Is It Really That Big Of A Deal?

Blair Netzley had seen a lot in her 613 years of life. She came to the New World and helped colonize Massachusetts. She was a survivor of the Salem Witch Trials. She had traveled west secretly following some miners seeking gold and was one of the first settlers in northern California along with her younger sister Philomena.

She knew of every single fae within a thousand miles of her home base. Her network was large and gossip traveled quickly.

It allowed her to stay on top of any new developments and also helped combat her boredom. The only thing that kept her from going insane after all this time was trying to develop new spells to keep up with the ever-changing human world.

So when a vampire from a coven that a reliable source told her was completely wiped out showed up in her store, Blair was more than a little shocked. The Mayhews' castle had been decimated and dozens of vampires were killed.

That wasn't the easiest thing to do either; they were essentially immortal. Vampires could only be killed if their cores were destroyed.

Cores weren't hearts. Only other vampires knew where they were located. It was their race's most fiercely guarded secret. Obviously, vampire hunters had gotten lucky shots in a few times  over the centuries but killing so many at once? Had to be the work of other vampires.

Blair pried Ash's hand off her mouth and gave him an incredulous look. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be out in public right now? What if they find you?"

He scowled. "None of them know what my glamour looks like. Why do you think I ended up here? Mayhew Castle is across state lines in Oregon. They shouldn't be able to find me here at a site another coven abandoned centuries ago before heading up to Alaska."

She bit her lip. 'They' were most likely the Cromwell coven. Their territory was up in Washington State and they had been not-so-secretly feuding with the Mayhews since the two groups came to the New World around the same time back in the 1700s.

There weren't many vampires in North America. They tended to congregate where there was little sun and a lot of nature so the northwest part of the continent was popular.

The Mayhews settled in Oregon. The Cromwells in Washington. The Averills in Alaska. The Venicis and Romanovs in Canada. There might be a few scattered individuals here and there in human society working nothing but graveyard shifts but vampires tended to be traditionalists who stuck together.

Altogether, there was less than two hundred total that Blair was aware of on this entire side of the world. Most had chosen to stay behind in the cold northern countries of Eurasia.

She needed to tread lightly but also needed answers. The two of them had been at least passing acquaintances for centuries. She was worried about him being alone since vampires valued blood ties even more than family-oriented werewolves did.

"Ash…did anyone else survive? Is that girl with you from your coven? I don't recognize her but I might know her by name."

Sorrow weighed down his features. "No. I'm the only one. That girl…she isn't a vampire."

Blair gaped at him. In what world was that girl outside not a vampire? She looked exactly like one. "What is she then? An elf who decided to get dental implants and wear colored contacts?"

Ash shook his head. "No. That's a glamour."

She had been around a long time but had never heard of anyone being able to do a glamour for anything other than human. The way glamours worked was tricking other people's brains into seeing what they expected to see.

For example, her facial features remained exactly the same in her glamour. But because yellow eyes were unusual and didn't match her skin tone by human standards, they appeared to be brown. It hid her traditional witch's garb too because people expected to see her wearing human clothes.

Blair's hair was only purple because she dyed it using magic-infused hair dye she created that was meant to last for years at a time after seeing some humans dye their hair fun colors a few years ago. She couldn't make it purple using a glamour.

"Impossible," she said flatly. "You physically can't make a glamour do anything other than make you appear like a human version of your true appearance. I've seen yours before. Your vampire traits are masked, your skin appears to have more color in it, and your hair shortens to a current socially acceptable hair style. They all work like that."

Ash shook his head. "Not this girl's. Blair, in the past twenty-four hours I've seen her look like a middle-aged man, an elf, a vampire, and what I think is the type of glamour you and I have."

Blair's brain went a million miles a minute. How was this possible? Even witches—who could control all sorts of magic using spells and runes as conduits—weren't able to change their glamours at will.

"…is she a witch?"

"No."

"Then what is she?" Blair demanded. "You can't leave me hanging like this after dropping a bomb on me!"

Ash frowned thoughtfully. "Is it really that big of a deal? I simply assumed I couldn't do that because I'm not that talented at blood magic."

"It's definitely a big deal. I'm probably the most powerful witch on this continent and I can't even do that! Fess up. Who is she?"

Her eyes shone with the light that had branded her as a mad even among her peers for centuries. Nothing could stop her from discovering something new and fascinating when she set her mind to it.

"I can't give you any details," he said apologetically. "She's hiding her identity for a reason."

Ah, curse this self-righteous vampire! Shouldn't he be worrying more about himself than some random girl he just met right now? If the Cromwells knew he was still alive, they wouldn't rest until they saw him destroyed.