Magic Born Page 4

  "Alec, go with her," Marco said as if just remembering that Alec was there.

  "San Francisco," Marco said. "You'll find James King in Chinatown."

  Marco turned and left the vault. Alec and I followed him up the stairs to the destroyed laundromat. My chest tightened as the full weight of what was happening crashed down on me. Jimmy was gone. Somehow, there was a video that looked like I had killed him. It was like a nightmare. I wished I would wake up.

  "Time to go," Marco said.

  It was clear this was all the help I was going to get. Marco didn't seem to trust that I hadn't killed Jimmy, yet he was giving me a chance. I looked at the keys in my hand, then up to Marco. "You sure you want me to take your car?"

  Something glowed from behind us, and the ground shook again. I turned just in time to see a wall of fire rain down in the street, in the direction my car was parked.

  "I doubt your car is still there," Alec said.

  "Shit. I just paid it off," I said.

  "Go, find James." Marco pushed me toward the car.

  Frustration twisted inside of me and my insides squirmed. San Francisco was nearly a seven-hour drive away. How was I going to prove my innocence? What did this James person have that could help me?

  The car's engine roared to life as I turned the key in the ignition. At least it would be faster than my car. Maybe it wouldn't take the full seven hours to get there.

  Alec closed the door behind him and snapped his seatbelt in place. "Who is James King? And how is he going to prove you're not a murderer?"

  "I have no idea," I said as I navigated around a pile of debris in the middle of the road.

  I turned down a side street, hoping to avoid any blockades or police activity that might be around. A fallen tree blocked the entire road, and I had to turn around and try another route. After a few more failed attempts, I found a clear exit and gunned it, leaving Realm's Gate behind me.

  Thankfully, the roads this far north were empty. There was nothing but forests and mountains for miles. Nobody knew our city was tucked away here and these dirt roads were usually only for magical beings who lived in or visited Realm's Gate. Over the years, more and more hikers had stumbled across them, but they were usually on foot and turned around, hoping to avoid any private property.

  Taking the turns slowly, I continued toward the paved road that cut through the national forest. As soon as the tires hit pavement, I glanced over at Alec. "Thanks for your help back there."

  "Of course," he said. "Can you think of anyone who would want to set you up?"

  I shook my head. "Not at all."

  "You two were close, weren't you?" Alec asked.

  "Yeah," I said. "Never thought I'd outlive a vampire."

  "We're not as hard to kill as people think," Alec said. "Before I joined up with Jimmy, I saw quite a few turf wars out in the city. There are more ways than you think that you can kill a vampire."

  Alec was different than the other vampires I'd been around. He didn't have the typical vampire brooding or act like he was doing me a favor by just being in the same place as me. I wondered how long it would be before he developed those qualities? Or maybe he wouldn't. Jimmy didn't act superior despite his wealth and power. Maybe becoming a vampire just amplified the personalities they had when they were human.

  "What were you like before?" I asked.

  "Before I was turned?" he asked.

  I nodded.

  "Well, let's see. I was a graphic designer in a tech upstart in San Francisco. I had just finished college and was living with my girlfriend and a roommate. We ate takeout food on Wednesdays. I watched lots of TV. Too much, TV. That's about it. I wasn't very interesting."

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "Well, I was out with Sarah, that was my girlfriend."

  "You don't have to say," I said. "I shouldn't have asked."

  "No, it's fine." He paused. "So, Sarah and I were walking home from a friend's place one night, and we cut through an alleyway. Someone attacked us. He took a bite out of me, and I fought him off, so he went after her. I tried to help, but I'd lost too much blood. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, and Sarah was in the morgue."

  "I thought you had to have their blood to turn," I said.

  "Jimmy thinks the guy who did it must have fed me some of his after I passed out because I turned later the next day."

  The car was silent for a few minutes. I wasn't sure how to respond. It must have been a terrifying experience for him. When a vampire turned, their body died. Most of them talked about how they felt the pain of dying. I'd heard stories of vampires waking in morgues, scaring the shit out of the undertakers. Or waking in their own graves, like in the old vampire movies. "I'm sorry."

