Chapter 13

 

“What are we going to do?” I muttered under my breath as I approached Oggie’s door.

To resist Mercy? Isabelle asked.

I nodded. “To give a vampire… to give Nico control over the Baron. No one should have that much power.”

He’s trying to recover his soul.

“Do you really believe that? What happens if he does? We leave Mercy in control of the vampire world? With what she can do, just imagine… As of now he’s the only one who can resist her.”

Not the only one…

“Who do you mean?”

She can’t control me!

“Are you sure about that?”

Vampiric abilities come from the realm of the dead. But my power comes from the Tree of Life.

“Let’s say what you’re telling me is true. She can still control me. And if I give you the reins, all she’d have to do is command me to take over. You know as well as I do that all it takes is the slightest emotional pull and I’m back in the driver’s seat.”

I didn’t say it would be easy, I’m just saying she isn’t the goddess she’d like you to believe she is.

“But once she realizes she can’t control you, she’ll never let you hold on to the reins. She’ll command me to take back over in a second if she sees you in charge.”

Then we will have to be careful. We need to make the most of our one chance to take her by surprise.

“And we should shut up. If she’s listening to us now, we’ve already spoiled it.”

You should shut up. I can keep on talking. She can’t hear me.

I chuckled to myself. “Convenient. Now you can say whatever you like to me about it and I can’t even argue back for risk of being caught.”

Not a bad thing. I get too much lip from you as it is.

I smiled widely. She was right. I had a tendency to argue with Isabelle just for the sake of arguing. We’d come a long way, she and I. We trusted each other, at least. I even allowed her to use my body to date Mikah. But old habits die hard. And being able to argue with Isabelle was, strangely, comforting. I already had a vampire faux goddess trying to boss me around. I wasn’t sure how much tolerance I’d have for Isabelle “telling me like it is” since it felt like I was already the puppet of other “people’s” machinations. Oggie wanted me to help win some kind of war that he insisted was coming. The Loa here all knew about Isabelle now, and Oggie had warned that they’d all try to manipulate me to use her to their various advantages. Mercy and Nico had me between a rock and a hard place. A girl has to maintain some semblance of control over her own life. At least I knew we could still argue about boys.

I took a deep breath and knocked three times on Oggie’s door.

Seconds later, the door swung open and he stood there, smiling widely. With all that had happened, I’d nearly forgotten how attractive he was. The human who hosted him—who knows what happened to that guy’s soul—clearly had been something of a gym rat in life. I traced the veins that overlapped his bulging bicep with my eyes as he extended his arm, taking my hand—as if I needed help crossing a mere office threshold. Still, the flirtations between he and I made it clear that we both found each other attractive. I’d only started to pull away when I found out that he was one of Erzulie’s three husbands—a fact that I’d come to find out had absolutely nothing to do with love. To her, he was a tool—a way to manipulate his domain toward her interests. For him, he didn’t have much choice. When Erzulie claims someone, be it genuine or not, a man simply can’t help but at least feel like he is in love with her. Oggie had been forcibly married to her long enough, though, that he’d recognized that his feelings were not his own. Still, he was now one of the headmistress’s spouses. Considering that she’d secured her position by outmaneuvering his plea to condemn Maman Brigitte before the Voodoo queen probably didn’t do much for his recognition that nothing he felt for Erzulie was remotely real.

“Adjusting well to being back at the Academy?” Oggie asked, leaning against his desk.

“Would be easier if it wasn’t for my new classmate.”

Oggie sighed. “I presume you’re not talking about your sister.”

I shook my head. “Can you believe it? A vampire?”

“It is concerning,” Oggie said. “Vampires are the result of the Bokors having summoned the Loa through their dark rites. The Academy has always had a clear position in opposition to the Bokors. It’s why I brought you here. The Bokors gain power every day. With a vampire coven rising in the city, it’s only a matter of time before we’re in an all-out war.”

“And this particular vampire…”

“Mercy Brown might be the most formidable vampire I’ve ever encountered. For the life of me, I cannot trace her lineage. There simply isn’t any evidence of any Bokor activity surrounding her person or community at the time she was turned.”

“Sounds like you’ve done some digging into her past.”

