"Hey, it's Thing 1 and Thing 2," I said. "You two get your jollies stalking me?"
"I am a sorcerer and member of the Arcane Council," said the sorcerer. "These two spawn are in my custody. Let us pass peacefully."
The first vampire quirked a dark eyebrow at the sorcerer. "I see two rogues and a conspirator." Despite the jumble of teeth in his mouth, his voice was pure silk. His eyes glinted blood-red in the sodium glow of nearby street lamps.
He wore expensive designer jeans, properly ripped and torn, and a button-up shirt with a red power tie. I noticed most of the other vampires had on stylish attire as well. One of the females had a cute geek chic thing going with square glasses, a black pleated skirt, and a pink button-up. When they weren't sucking blood, they apparently did nothing but shop for fashionable clothes.
The sorcerer didn't seem surprised by the response. "Well, that suits me just fine," he said. "I haven't beaten the crap out of my quota of blood-suckers this month." The symbols on his wand emitted a low glow.
My respect for the guy notched up a bit even if he did try to kidnap us.
I tensed.
Dad tensed.
The vampires edged forward, stylishly, of course. More shadowy figures dropped from the rooftops until there were at least ten vampires encroaching on our position from all sides.
"Are they as strong as we are?" I asked Dad in a low voice.
"It depends on age," he said. "There's no way to tell how old they are from looking at them, though."
"Lovely," I muttered. My first experience with vampires and I had to fight a whole squad of them.
One of the vampires zipped my way. All hell broke loose. The sorcerer yelled a word and a blistering gout of orange flames roared past my face and blasted the vampire, knocking him against a wall and charring his designer jeans. The odor of burned hair and denim filled the air. More vampires rushed us.
I caught one in mid-dive with my fist. Sent him flying. Ducked under the geek chick's foot as she sprang off the wall at me, hissing. A vampire behind me wrapped his arms around mine in an iron grip. Another vampire swung his fist at my face. I ducked out of my captor's arms. The other vampire's fist missed me and crunched into his comrade's nose. I lowered my shoulder and rammed my would-be attacker. He flew back and thudded inside the same dumpster I'd knocked the sorcerer into moments earlier.
The sorcerer roasted another vamp, annihilating his long hair and leaving a smoldering, smelly mess. Fire didn't seem to kill them, but charring their hair and designer clothes really pissed them off. Another group of attackers had flanked us. The sorcerer shouted, "Yod!" and formed a fist with his free hand. He aimed it at them. The would-be flankers smacked against an invisible barrier and bounced back.
Dad grabbed the vampire who'd first spoken to us by his magnificent hair and slammed him into the dumpster. I put my back to Dad's, figuring we could guard each other.
A quick little vampire who looked no older than twelve dodged and dipped around my punches. I felt kind of guilty about fighting a kid, but then again, he was likely a lot older than he looked. Besides, he darted around my punches like Yoda on energy drinks. The geeky vampire chick came from my side. She punched me in the jaw while I was trying to pin down the kid. Stars erupted. I wobbled and staggered. The kid delivered a punch to my stomach that almost caused my dinner to make a return trip up my esophagus. I barely dodged another vicious blow from the female and caught sight of Dad as vampires swarmed him like ants.
A surge of adrenalin-fueled anger burned through my veins. I lunged for the kid as he came in for another punch. Grabbed his throat. Slammed him against the brick wall. The vampire girl leapt on my back. I grabbed her pigtails and slung her off and into the group of vampires that had just broken through the sorcerer's shield behind us. They caught the girl, no problem, but it also gave the sorcerer the split second he needed to throw a wall of flames at them.
Shrieks and curses erupted as the flames consumed their clothes and with it, their dignity.
I turned back to Dad. The mob of vampires had immobilized him with metal bands and were carting him away. "Dad!" I yelled.
"Justin! Run!" he said as one of the kidnappers bundled him over a shoulder and sprinted toward a waiting van on the road at the end of the service alley.
"No!"
More vampires dropped from the buildings above. Where were they all coming from? Someone grabbed my elbow. I reared back and almost punched the sorcerer in the face before realizing it was him. Our attackers, beaten, burned, and hurting, abandoned their fight with us and guarded the retreating flank of their comrades as they raced for the getaway van.
"We have to get out of here," the sorcerer said. "We've got no choice."
"No! Help me stop them," I pleaded. "Blast them."
