise, it would involve a long trip to Guinee and a trip back on Beli to get home again. It wouldn't be impossible, but this was a lot easier.

Mercy stayed back with Pauli, Connor, and Mel to stop any nasties that might find our portal and decide to make a break for it. We'd had our share of hell-bound entities coming to earth already. We didn't need any vampire wraiths escaping to haunt Casa do Diabo.

I didn't know what would happen if a wraith made it to earth and I wasn't eager to find out.

Mercy painted a sugar skull face on Annabelle. As vampires, we can pass through the place without a problem. For a mortal like Annabelle, Mercy said she had to pay her respects. It would protect her from the wraiths who might try to suck the life out of her. I hoped she was right. Annabelle looked beautiful in a skull face. Not that she wasn't pretty already, but there was something about sugar skull art that I'd always found charming.

Annabelle summoned Beli and carved an oblong portal into the fabric of time and space. It was black as death. Annabelle grinned. "Told you I could do it."

"Be careful," Mercy said. "Don't do any magic there. It will draw the wraiths to you like flies to shit."

I held the totem in my hand. "No worries. I don't think I'll need any magic. We just have to find Sarah and get out."

I sighed. "Let's hope we don't run into Corbin."

Mercy shook her head. "You shouldn't. Vampire hell is a different division of hell. It's under the same management, I suppose, but it sort of runs itself. I don't think he'll have any reason to go there."

Annabelle and I stepped through the portal. I didn't like this place one bit. There's a reason it's called vampire hell. It was dark. The screams of wraiths echoed all around. It was cold.

"Call to her," Annabelle said. "If she hasn't become a wraith yet, she should hear you."

I winced. "I really hope she hasn't. That would suck after all this work. Wraiths are beyond saving."

"It hasn't been that long. I'm no expert on this place, but I think it takes more than a few weeks before a vampire becomes a wraith."

I nodded and held out the totem. It was supposed to draw her in if we found her. "Sarah!"

A few wraiths blew past us. The cold air that accompanied them chilled me to the bone.

"Sarah!" I shouted again.

"She's not here, child." I turned. Moll was standing there.

"You're in vampire hell? Again?"

Moll nodded. "It's also a witch's hell, dear."

I grinned. "Right. I almost forgot about that. What do you mean that she's not here? Sarah died. I saw her body get destroyed by a dragon's acid breath."

Moll raised an eyebrow. "Acid breath, you say?"

"It's a long story."

Moll grinned widely, flashing her crooked teeth. "I have all the time in the world to hear it, though I suppose your companion here does not."

Annabelle shook her head. "I don't. We'd like to get out of here as soon as possible. Do you know where we can find Sarah?"

"You won't find her here. She's moved on."

I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean she moved on?"

"Haven't you heard? There's a new king in hell. He has a soft spot in his heart for vampires, it seems. He tried to appeal to the celestials to allow the nobler of your kind passage, but they declined. So, he created a vampire heaven of his own."

I tilted my head. "Corbin created a vampire heaven?"

"Yes, dear. He's always impressed me, that Corbin. Even in his vampiric life, he was quite the charmer."

I winced. "Something like that. Are you telling us that Sarah is in vampire heaven?"

"That's right, dear. Follow me."

Annabelle and I followed Moll through the darkness until we reached a bright golden gate. A dragon stood perched in front of it.

"That's the way through," Moll said. "I don't believe that the guardian will allow you through. You aren't dead, after all."

"But they took Sarah through?"

"She was the first, dear. The new king of hell said he owed it to her. I think he made vampire heaven specially for her. After that, they sent a few more vampires and witches through. It's not many, mind you. I didn’t make the cut. But there are a handful of those here who have yet to become wraiths that the new devil found worthy."

Annabelle touched my arm. "Do you want to ask if we can get through?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. Even if the dragon let us through, at least we know now that Sarah is in a better place."

Annabelle nodded. "I think that's a wise choice."

Chapter 20

I don’t know why I was nervous. I don’t even know why I bothered to respond to the Meetup online. That’s how I found the coven the first time. That was years ago. It was a visit that kick-started everything in my career as a blood witch. Only two of the three witches who were there that day were still alive—Alexandra and Salene.

I didn’t expect there’d be many more. There’d be banana bread. There was always banana bread when the witches gathered. I’m not sure why. It’s not like there’s anything magical about banana bread. There’s nothing magical about the nuts they put in it—presuming they were entirely plant-based nuts. I knew Alexandra had used what you might call meat-based nuts in a few spells in the past.

It wasn’t just a meeting of the coven—which was actively recruiting new witches to their circle—but an open house for Alexandra and Salene’s new place. The first house was condemned as “unsafe” after Corbin turned into a dragon upstairs and blasted through the roof. Darn exterminator couldn’t handle the job. At least Corbin had experience condemning things. He’d make a suitable devil, I suppose.

