Ivy League Illusion, Part 3
Escape attempt
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I probably should have tried a less conspicuous way to break the illusion surrounding me. I counted at least a dozen vampires in a rough circle that closed off any possibility of retreat. If pop culture was any guide, they were faster and stronger than I was. And I didn’t have crosses, garlic, holy water, stakes, or anything else that might prove useful.
For some reason, they didn’t immediately attack me, though all their red eyes were clearly focused on me, and they looked ready to charge me if I made a wrong move. Not knowing what else to do, I just stood there, staring back at them.
“He has magic,” said one of the vampire women. “Why weren’t we warned about that?”
“You knew about it,” replied one of the men. “We all did. But he wasn’t supposed to remember he had it.”
I’d been too flooded with adrenaline to think about what I’d just done, but I supposed it was magic. Unfortunately, I had no idea how I’d invoked it. I tried to conjure up some sunlight and failed.
However, the vampires surrounding me didn’t know that.
“Just let me walk away, and I won’t harm any of you,” I said as loudly as I could, trying to keep my voice steady as I did so.
“Let’s keep it calm,” said a familiar voice. One of the vampires moved toward me very slowly. He didn’t have to be too close for me to see that it was Carlos. His brown skin was now much paler, and his red eyes flashed in the gloom, but I could still recognize him.
“I am calm,” I said, even though my innards felt as if they were turning into jelly. “And I’ll stay that way if you let me leave.”
“Leave and go where?” asked Carlos slowly. He must have been fishing for how much I remembered. Since that was basically nothing, I had no choice but to bluff.
“I intend to leave fake-Harvard and go home,” I said. It was too bad I had no clue where home really was.
“You must know you can’t do that,” he replied, taking another step toward me.
“That’s close enough! I know you aren’t really a friend of mine, but I don’t want to hurt you unless I have to.”
That part was true. Sure, Carlos had been part of a plan to keep me trapped in a fake life, but I still didn’t know what the plan was or his exact role in it. I probably wouldn’t kill any of them if I didn’t have to.
“We are friends,” said Carlos. “If you really knew what was going on here—”
“If there’s something I don’t know, then tell me the whole story. That’s what a friend would do.”
The vampires all edged closer. They would strike as soon as they thought they could do so before I could use any magic against them. But Carlos, who I presumed wanted to keep me talking, said nothing.
I raised my right hand and began to move my fingers as if I were about to draw a pattern in the air.
“Wait a minute!” said Carlos. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just put your hand down.”
He’d just confirmed what I already suspected—that my magic was based on drawing patterns in the air. I’d broken the illusion that way. But I didn’t know what pattern to draw to get me out of this jam.
I lowered my hand partway. “Get everybody to go back to where they were—including the folks behind me.”
“Back up, everyone,” said Carlos. The vampires obeyed, some more hesitantly than others.
That confirmed that I did have magic that could hurt them. Conjuring sunlight seemed like an obvious possibility.
“Now, talk,” I said. “Oh, but first, make sure no reinforcements are on the way.”
Carlos frowned for just a second before he suppressed that reaction. But he did close his eyes for a moment. After about half a minute, he opened them.
“All right, we won’t be disturbed,” he said.
Apparently, the vampires could communicate telepathically. I wasn’t sure how I could use that to my advantage, but each new bit of information brought me one step closer to getting control of this situation.
Blood bond.
I wasn’t sure where that thought came from. Was that an explanation of how the vampires communicated or just a random memory? Either way, it suggested that I knew something about vampires in real life.
“Well, start talking,” I said. “What is it I don’t know?”
I planned on focusing on sunlight with just as much force as I had used before to reveal the truth. Carlos, however, was not going to make it easy for me to concentrate.
“How much do you remember?” he asked, no doubt another attempt to fish for information. Vampires might be able to communicate telepathically, but they clearly couldn’t read my mind.
“Easier to catch you in a lie if you don’t know how much I remember,” I said. “Just start from the beginning—and be honest. If I catch you in a lie, you’re toast.”
Carlos cringed slightly. That could only mean he thought I could carry out that threat.
“You probably know Vlad’s been hunting those of us who are left,” he said. I had no clue who Vlad was or who was left from what, but I kept my face neutral and nodded slightly. I just needed to keep him talking until I could conjure up some sunlight.
“Well, we’ve been looking for a way to defeat him—or failing that, a more effective way to hide from him. We thought that if we brought you here, suppressed your real memories and gave you false ones, that we might be able to manipulate you into revealing some of your magic secrets.”
That part sounded a little off. I was supposedly a physics major. If they’d wanted to pump me for information on magic, wouldn’t something like a folklore and mythology major have made more sense? I frowned just a little to see if he’d change his story.
Sowilo
I wasn’t sure what the word meant, but into my mind flashed a symbol that looked somewhat like a S written using only straight lines. If I was lucky, I’d just found a way to get the upper hand.
“You’re not telling the whole truth,” I said as I raised my hand.
“Don’t!” yelled Carlos. As I started to draw the symbol I’d seen, he and the other vampires charged me. Luckily, it was an easy symbol, and the moment I finished it, sunlight burst from my hand. The vampires screamed, covered their eyes, and backed away as fast as they could. The closest ones were smoking.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Carlos. He managed to remove his hand from his eyes, but he couldn’t look at me directly.
Ignoring him, I took a moment to look around. All the vampires had withdrawn as far as they could get and still keep me in sight. My attempt to use magic had worked better than I expected. I was now in control of the situation.
“Max, they will recapture you as soon as the power of the sun rune runs out.”
Evidently, I was Max, but I couldn’t tell where the voice in my head was coming from. It sounded deep, ominous—and inhuman.
“Let me take over, and I will save us.”
The words gave me a cold chill, and visions of black reptilian scales and enormous, batlike wings swept through my mind.
I still didn’t know who I was dealing with—but I sensed he wasn’t an ally.
“Thanks, but I’ll deal with this on my own.”
The cold feeling within me switched from frosty to glacial. I felt claws scratching inside me as though something was trying to tear its way out. It was both part of me and not, ancient but relatively new.
I managed to stifle a scream, but I couldn’t prevent my sunlight from flickering.
Ivy League Illusion is related to the Different Dragons series. (The action falls after the end of the third book, though the connection would not be immediately obvious to readers of the series.)
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