"I can't. I'm exhausted and there are too many of them. If they figure that out, they may come back and finish us off."
"Conjure up some wooden stakes and shoot them!"
"It doesn't work that way, kid."
I ran toward the swarm of vampires. Three of the new ones formed a wall for their smoldering, now hairless comrades. I lowered my shoulder and rammed into them. One went tumbling. The other caught a blast of fire from the sorcerer.
A cold pair of arms clamped me around the chest. "You'll make a nice snack," said a deep male voice.
I roared, bent my knees, and sprang backwards, slamming my captor into the brick wall. His hold loosened. I rocked my body forward then drove my head back into his face. His nose made a nasty crunch. His arms loosened their hold as his hands raced for his broken nose. I spun and punched him in the eye. Kneed him in the stomach. He howled in pain and doubled over as dark blood oozed to the ground. A foot slammed into my butt. I tumbled forward and landed in a heap next to the sorcerer.
He muttered something and a blue-tinged shield sprang into being between us and the vampires. The one I'd injured flipped me off while his comrade helped him into a black car at the end of the alley. The van with my dad was long gone. The geek vampire chick threw her cracked glasses at the shield and stuck her tongue out at us before following her comrades. One of her pigtails was gone and her pink shirt had acquired greenish mustard and rotten lettuce—probably from the oft-used dumpster.
"Good work, kid," said the sorcerer, slapping me on the shoulder.
"Oh, God," I said, dropping to my knees. "They have Dad. What am I going to do?"
"There's not much you can do," he said without much sympathy in his voice.
I stood up. Grabbed him by his coat and jerked him toward me. "You may not think we're human, but he's my dad and I plan to save him. If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be gone."
"I don't appreciate the way you're touching me, kid."
"You don't?" I shouted as rage boiled my blood. I picked him up off the ground by his collar and considered slamming him against the wall until he was ground hamburger.
"Hurt me if you want, but it won't save your dad."
He was right. It wouldn't do me any good now, I realized. Sadness cooled my anger. I dropped him on his feet and turned away to stare at the alley exit.
The sorcerer cleared his throat nervously. "Look, I appreciate you saving my life back there. The name's Harry Shelton, but everyone calls me Shelton."
I shot a glare at him over my shoulder. "I'm Justin."
"I know," he said before hastily adding, "from the bounty notice."
"I suppose the Conroys told you all about us."
"Those stuck-up bluebloods?" He snorted. "Alice Conroy, your mother, vanished from the sorcerer community years ago. We hadn't heard a thing about her for over a decade. Suddenly she's back on the radar and the Conroys put out a bounty on David Slade. Now, as everybody knows, you don't mess with House Slade. But apparently this demon was no longer considered a part of the family. So I did a little digging and found not only did Alice Conroy play house with this monster, but she apparently had you to boot. Once I figured out Case was an alias, it was only a matter of tracking you down."
"My dad may be demon spawn, but he's no monster," I said in a low growl. This guy was about to get smacked around again if he didn't watch it.
Shelton gave me a thoughtful look. "I'll admit he doesn't seem like a typical Slade. And you." He shook a finger at me. "Something is very different about you. I always thought spawn and human mating produced pure spawn." His eyes lit up. "But in this case it didn't. Am I right? You're part human. That explains how you could break my circle."
"Are you going to help me or not?" Every wasted second beat painfully in my chest.
"I guess I owe you one."
"That is putting it mildly."
"If I do assist, we can't involve any other sorcerers. Your kind doesn't have a lot of admirers."
"Is it just me or is the supernatural community full of racists?"
He smiled. "Look, you don't know much about the political map, obviously. Incubi are not nice…err…people. Vampires, on the other hand, are pretty civil. But mostly, everyone loathes the spawn because they're a bunch of demonic jerks."
"The vampires didn't seem too civil to you."
He fidgeted with his collar. "Well, we've had some political disagreements with them lately." He picked up the bits of his staff that were lying around and looked at them mournfully. "If I'd had my staff I probably would have been more help."
"Just magic it back together again," I said. "It's just a lousy stick."
"Right, well I wouldn't expect you to understand a thing about magic."
"Can't you just say reparo and fix the thing?"
He sighed. "This ain't Harry Potter, kid. There aren't any magic words, only willpower and ability." He unscrewed a cap from the bottom end of the staff and withdrew a silver container.
