Page 26 of Crimson Shadows
- Randall Black’s daughter
- Touch averse
- Easy to compel
- Smells amazing
It’s not much to go on, but it’s a start. I tap my pen against the paper, thinking. There’s so much more I want to know. What are her abilities? How strong is she? Most intriguingly, why has she been hidden away all this time?
A knock at my door interrupts my musings. I close the journal, sliding it back into its hiding place.
Crossing over to open the door, I see a familiar face. Ignatius, the fire elemental who hangs out with Zephyr, Zaiah, and me, stands there, that wicked grin on his face. “Miss me, jerkface?” he says, his amber eyes glowing slightly in the dimness of my room as he runs a hand through his scarlet hair.
“Like a hole in the head, Ig,” I drawl, stepping aside to let him in.
Ignatius strolls into my room, his presence immediately warming the space. Literally. The temperature rises a few degrees as he flops onto my sofa, propping his feet up on the coffee table as I had earlier. I keep my distance. His skin can’t burn me to a crisp, but it stings and even though I love pain as much as the next vampire, pain by fire is a cutting it too close to the bone.
“So,” he says, fixing me with a knowing look, “word on the street is you and Zeph had a little run-in with the new girl. Adelaide Black, right?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “News travels fast.”
He shrugs, a mischievous glint in his eye. “What can I say? I’ve got my ear to the ground. Or, in this case, to the whispers in the fire.” He snaps his fingers, and a small flame dances on his palm which I eye warily. “So, spill. What’s she like?”
I hesitate, unsure how much to reveal. Ignatius is a friend, but he’s also unpredictable. Like fire itself, he can be warm and comforting one moment and destructive the next.
“She’s interesting,” I say finally.
Ignatius leans forward, intrigued. “Interesting?” he snorts. “That’s one word for it. Black’s vampire daughter has got to be more than just interesting. What aren’t you saying?”
Staring at the fire in Ignatius’s hand, I pause, not quite sure what to say. But it suddenly hits me with all the force of a realisation that has been in front of my face this entire time. I know exactly what she is. Smiling slowly, secretively, I fix Ig with a bland stare. “Nothing, mate. She is an enigma.”
But one I’ve actually just figured out.
12
ZAIAH
As the mistthickens around MistHallow University, I hover unseen, smoky and intrigued outside Adelaide Black’s North Tower window. She could spot me if she were so inclined to focus and separate the mist from my form, but I doubt she will. This girl is an enigma that tickles my curiosity. I’ve been watching her since she arrived at MistHallow, intrigued by the waves of change she’s already causing in this stagnant pond of supernatural politics.
As a djinn, I’m used to observing from the sidelines. We’re not meant to interfere directly, only to grant wishes and let the chaos unfold. But there’s something about Adelaide that makes me want to break all the rules. Maybe it’s the way she resisted my attempt to trick her into making a wish earlier. Not many can do that, especially someone who I feel isn’t as strong as she could be yet. Randall Black has kept her a secret for all this time, but I wonder if her true nature was suppressed somehow. That would mean she isn’t all vampire. She is something else mixed in. Human? Witch? Shifter? Something.
I watch as she paced her room, her pet orb agitated by her mood. I glare at the orb as it zings over to the window andhovers, almost as if it sees me. In all fairness, it probably does. Those things are above my pay grade, magickly speaking, and only given to the most ‘I’ of the VIP students. Clearly, Adelaide Black is one of those. Not that I would expect anything less from the daughter of one of the founding members of MistHallow University. She is about as ‘I’ as they come.
With a thought, I attune my senses to her wavelength, letting it wash over me. It’s a heady rush, like diving into a turbulent sea. Her energy is so raw, so intense. It’s refreshing after years of dealing with the muted emotions of long-lived supernatural beings.
Adelaide stops pacing and picks up her blood drink, taking a small sip and appearing to savour the taste of it. “Stupid, arrogant supernatural arseholes,” she mutters. “Who do they think they are?”
I chuckle silently. If only she knew the half of it. Corvus and Zephyr think they’re hot shit, but they have the necessary power and background to back it up.
She sighs and pulls a book out of her backpack. As Adelaide settles in to read, I draw on her essence, pulling it into every cell in my dissipated form. At twenty-one, I’m barely more than an infant in djinn terms. Most of my kind are ancient beings with centuries or even millennia of experience. But me? I’m an anomaly, a djinn born in the modern age. The only one. That makes me shit hot as well.
My parents, both powerful djinn in their own right, were shocked when I came into existence. Djinn reproduction is rare, happening only once every few centuries. To have a child in this era of technology and scepticism was unheard of.
From the moment I was born, I was different. While other djinn clung to ancient traditions and rigid rules about wish-granting, I embraced the chaos of the modern world. Why stickto lamps and rings when you could hide in smartphones or nest in the cloud?
I flex my magical muscles, feeling the familiar rush of power. As a djinn, I can manipulate reality itself, bending the fabric of existence to my will. But it’s more than just granting wishes. It’s about understanding the intricate web of cause and effect, seeing the ripples that each action creates in the pool of reality.
With a thought, I create a small pocket dimension within Adelaide’s room and move myself into it. To her, nothing has changed. But in this hidden space, I can move freely, experimenting with my powers without fear of detection.
