(Blue Fire 05) Heartless [A] Read online

  “Do you have any idea why?” Cali asked.

  “No. Perhaps ages ago something happened to them similar to what happened to the waziri, and they became determined that nothing like that should ever occur again. Or maybe they started out hunting only evil magic, but eventually morphed into what they are today. They usually work behind the scenes, joining organizations that already hunt or persecute magic. There were xenorians in the Spanish Inquisition, and some were behind your own Salem Witch Trials. It’s said that the psychic who advised Adolf Hitler was a xenorian, and that is why he tried to exterminate the Gypsies, because of their supposed magic.”

  “Ugh. All those things were so horrible,” Leesa said, beginning to feel a little sick to her stomach. Her fingers began dancing in her hair. “And you think these BSI agents might be a part of something like that?”

  “It’s just a guess on my part, but yes. It’s one reason why we waziri kept such a low profile for so many centuries. The xenorians are zealots. And like most zealots, they are ruthless in following their beliefs. They do not care how many innocent people suffer in their quest to destroy anyone with magic. They have killed far more ordinary humans than they have people with magic, but to the xenorians that is simply the cost of what they seem to think of as a holy quest. They are totally heartless in their zeal.”

  “This is way worse than I thought,” Cali said. “The woman was totally creepy, for sure, but I never expected anything like this. Maybe you and Leesa need to get away from here, at least until we know Smith, Jones and Rome are gone.”

  Leesa watched anxiously as Dominic pondered the idea. She did not want to leave, especially with Rave gone. With no means to contact him, how would he ever find her when he returned? It was bad enough now, missing him so keenly, but at least she knew he would return when he could. If she left, there was no telling when she would see him again. They’d had little enough time together recently as it was.

  “I do not think we need to do anything just yet,” Dominic said finally. “Other than continuing to be very careful, of course.”

  Leesa realized she had been holding her breath waiting for Dominic to speak, so she exhaled. The wizard smiled at her.

  “Besides,” Dominic continued, “I’m not sure I could drag Leesa away from here without Rave.”

  Leesa returned his smile. Dominic had read her mind once again. She guessed it was not very difficult to do when it came to Rave.

  “I’ll definitely be extra careful,” she promised. “No magic at all anywhere around the dorm.”

  “Speaking of magic,” Dominic said, “as long as we are here in this most excellent hiding place, why don’t we get a bit of practice in?”

  Leesa certainly did not mind that idea. She had been looking forward to practicing with Dominic for days.

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  Dominic leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Let’s see what you have learned, then,”

  Leesa took a moment, thinking about where to start. She decided to show him something he had not seen from her before, so she turned and looked at Cali.

  “Oh, no,” Cali said, grinning. A moment later, the hair on the right side of her head puffed out away from her scalp.

  Dominic chuckled as Cali patted her hair back into place.

  “Very imaginative,” Dominic said approvingly. “Magic and imagination make a good combination.”

  Leesa ran through the rest of her powers and repertoire of spells for Dominic. She thought she was performing each one of them—except for the air shield spell—slightly better than she had been recently. She didn’t know whether it was because she was trying harder tonight in order to make Dominic proud of her or whether maybe his powers were augmenting hers a little bit. She just knew that her illumination spell seemed a bit brighter, the heat beam a bit warmer, and she was moving things a little more easily.

  “Well done,” Dominic said when she finished her last spell, the heat beam.

  “I just wish my magic would come back to full strength,” Leesa replied. “I can’t wait to see how much I may have improved.”

  Dominic smiled. “All in good time,” he said. “Since there is nothing any of us can do about it, there is no sense worrying about it.”

  “I know. But I can’t help wishing for it.”

  “If wishes were wings, we would all be flying around like Jenna,” Dominic replied sagely.

  “Can wizards fly?” Cali asked, excited by the idea that Leesa might one day learn to fly. “Or shape-shift into a bird or something?”

