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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
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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
Leesa's Advent Chapter 282
Dominic and Balin had been watching. Still, nothing was going to bring her down from the high she was feeling right now.“No problem,” she said. “I completely forgot you guys were here.”“Me, too,” Rave said.Balin grinned. “It kind of looked that way.” His voice turned serious. “I hope you will not be tempted to try this on your own, though. It’s still not safe.”Leesa returned his grin. “Oh, I’ll be tempted all right. But I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to control myself—as long as we can schedule some time like this every couple of days, that is.”Dominic exchanged glances with Balin. “Barring any unexpected developments,” he said. “I think we can probably manage that.”Leesa’s grin widened. She had a feeling this was going to be a really fun summer.The next day, Leesa and Cali sat on the wide deck of th
Leesa's Advent Chapter 283
ONE OF THE PLACES Leesa and Dominic had been using to practice her magic was a large state forest about ten miles south of Middletown. The huge forest—several thousand acres in size—contained an almost infinite number of spots offering complete privacy. On the very small chance that someone or something might notice Leesa’s magic, the forest was far enough from town to make any connection to Weston College unlikely. Unlike the parks in Massachusetts and New York where they had practiced in the past, these woods were near enough to visit several times each week.They parked the SUV on the dirt shoulder of a narrow two-lane road and hiked a quarter mile or so into the forest. Dominic took the lead, with Leesa and Cali following behind.The woods teemed with life: birds flitted to and fro among the leafy branches, and rabbits and squirrels rustled through the underbrush. Speckles of sunlight filtered through the thick canopy above and danced on the fores
Leesa's Advent Chapter 284
Dominic said that it might be her own magic healing her, so if her power could do so much unbidden, why couldn’t it do the rest if she directed it to? She knew it must be more complicated than that—otherwise Dominic would have shown her how to fix her leg already. She closed the book.“I think I’ve got it,” she said, deciding not to mention her leg right now. She could talk to Dominic about it at another time. “It seems a little too simple, though.”Dominic smiled. “The concept is fairly simple,” he agreed, “but the implementation is not quite so easy. Go ahead, give it a try.”Leesa placed her hand over the scrape on Cali’s arm, putting her palm as close to the wound as possible without actually touching it, the way the book instructed. She silently mouthed her trigger word, “breathe,” to enter the everywhere/nowhere state and then concentrated on picturing Cali’s arm heal
Leesa's Advent Chapter 285
SINCE SCHOOL ENDED two weeks earlier, Leesa had been staying with her mom and brother in their Middletown apartment. Her mom was fully recovered from any effects of the long ago grafhym bite—indeed, she was now able to joke easily and freely about the one-fang vampire that had caused so much trouble for the family. Without the worried and haunted expression that had perpetually darkened her face, Leesa thought her mother looked at least five years younger. Bradley’s recovery was even more amazing than their mom’s, if that was possible. He was pretty much back to his old light-hearted self after his harrowing ordeal as a captive feeder for the vampire Edwina. He had regained all his weight and now looked tan and strong.For the first time in way too long, Leesa truly felt like she had a family again. Things had been getting better ever since Professor Clerval had cured her mom with blood from a one-fang, but now that Leesa was actually living with her mom and
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