Then again, he’d made a heaven of sorts, too. I imagined it was more like a special corner of hell with minimal suffering, probably lots of naked blond girls, and pictures of Corbin. You know, everything he’d want in his own personal version of heaven. I didn’t really know what it was like there at all. All I knew was that’s where Sarah went.

They say that when people move on, they’re still watching over you. I don’t know if that’s true or not. In Sarah’s case, if she kept her sight, she very well could be watching us.

I rang the doorbell. I always felt awkward with those video doorbells. Usually they were about breast height. I know they cast a wide angle, but it still felt weird. Then again, I suppose a doorbell staring at me there wasn’t unlike a lot of conversations I had with men. Hello, buddy. Eyes up here!

Speaking of men—things with Connor were going well. He dropped me off for my meeting with the coven in his Escalade. He literally bought the thing with blood money. Money he’d earned running errands as a wolf-shifter for Corbin. You know, back before we realized he was pre-Satan. Connor and I spent a lot of time together. As much as I enjoyed it, I wished we had spent more time together talking. I mean, really talking. Using words that don’t involve “oh yesses” or “just like that’s.” Things got physical fast. Now I was struggling to carve out time when we could be both alone and have a conversation. It’s hard when you’re a vampire. Okay, with Connor, it was hard whenever he was with me. That wasn’t my point. What I mean is that it’s difficult to find good times to chat when you are confined to the house all day every day and most places were closed only a few hours after I could go out. When he visited me during the day, we went to my room for privacy. One thing led to another. Talking went out the window fast.

When it was nighttime, we went to loud places where talking was virtually impossible. Maybe it’s just my vampiric hearing. My ears are sensitive. But I can’t hear a damn thing when I go to bars and clubs. Somehow, people all around are carrying on conversations while I’m there nodding politely and saying “yeah” or “sure” a lot. Then again, maybe everyone there was pretending. No one could hear what anyone else was saying, but no one wanted to be rude about it either. So everyone just babbled nonsense and pretended to understand one another. It was like going to Sunday School, but with booze. Unless, of course, you were Lutheran. Then Sunday School might come with booze. They believed like the Catholics did that drinking alcohol and blood was cool (they had a ritual where they supposedly did both at the same time) so they were alright with me.

Alexandra opened the door and let me in. She gave me a hug. There were about a dozen people inside I didn’t know. Salene waved and smiled when she saw me.

They were all gathered in a circle on the floor.

No, they weren’t casting a spell. They were planning a bake sale. Fundraising for the coven.

See, this is why I never joined a coven to begin with. That, and because Moll forbade it and I never saw a reason to join one after she was gone. I’d learned enough by then already.

When I sat down, Alexandra introduced me to the group. I thought everyone was new. Apparently, a lot of the members had attended in the past but hadn’t been back in some time. The new house and the whole house-warming thing gave them reason to show up.

There were gifts stacked on a table against the wall. I wasn’t aware that you’re supposed to bring a gift to a housewarming party. Mercy told me it was standard procedure. I mean, we vamps don’t get invited to a lot of housewarmings. You know, once they invite you in and all…

Most people like to kick off their new lives in new homes without a looming fear that one of their guests might come back and eat them some day. I had to grab something at the last minute. I had two copies of the Grimoire of Pope Honorius. It wasn’t like they were mass-produced. We had an original copy, of course, but we also made a few spiral bound versions. While it doesn’t feel quite the same to cast a spell out of a three-ring binder or off the screen of a smartphone as it does when you’re reading from a dusty old book, it works just as well. Most of the time. There were a few rare exceptions where the book itself was enchanted. I gave them the photocopied version. Look, I know it was cheap and corny, but there was some valuable stuff in that book. I doubted most of the witches there, Alexandra and Salene excepted, would have a clue what to do with it anyway, even if they read it.

After they introduced me to the group, we were supposed to go around, say our names, and something interesting about ourselves. It was like I was back in school again. Nothing anyone else said was particularly interesting. “I’m Nancy, I’m a paralegal,” didn’t do much to inspire me to seek her out for further conversation.

When they got around to me, I told them the truth. “I’m Hailey, and I vant to suck your blood! Muahahaha!”

They didn’t laugh like I hoped. They looked at me with furrowed brows and tilted heads.

“Hailey is a vampire,” Alexandra explained.

There were a few gasps, but mostly looks of confusion.

“She’s also a blood witch.”

The gasps won out and became universal.

“You shouldn’t mess with that stuff, deary,” a lady who told me her name was Rose and that she liked to crochet said. “Such things are dangerous.”

I smirked and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I appreciate the warning. I think I can handle myself.”

