Page 70 of Mage Massacres

I stretched my hand out, catching her shoulder as she disappeared, so she was forced to take me with her. Her mind warred with mine while her body and magic were busy misting us both.

We landed in a dimly lit parking garage in a spray of water, her previous appearance transforming in a burst of glamor. Annette’s hair had changed from the graying salt and pepper to a deep brunette. Her skin darkened from pale white to creamy mocha.

She smacked my hand away from her shoulder as nearby people shouted in a foreign language that I wasn’t familiar with. They came running around the side of a black van in time to see me grab a fistful of her course curls before she stepped into the Void. We disappeared again, right before their eyes, but they weren’t surprised.

I needed to think, to gather my wits. How could I keep up with her if I couldn’t predict her movements? I didn’t know anything about her or where her usual travel spots were. If she had any training, she wouldn’t go anywhere connected back to her.

At the next landing point, her hair changed to jet black silk, sliding right out of my grasp as it rolled down to touch the top of her ass. Her body was petite, supple, and toned. She swung around, her fist connecting with my jaw in an audible crunch.

I mentally started building a lightweight tracking spell as I blocked the second blow, but a sudden kick to my uneasy stomach put distance between us. I lunged, slapping my hand in the middle of her back.

The spell was nowhere near completion, but tracking her by her magic usage was the best I could do with so little time between jumps.

Either it worked or I would lose her.

I let her disappear into the Void, gambling with my poorly thought-out magic. I pulled back enough for her to assume I couldn’t hold on. Then I misted myself, following her magical signature straight to her back.

We landed in a gloomy hallway of a rundown apartment complex. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the humid air, coupled with the scent of drugs and body odor. My shoes stuck to the stained carpet, making a velcro-like noise as I took a step.

“You don’t give up easily, I see?” she acknowledged as she turned to face me.

“What you see is a spoiled, rich girl, and you think that I’m not determined. But that determination has gotten me to where I am today.” I picked at my nails. “Well... That and the blood on my hands. Did those rumors make it to you, too?”

“They did, but I’m not your prey, Little King. You’re not the predator here.”

“Debatable,” I sang.

She threw an orb of raw magic at me, blowing a hole in the wall before stepping into the Void once more. The sheer power was wasted, but the warning was there.

I stopped paying so much attention to her and started cataloging her body language, her poor aim, her need to get away without fighting.

I doubted she had strong offensive capabilities, but her defense might be good enough. She’d thrown raw, untrained magic at me. She needed time to build up her fae magic after misting both of us, so she was using the Void.

I pushed my senses out, searching for her signature. My delay gave her enough time to think that she’d lost me, so when I found her, she was strolling through some type of park or hiking trail.

I appeared in front of her, not allowing myself to become fully corporal before I tossed a thin, yellow bolt of magic at her arm. Her swipe was too slow, the rod of lightning striking her bicep and ripping out the other side.

Annette was tired, but I was only beginning.

She screamed in frustration, half of her body gearing up to mist before her fae magic burned out. She pushed backward, falling into the Void.

And I followed, a predator patiently stalking my prey.

Once I stepped out of the Void, I nearly toppled over the edge of the rock I was standing on. My footing slipped, smaller pieces of the basalt clattering as they bounced off the sides of the pillar-like structures.

She leaped from column to column, gaining distance across the tiered rock-faces. I swiped my hand up, pulling water from the coast to form a wall of ice as I tried to redirect her toward the shore.

Her movements didn’t slow. If anything, she ran faster, speeding through the ice as if it were an open gateway to an unknown land. She turned her head, smiling over her shoulder as the wall shattered into thousands of shards. Then she was gone, only the lingering smell of her blood mixing with the scent of saltwater left.

I sought Annette out, searching for her magical signature again, but I could no longer feel her. Wherever she was, she wasn’t using her powers, so I couldn’t track her.

I’d have to wait her out.

I climbed the columns, heading to the grassy area around the rocks with intentions of settling down and thinking through what I’d learned. It didn’t feel like much information, but it was more than I’d started with.

Chasing her hadn’t been a complete waste of my time, though I wasn’t happy about losing her. She had so many different appearances that hunting her without the tracker would be akin to a needle-in-a-haystack situation.

The ice thing thoroughly confused me, and when I spotted my fae, I decided to ask him. Vaughn was sitting on one of the higher basalt pillars, his feet dangling as he watched me.