  Dominic shook his head. “Shape-shifting is a witch power, not a wizard one. I’m afraid Leesa and I must remain earthbound—at least for the most part.”

  Leesa’s ears perked up at Dominic’s last few words. “What do you mean, ‘for the most part?’” she asked.

  Dominic nodded toward her backpack, which was hanging over the back of a chair. “Take out your spell book,” he said.

  Leesa quickly pulled the book from her pack and set it in front of her on the table.

  “Open it,” Dominic said.

  Leesa opened the magical book to a place she guessed was about twenty pages in. It didn’t really matter where she opened it, she had learned—the book always seemed to know what she wanted and routinely opened to the right place. If she wasn’t looking for anything in particular, then the book seemed to open to what it wanted for her.

  She looked down at the page and saw she had turned to a levitation spell.

  “Wizards can levitate?” she asked, surprised and a bit excited, too.

  In answer, Dominic began to float slowly up off of his chair until he was at least a foot above it. He hovered there for a few seconds, looking a bit funny because his body was still in a sitting position, before sinking back onto the seat. Leesa remembered the black wizard Josef levitating himself out of a hole Dominic had magically opened at Josef’s feet during their battle. In the heat of that fight, she hadn’t really thought about what Josef’s action might mean.

  “Cool!” Cali said. “I can’t wait to see Leesa do that. Talk about a neat party trick.”

  Leesa frowned at Cali.

  “I know, I know,” Cali said. “It’s a secret. No showing off, except in private.” She grinned. “But a girl can dream, can’t she?”

  Leesa read the description of the spell twice, making sure she understood all the details. It turned out levitating was really about floating, not flying. It involved temporarily making yourself lighter than air. When done successfully, a wizard could float upwards for a height of twenty or thirty feet. The catch was you could only move vertically, not horizontally in any way. The book did advise—and warn—that a stiff breeze could provide some lateral movement. That would not always be to your benefit, of course.

  “Ready?” Dominic asked when she looked up from the book.

  Leesa nodded. She drew in a deep breath—as if that might somehow help her become lighter. Since breathing was part of any spell, she hoped no one would notice.

  “Levictius arrami,” she said, trying to picture herself rising up off of her seat the way Dominic had just done.

  Nothing happened. She remained anchored to her chair.

  Leesa masked her disappointment. She was not really surprised. Performing a new spell successfully on the first attempt would have been unusual, even if her magic had been at full strength.

  “Try again,” Dominic encouraged.

  Leesa repeated the incantation, this time closing her eyes to help her visualize. Once again, she remained rooted to her seat.

  “Again,” Dominic instructed.

  Leesa tried a third time, with the same lack of results.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “This one is hard. I don’t have any image of me floating. Maybe I should wait until my magic is stronger.”

  She noticed that Dominic was looking at her closely, almost as if she had something smeared on her face. She resisted the urge to wipe her cheek with her hand.

&n
bsp; “What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing. I just think you may be closer to succeeding than you think.”

  He stood up and cupped his hand lightly under Leesa’s elbow. “Try again.”

  This time, when Leesa chanted the spell, Dominic applied a little upward pressure to Leesa’s arm. To her surprise, her whole body floated up at least two inches above her chair. As soon as Dominic let go, she dropped back onto her seat with a solid thud.

  “You did it, Lees!” Cali said. She grinned. “It wasn’t all that graceful a landing, I’ll admit, but you were definitely floating.”

  Leesa looked at Dominic. “What did you do? Did you help me with your magic?”

  Dominic smiled. “Just a little. Mostly, I just lifted. You were pretty light.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Leesa pursed her lips and nodded, pleased with her success. “Cool.”

  12. A MESSAGE FROM MAX

  The next week, zombies returned to Leesa’s dorm.

  Not the lurching, lumbering, flesh-eating kind that you needed to stab in the eyeball with a pen to kill—no, these were Leesa’s schoolmates, turned zombie-like by the arrival of midterms. The transformation had begun on Sunday night, but really picked up steam on Monday and Tuesday. Long hours of reading and studying combined with little or no sleep turned many of the kids in her dorm into creatures resembling the walking dead. They had dark circles under their eyes, slack jaws and lank, unwashed hair.

