Blood and Fire

FIRE

by Tori L. Ridgewood

What chance does one witch have against five vampires? Alone, not much. But Rayvin’s allies are gathering...

The battle between good and evil supernatural forces heats up in the long, cold November nights of the former mining town. But how will Rayvin’s motley crew of spellcasters and shapeshifters cope when they discover the threat they face is even greater than they imagined?

Table of Contents

Blood and Fire

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

About the Author

Previews

Dedications

For my Writer’s Craft students. You pushed me even as I was pushing you. Thank you.

For Tara, Jenny, Emily, Caroline, David, Rob, Mysti, Maya, Jessica, John, and the rest of my online writing community. Thank you for your advice, your never-ending support, and for being my friends and mentors. This trilogy would not have continued without you.

For my family. Thank you for your patience, your confidence in me, and your unconditional love.

Prologue

Charlotte lay back in her luxurious double-wide lounge chair on the balcony and hugged her blanket closer, watching the sun come up over the Pacific.

In the distance, she could hear exotic birds welcoming the morning sun. Along the street below, Peruvian vendors were already beginning to set up their wares for the flocks of tourists to squawk over. But while the peaceful stillness of the morning should have been comforting, she felt disjointed and uncertain.

The sketchpad should have been filled with outlines of the gorgeous views in Lima, but its empty pages flapped in the early morning wind. She’d bought canvases in various sizes and a variety of new paints to reflect the exotic colours around her, but every time she took charcoal or paintbrush in hand, nothing happened. The creative spark flared only enough to invite the effort, and then it died.

She hadn’t been able to draw or paint for over a year. Not since the previous fall.

Not since being attacked for the final time by the disgusting vampire she’d imprisoned underground. She’d survived, and she was happy to have married Pike—overjoyed, in fact, to have found her match in him—but something had been irrevocably damaged in that encounter.

She played absently with the opal necklace Pike had given her to replace her golden ankh, left buried metres underground. It was beautiful, a blue Peruvian opal shaped into a teardrop about the size of her thumb, its tip wrapped in gold. Pike had found the original stone and had a craftsman shape it for her. According to local folklore, it was supposed to have soft relaxing powers, enabling the wearer to release tension in order to allow ideas to flow more freely. She had read more about it online one rainy afternoon. In addition to encouraging relaxation, the stone was believed to help lessen stress, heal the trauma of old injuries, and increase tranquility, especially for those with troubled minds and insomnia.

While it might have helped Charlotte to get to sleep, it wasn’t working on whatever was blocking her creativity. In addition, the bad dreams she’d struggled with for months after she had survived the vampire’s last assault had not only returned, they were getting worse.

Charlotte appreciated the thoughtful gesture of her husband, but she missed her ankh.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped.

Honey? What are you doing out here, so early? Pike, her husband of only a few months, sat down next to her, clad only in his white boxer-briefs. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.

Charlotte tilted her head back and tried breathing slowly, to let her heart slow down. It’s all right. I couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t want to wake you.

His grey eyes were filled with concern. Gently, Pike reached out to run his fingers through her uncombed raven-black hair. Another nightmare?

She nodded, curling into his arms as he settled onto the lounge with her. The memory was with her even now. "It’s never the same, but it feels the same. I can’t quite remember the details, but I can see...fragments. People dying. His face, and his fangs, the awful way he grins. I can smell blood." Her stomach heaved `at the thought.

Pike held her close. It took you months to stop having nightmares after last fall. And now they’re back. You haven’t had a good night’s sleep since before Hallowe’en.

Charlotte took a deep breath. Her body was beginning to relax against the heat of his skin, the muscles supporting her tired body, the love she could sense in the tension of his arms. I know. But it doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s probably just because our trip’s almost over. Or we passed the anniversary of the...of what happened.

He kissed the top of her head. It’s normal to remember. It’s part of the process when victims come to terms with trauma. We can take an earlier flight, maybe later today, even. Your mother’s fine, everyone is safe, but if it helps, we can go home.

That would make me feel better. Charlotte sighed, drifting back to sleep in his arms. Just keep holding me for a little while longer.

