With wide eyes I looked him over, not finding any blood. When he turned to me with panic in his expression, I realized what had happened. “Fuck, it’s Nolan.”
FIFTEEN
Nolan
Ihadn’t been expecting to find anything useful, so I wasn’t certain why it was so irritating when we didn’t.
In any case, annoyance built beneath the surface of my skin as I rifled through papers and tossed items out of drawers. Sky had a neat trick in his arsenal where he took a scan of a room before we’d been in it, and could magically replicate its state when we left. I didn’t have to worry about getting fingerprints or scent on anything, or not remembering where something came from. It was all taken care of.
He’d also created a temporary seal around the room so no one could hear us speak or thump around.
“Are you guys finding anything?” I asked, peering out the office door to where Altair was tossing the living room.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“I’ve got no luck either.”
I ducked back into the office. There had to be something. A note he’d written, an unfamiliar key, a hidden compartment. Kylan enjoyed secrets, and he was irritatingly good at keeping them.
My phone buzzed with a text. It was from Freya.
Emmett had said there was one ground patrol, but she claimed there were two. At least we still only had one group hopping from rooftop to rooftop. They would be the most annoying to evade. It was a miracle we’d avoided detection on our way in. This rash of an operation wasn’t usually a risk I would take, but for Freya…
We were all taking risks.
Probably too many.
I sent her a text back, glancing around the room to figure out what was worth checking in my final five minutes. Nothing stood out. I focused back on the top of the desk, grabbing pads of paper and trying to figure out what he’d written on them last. Probably irrelevant shit, but it was worth a shot. I’d checked for hidden compartments on the desk, and there were none I could find.
Snatching a pencil from the holder in the corner, I set to work scribbling on the clean pages, revealing the last words. The first two were blank slates. The third… a number. I ripped the paper off and shoved it in my pocket. Sky’s magic would replace it. I’d revealed the first letter of a word on the fourth pad when a clatter from the living room caught my attention.
I detached the paper and shoved it in my pocket on the off chance it was useful.
Then I crept up to the open doorway, glancing through.
A lamp sat shattered on the floor. Altair was missing. My body went on high alert and I grabbed the phone, typing out a message to the others. Before I sent it, I was cut off by someone slamming into me.
I grunted, using my air magic to push the attacker back. Magic also stopped me from slamming ass first onto the floor. “You’re not supposed to be here,” the attacking vampire grunted.
He didn’t hold a weapon and I realized why a second later when he ignited a flame in his hand. Elemental magic. Fire was the most common element for vampires; water and earth were the least common. Air, my magic, was somewhere in between. It was also conveniently strong against fire. Just like I could steal oxygen from someone’s lungs, I could also steal oxygen from a fire. Some vampires were skilled enough to keep it burning despite one of its natural requirements being missing, but most weren’t. You had to draw upon a different kind of magic to do that.
“I am aware of that, yes,” I said, focusing on his mouth.
Using the same methods I always used, I tried to suck his breath away.
He continued to breathe, and I saw the glint of a stone against his chest, attached to a necklace chain.Well, fuck.Hand to hand it was, then. I couldn’t use an element directly against him because he had a magic charm on him. Each was different — the one I’d forced Ozzy to wear, for example, was designed to protect against debilitating head and neck injuries. This one might be location focused as well, but I didn’t have time to test it out.
“Kylan will be thrilled to have you, though. Especially if I can take you alive. He has expressed a preference for killing his treasonous cousin himself.”
“I’m sorry he won’t get the chance,” I said.
He smirked at me. I scanned the area, trying to figure out what the fuck happened to Altair and Sky. They wouldn’t have betrayed me, so they had to be incapacitated or fighting in a different room. I couldn’t hear anything, but that could be Sky’s fault.
By the time the vampire guard came for me, my attention was focused on him again. I couldn’t worry about them. They were assassins for hire and knew how to get out of a bind. If they hadn’t been capable, I wouldn’t have brought them.
Heat from the fire warmed my arms as I dodged a blow.
There were hundreds of ways to utilize elemental magic. His tactic was to cover his arms in flames and engage in a fist fight. I needed to keep my distance, so I withdrew the sword holstered on my back, swiping it at the back of his legs.