The awkwardness faded when Alexandra started talking about electing new officers. I, sure as hell has vampires, wasn’t going to volunteer for anything. I still fashioned myself a hedge witch, after all. I wasn’t about to become beholden to a coven, especially one more interested in bake sales than brewing spells. I was here to participate, not to join. Not officially, anyway. Alexandra had convinced me that I might learn a few things, that they could also learn from me. So far, all I knew was that cupcakes usually sell fast, and that they had enough money in the treasury to put an ad in the paper. Apparently, some of these witches were old enough that they still thought newspaper advertisements were effective.

I sat and twiddled my thumbs. There was a young witch with a nice jugular who stole my attention for a few seconds. I don’t usually bite girls, though. Still, it was something to think about beyond whether Dorcas would be interested in serving as the coven’s secretary. Yes, her name was actually Dorcas. Her parents must have been real winners.

“Now that we have all that out of the way, shall we begin?” Alexandra asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Tonight,” Salene announced, “we’re going to perform a seance.”

I snorted. “A seance?”

Salene grabbed a ouija board and set it in the middle of the group. I chuckled. “Oh, we’re playing a game, you mean?”

“This isn’t a toy, Hailey,” Salene said. “It’s certainly not a common board game.”

“Seriously? You probably bought it at Walmart. Walmart has exactly nothing that’s useful for real spells. Even their ground sage is virtually useless.”

Salene tilted her head. “I didn’t get it at Walmart. I ordered it on Amazon.”

I smirked. “Right. Amazon. The world’s leading supplier of all things spell-casting.”

Alexandra waved her hand through the air. “You’d be surprised, Hailey. They have some great witchcraft starter kits on Amazon for less than thirty bucks.”

I huffed. “I was taught to gather or grow my own supplies. Or, at least buy them from someone fresh.”

“In many instances,” Alexandra said, “dried herbs and plain candles work just as well as any you might buy from occult shops.”

I grinned. “Sure, if low-level blessings and curses that might or might not come true are your idea of effective witchcraft.”

I looked around. There were more eyes rolling than balls in the bowling alley. There were more than a few contorted faces. Apparently, I was giving off the wrong impression to the group. I didn’t know why. If they thought I was a know-it-all it’s probably because I knew more than any of them did. I couldn’t help that much. Still, I was there to learn what I could. I knew a lot of heavy-hitting spells, but when I trained with Moll, I skipped over a lot of the basics. I bit my tongue, resolved to do more observing and less speaking.

Salene set the Ouija board in the middle of the group. She mumbled some incantations. She cast some herbs across the board. I didn’t think that was a part of the “how-to” guide that came with the store-bought Ouija boards.

The coven joined hands. I took theirs. They were warm. I was pretty sure they found me icy cold. You know, being a vampire and all. I could feel the power within the blood of everyone in the circle. The witches started a chant I didn’t know. The power flowed around the circle, almost like we were a single artery, with the blood flowing between us. It wasn’t the actual blood that we were exchanging, but it was like we were pooling our power together. I think I contributed more than all the others combined. They were in for a rude awakening. Whatever we were about to do was going to be bigger than they expected.

“Come, sister! Rise and speak!”

I opened my eyes and looked around. The other witches had their eyes closed. Their eyelids were moving as if the eyes in their heads were rolling around as they continued their indiscernible chant.

A swirl of red and black energy formed over the ouija board. The board clapped shut and flew across the room.

“I don’t need any of that rubbish to talk to you ladies!”

I tilted my head. “Eudora?”

“Oh, Hailey, dear! It’s lovely seeing you. What are you doing here?”

I shrugged. “I finally gave in, I guess. Figured I’d see what this is all about.”

Eudora huffed. “What do you witches think you’re up to disturbing me like this?”

“We wanted to consult your wisdom in death!” Alexandra proclaimed.

“My wisdom? Take your wand and shove it up your hoo-hah. That’s the wisdom I have for you, ladies!”

I snickered. “Sounds fun. I know a spell that can make your wand expand, contract, and even vibrate.”

Eudora winked at me even as the other witches groaned. I don’t know why they thought they were so high and mighty. It was a joke. And even if it wasn’t—come on! Everyone does it. Not everyone has a real wand to enhance the experience. I wasn’t only making light of the situation—Eudora was the one who brought up shoving one's wand in places wands don't belong—I was offering valuable insight.

“Hailey, dear, it’s a good thing I saw you! I come bearing a warning.”

“A warning? Of what sort?”

“Of the gravest sort, dear.”

I grinned. “Well, yeah. Warnings from dead people tend to be grave. No pun intended, of course.”

“The guardians have fallen! The Vampire King of Hell seeks to return.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Of course he does. Can’t say I didn’t see that one coming.”

“He’s more powerful than ever before. With him comes suffering, death, and destruction for all who are not of his ilk.”

“This from the same Corbin who created a vampire heaven for good bloodsucking girls and boys who finish their platelets and do as sire says? I really thought he’d turned over a new leaf. It seemed like a noble thing to do.”