  Fortunately, Leesa was not among them—not too badly, at any rate. Her midterm schedule was really pretty favorable: one test on Monday and Tuesday, followed by a day off on Wednesday, and then two of her easiest exams on Thursday. She only had four tests instead of five because Dr. Shader had assigned papers to her English class in lieu of a midterm, and had very kindly not made the papers due until the following week.

  Just to be certain she wasn’t fooling herself about her condition, Leesa checked her reflection in the mirror. Her blue eyes looked bright and alive and her hair was clean and soft, courtesy of the shower she had treated herself to an hour ago after finishing her Chemistry exam.

  This morning’s exam had been her most difficult by far, but now it was over and she had almost two days to rest and get ready for her final two tests. She was going to do some studying this afternoon and then head to the library to practice some magic before going to her mom’s for dinner. Her aunt and uncle were coming too, so that meant yummy fresh-baked pie and Max as well. She was especially looking forward to spending at least a little time alone with Max.

  With so much studying to do, she had not performed any magic since practicing with Dominic on Saturday. She did not feel at all guilty though—in fact, Dominic had suggested a short break because of her midterms. Since the BSI people might still be lurking around, the timing for a break was perfect.

  Wishing it was already dinner time, she grabbed her psychology book from her bookcase, sat down at her desk and began to study.

  Leesa waited on the sidewalk in front of her dorm for Bradley to pick her up. The sun hung low over the western horizon, but the air was still pleasantly warm without a breath of breeze. She was wearing a simple purple and gray striped pullover shirt and nice jeans, and had her San Diego sweatshirt draped over her arm for later when the night grew colder.

  Her afternoon had not been much fun at all, so she was looking forward to some pizza and fun with her family. She had studied for almost three hours and then spent a desultory forty-five minutes or so practicing her magic at the library. Without Dominic or Cali there to spur her on she had not expected much from her efforts, and that’s exactly what she got—not much. Still, she figured any practice was better than no practice.

  All that drudgery was behind her now, though. The rest of the evening was reserved for fun only.

  She smiled when she spotted her mom’s car gliding down the block with Bradley behind the wheel. When he eased the car to the curb, Leesa moved forward to grab the door handle, but her brother was having none of that. He hadn’t seen his baby sister in almost two weeks, so he shut off the engine and climbed out of the car, bounding around the front and wrapping Leesa up in a warm hug.

  “Hey, Pumpkin, it’s great to see you,” he said when he finally let her go. “How have you been?”

  Leesa smiled as she gave Bradley a quick onceover with her eyes. She wondered how long it would be before she would finally stop checking him out to see how he was doing. He looked just about like the big brother she remembered before Edwina had made him her feeder, so she hoped it would be soon.

  “I’m good,” she said. “A little tired, but not bad. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m great,” he said. “Feeling like my old self. Everyone’s already at the apartment. They can’t wait to see you.”

  Leesa smiled again. “It hasn’t been that long. But let’s not keep them waiting.”

  She opened the passenger door and climbed in while Bradley got back behind the wheel. A moment later, they were on their way.

  “Still no Rave, huh?” Bradley asked once he had swung the car out into traffic.

  “No, he’s still away. That’s one reason I’m looking forward to seeing Max.”

  Bradley’s face took on a perplexed look. “Huh? I don’t follow. What’s Max got to do with your missing Rave?”

  Leesa had shared Rave’s volkaane nature with Bradley on the condition he not say anything about it to their mother, but she had not thought to mention the bond between her aunt and uncle’s dog and Rave.

  “Max and Rave have a special connection. It’s something between volkaanes and dogs that goes way back. Rave spent a few seconds talking to Max the first time they met, and now Rave says if I use his name and talk close into Max’s ear, Max somehow transmits the thoughts to Rave.”