  "It's alright," he said. "There aren't a whole lot of vampires with happy stories."

  "I thought it had to be voluntary," I said.

  Legally, vampires weren't allowed to turn someone against their will. Technically, they had to get permission from their local council, too. It was a law passed in the mid-nineteenth century created to keep the vampire population from getting too large.

  "There aren't a whole lot of vampires out in the human world that follow the rules," Alec said.

  "Let's just hope this James guy is one of the good ones," I said.

  7

  As we neared civilization, my stomach growled. It wasn't my usual meal-time seeing as how it was nearly midnight, but I had skipped dinner. I'd turned into a bit of an old-lady lately since I was up so early to hit the estate sales first. Meaning, I ate dinner around six and was in bed well before midnight most days. Surprised that I was hungry at all, I decided it was best to listen to my body.

  "You want to stop somewhere for food?" Alec asked.

  He must have heard my stomach growling. I tensed, and I attempted to cover up the shudder I felt as I thought about what he ate for food. Most of the time, I tried not to think about the fact that Vampires were essentially giant mosquitos, feasting on human blood. Gross.

  "Not that kind of food," Alec said. He must have noticed my reaction and heat rose to my cheeks.

  I'd already explained to him that I was off-limits as far as blood donations went, and he hadn't given me any reason to doubt him, but it was still a bit creepy being trapped in the same car as him. "How often do you eat?"

  "I only need to eat once a day, most of the time. Jimmy says that vampires who eat more often are doing it for pleasure instead of nutrition. Like a fat guy eating a whole chocolate cake."

  My stomach rumbled again at the thought of chocolate cake. "Do you miss it? Real food?"

  "At first I did. Now, it's gross to me. Probably the same way blood is to you," he said.

  A sign up ahead showed a picture of a gas station and a couple of fast food logos. I glanced down at the dash and realized we only had about a quarter of a tank left. "Might as well get gas and I'll grab a snack. You going to be okay till we get back to Realm's Gate?"

  I wasn't even sure when that would be. How long would it take us to find James King and once we did, what were we supposed to do?

  "Probably," Alec said. "If not, there's a few places in the city I can go to find what I need."

  My nose wrinkled and I did my best to bring back an impassive expression quickly. It wasn't Alec's fault he was a vampire. And humans ate other animals. At least when vampires drank blood, they didn't have to kill.

  "Don't worry," he said. "You don't have to go with me. And I know you're off limits."

  I slowed down the car on the exit ramp, looking for which way to turn for the gas station. The exit seemed to go nowhere. With the exception of the gas station and a single fast food building next to it, there were no signs of life. Good thing I knew how to take care of myself. The empty parking lot was like something out of a horror movie. And it's the cute girl that always ends up dead. But usually the cute girl doesn't have a vampire with her.

  I glanced over at Alec. He was staring out his window. I wondered what he was t
hinking. It must be strange going from the human world to our world never knowing any of this was real. Becoming a vampire, finding out about Mages, and Sirens, and Werewolves, and all the other things that go bump in the night had to be overwhelming. Yet, here he was, helping me hunt down some guy that could help save our town from a dragon. Jimmy must have seen something special in Alec for him to invite him to work for his organization. New recruits were rare. If Jimmy trusted him, I could at least try.

  The lights in the fast food restaurant were off. Gas station snacks were going to have to be my dinner tonight. I pulled into a pump and stopped the car. Then, I realized I had left my purse in my car. "Shit."

  "What?" Alec asked.

  Reaching across him, I opened the glove compartment and dug around. Inside, I found a leather-bound book. Opening it up, I saw proof of insurance, the owner's manual, records of oil changes and a few hundred dollars stashed in a pocket. "Score!"

  I held up the bills. "Left my purse in my car."

  "How'd you know he'd have that in there?" Alec asked.

  "Jimmy is a planner," I said.

  "That's true."

