“We need to fast-track her training. And if there is one thing I know all about, it’s fast-tracking training.” Reagan eyed me. “I hear she’s great at creating spells when she fears for her life. Let’s put that to the test.”

5

The next night, I stood trembling at one end of Reagan’s large warehouse. The warehouse, where she could practice her powers in peace, had been Darius’s idea of a present. My utility belt encircled my waist, filled with herbs and grasses and other elements I thought would be useful. My power stones were precisely positioned in various places around the floor, and would hopefully help me when things got dire.

So…in about five minutes.

Callie and Dizzy stood at the other end, each with an open satchel, wearing padded catcher’s vests and helmets. On their right side waited six of the mages from the party the other night, John being one of them. Currently he was leading the others in snickering at the Bankses’ choice of headgear.

They wouldn’t be snickering for long.

Reagan stood in the far corner draped in dark leather and shadow, her head slightly turned, studying me. I didn’t need to see her eyes to know the violence that lurked there. She was in battle mode.

Four vampires, one of whom seemed jittery compared to the rest, drifted out to line up on the other side of the room. All of them were completely nude, their clothes neatly folded and stacked on a chair.

“That new vampire is a true danger, Darius,” I heard Callie call out. “He’s blood-lusting—look at him. He won’t be able to come back from the brink.”

“I inherited him,” Darius said in a cool voice. “This is his trial. If he disappoints me, I will kill him.”

“Preferably before he kills Penny,” Dizzy said in a strained tone. That wasn’t usual for Dizzy—he was legitimately worried that the vampire could kill me before anyone could stop it.

As if I needed more anxiety to fuel my rising blood pressure.

“Would it be too dramatic if I said I hated my life?” I mumbled.

“Not at the moment, no,” Reagan said. She had vampire-like super hearing. “You’re surrounded by a bunch of annoying mages without a clue, a couple of annoyed vampires, and a newbie vampire on scene that is going to lose himself to bloodlust and try and drain you dry. I doubt your strange fascination with rocks will help, so I’ll have to step in to protect you. Everyone will see things they can’t, and then Darius will have to kill all of these powerful mages. Someone is terrible at planning.”

“That someone would be you,” Callie called out. “And for the record, this situation is taking the fun out of my being right.”

“That’s only fun for you, hon,” I barely heard Dizzy say.

“The child will be monitored,” Darius said in a voice that effectively ended the discussion.

“Am I the child?” I asked softly. I needed to know where I stood—not that it would help anything.

“No. I was speaking of the vampire,” Darius answered. “You are in no danger.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the focus of a bunch of people who intended to do him harm.

Starting with Darius, the vampires shifted into their monster forms. Their skin color turned pasty or swampy, depending on age, and their bearing bent and bowed. Claws extended from their fingertips, black filled their eyes, and fangs filled their mouths. Dark, stringy hair took the place of cut and styled locks.

The mages shuffled closer together, even John. He might be powerful among mages, but against an elder vampire, he was child’s play. Even against a middle-tiered vampire like Marie, he would be hard-pressed to make it out alive.

And here I stood, a know-nothing mage with witch tendencies, standing on my own, facing off against two columns of power and a pair of dual-mages in sports gear. While being watched by an immensely powerful supernatural of unknown origins.

“It is definitely not too dramatic to mention that I hate my life.”

Without warning, the new vampire rushed forward.

“Oh crap.” I pulled down elements as spells ran through my head, confused and blurry. A spell sped toward me from the dual-mages, powerful but simple. I barely countered it before another came from the other side.

“Crap. Oh crap. Crap.” I blinked as the new vampire ran, his speed faster than thought. My thoughts, at least.

I barely got off my bug zapper spell—the first one I’d created on the fly—making him change course, before a spell came at me from the side, weak and reddish.

I ran forward so it wouldn’t hit me, not bothering to waste precious time countering it. Another spell zoomed toward me before ballooning. Hives or a rash or flaking skin or something. Callie had obviously done that one. She knew how I hated to itch. She was as blunt and direct in her magic as she was in everyday life.

Unfortunately, she was also powerful, and it took me a moment to tear down her spell. But I didn’t have a moment. The newbie was back, dashing in with his swampy green and black mouth spread open much larger than should’ve been natural, fangs glinting in the overhead light.

“Stop thinking, Penny,” Reagan yelled. “Stop flicking through your mental spell Rolodex and react.”

“Soon the spells will be second nature,” Callie said, palming her helmet out of her face. “Until then, she has to remember her teachings.”

They were telling me opposite things. What was I supposed to do?

The vampire jerked to a stop again, this time fifteen feet from me. His magic rolled over me, putrid and vile. Sharp, stinging, desperately hungry. Whatever was going on with him, he was losing the fight.

Sweat dripped into my eye. Callie’s spell brushed my arm. I jerked away as I unraveled it.

A swampy white monster sped toward me, movements so fast I could barely see it.

I screamed, because that was what one did in this situation, and feinted to the side as though we were playing capture the flag.

“You don’t need a Rolodex, Penny,” Reagan yelled. “Don’t listen to Callie.”

“Get it away!” I ran right, screeching when the monster easily turned and reached out for me. “No—”

His clawed hand grabbed my upper arm. He threw me aside as if I weighed nothing.

A spell zipped by, thankfully missing me. Another sailed overhead. These mages clearly needed more practice with moving targets.

I hit the ground and my head thunked against the hardwood floor. My limbs slapped the surface and I skidded to a stop.

“Survive!” Reagan shouted.

White flared around me, creating a wall that accepted two different spells intent on teaching me some sort of lesson. My survival magic enveloped the spells and spun, growing as I fed it energy.

“Don’t think, just do,” Reagan yelled. “React like you did in the Mages’ Guild. Create. Feel.”

I tried to send the spells back to the casters, but my survival magic sputtered out. From the mass of organized elements that unconsciously gathered when in a pressurized situation, I pulled ingredients for an attack spell. The weave twisted through my fingers before forming a shaky sort of goo that quickly dissolved into nothing.

“I can’t—” Tears of frustration blinded me. The monster I recognized as Marie rushed in then. I knew she’d try to scare a spell from me, but when her claws slashed across my arm, opening up four bloody gashes, another half-formed spell fizzled out.

My power stones pulsed around the room, offering aid, but I couldn’t draw on them. I couldn’t get my head above water.

6

Moist air slid against Emery’s skin as he stood behind a great boulder, feeling the sharp edges catch his badly worn clothes. The cold day bit deeply into his bones, sapping his energy as a chill shook his limbs. Dark clouds rolled overhead, the rain never far away in the Emerald Isle.

A human shape hugged the end of a rock wall some hundred yards away. A few more crouched ahead of him, hidden poorly within the crumbling ruins atop the green bluff overlooking the tumultuous ocean. Still more waited farther down the meadow, having ducked behind a different wall. His pursuers had plenty of choice in this part of the country, where low rock walls lined the countryside.

He turned and looked back the way he’d come.