Page 69 of Blood Currents
Keane was faster.A portal opened directly in front of the guard’s reaching hand, and when he tried to grab the alarm, his arm disappeared through the silver light only to emerge from another portal six feet away, well clear of the crystal.
The guard stumbled, off-balance, giving me the opening I needed.My necromantic energy lashed out—not to harm but to overwhelm—flooding his senses with the whispers of the dead until he collapsed, unconscious but breathing.
But the third figure in the room made my blood turn to ice.
Lord Alstone stood beside a cart of instruments, his dark eyes taking in our assault with cold calculation rather than surprise.Almost like he’d been expecting us.
“How touching,” he said.“The young people have come to play hero.”
“Uncle,” Keane said, his voice steady despite the rage I could feel radiating from him.“Let her go.”
“Let her go?”Alstone laughed, the sound like breaking glass.“My dear nephew, you misunderstand the situation entirely.Miss Parker is here by her own choices—the choice to interfere with council business, the choice to steal classified information, the choice to corrupt impressionable young minds with dangerous ideas.”
“The choice to tell the truth,” I snarled, my magic crackling around me in silver threads.
“Truth is subjective, Miss Grimley,” Alstone replied smoothly.“What matters is order.Stability.The greater good of the magical community.”
His hand moved to something on the instrument cart—not a weapon but some kind of magical device that made my necromantic senses recoil.“I must thank you all for coming.It saves me the trouble of hunting you down individually.”
“Elio, now!”I shouted.
Elio’s illusions exploded outward, suddenly making the laboratory seem three times larger than it actually was.Walls became mazes, equipment multiplied into confusion, and the remaining conscious guard spun around trying to orient himself in a space that no longer made sense.
But Alstone barely blinked.His hand closed around the device, and when he activated it, waves of corruption poured out—not random magical energy but the same oily wrongness that had twisted Keane’s power for months.
“Did you think I was unprepared for your little rebellion?”he asked as the corruption washed over us.“I’ve had months to study your magical resonance, to understand how your powers work together.And I’ve developed countermeasures.”
The corruption hit our harmonized magic like acid, trying to twist our natural connection into something sick and wrong.I felt Cyrus’s flames flicker as they fought against the artificial taint and saw Elio’s illusions begin to fracture at the edges.
But Keane stepped forward, his recovered magic blazing silver and clean.
“You’re right,” he said quietly.“You did study our resonance.But you never understood it.”
His portal magic flared, not opening gateways but creating barriers—walls of dimensional energy that the corruption couldn’t penetrate.The artificial wrongness crashed against Keane’s shields and dissolved, unable to touch the natural harmony of our combined power.
“Impossible,” Alstone breathed.“Your magic is corrupted.Broken.I made sure of it.”
“You tried to break it,” Keane corrected, his voice growing stronger.“But magic doesn’t want to be controlled, Uncle.It wants to flow naturally.And you can’t corrupt something that’s already chosen its own path.”
Aurora’s golden light joined Keane’s barriers, reinforcing them with warm strength.Elio’s illusions solidified into something real and protective.Cyrus’s flames burned clean and bright, all blue edges and righteous fury.
And my necromancy reached out to Parker, flowing around her restraints with gentle insistence.
“Together,” I said, feeling our magic sing in harmony.“Just like always.”
The magical bonds holding Parker dissolved under our combined effort, working like ice under sunlight.She sat up shakily, her power beginning to return as the suppression fields failed.
“You fools,” Alstone snarled, backing toward another cart of equipment.“You have no idea what you’re interfering with.The stability of the entire magical world depends on maintaining proper control—”
“The only thing being controlled here is you,” Parker said, her voice hoarse but determined as she stood.“The master has been using the council for decades, manipulating you into corrupting the very foundations of magic itself.”
“The master is our ally,” Alstone snapped.“A powerful vampire who understands the necessity of order—”
“The master is the source of the corruption,” Parker interrupted.“The ancient evil that’s been feeding on perverted magic for centuries.And you’ve been helping him poison every wellspring in the magical world.”
Alstone’s face went white.“That’s impossible.The vampire war—”
“Is a lie,” I said, understanding flooding through me.“There never was a war.Just an ancient parasite feeding on magical corruption, using both sides to spread the poison further.”