November 17

Chapter One

Marcy dropped her duffel onto the cheap, worn motel duvet covering the queen-sized bed, and tossed the over-large room key beside it. She glanced around the dingy paneled walls and vintage lamps. It smelled musty. She pressed her lips together to suppress the coming sigh. Not the greatest hotel in Shabla, but at least they had a little view of the Black Sea...from the parking lot.

If only vampire hunting paid well.

Behind her, a slim, fair, well-manicured hand slapped against the open door.

Hey! This is both heavy and awkward. A little help would be nice!

Marcy turned wearily, flipped her braid over her shoulder, and crossed to the door. Siobhan’s face was blotched and sweaty in the faint yellow light of the broken sconce outside their room; tendrils of blonde hair were sticking to her forehead where they had escaped her headband. Marcy grimaced. Sweating made Siobhan bitchy. Anything requiring physical effort, other than a work-out, made Siobhan bitchy. Hauling their footlocker of equipment out of the van and into the motel room was nearly crossing her line of permissible manual labour.

Wait until she saw the condition of the battered old TV. Or opened the little bar fridge, which was probably coated in mildew.

Marcy enjoyed an inner shiver of pleasure when she looked at the bed again, anticipating Siobhan’s perfect body next to hers.

Why this stylish Irish flower had ever decided to go into the dirty business of finding and destroying the undead was beyond Marcy, but she had every reason to be glad of her lover’s choice.

We’re coming up on four years this December, Em, Siobhan told her through huffs and puffs. The least you could do is remember that I am not the butch in this relationship. You are.

So, what you’re saying is, I’m the guy, Marcy retorted, the words both stinging a little and bringing heat to her cheeks. It had to be love, if she could put up with crap like that remark. Funny, that, coming from a gargoyle.

If the reference to her alter ego had come from anyone else, Siobhan would have bristled immediately at the insult and morphed into her winged stone shape in order to drive home the significance of offending a supernatural creature. But because it was Marcy, Siobhan simply batted it back, sniffing. Well, your people are wood-nymphs. It makes sense that you’d be built like a lumberjack. She wrinkled her nose at the TV, just as Marcy had known she would, studiously ignoring her shapeshifting lover.

Remember when you asked me to tell you if you were being obnoxious?

Mmhmm? Siobhan tilted her head slightly as she examined a chip in her fingernail.

You’re doing it. Right now. Marcy folded her arms. We’re both tired and cranky, but there’s no need for name-calling.

You started it.

I don’t think so.

Whatever. Backing down from the fight as usual, Siobhan turned her back and started rummaging through the duffel on the bed. I need an emery board. Help me find one, would you?

Siobhan took more care with her physical appearance than Marcy ever had. She carefully styled her sunshine-yellow tresses each and every morning, even if it was only for a five-minute braided coil that somehow always looked perfect. She could work miracles with a single stick of eyeliner. Marcy figured that some women were just plainly gifted with makeup, and it didn’t hurt that her partner already had so much to work with: big blue eyes, lush pink lips, a pert nose, and a scattering of freckles that Siobhan claimed to despise. Most people described them as cute. And then there was her incredible cleavage. The Twins had gained the two of them entry to many clubs and offices that would otherwise have been off-limits.

Not only was Siobhan beautiful and bisexual, she was also good with money, incredibly intelligent, and had a fantastic vocabulary.

We’re not done here. Marcy fought to keep her voice low. You called me ‘butch’. Again. It hurts me when you do that, Siobhan.

"Em. Excuse me, Marcy. The little blonde turned and threw her arms around Marcy’s tall, willowy frame. You know I didn’t mean it. It’s like you said, I’m cranky. I’m sorry, I’ll try not to say it again. I promise."

Siobhan was so energetic, so confident in herself, it was like walking around a permanent sun. Marcy gave in to the heat of her lips, relaxing into her girlfriend’s soft arms. Siobhan’s mercurial nature was congruous with her magickal gifts, as a stone-morph; her personality matched her body, swinging between the extremes of hot to cold, soft to hard, beautiful and delicate to dangerously cutting. Her doll-like body, barely passing 5’, looked too vulnerable for the work they did, but Marcy knew from experience that her abundant bosom and hour-glass figure belied an incredible strength. It wasn’t just her magickal nature that made her strong—it was also her dedication to fitness training.

