Page 97 of The Vampire's Lament
“Welcome.”
We couldn’t simply teleport into Glimmer City. There were strict rules in place after a potentially deadly terrorist incident was averted at the last moment. The mages responsible planned on burning the city to the ground after the former mayor was found out to be siphoning coin from the medical budget. His arrest and incarceration didn’t appease the protestors seeking his execution, and so they took the insane step to try and make everyone pay. Which undermined their point.
After the terrorists were killed, the city officials initiated a magical lockdown to the edges of the city limits, their scanhawks programmed to detect unlicensed magic and send an emergency response unit to its location.
Medusa’s teleporting would register on the scanhawk radar.
There were no exceptions to the licensing, not even for me, and it would take two weeks to acquire one.
We didn’t have that time to spare.
Luckily, Vaughn owned a holiday home outside of the non-magic zone, and close enough to Elio’s parent’s house for our journey to be short.
A doorway appeared beside me, Medusa stepping through the portal in a state of abject terror.
“It’s Paris,” she announced. “He’s dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
PARIS
It felt like I was wrapped in a blanket of frozen thorns, trapped in that damn darkness. Again. Like the first two times I’d died.
Let me out!
Let me out!
Let me out!
The darkness strangled me with icy barbs, each one biting, biting, biting. There were whispers everywhere, my soul screaming for mercy as the voices told me I was screwed. So done, doomed to an eternity of these screaming shadows.
To suffer.
To beg.
Alone. So alone, so cold, so?—
I shot up on Silvanus’s bed, gasping for air. Alive, the cool breeze on my face, my entire body drenched with sweat.
The crystal dagger in my hand.
“Fuck…”
The door crashed open, the vampire king storming into the room.
His eyes found me, and mine found him. For a moment, we stared, locked onto each other, time holding its breath. Then he launched himself at me.
Screaming in my head, the dagger vanishing.
“Bollocks!” I roared.
But any further cursing died out when he pulled me into his arms, holding me against his chest.
Man, it felt so right to be held by him.
“Thank goodness,” he whispered. “Thank goodness.”
I held him back, grabbing handfuls of his jacket as I teared up. I was frustrated, sad, hating the rinse and repeat bullshit of this non-dying, of everything else.