“He still lacks one thing he requires to return as he hopes. It is not his resurrection that should trouble you the most, dear. Once he leaves, there will be nothing left, no force strong enough to prevent hell from merging with the earth itself. The fires of torment will blast through the crust of the earth. The oceans will turn to blood. Locusts will consume the crops!”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t forget the frogs, lice, and boils. That crap has happened before.”

“Not like this, dear. You must see to it that what he seeks, the flesh of the child he desires, be protected that he not receive it in sacrifice.”

I huffed. “Corbin really is that evil, huh? He’s resorting to child sacrifice?”

“He seeks a vessel, child. A new body.”

I shook my head. “I knew he was arrogant. Is he really trying to come to earth as an infant? I knew the guy had a real messiah complex, but that’s next-level.”

“A child with all the power of hell, with the memory of an ancient vampire, and with a flesh that can grow suited to the power it holds.”

“Why in the world does he need to do that? It seems he was a lot scarier as a vampire.”

“He’s coming for you, Hailey. He wants to be what you desire.”

I huffed. “Sorry, not into babies. What kind of sicko does he think I am?”

“He will grow quickly, dear. Not as a common child. Still, he requires the body. A unique child born of a supernatural, born of one of Adam’s sons.”

I tilted my head. “Are you talking about Cain’s baby?”

Eudora nodded. “Indeed. He has dispatched a witch, loyal to Lucifer before him, to seize the child. You must go to the child’s parents. You must help them protect the child from the witch. You are the only one strong enough to thwart her.”

I scratched my head. “How do you know all of this, Eudora?”

“Vampire hell is not made only for vampires, dear. And neither is vampire heaven. We witches who are so far advanced in our art as we share a common fate in the life beyond. The message I bring to you comes from the one who sees all and knows all. She knows what the new lord of hell intends to do.”

I tilted my head. “You’re talking about Sarah?”

Eudora nodded. “Indeed.”

We broke the circle and Eudora disappeared. The witches stood there with jaws dropped. I shrugged my shoulders. “So, about that bake sale. Who is making the donuts?”

Hailey’s Story Continues in a Dual-Series Crossover Event!

See The Wrath of Cain and Ghouls and Grimoires — Coming in October, 2022

Enjoy this book? LEAVE A REVIEW!

Want more Joni and the Wyrmriders? They have their own series!

Also By Theophilus Monroe

Gates of Eden Universe

The Druid Legacy

Druid’s Dance

Bard’s Tale

Ovate’s Call

Rise of the Morrigan

The Fomorian Wyrmriders

Wyrmrider Ascending

Wyrmrider Vengeance

Wyrmrider Justice

Wyrmrider Academy (Exclusive to Omnibus Edition)

The Voodoo Legacy

Voodoo Academy

Grim Tidings

Death Rites

Watery Graves

Voodoo Queen

The Legacy of a Vampire Witch

Bloody Hell

Bloody Mad

Bloody Wicked

Bloody Devils

Bloody Gods

The Legend of Nyx

Scared Shiftless

Bat Shift Crazy

No Shift, Sherlock

Shift for Brains

Shift Happens

Shift on a Shingle

The Vilokan Asylum of the Magically and Mentally Deranged

The Curse of Cain

The Mark of Cain

Cain and the Cauldron

Cain's Cobras

Crazy Cain

The Wrath of Cain

The Blood Witch Saga

Voodoo and Vampires

Witches and Wolves

Devils and Dragons

Ghouls and Grimoires

Faeries and Fangs

Monsters and Mambos

More to come!

Druidess

GET IT FOR FREE HERE!

Other Theophilus Monroe Series

Nanoverse

The Elven Prophecy

Chronicles of Zoey Grimm

AS T.R. MAGNUS

Kataklysm: Origins

Darkworld: The Fall of Ashathar

Kataklysm

Blightmage

Ember

More to come!

About the Author

Theophilus Monroe is a fantasy author with a knack for real-life characters whose supernatural experiences speak to the pangs of ordinary life. After earning his Ph.D. in Theology, he decided that academic treatises that no one will read (beyond other academics) was a dull way to spend his life. So, he began using his background in religious studies to create new worlds and forms of magic–informed by religious myths, ancient and modern–that would intrigue readers, inspire imaginations, and speak to real-world problems in fantastical ways.

When Theophilus isn’t exploring one of his fantasy lands, he is probably playing with one of his three sons, or pumping iron in his home gym, which is currently located in a 40-foot shipping container.

He makes his online home at www.theophilusmonroe.com. He loves answering reader questions—feel free to e-mail him at theophilus@theophilusmonroe.com if the mood strikes you!

Table of Contents

- Copyright
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Also By Theophilus Monroe
- About the Author