Marcy had never met another woman like her.

Go on and take your shower, Rocky, Marcy muttered her pet name for her girlfriend, after one more delicious squeeze. I’m just the sensitive wood-nymph. Bend, don’t break, and all that.

I really am sorry, Em. The blue in Siobhan’s eyes deepened, reminding Marcy of the sky at sunset. Forgive me?

Yes. Marcy cupped the blonde’s velvety chin between her own slender brown hands. And I love you. Go on, take your shower first. I need to check in with S.H.I.P. and Dad, anyway.

The gargoyle’s routine was predictable, which was really somewhat dangerous in their field, but Marcy knew it helped Siobhan to cope with the nightmarish memories that came with the job. Five minutes to pick and complain, then a shower, then lounging pyjamas, and an instant cappuccino while they went over their next move and filed the latest report. She would then touch up her French manicure, buff her feet, wax wherever a stray hair had dared to appear, and disappear under the down quilt currently stuffed into a plastic bag. Unless there was an emergency, she wouldn’t emerge again until it was time for her workout in the morning.

Whenever it was safe, or time allowed, it was Marcy’s pleasure to slip into her 300-count cotton nest for a few sessions of passionate, energetic, and/or tender love-making. Her body warmed at the thought that tonight, the probability of sex was looking better and better by the moment. From the look Siobhan gave her as she closed the door, her lover agreed. But first, she had to take care of their professional obligations.

Marcy was fully aware that there were some individuals in the Society of Hunters and Investigators of the Paranormal who were doubtful of the practicality of their partnership. Never before, in the history of their peoples or in the records of the Society, had wood and stone formed a working pair like theirs. Hell, it had been decades since others of their species had even revealed themselves, let alone offered to work alongside humans. Maybe the prejudice was understandable on that basis, but it still burned.

If they could only track down and destroy Malcolm de Sade, the vampire on the top of S.H.I.P.’s most-wanted list, the nay-sayers would have to eat their words.

Before she and Siobhan had brought their relative inexperience to the table, the Society’s best hunters had been on the creature’s trail for two centuries, yet he had always evaded them somehow. He was smart, quick, ruthless, and a loner. Two years ago, he’d vanished from Toronto just when two teams had been ready to move. By the reports Marcy had read, they had delayed by thirty minutes, making sure everything was ready. It had been thirty minutes too long, at the least.

Tired of being given token assignments and pats on the head, Marcy and Siobhan had borrowed a copy of the de Sade file and gone off on their own, following the crumbs that other, more senior Society members had dismissed as unlikely or unimportant.

Your people are starting to slack, Bill, Marcy murmured, looking at his signature on a report two decades old. Isn’t that our motto, not leaving any stone unturned in the search for truth and elimination of threats?

It seemed that ever since the Society had acquired their living vampire specimen a few years earlier, all efforts had turned inward. Scientists and hunters were burning the candle at both ends, using their specimen to test new detection technology and micro-biological weapons at the expense of real hunting. Marcy didn’t understand it. What was the use of making a new weapon if the enemy was breeding, unchecked?

The response to her query on the organization’s recent withdrawal from field work had been brusque, to say the least. If you think you can do better than those with experience, by all means. But you won’t find a vampire who’s gone to ground, especially one without a coven like de Sade.

Marcy ground her teeth at the memory.

But waiting for him to surface—for any of them—is like asking innocent people to be bait! Her temper had risen enough that she’d given into shouting. We have to keep looking! It’s not fair—

Life isn’t fair. The squat, overweight bureaucrat behind his polished oak desk had steepled his fingers, pressed them to his nose, and looked over them at her as if she were a bug in a petri dish. The board of governors has decided that the best use of our efforts at the moment is to find a rapid and convenient solution for all vampires. Tracking and killing one or a few at a time is no longer good enough, not now that we have a specimen to use for tests. There will be some losses, yes—

Collateral damage, you mean, Marcy spat.

