A Den of Tricks (A Shade of Vampire #54)(53)

“More or less, yes,” Caspian replied. “I think it has more to do with the daemons using slightly different ingredients, as opposed to the original swamp witch formula.”

“So what do we do once we get back to the surface?” I asked, my whole body trembling from the mounting tension around us.

“Let’s get to the surface first,” Jax murmured.

I wasn’t one to scare easily, but this whole situation was starting to get to me. We were grossly outnumbered, and even outgunned, with just one dragon against thousands of swamp witch magic-wielding daemons. There was a garrison of about one thousand massive fiends, armed to the teeth and clad in armor, ready to attack a city where thousands of innocent creatures lived. Our friends and teammates, our family was there.

Harper was right. There was no other way to stop the daemons from attacking Azure Heights. We had to reveal ourselves and convince them that we’d come to them, so they wouldn’t go looking for us…





Harper





(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)





“How do we do this?” Caia whispered.

“I think we should split into three teams,” Jax replied. “Caia, you can cover Blaze’s back as you sneak up the tower. Stay hidden. Harper will work with Lord Kifo, and I’ll take Hansa. We’ll reveal ourselves to the garrison, make some noise and have them chase us around the square. But you’ll have to move fast. They’ll be coming for us.”

I looked around, trying to find the nearest exit point. Using my True Sight, I scanned the entire area on a one-mile radius and figured we had plenty of side streets and tall, black stone walls and fences to hide behind, while Blaze went all fire and fury on the daemons in the square.

My gaze was drawn to King Shaytan, who was occasionally glancing in our direction, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. I didn’t think anything of it—we were wearing the original invisibility spell, with no air ripples, nothing.

He continued to tell his subjects and soldiers about how great their daemon nation was and all that other clichéd propaganda that I’d read and heard from numerous other megalomaniacs during Earthly history classes.

They were all the same to me. Evil and determined to do nothing but harm, yet charismatic and influential enough to move an entire nation to do horrible things on their behalf. The Imen had suffered long enough because of these monsters. Over the past couple of years, so had the Exiled Maras. It was time to bring it all to a grinding halt.

I was scared. I was downright terrified of what came next. There were too many of them, but we had to do something. We couldn’t let them spill onto the surface. They seemed too thirsty, too eager to draw innocent blood.

“How do we do this, then?” I breathed.

“Dirt, blood, whatever’s handy. We smear ourselves and make some noise,” Hansa replied.

“I honestly cannot wait to take a shower already,” I muttered, then froze.

King Shaytan was looking in our direction again, but there was something strange about his expression. He wasn’t just glancing our way. His eyes were fixed on mine. My heart stopped for a split second as I checked my arms—I was still perfectly invisible. So what the…

“Wait,” I whispered, looking at Shaytan.

He was grinning. His white teeth were out, his canines protruding as sharp fangs. He was holding his staff in front of him, his eyes glimmering behind the layer of red garnet, and he was watching me. Literally. Watching. Me.

Time stopped altogether. All the noises around me disappeared as the realization crashed into me. Weightlessness took over before dread turned my feet into blocks of lead. Oh, no… He can see us. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My voice failed me.

“I see you,” King Shaytan said, looking right at us.

“He can see us,” I managed.

He could see us through the red garnet.





Fiona





(Daughter of Benedict & Yelena)





The White Star Hotel was even more beautiful in the evening. Vincent had arranged for our dinner table to be set in a gorgeous glass enclosure, an extension to the grand dining room. We could see the night sky above, clearing as it unveiled billions of stars and all three moons rising. The hotel was surrounded by a beautiful garden, a plethora of trees and colorful flowers displayed between low-hedged greenery lines that formed a majestic maze.

The glass enclosure itself was stylishly decorated, with crystal chandeliers glimmering overhead and white floral arrangements to match the pristine white porcelain dinnerware and silk napkins. We were treated to a fine selection of blood mixtures, with various spices and exotic flavors.

“I guess this is what you call a ‘fine dining experience’,” I muttered as I sipped a particularly spicy blend from a crystal flute glass, the stem delicately engraved with gold filigree.

A lonely set of strings played somewhere in the background, at the hands of a young Iman musician. Waiters kept their distance, standing by the archway leading back into the dining room in order to give us some privacy.

My mind kept wandering back to Zane and his peculiar attachment to me, while Vincent talked about plans for the city’s future. They’d been discussing a mass exodus for a couple of days, but the Lords weren’t ready to really consider it as an option. If anything, Darius’s death had provided even more determination for the Exiled Maras to push back against the rising threat of daemons.