To her it seemed almost as if time had stopped. Seconds and minutes became meaningless in a point of eternity. Blue bolts met red flames again and again until she wondered if the powers were evenly matched. Nothing seemed to change except for those bolts.
“Send it back now,” Damien thundered, “or I swear I’ll leave you with nothing!”
Then to Caro’s amazement, the blue lightning seemed to be sucking the red flames toward it. Oh, God, she hoped Alika wasn’t winning. Frantically she tried to think of what she could do to help.
But Damien, she realized, didn’t look as if this change bothered him at all.
“I told you, woman. I am mage and I am vampire. You have not met the likes of me before. Send the elemental back!”
Alika said nothing. She tightened her face, as if fighting with every ounce of her strength. For an instant the red flowed back to her. But only for an instant. Then it started flowing toward Damien again, and as it reached his blue lightning, it faded toward lavender.
“You’re running out of time,” Damien warned.
“I can leave it and you won’t be able to stop it,” Alika gasped.
“If you leave it, can you prevent it from harming your son? Or his family?”
More red flames disappeared into Damien’s blue aura. Caro blinked, as it seemed to her that Alika was shrinking a bit, that her fiery aura was fading.
“Do it!” Damien demanded.
Caro felt it happen. One moment she was holding the elemental back, and the next it was gone. Completely gone. While the air still sizzled with electricity, it had also grown lighter, clearer.
“Caro?” Damien asked.
“I can’t feel it anymore.”
“Wait a minute, and be sure.”
Alika continued to shrink, her aura growing dimmer. “Stop,” she begged.
“I’ll stop when I’m sure the elemental is gone.”
“It’s gone,” Alika groaned. “It’s gone.”
“Caro?”
“I really can’t sense it anymore.”
Another clap sounded, this one quieter. All of a sudden there was just an old woman sagging into a chair, and Damien, the Damien she had known all along, standing there.
Damien surprised her by squatting before Alika. He waited until he had her attention.
“I took power from you.”
“I know.”
“You still have enough. You can build it again but it will take time. But do not do this again, Alika. I don’t want to have to come back.”
“But the people,” she whispered. “My son, his family.”
Caro stepped forward. “If I may?”
Damien nodded and moved to the side a bit so Caro could squat beside him. “Alika, you tried to protect me. I know that. And while I don’t approve of what you did, I understand why you did it.”
The woman’s eyes, looking ancient now, stared glumly back at her.
“I’ll work with my friends on the force to find places for your son and all the other people to live. I can’t promise they’ll succeed, but I think everyone will want to help.”
Alika barely nodded.
Damien stood. “You’ll be all right, Alika. I just hope you didn’t pick up a lot of bad—what do you call it?”
“Juju,” Caro supplied. She, too, straightened and turned to Jerome, who looked as if he had aged a dozen years. “I’ll find a way to help you.”
He just nodded, but there was no hope in his face.
Outside on the street, Caro breathed the cold air, enjoying the freedom of no longer being stalked and watched. The city looked so damn normal that it was almost impossible to believe what she had just seen.
“Damien?”
“Yes, Schatz?”
“I have questions.”
“Of course you do. But let’s get somewhere warm first. You’re merely human, after all.”
She laughed, feeling so good all of a sudden. It felt even better when he lifted her onto his back, and along with Jude they headed back, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Someday she hoped to be able to actually see it, not just feel like she was riding a crazy elevator.
Then, in the midst of her relief and happiness, she realized something. Tomorrow, or the next day, she would have to return to her mundane life.
She loved being a cop, wanted to be a detective, but nothing in her life was ever going to be the same again. She wondered how she would mesh this new world into her old world. Surely there had to be a way to use her newfound skills and power in her job?
But as she clung to Damien, even that didn’t seem all that important. Not as important as how much longer she might have with Damien. Not as important as how soon she was going to lose him.
Her face pressed to his back, she fought down a sudden urge to weep.
So much had changed so fast, and one of the things that had changed was her heart.
Somehow she had to deal with that.
Back at Jude’s office, Chloe started pumping coffee into Caro to warm her up. Jude and Damien disappeared, probably to feed, then returned to join the women.
Chloe demanded immediate explanations, and Caro added her voice.
“What did I see? What happened in there? What did you mean when you warned her that you were both a vampire and a mage?”
“I was warning her that she had never seen my like.”
“I got that part,” Caro said a little sarcastically as she cradled the hot mug of coffee to warm her hands.
Damien sat beside her on the sofa and wound his arm around her shoulders. Liking the embrace, she leaned into him and let her head rest on his shoulder. She wished she didn’t fear this might be the last time she would be so close to him.
“A long time ago,” Damien said, “the Magi realized something. There were those who would do evil, and while they could be thwarted, they couldn’t always be prevented from trying again. Power is power, after all, and how it’s wielded is a personal decision.”
“Okay. I get that part.”
“It was told to me that one of our most powerful priests was changed, long before my time. It wasn’t by choice, but it proved to have an unexpected benefit.”
“And that was?”
“That a vampire priest, one who held true power himself, could drink the power from others. Take it away as surely as if it were blood.”
“Really?” At that Caro sat bolt upright.
“Really,” he said, still keeping his arm loosely around her. “The secret was closely guarded by the temple. Only a very few of us were selected after proving our trustworthiness for years, and then we became the guardians of the secret. It was important that no one else know.”
“I can see why. But you didn’t drain Alika completely.”
“I hope I never have to. I suspect that until this event she’s always tried to use her power for good. And she did give you that gris-gris to protect you. For that I am grateful to her.”
“She didn’t seem like a bad person,” Caro agreed. “Mostly she just seemed desperate.” She listened to herself, and realized that henceforth she was apt to be a very different sort of cop. Not that she would excuse murder, but she was probably going to be a lot more sympathetic to some of the reasons why people broke the law.
“You said you were going to help those people find homes,” Damien said. “How will you do that?”
“The force works with several charitable organizations. I’m sure I can get them working on it. It would be good for the community.”
“I agree.”
“What would have happened if you had continued to drain Alika?”
He gave a slight shrug. “I could have left her with no power at all. I could have burned it out of her. Or I could have killed her. I really had no desire to do the latter.”