—but in the end, it will be worth the sacrifice. The fat, balding ass had leaned forward at that point and flicked the thick de Sade folder in her direction. As I said, you’re welcome to go with your gargoyle partner and try. The trail is cold, and under the current climate, I can’t offer you more than token support . . .

Marcy had taken the file and left without speaking. It had not been worth her job to unleash the torrent of insults building inside her. At least, not then.

It could wait until she had de Sade’s ashes in a sample bag.

Shaking the mental cobwebs from her head, Marcy knelt down before the footlocker and pressed her thumb to the high-tech lock fastening its lid. The tones it emitted as the computer registered her print were almost in the same key as Siobhan’s singing voice, as she warbled a Beyoncé tune in the shower. Flipping open the top of the long metal box, Marcy did a quick inventory of their weaponry and investigatory equipment, as she did every night. A thumb-sized acorn strung on a simple leather thong around her neck swung forward as she leaned over. She rubbed it absently between her fingers before tucking it back inside her shirt.

It always seemed a little superfluous to carry stakes, considering that Siobhan could morph her arms into stone tough enough to decapitate. But they did come in handy: since some of their hunts took place in relatively public areas or confined spaces, the women never tracked a vampire without them.

In addition to the stakes, they had a supply of holy water in little vials arranged in rows inside the lid, like oblong glass bullets. Under the tray of stakes in various lengths and sizes were two cross-bows and a folding long-bow. Everything in its place. The basics for battling a scourge that never seemed to end.

Pressing another button caused a drawer in the bottom of the footlocker to extend itself on invisible tracks. One of the toughest computers in the world had been built into the box, for security as much as ease of transportation. Beside it was an equally tough combination scanner, fax machine, and printer. All the information they gathered each day was uploaded to headquarters and their encrypted online cloud, as well as neatly catalogued and filed in their field notes. More often than not, combining the resources of all the independent vampire hunting cells led to successful kills.

Except when it came to de Sade.

Marcy’s lip curled when she thought of him. Keying in her password, she mentally reviewed, once again, the last two reports the organization had registered that she suspected had connections to their target.

First, there was the sighting: Summer, downtown Toronto in Canada, two years prior. A homeless man had reported that a woman had been attacked in an alley. The subject had appeared to come from nowhere, as though he had been part of the shadows. The woman had thrown him off in an incredible display of strength, and then run away.

Second, there had been a series of unexplained disappearances in Northeastern Ontario, about a year later. Hunters and senior citizens on tour had vanished without trace, baffling the police. The abductions had taken place around a small town called Talbot, approximately 500 kilometres north of Toronto. There was nothing to connect the victims, but that was how de Sade worked, at least that they knew—he was an animal, killing indiscriminately when he felt like it, stealing people off the face of the earth as neatly as though they’d been beamed away by UFOs.

Her concentration was momentarily swayed by the sounds of thumping and ecstatic groans issuing from the other side of the wall behind her. Marcy rolled her eyes. She pivoted on the balls of her feet and turned on the ancient television behind her to try and cover the sex noises. The Bulgarian news anchor’s cheerful and unintelligible-to-her reporting barely drowned out her neighbours, as if in competition, they raised their volume.

Unbelievable, Marcy muttered. While the computer finished booting and buffering, she sat fully on the floor, spreading her notes around her to look again for a clue to de Sade’s whereabouts.

The woman in the first report had had long, dark hair. Tall. Caucasian.

The attacker had had long, stringy dark hair. Overly pale skin. Strong features.

Her name was Charlotte Fanning. She had made reports to the police that someone had been stalking her, but no evidence was ever filed and her case had been dismissed.

And then she, too, had disappeared, as had Alma, Fanning’s mother and only surviving relative.

Headquarters had marked Fanning as an unsolved mystery, like those innocent victims in the second report. Had she been turned? Perhaps. Killed outright? More probable. But what made Marcy pause was the fact that the woman had survived de Sade’s aggression for so long. And her ability to fight him off was definitely unusual. Not all Powers were registered with the Society, like Marcy and Siobhan’s. It made her a little nervous, considering all the possibilities that an unknown Power presented, but it also gave her some hope. If they could locate this Fanning, if she was still alive, her information could help them finally burn the murdering bastard creep who had eluded vampire hunters for three hundred years.

