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But I suppress vengeful Asha, cage her for a later time, placate her with a promise. Don’t go off half-cocked. I’d told Max I’d be careful, and I would be.
“Let’s split up,” says Max. “Our first objective is to locate the members of Asha’s Blood Pack. Two teams. Braxton, go with Orson. Asha, come with me.” Max leads me by the hand into the ballroom while Braxton and Orson peel off towards the lounge.
They don’t answer. They don’t need to. Max is leading this mission, even if I’ll be butt-fisting these assholes with my powers soon.
We mingle with the crowd, a blur of suits and dresses, a potpourri of magic, a gaudy display of wealth and privilege. We circle the ballroom, surveying the crowd like we’re just casually enjoying the beauty of the night and the sights of the wealthy.
“What’s your Blood Mage headcount?” Max whispers.
“Twelve,” I answer, having picked them easily out of the throng.
A lot. Maybe too many. It all depends on how powerful they are, as each mage has a different level of abilities. Still, it’s more than I wanted.
Except, I shouldn’t care. As long as it’s all of them.
“How can you tell?” Braxton asks, his voice like an AM radio frequency nestled into my ear.
I stare at the last Blood Mage I clocked, a man with silver hair and bleached teeth, and whiff the stench of his putrid magic with the supercharged powers of my lupine olfactory. “I’ve got their scent,” I growl. The silver-haired Blood Mage whispers in the ear of a raven-haired witch less than half his age at what he thinks is a discreet volume, but their conversation is anything but private.
“The magic I could show you,” he boasts cryptically.
Before she has a chance to flirt back, the lights suddenly cut out.
Darkness.
Sharp inhalation of oncoming panic.
Prickling of cold sweat on my brow.
It’s okay. This is all probably part of the night. Relax. Stay calm until you’re sure.
My eyes rapidly adjust, my wolf compensating for weak human sight. My supernatural vision carves each individual figure out of the mass. I’m ready to shift if needed, but suddenly a bright light flares in the ballroom. Flame, neon green in color, swirls overhead, churning like water caught in a vortex. Tongues of fire chase themselves in circles, a widening gyre that gradually spreads across the ceiling.
The initial fear ebbs into wonder as the audience discovers its source. In the center of the ballroom, a mage lifts her hands above her head, feeding the hypnotic display, a showman’s smile on her lips. A literal magic show. I laugh at myself, and coax my wolf back from the edge. A sheet of levitating fire undulates above, embers like glinting emeralds drip and fade out of existence before they have a chance to scorch the revelers below.
The mage lifts her voice to address the room. “Good evening! Find a partner, everyone. It’s time to dance!”
Music drifts through the air with no discernible origin, as if leaking from the walls or perhaps woven into the flames. The attendees in the ballroom begin pairing off to dance. “Come on,” says Max, “we won’t find the Blood Pack in here.”
But I overhear the silver-haired Blood Mage speaking with the young witch again. “Our magic was crafted by an almighty mage, the most powerful Blood Mage,” he says.
“Is that so?” she says, her voice sultry and smooth.
“Come here,” I say to Max, grabbing his hand and pulling him into me. We adopt the posture of the couples surrounding us, my hands on his shoulders, his holding my waist. As we sway and rotate slowly like teens during a slow dance, I direct us into the orbit of the indiscreet mage.
“What are we doing?” asks Max.
“Shh! I’m trying to listen.” I roll my eyes to the right to indicate the pretty witch and the lecherous old mage dancing beside us.
“It’s a little known secret,” says the mage, “that our power emanates from a single locus.”
Is that true? My thoughts spin. It can’t be, can it?
“Where’s that?” asks the witch.
The Blood Mage merely grins and bounces one of his eyebrows mischievously.
The witch’s curiosity boils over. “C’mon, you can trust that I’m loyal to the Blood Mages.” She pairs this with a little more contact, pressing her body against his, guiding his hand down from the small of her back to the mound of her ass. “Power excites me.”
