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.Dawn span towards me, reaching out for my throat again.A second later, her form glowed with magic and burst apart in flames, ashes falling down on the floor.They mingled with the blood and seemed to spin again and again before finally collapsing into dust.Master Revels didn’t take chances.Muttering spells – as I lay there on the floor, stunned – he swept up all the bloody remains and consigned them to a pocket dimension.Blood could – sometimes – allow a slain vampire to reconstitute itself from nothing.This time, there would be no room for her to reanimate.My head was still unsteady and I felt sick.I tried to focus my mind enough to perform a healing spell, yet nothing seemed to work properly.Blood seemed to be rushing through my head, blurring my vision.or perhaps I was just imagining it.It was so hard to focus.I felt soft hands touching my head.I groped for a name.“Cardonel?”“I’m afraid not,” Master Revels said, dryly.I was too dizzy to flush.“You’re concussed, among other things.Don’t try to cast any spells in that condition.Just relax and let me work on you.”Slowly, the pain faded away, leaving me shaky, but able to stand upright.He held my arm until my legs agreed to support me, although they kept threatening to go on strike at any moment.I hoped that he hadn’t drawn any conclusions from what I’d said, but it seemed unlikely.I told myself that it was none of his business who I allowed into my bed and tried to push the matter aside.“You did all right,” Master Revels said, as we staggered together down the Wizard’s Freeway.I hated to think about the hospital staff coming into work and discovering the mess.Somehow I managed to mumble something to that effect.“I’ll ask Dervish to take care of it.He owes me a favour.”A wave of heat struck us as we stepped back into the magical world.A building was burning, right in front of us.And then there was someone shouting in my ear as a new wave of dizziness ran through me.“The Rationalists,” he was shouting.His words seemed to rattle around my skull.“Their building is on fire!”Chapter Twenty-Four“Be quiet,” Master Revels ordered, sharply.My head was still spinning and I could barely think.The heat was tearing away at my mind.“Get her a healing potion, now!”My mind swam.The next thing I felt was a pair of hands holding me and a vial of some kind being pressed against my lips.I drank and a warm feeling shimmered through my body.A moment later, my head cleared and I opened my eyes.I hadn’t even realised that they were closed.Ahead of us, a building was burning brightly, with strange hints of magic pouring through the fire.“That was a healing potion with sufficient power to heal death itself,” a voice said.I looked up into the calm face of a middle-aged lady with grey hair and brilliant blue eyes.I liked her on sight, if only because she reminded me of an ideal mother or aunt.“How are you feeling?”“Much better,” I said.It was true.The aches and pains that had plagued me since the brief battle with the vampire had faded away to nothing.“What are the side effects?”The aged witch shrugged.“Get some sleep as soon as possible and don’t try to wake up,” she said, dryly.“Let your body recuperate on its own and then wake up.Get plenty of rest and relaxation over the next few days.You should be fine.”“Thank you,” I said, pulling myself to my feet.I felt better than fine.I hadn’t felt so sharp since.I couldn’t remember ever feeling so good.At the back of my mind, there was a little voice reminding me that feeling so good was probably an effect of the potion, but I ignored it.“That was a very good potion.”The witch smiled.“My small reputation as a potions brewer is confirmed,” she said.There was an alarmingly loud crackle from the building and I turned to see part of it collapse into the flames.The flames themselves were far from natural.There was something truly eerie about them.“Your master is over there, if you wish to speak to him.”She pointed one long finger towards Master Revels, who was standing some distance away, his hands clasped behind his back.He was staring up at the fire, his features illuminated oddly in the flickering light.I started to walk over to him, glancing from face to face in the crowd.There was no one that I recognised, but in the fire I could make out just how many of them wore illusions to conceal and protect their inhuman natures.Several of them, I realised with a shudder, were vampires.I wondered if they knew that we had killed one of their own only a few hours ago.Or perhaps they didn’t really care.I had no idea how the vampires organised themselves within the magical world.Maybe the ones who hunted in the mundane world were their renegades.And besides, the vampires weren’t the weirdest creatures who had come out to watch the fire.There were a group of mermen and mermaids, floating inside spheres of water that surrounded and protected them; werewolves hiding their natures behind illusions, a pair of centaurs watching from the edge of the crowd and a strange-looking little man wearing an Irish costume.There was a woman wearing a veil and I wondered if she was one of Dervish’s people, until I looked and saw her eyes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]