Without anything solid, Marcy and Siobhan had continued to follow the rumours and false leads considered insignificant by their superiors, praying that the next clue would actually turn into something useful. Somehow, their journey had landed them in the middle of Bulgaria. Siobhan’s gift for languages was helping, as she was learning new phrases almost as quickly as she heard them, but the trail had dried up once again.

Marcy paused in the middle of chewing a cuticle on her thumb to check her email. The name in the subject line was unfamiliar.

Rayvin Woods. I don’t know you.

It was an SOS forward from Marcy’s father, a highly reputed paranormal investigator and hunter who had retired six months earlier.

Marcy leaned closer to the glowing screen, intrigued.

The original email had been sent on November 1. A cry for help that had been dismissed by the powers that be for God knew what reason -- maybe it was the way this Rayvin Woods had worded it, or that the woman had a sketchy reputation. But if her name hadn’t turned up in the files before, she likely wasn’t a crank sending out false alarms like the boy who’d cried Wolf!

What was most interesting, though, and was most probably the reason her father had sent it on, was the writer’s location: Talbot, Ontario.

It could be a coincidence. Or it could be exactly the fresh lead they needed.

Chapter Two

Rayvin stared at the neat stacks of oblong boxes, at the silhouettes of peacefully pregnant women on their covers, the pastel colours offering comfort to the user wanting to know the truth about her condition.

Why didn’t they ever consider the feelings of the woman who didn’t want to be pregnant?

The hushed footfalls of customers moving anxiously around her and the stringent odour of floor cleaner made her acutely self-conscious. There weren’t many people in the store at this hour of the evening, particularly after the holidays were over, but the absence of casual shoppers made it even more difficult to stand there and decide. It was easier to be anonymous in a crowd.

Rayvin missed the anonymity of the city almost as much as she missed her beautiful long, red hair. She wore what was left of it in a spiky pixie cut, with palmfuls of wax forced through its thick layers to keep it from clinging pathetically to her scalp or looking like a child’s ridiculous bedhead, but it stubbornly refused to grow any longer.

It hadn’t grown since Samhain.

Nor had she had her period.

The skin on the back of her neck crawled -- someone was looking at her. She glanced at the pharmacist, whose eyes slid away as he pretended to be filling out a form on his clipboard.

This would be her fifth—no, her sixth pregnancy test in two weeks. Probably. She felt as though she were losing count. The damn things showed negative every time, but she was still late and feeling...off. She’d last had her period at the beginning of October. And then she’d packed up her stuff, moved back to Talbot, to enter a worse hell than the one she’d run from in the first place.

Fucking vampires.

It really shouldn’t be this hard to pick one, she muttered under her breath. Just grab one and go.

Her hand hovered between the expensive digital model billed as the most advanced stick she would ever pee on, and the ultra-cheap no-frills brand she could have sworn was also on the shelves at the dollar store she’d visited not half an hour earlier. How accurate could it be, if the store had it for a buck?

After another moment’s indecision, she grabbed the mid-range box (the same brand she’d already used twice before) and headed for the register.

The cheerful plastic Christmas decorations grated on her nerves as much as the fluorescent lighting hurt her eyes. Fucking asshole, keeping her up all night with his megalomaniac plotting and planning, so that she slept through most of the day...

If she hadn’t made her doctor’s appointment for 8:30 in the morning, she’d still be in bed instead of yawning in the aisles of the one store in the area that opened before 6 am.

The days had grown shorter and shorter as winter had begun to settle in, making it easier for de Sade to keep her on his metaphorical leash. Rayvin refused to admit to herself that a part of her was growing tired of fighting and just wanted to give in. Seeing cheerful people, watching the delights of the season appear in product displays and window decor, and even the holiday-themed music piped over the store’s PA system were making her grind her teeth, but she held onto the anger. She made a split-second decision and turned toward the kitchenware section.

Anger was better than despair.