  "Hey, can you fill up the tank? I'll go grab something to eat and pay the guy." I shoved one of the bills in my pocket and put the rest back into the book. Then, I put the book back away. We might need it later, but it felt weird to carry too much cash on me at one time.

  "No problem," Alec said, opening the door to the car.

  I stepped out of the car and shut the door. "You want anything?" I covered my forehead with my hand. "Sorry, can you have anything?"

  "Water would be great," Alec said.

  "You got it." I walked toward the store.

  The bell jingled as I entered and a young guy with dyed black hair covering most of his eyes glanced up through his bangs. Under his green, button-down uniform shirt, he was wearing a long black shirt and had spiked bracelets on each wrist. Around his neck, he wore what looked more like a collar. A five-pointed star on a long silver chain completed the ensemble.

  As I walked up to the counter, he straightened the deck of cards in his hand. I glanced down at them and noticed they were Tarot cards. It was a standard design on the deck. One I'd seen hundreds of times. Several of the kids I grew up with had this same design on their decks in school while learning divination. It wasn't my favorite subject. Maybe because it always seemed to be too spot on. The deck my mom gave me for my thirteenth birthday featured Alice in Wonderland. It was still in a box in my apartment, untouched since I put it away when I was sixteen. "I haven't seen a Tarot deck in years."

  The words came from me before I realized that he'd take it as an invitation. Which he did. A half smile showed on his lips. "Want me to read for you?"

  This should be interesting. I shrugged. "Sure."

  He fanned the cards out on the counter in front of him. "Choose one."

  I lifted an eyebrow. Choose one? I bit back the urge to laugh at him. He had no signs of magic coming from him. He was totally human. I'd met a lot of people like him in the few years I'd lived in the human world. He probably considered himself a witch or warlock or something of that nature. His willingness to let a total stranger touch one of his cards was a dead giveaway that he had no idea what he was doing. Every time someone touched your card, part of them imprinted on the deck. Which made shared cards very challenging to use and incredibly unreliable as actual indicators of the future.

  "Go ahead," he said, sweeping his hand over the deck.

  "Okay." I leaned closer, looking at the backs of the cards. A card near the center seemed to be glowing. I sighed. Haven't lost my touch. Pointing to the card, I waited.

  He picked it up and turned it over. The Tower.

  "Oh, the tower," he said. "That means you're about to embark on a long journey." He nodded as if this cleared everything up in my life.

  My breath hitched. The Tower was not what I wanted to see right now but was exactly the card I should have expected. It had nothing to do with a journey. It had everything to do with change and disaster. The flames coming out of the windows on the drawing on the card and the people falling from the tower should be clues enough for even the most novice Tarot reader to remember that. But there wasn't time to teach someone how to read the cards now. "Um, yeah. Spot on, thanks."

  "See?" he smiled. "I'm good at this. Want to pick another?"

  The door jingled, and I turned. Alec walked in. "It's pre-pay."

  "Sorry," I said, turning back to the guy at the register. "Can we get twenty dollars on pump six?"

  "No problem," he said, turning to his screen.

  I handed the cashier the hundred dollar bill and waited while he gave me change. Without a word, Alec went back outside, and I left the register to find a snack. I grabbed a bag of popcorn and some chocolate and a few bottles of water and headed back to the counter.

  "Your boyfriend seems like a drag," counter guy said.

  No point in correcting him on the relationship piece. "Nah, he's a good guy."

  After I paid for the snacks, I headed back to the car. Alec was already waiting inside. "What was all that about? Was he a mage, too?"

  I nearly spit out the water in my mouth but managed to swallow it instead. Turning the key in the ignition, I pulled the car away from the pump. "Can you detect magic at all?"

  "About the only useful thing I can do so far is tell you if someone is a vampire or not a vampire. Other than that, there's not much I can do that's helpful," he said.

  "What about not dying? Or being super strong? Or..." I paused, there had to be other vampire traits I was forgetting.

  "Well, I got those, but I'm starting to find out that stuff might not matter in the long run. So, he wasn't a mage? Was he a witch?"

  "Maybe he wants to be, but no, he had nothing magical about him," I said.

