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DIM LIGHT FROM ONE of the rare magical streetlamps in the Vampire District briefly illuminated Sorcha as she passed beneath it while stalking her target. The leech was surrounded by her kiss as they headed out to hunt. There were too few masters left now. It would be a bad idea to assassinate the leaders that still existed, so the Immortal Triumvirate were focusing on eliminating the fledglings instead. It was a way to teach the masters a lesson when they overstepped their bounds. The same applied to the alphas in the Shifter District, or so the sorceress figured. She hadn’t killed a master, or an alpha lately.
Sorcha kept her distance from the kiss, even though she’d cast the sound and scent nullifying shield around herself. She followed the link from her assassination order as the bloodsuckers headed eastward. Desperation had forced them out of their modest house in search of food. The master was almost as weak and emaciated as her fledglings. She didn’t have enough energy to conjure up blood for her small brood. Nox could no longer provide enough magic for the masses. Not even being given a reprieve from the Energy Tax this year had really helped anyone.
Her mark was only a few blocks ahead of her now. The leeches were heading towards a bridge that led to the Fae District. The assassin scanned the streets and buildings constantly. She searched for threats and for the master vampire who had killed Eden and Malachi. So far, she hadn’t seen Sebastian or heard any rumors about him. He was the most elusive target she’d ever searched for. Unlike her usual missions, she didn’t have a spell in the back of her head that would lead her to him.
A small scowl appeared on the forgettable face of the illusion Sorcha was wearing. She’d searched the most affluent areas of the Vampire District in the small amount of free time she had, but she hadn’t had any luck so far. The bloodsuckers kept to themselves for the most part. They didn’t exactly stand around on street corners to gossip.
“I wish I could compel people to talk like Eden used to be able to,” she muttered, but she couldn’t hear herself speak, due to her spell. If she’d been a succubus instead of a sorceress, she could have used her talents to ensnare men. They would tell her everything she wanted to know. Then again, Eden’s talents didn’t work on the undead. It probably wouldn’t have come in handy during Sorcha’s personal mission for revenge.
She was contemplating the idea of trying to create a compulsion spell that would work on vampires when a letter zoomed towards her. “Not another one!” she said in dismay. It came to a stop in front of her and hovered a few inches away from her face. It would just keep following her and annoying her if she didn’t open it. She knew what would happen once she did. The two assassination orders would instantly begin vying for her attention. They would battle each other for supremacy until one of her jobs had been finished. This was only the second time she’d received two orders at once, but it was bound to happen more often now that she was the only assassin left.
Bracing herself, the sorceress opened the letter. As soon as she read the message, a second link became established in her head. Her second target was also a vampire. The new spell tried to tug her towards the northern end of the District. “This must be what schizophrenia feels like,” Sorcha said as she tried to juggle both spells at once.
By sheer force of will, she ignored the second order and focused on the first one. Her target had left the Vampire District and had crossed a bridge to the Fae District. She hurried after the kiss until the prodding sensation in her head grew stronger. Instead of fading with distance, the second spell increased in strength as well. A headache was already forming and her skull began to ache. Sorcha knew she wouldn’t be able to withstand the force of two assassination orders for long. She needed to eradicate her first mark quickly, before her concentration was completely ruined.
A lone crow cruised by overhead. It almost seemed to be following her as she hurried after the leeches. The kiss had crept into a neighborhood where human witches and wizards lived. Most of the magic users had abandoned their homes near the river. They now banded together for survival. Red flares suddenly shot into the air in a bright display of color. She figured the humans had erected wards in the event of bloodsuckers invading their territory.
“They’ve cast spells around their houses!” the thin and sickly-looking master vampire hissed. Sorcha could feel the wards that had been placed around the neighborhood. All they did was shoot magical flares into the air, but it was enough to startle the vampires into fleeing.
Sorcha camouflaged herself against a wall and pointed a finger at her target. The vamps didn’t have enough energy to move at their usual blinding speed. They had to run at a human pace, so she had plenty of time to send a spear of fire through her mark’s heart. The fledgling dropped to the sidewalk and her master skidded to a stop as well. She let out an anguished wail, but the other members of her kiss dragged her away.
The assassin sagged against the wall in relief that she only had one spell pounding inside her skull. Now that it no longer had another mission to vie with, the prodding in her head eased back to a bearable level.
Witches and wizards spilled out of the nearby houses onto the sidewalks with their wands raised for battle. “I see an intruder!” an aged, frail old woman screeched. They converged on the dead vampire.
“What happened to him?” a wizard asked. He wasn’t as old as the others who gathered around him. It was probably his night off from his duties at the Magic Guildhall.
“He’s got a hole in his chest that looks like it went straight through his heart,” someone said as they rolled the body over to examine it.
“Must have been one of those secret assassins,” another person joked. Snickers broke out, then they left the corpse and headed back to their homes. A skeleton that was tending a nearby tree shambled over to the body. It bent down to grab the vamp by the arm and laboriously began dragging it towards the closest cemetery.
Sorcha waited until everyone was gone before teleporting to the heart of the Vampire District. She arrived in the foyer of the gothic church that no one in the District ever visited. Hallowed ground was deadly to both the undead and demons. Her next target was only a few blocks away and she exited through a side door.
As she cut through one of the many alleys, the sorceress mused about how dire things had become in the City of Night. It was hard to imagine Nox had ever been prosperous and that the citizens had once been relatively happy. She’d been born after the invasion of soldiers and the undead apocalypse that had occurred afterwards. By the time she’d been trained to assassinate her targets, the city had become a dismal place with little magic left. The Night Cursed population had been condemned to living in compounds in their District after the Drain. Few of them had been left with enough energy to perform their duties. The ones that were still operational were viewed with scorn, derision and fear.
She remembered a conversation she’d had with Kade Sinclair a couple of nights ago. They’d both felt sorry for the Night Cursed beings. The pair had agreed that no one deserved the fate they’d been dealt by the Immortal Triumvirate’s actions. They’d also agreed that it would take someone with enormous power to overthrow them. Their conversation had been treasonous, but no one had heard them. Then they’d kissed and the sorceress had briefly known what it felt like to be happy.
Sorcha forced herself to push the memory of the kiss away. Now wasn’t the time to fantasize about having a relationship with the handsome wizard. After she’d killed Sebastian and had found someone to break her bonds with her rulers, maybe she could think about taking things further with Kade.
