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Chapter 273
Leesa sat on the cavern floor, her back resting against the rock wall, about twenty-five feet from the cave’s entrance. Normally, she wouldn’t be sitting in the darkness on such a beautiful afternoon, but she needed the dimness right now. Rave had just left to fetch Dominic, so this was the perfect time for her to experiment with a trick she had been thinking about trying for some time. With her magic working so well, she thought she just might be able to pull it off. If she did, she would have a fun surprise in store for Rave when he got back.
She warmed up with an ordinary illumination spell. She had gotten so good at this spell that it took her no more effort than flicking the tip of a lighter to create her light. Once the golden glow was hovering above her right palm, she held out her left hand. With a single thought, she made the light leap from her right hand to her left. Technically, it didn’t really leap—she simply replaced the sphere above her
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Leesa's Advent Chapter 274
The xenorians waited only one day before acting. When they had not heard from Leesa or her mother by sunset the day after their visit to the Nyland apartment, they decided it was time to change their approach. Once again, Smith drove them to the apartment, parking right out front. He and Jones had half smiles on their faces as Jones knocked on the door, while Rome looked stoic as usual.Judy did not appear very happy to see them, but they did not care. Despite the wary look on her face, she politely invited them inside. After closing the door behind them, she remained standing. The three agents did likewise.“We were in the area,” Smith said, “so we thought we’d stop by to see if you had heard from Leesa. Have you?”Judy shook her head. “No, I haven’t. I’m sure she’s probably too busy having fun. She told me she doesn’t have phone reception where she is, so maybe she doesn’t check her messages eve
Leesa's Advent Chapter 275
Dominic smiled proudly down at Leesa from his perch up on a rock ledge four feet above the ground, where she had deposited him with her telekinesis just a moment before. Although he had used his levitation spell to lighten his weight by half to increase her chances of succeeding, he was still pleased by Leesa’s performance. His objective had been for her to gain an image of herself lifting a person with her thoughts and then putting him down in a place of her choosing. Leesa’s smile was proof that she had done just that.“Well done,” Dominic said.Leesa’s smile widened. “Thanks. One of these days I’m going to lift you without you having to lighten yourself.” She turned and looked at Rave, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, watching her practice. “You hear that, mister? Once I master that little trick, you’re going to have to behave yourself, or I’ll be moving you around with just a look.”
Leesa's Advent Chapter 276
Leesa knew in her heart that Dominic was right. Still, she felt she should be doing something—and there was nothing she could do from so far away. She looked up as a solution came to her.“I can stay at Rave’s,” she said. “I’ll be as safe there as anywhere, and I’ll be much closer in case one of us comes up with a plan.”Dominic considered the idea. Leesa would be safe at Rave’s, he knew, but there was still something about it that struck him as the wrong thing to do. He could not put it into words, but the feeling was strong. He grabbed at the only protest he could think of.“If you stay in the volkaane village, you won’t be able to use your magic—not without risking disturbing the powers that sleep beneath the earth there.”Leesa shrugged. “So what? If I stay here, I’ll be too far away for my magic to do any good, anyhow. I may as well be closer, just in case.&rdqu
Leesa's Advent Chapter 277
Sitting cross-legged on her sleeping mat, Leesa thought she was as ready as she would ever be to try to summon a dream about the xenorians and her mom. With the aid of her illumination spell, she had spent almost an hour pouring over the dream chapters in her book of magic. Even after an hour, her magical light had shown no sign of weakening, but she had pretty much memorized every word about dreams in the book, so she let the light fade out. She hadn’t needed it to practice the visualization techniques described in the chapters.For the past two hours, she had been working on those techniques and now felt comfortable and confident with them. There was just one problem: despite the late hour, her body and brain were so keyed up she didn’t think she was going to be able to fall asleep. Talk about a Catch-22, she thought—without sleep there would be no dreams, but her urgency to dream was preventing her from sleeping.She turned toward Rave, who had spe
Leesa's Advent Chapter 278
Leesa stepped slowly out of the shadows of the trees onto the grass at the east end of Brennan Field. She had shared her dream and her concerns with Dominic back in the library. The wizard had been unable to come up with any alternative plan, and knowing he would not be able to dissuade Leesa from trying to rescue her family, he had reluctantly agreed to go along with her vision, trusting that it would either unfold as she had seen it or that they would be able to improvise somehow should the need arise. He had not been happy about it, though. Leesa was too valuable to risk—if he lost her to the xenorians, he would never have another apprentice.As Leesa walked out onto the field, she recalled the two previous times she had been here. Most recently, she had watched Rave and his volkaane friends disappear into the woods along with Stefan and two other vampires as the unlikely allies set out to hunt the super vampires created by the black waziri Josef. Before that, she ha
Leesa's Advent Chapter 279
Was some future other than the one she had seen in her dream about to unfold? She hoped not, because she had no backup plan. She forced the fear down. She was not counting on the strength of her magic. If that had been the case, she would have let Dominic try to defeat Jones. His magic was by far the more powerful.“Not really,” she said. “I’m actually pretty new to all this magical stuff. But I can’t let you threaten my mom. That’s not fair—and it’s certainly not right.”“Fair and right are concepts that do not apply where our sacred mission is concerned,” Jones said. “We serve the larger good and take a longer view of our work. If a few innocents must suffer—or even perish—so that we can further our mission, then so be it. The sacrifice is well worth it.”“Or so you delude yourselves,” Dominic said disdainfully from behind Leesa. “As your kind have done
Leesa's Advent Chapter 280
“I’m not,” she said. “Yet I have all of those inside me.” She smiled. “You might say I’m a regular United Nations of magic. I am a wizard, thanks to Dominic, who chose to impart his powers to a female rather than to a male as is customary, in an effort to protect me from his enemies. The grafhym came from my mom, who was pregnant with me when she was bitten, and the vampire from being bitten by one who wanted to make me his consort. Stefan stopped his bite when he tasted the grafhym taint in my blood, but clearly I absorbed at least a bit of his vampire essence.” She unconsciously rubbed her neck with her fingers, feeling the tiny scars left behind by Stefan’s fangs. “The witch part came most recently, from a witch who secretly used her powers to infiltrate my mind.”Leesa moved over and took Rave’s hand. “As for the volkaane part, Rave’s magical heat has been inside me more times than I can c
Leesa's Advent Chapter 281
Shortly before midnight, an oversized horse-drawn carriage emerged from the gate of an ancient mountain castle. Six sturdy steeds, each one black as the night and bred for this exact purpose, propelled the carriage forward. Thick, specially reinforced springs supported each axle near the wheels, but even so, the vehicle still sank noticeably to the rear. Even this late in spring, the night air here in the mountains was brisk, chilled further by a light wind that blew across the barren landscape from the north. Partially veiled by a thin layer of clouds, a three-quarter moon spilled pale illumination over the road, providing barely enough light for the driver to see by. Two servants from the castle rode atop the carriage. The driver was young and sturdy; the other appeared much older. He sat huddled in a worn woolen cloak, his eyes fixed forward in a vacant stare. He knew this late night journey could hold nothing good for him. Behind them, an empty wooden casket was strapped t
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