  "So what's the difference between mage and Witch, anyway, nobody tells me these things."

  "Mages are born. Witches are made," I said. It was a bit more complicated than that, but that about covered it.

  "Genetics, then?" he asked.

  "Something like that." I accelerated onto the freeway and pushed the car up to 80 miles an hour. There was nobody in sight, and I wanted to get to San Francisco before dawn. "Do you know anything about this friend of Jimmy's we're visiting?"

  "I was hoping you did," he said. "I've only known Jimmy a few weeks. It seems like the two of you have a longer history."

  We did have a history. When I first moved back to Realm's Gate, I made my living selling the objects I'd collected during my time living in the human world. Eventually, I discovered it was a lucrative business. When I found an object that nobody would buy, I risked going to Jimmy. "He helped me out when I needed it and we learned to trust each other."

  "One of these days, you'll have to tell me more," Alec said.

  "Why you?" I glanced at Alec. He was staring straight ahead.

  "What do you mean?" he asked.

  Signs of civilization in the form of lights loomed ahead of us. I eased up on the gas, lowering the speed to only ten over the speed limit. "In over a year of working with Jimmy, he'd never asked me to take any of his guys out for a night on the town. Why you?"

  "Not sure," he said. "Could be one of the guys said something to him."

  "About?"

  "Today was the day Sarah died."

  My jaw tensed, and a pang of guilt shot through me. I should have known not to pry. There were few people I encountered who didn't have a troubled past. It seemed to come with the territory of being part of the magical community. "I'm sorry."

  "It's alright," he said. "She was always on some crusade or marching for some cause. She'd probably be thrilled that I'm spending today trying to save a town from destruction and helping a new friend from injustice."

  I flinched at his words. Trying was the key here. I still wasn't sure how we were going to stop a dragon. What could Jimmy's friend possibly know that could help us?

  8

  The sk
y was streaked with pink as I found a place to park in Chinatown. It was after five in the morning. We'd made the drive in about six hours, thanks to driving well over the speed limit for most of it. "We have to find somewhere to get coffee."

  "How are we going to find James King?" Alec asked.

  I turned the engine off and unclicked my seat belt, then turned to Alec. "I suppose we find coffee, then wander the streets feeling for magic?"

  "Feeling for magic? That's your plan?" He looked skeptical.

  "Unless there was some part of this plan that you didn't tell me about, that's the best I've got." I covered a yawn. "Remember, I'm not like you. I need sleep and caffeine, or this is not happening."

  "Alright," he unclicked his seatbelt, "but I can't sense magic, remember?"

  "But you can sense other vampires, right?" I asked.

  "How do we know James is a vampire?"

  I shrugged. "We don't. But Jimmy doesn't seem to have a lot of non-vamp friends, so that's my best guess."

  "Next time we play detective, let's ask a few questions before we head out to find someone who can fix all this," Alec said.

  "There better not be a next time," I said, opening the door. It was already conflicting enough to be saving Realm's Gate while also trying to prove my innocence. While I wouldn't wish death by dragon-fire on anyone, I only lived in Realm's Gate because I didn't have any useful skills in the human world. Maybe this was my sign that it was time to move on and figure out how to live away from the magic realm or finally take my chance moving to Winter's Haven.

  Most of the restaurants and bakeries we passed weren't open until at least seven. We walked a few blocks away before we found a little place to pick up a cup of coffee. It tasted like heaven.

  "Better?" Alec asked.

  I took a sip. "Yes. Okay, time to walk and find this James King guy."

  We wandered up and down the road. Coffee long gone, I watched shopkeepers pushing open gates and setting out baskets and tables in front of their shops.

  "Any signs?" Alec asked for the fifth time.

  "Nothing," I said. It was odd. I'd rarely been anywhere where I felt this much of a void of magic. It was unnatural. "It's almost like something, or someone has sent all magic away from this area. It doesn't make sense. I should at least feel something. I mean, there's no way there are zero magical beings and zero magical items on this whole street. How is that possible?"