With anger, she got things done.

If she gave into the despair, she’d hole up in her house and never leave again.

She had to believe that there was still a way to stop the nightmare. Some way to kill de Sade, free the people he had under his control, and make things safe for Talbot. Otherwise, there was no point to any of this.

In the pit of her stomach, she knew that freedom probably meant death -- permanent, this time, for her almost-sister, Andrea. Her throat tightened at the thought. She hadn’t spoken with Andrea since she’d been turned by the bastard, hadn’t seen her since Andrea had helped de Sade to disrupt the ritual and take Grant from her. Could she even count on Andrea as an ally? Wouldn’t her loyalty now belong to her vampire master?

Rayvin found the knife display.

If Andrea’s heart was truly dead, then killing what passed for her body wouldn’t be murder, it would be giving her peace.

She wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but giving into the emotion might make her lose what little control she had left.

There were three sizes of butcher knife hung neatly by their handles. The largest hefted nicely in her grip. Its weight seemed equal to punching through the skin and bone of any target.

Suddenly, the lights went out.

Instinctively, Rayvin looked up, her heart hammering in her chest. The startled cries of her fellow shoppers stopped when emergency lights in the corners of the building automatically clicked on, but Rayvin knew they’d be screaming in moments.

She’d been here before.

Her fist tightened around the tough wooden handle of the blade.

A half-second later, a large and icy hand had covered hers.

Now, what are you planning on doing with that? De Sade’s smooth voice in her ear made her stomach lurch and her thighs tingle in a disconcerting, incongruous combination. You know how I feel about the knives.

You made it clear when you stole all of mine.

The vampire pulled her back against his chest, forcing her hand up to her neck, the blade secure in their joint grasp. The plastic rim protecting the sharp edge dug into the exposed skin between the collar of her coat and her scarf. For your own safety, my darling, I assure you.

Somewhere, in the back of the store, a shriek rose and died with a nauseating gurgle. There was a moment of shocked silence before the handful of shoppers who had paused in the blackout began to panic.

It was amazing how much noise ten or fifteen people could make in a big box store when they were scared to death.

Rayvin knew it was useless to struggle, but she tried anyway.

Come now, this is your fault, you know, the bastard chuckled into her ear. If you’d only behaved as you were expected to, this wouldn’t be happening. My vampires would have left this place in peace. Instead, you chose to break the rules. You know the penalty for breaking the rules.

You sonofabitch, Rayvin spat, trying to force her way out of his embrace. Leave them alone!

Careful, now, Concubine. You’ll work this safety free, and then where will you be? One long thumb, its nail manicured but clearly sharp, flicked casually at the blade protector. The longer you struggle, the longer I will wait to send them away. How many do you want to die tonight?

He hadn’t done this in days. Rayvin felt sick. All right! Just stop them, please! I can’t let go of the damn thing unless you let go of me first!

She felt him smile against the back of her head. When will you finally accept the bond between us? When will you understand that I feel what you feel, that I sense your thoughts and come when your mind calls to mine? You gave yourself to me, freely. I own you. Whatever plan you had to whirl and strike at me when I ease my hold on your hand will fail. I can anticipate your every move, my dear.

Rayvin closed her eyes. The horrified screams of innocent victims were echoing from the high ceilings. How many were dead already?

She could bide her time. There had to be a way.

With an effort, she relaxed her fingers.

That’s my girl, the vampire praised her. He kissed the tip of her ear, and she flinched. The butcher knife clattered to the floor. With one arm firmly around her shoulders, de Sade guided her away.

I have to pay for the pregnancy test. Her voice was low and flat, as lacking in emotion as she could make it. She was damned for letting him have so much power over her.

It’s taken care of, the bastard informed her, taking the little box and pocketing it. They won’t be missing it tomorrow. You really don’t need that silly test. As I already told you, I can smell the changes in your body’s hormones. I am quite confident that you are breeding. I shall escort you back to your home while my family tidies this mess.

Rayvin knew what was going to happen next. Jason, the vampire’s second in command and her would-be rapist, would do his little mind-control trick on the surviving shoppers and employees to erase all