Read Online The Sorceress Screams by Anya Breton - Free Book Online Page B

my
mother would probably have my head for the failure to observe the rules. I’d
deal with her ire later. Now I had to deal with the vampire.
    I sucked in
energy from the nearby pool, and then shoved all of the manipulative power into
the vampire that I could. “Let us go,” I said. “All of us.”
    Nadir made a
dismissive gesture. “You all may go.”
    For a moment I
could only stare at him. This was proof I could, in fact, manipulate a vampire
using Water magic. There had to be something different about Maximo. But there
would be time enough to consider that later. I hoped.
    “Don’t try to
follow us,” I said.
    He flapped a
hand. “Go on, you’re wasting my time.”
    “ Nadir !” The vampire Susan called out the two syllables with sharp
enunciation.
    “Come on ,” I said to the witches who were in
varied states of disbelief. A head nod and imploring stare emphasized my
demand.
    One
dark-haired witch headed the escape. However the other witches lingered at the
other end of the pool or dumbly stared from their seated positions. It took a
wave from the first witch, and the threat of Susan grabbing one of them, for
the others to hurry toward me.
    I held the
door until each of the witches made it through, and then I led them to the
storage room where I fetched my clothing and purse. We disappeared into the
employee only corridors moments later with the vampires’ bickering as the
soundtrack to our escape.

Chapter Seven
     
    “How did you
do that?” A childlike voice asked once our party of seven emerged from the
battered freight elevator on Caesars Palace’s ground floor.
    I glanced,
spotting the speaker as she stepped out of the metal box. While she wasn’t the
youngest of the group, she wasn’t the eldest. I decided she was an Air witch
without drawing in the scent to find out. It was the volume in her dark hair.
    “She must be a vampire .” The redheaded Fire witch
drawled the final word in bitter emphasis.
    A pale-skinned
witch with the cute page boy hair replied. “She’s not a vampire.”
    “I’m not a
vampire,” I said.
    I’d taken
several steps before I noted the lack of sound behind me. They hadn’t followed.
I twirled back on the ball of my foot. What
was the hold up ?
    The Air
witch’s voice went sharp. “How do we know you’re not something worse?”
    I checked for
the wandering eyes of vanilla humans who might be listening in. Though we
appeared to be alone, I whispered my response in case of cameras. “My guess is
you’re all enthralled to him. I’m not sure what could possibly be worse than
being beholden to a monster like that.”
    “What’s the
point of running if he’s only going to call us back?” The redhead snapped out
the question, gesturing her freckled arm toward the spa we’d escaped. “We need
to take real action.”
    I held her
angry glare. Their situation would have been so much easier to solve if I could
simply kill the vampire. But my soul couldn’t handle that kind of blemish, even
with a creature who was already dead. “You can stick around and attempt to blow
up half of Caesars Palace in the hope he’ll be taken out with you, or you can
come with me to Wipuk where the covens can keep you
safe.”
    I hoped to
Zeus I wasn’t making false promises.
    “You’re from Wipuk ?” the orange-haired Asian girl asked. She smelled so
heavily of aloe it was impossible to miss. Clearly she was a Healer.
    “I live there
now.” I nodded. “Please, come with me.” I met each witch’s eye, silently
pleading for understanding. “Las Vegas isn’t safe for you while he’s here. We
can put three hundred miles between us before he wakes up tonight. And with the
most powerful witches in the country in your camp, you’ll have a chance to
fight him.”
    Hera, help me
make it true!
    “I need my
luggage,” the Healer declared.
    “I’m not going
anywhere in a terry robe,” another witch with long blonde hair said, as if
terry were the lowest form of fabric.
    I