“Records indicate that she died in 1892 in Rhode Island. Tuberculosis, apparently. But many legends… and horrors… surround her person after that. All I can figure is that her diagnosis was either incorrect, or some other vampire… someone ancient… might have taken pity on her and turned her as her earthly life faded.”

“But she survived the bite, obviously. Otherwise she would have become a corpse. A zombie.”

Oggie nodded. “Not many vampires survive their first year. Their hunger is insatiable at first. They almost always attract the attention of hunters before they have a chance to come into any of their abilities.”

“Well, clearly she survived a lot longer than that.”

“All I can figure is that some other vampire, someone much older than she is, was looking out for her. Protecting her. Helping her adjust to the hunger.”

I bit my tongue. I wanted to tell him about Nico. I felt like he should know. But I wasn’t going to risk my parents… or my sister. Or Pauli. If Oggie knew, he’d try to do something. If he moved against Nico, I knew Nico wouldn’t hesitate. He’d use my parents to turn my sister and then they’d all end up dead—or worse. They’d be vampires that he’d use against me. “Well, if what you say is true, you think he’s connected to the house in the French Quarter?”

Oggie nodded. “I’m almost certain of it. The way that place was warded, it was done by someone who knew to ward against me and my aspect. And the fact that someone has been sending vampires to your plantation… it means he knows you are a threat, too. I suspect he’ll reveal himself in time, if we keep our wits about us.”

“Perhaps Mercy will reveal something, give us some clues.”

Oggie shook his head. “Not saying it’s not possible, but she’s on her second century, and she hasn’t survived this long by being careless. Still, the very fact she came here to learn suggests she is bold and overconfident. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

I nodded. “So, I’m pretty good at summoning Beli now… obviously.”

“Clearly,” Oggie said. “But now we need to focus on the forms your soul weapon might take. A blade is quite useful, but circumstances might occasionally call for something else.”

I focused my mind and spoke the name—Beli—and the dragon’s essence materialized as a stake in my hand.

Oggie raised his eyebrows. “Well that’s certainly a timely manifestation.”

“I’ve been fending off a lot of vamps lately. It’s almost like Beli just knew what form to take.”

“But did you ask for this weapon, or did Beli assume this form of his own accord?”

“Well, I thought I was summoning the blade… and this showed up. So I guess he did it.”

Oggie nodded. “What we need to practice is how to communicate your will to your elemental. There may be times when Beli does not know your needs, when you need to ask him for the form you require.”

“I don’t get it. I mean, I was able to stake vamps with my blade just fine.”

“From a bit of a distance, perhaps. But with a stake… How close were you to this vamp when Beli appeared that way?”

“He was all over me,” I admitted. “Come to think of it, my blade probably wouldn’t have been too easy to wield at the time.”

Oggie nodded. “It seems you still need a long-range option. Something with projectiles.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s possible?”

“Probably the safest way to go after a vampire… I mean, aside from fire magic. If Isabelle can give you that, that’s the way I usually do it.”

“In limited quantities I can pull off some fire spells,” I admitted. “But they aren’t our forte.” In truth, Isabelle was pretty kick-ass with fire magic when she was in control. But I hadn’t ever been able to pull it off on my own very effectively. I’d tried. The problem was to just get the spell to ignite, I usually had to draw on all the magica I could take from Isabelle at any given moment, which meant I had one shot. And worse than that, I was just as likely to blow up the city block with it as I was to produce just enough to light a candle. I hadn’t tried to use fire magic on my own in years—and there was a patch of charred ground in the back woods of my plantation that served to remind me why.

“Then projectiles will prove your best weapon. Vampires are most deadly in close proximity.”

“Unless they learn to use projectiles themselves.”

“Or if they are older and have abilities that give them the ability to attack from range. But you’ll find that most younger vamps are too overconfident to even bother with weapons and very few survive long enough to come into their abilities.”

“I thought if they were staked, they’d just come back once the stake was removed. Isn’t that how Ramon, the vampire Ashley and I staked last year, came back?”

Oggie nodded. “That’s true. So far as I know the only way to completely eliminate them is with fire or, uniquely in your case, to send them to the land of the dead. But most hunters know to burn those they stake.”

I cringed. “I guess that’s what Ashley and I should have done in Ramon’s case.”

“You live, you learn.” Oggie walked to the door and opened it. “You might want to release your elemental. We’re heading to the gymnasium to practice.”