  Bradley’s eyes narrowed in skepticism. “Really? That’s kind of hard to believe.”

  “I know. I didn’t really believe it at first, either. But I’ve done it before, and Rave knew exactly what I said. Besides, is it any harder to believe than living for centuries and having magical blue fire inside you?”

  Bradley’s disbelieving look gave way to a grin. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess not. It’s too bad Max can’t talk back to you.” He shot Leesa a quick glance. “Or does he?”

  “Ha! I wish. But no, the conversation is very much one way. And I keep my part short and uncomplicated. You and I can take Max for a walk after dinner and I’ll let you watch. Not that there’ll be all that much to see.”

  “It’s a date, sis,” Bradley said, putting his hand atop Leesa’s for a moment and giving her a slight squeeze.

  A few seconds later, he put his hand back on the steering wheel and turned into the driveway of the apartment complex where he shared an apartment with their mom. He guided the car into their assigned spot and before he and Leesa could even get out of the car, their mom and Aunt Janet and Uncle Roger were heading across the yard toward them. Max beat them all, bounding happily toward Leesa.

  “I’m pretty sure this welcoming committee is not here for me,” Bradley said, smiling.

  Leesa dropped down onto one knee and wrapped her right arm around Max’s shoulder, using her other hand to give the golden retriever his favorite greeting, a vigorous chest rub. His tail wagged furiously as he panted into Leesa’s ear.

  Finally, she stood up. Her mom was waiting for her, arms outstretched. Leesa melted into her mother’s embrace, certain she would never tire of hugging her. For most of her life Leesa had received nothing more than perfunctory hugs from her withdrawn mom, but that had all changed since Professor Clerval, with some help from Rave, had injected her mom with the blood of a grafhym, a one-fanged vampire.

  Her mom was pretty much back to normal now, and Leesa was enjoying it immensely. As she stepped out of her mother’s embrace into an almost equally warm hug from Aunt Janet, Leesa marveled at how much her family life had changed. For most of
her childhood it had been just her and Bradley, along with their dysfunctional mom, and for the last two years of high school, even Bradley had been gone away at college. And then he disappeared, leaving Leesa almost totally alone. Now she had her brother and mom almost completely back to normal and she had formed a loving relationship with her aunt and uncle as well. Add in her awesome boyfriend Rave, a caring mentor in Dominic and an amazing best friend in Cali, and it was hard to imagine being any happier. If vampires, zombies, black wizards and now xenorians would just leave her alone, everything would be perfect. But as Dominic said, if wishes were wings, they would all be flying.

  Greetings done after a big hug from Uncle Roger, they all filed into the apartment. As soon as Leesa crossed through the doorway, the delicious scent of cinnamon-laced fresh baked apple pie from Uncle Roger’s bakery filled her nostrils. She breathed in deeply of the succulent aroma, and smelled the spicy tang of pizza underlying the scent of the apple pie. Her mouth began to water.

  “Sit down, everyone,” her mom said. “The pizza’s in the oven, staying warm, but there’s no sense in waiting. I’ll be back with it in a jiff.”

  “Would you like some help, Judy?” Aunt Janet asked.

  “Sure,” Judy told her sister.

  “Put the apple pies into the oven after you take the pizza out,” Uncle Roger called out as the two sisters disappeared into the kitchen. “Might as well keep them nice and warm while we chow down on the pizza.”

  A moment later, Judy and Janet emerged from the kitchen, each carrying a pizza box. Aunt Janet made delicious homemade pizza, but Leesa had insisted she did not want anyone going to extra trouble tonight and had asked to have pizza delivered from Giovanni’s instead, her favorite pizza place.

  Judy placed a Hawaiian style pizza in the center of the table, directly in front of Leesa. Leesa licked her lips. Giovanni’s always used plenty of pineapple and ham on their pizza. Aunt Janet placed the other pie—this one topped with the works—farther down the table.