Blood and Kisses - By Karin Shah Page 0,56

mouth to interject. She held out a firm hand to deter him. He subsided into silence with an audible huff.

“We have omens, we have prophecies, we have speculation, but the only concrete thing we have is one rogue vampire killing our friends and family.” Her gaze swept the crowd. These were people she’d known all her life. Karla Gibson, unabashedly gray hair held back by a garish green headband, met her eyes, giving her the thumbs up. She had a daughter who was a petty. A few others nodded in support, but still more looked away. “Jay.” She zeroed in on a tall, twenty-some mage, with curly dark hair and a ruddy complexion. “When you were cursed, who did you come to?”

“You,” he muttered, looking as if he’d like to be somewhere else. Understandable when she considered the aforementioned curse, cast by a witch he’d dumped, had involved boils on a very private part of his body.

“And did I solve your problem?”

He nodded reluctantly. “Yes.”

A petite Japanese-American witch crossed her arms, drawing Thalia’s attention. “What about you, Hiroko? Who banished the evil spirit that came with that vase your grandmother sent you?”

Heath stepped forward, the vein in his head pulsing. “No one is denying you can manage the average day-to-day duties of the Champion, but it’s been whispered that you’re forced to conserve your magic on a daily basis in order to have enough to meet the demands of your position. That you are so drained after doing magic, you can barely walk.”

The room tilted. Thalia thought her legs would fold. She fought the rolling sensation in her stomach. And she’d believed she’d covered her disability. She forced herself to speak lightly. “The whispers are true, but exaggerated. I don’t use my magic frivolously, but I have more than enough to get the job done. Gideon and I have already fought the rogue once. He is very ancient, very powerful, but we will stop him.”

She paused to collect her thoughts, and an unnatural lull settled over the group. Mina spoke into it. “My visions are rock solid. I believe this ‘rogue’ as you call him, is much more than just an ordinary vampire gone feral. I believe he is part and parcel of the danger we’ve been expecting.”

Thalia spoke with a conviction she wasn’t sure she felt. “That may be true. But if it is, it changes nothing. I’ve got this.”

Mina walked around the long table and laid a fragile, café au laite hand on Thalia’s arm. “I’m sorry, dear, but we have to be sure.”

Gideon boiled with anger. He didn’t bother to ask himself why he was so incensed. The demon within stirred. He dug his fingers into his palms, driving him back, but was only partially successful.

They had no right to do this to Thalia. He could feel her pain at this betrayal. Her frustration at being undermined by people she’d trusted her whole life. He yearned to intercede, but she had to do this. This was her fight. The woman who was brave enough to accost a strange vampire on a darkened street, strong enough to set aside her grief in order to find her cousin’s killer, and tough enough to drag Gideon back from the edge of madness, could surely handle this. He swallowed his rage, banking the burning coals of fury beneath the ashes of reason. She didn’t need his protection, however much he wanted to give it.

Thalia’s face was white, her full lips a thin line. “What are you going to do?”

“What I propose, dear, is a vote.”

Thalia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was unprecedented. Her face felt numb. “What kind of vote?” She forced the words through insensate lips.

“Heath has expressed the desire to take over as Champion. The council has decided to let the community vote. You will be a candidate, as will Heath and anyone else who wishes to step forward.”

The force of Mina’s personality could no longer hold the crowd in check. The assembly disgorged a roar of frenzied discussion. Witches and mages shouted and jumped to their feet. One young witch dumped the contents of her punch glass on the head of the mage sitting next to her, whether intentionally or by accident Thalia couldn’t tell. It stained his white hair and beard pink.

Another crack of thunder caromed off the walls. “Calm down.”

Mina’s magically augmented words filled the room, rivaling the thunder in its volume. Thalia struggled against the urge to put her hands over her ears.

The