Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5) by Rain Oxford Read Free Book Online Page B

hands were restrained
behind her, but the second she was alone, she snapped the metal cuffs.
    She was a vampire.
    She didn’t even notice the object on the floor. If
she had, she probably would have been trying to break it instead of the door.
There was no warning before it flashed with a blinding white light. The video
cut out for a while. When it came back, the young vampire was burned beyond
recognition.
    I pulled away from her mind and opened a connection
between Henry and me. “ We have a problem .”

Chapter 3
    There was a lot of time left
before dark and Stephen’s coven wouldn’t be in danger until then. The two immediate
problems were that there were traitors in the coven and that the humans had
experimented on vampires.
    Henry appeared beside the car, shifted, picked up his
clothes, and got in without dressing. “A light bomb?” he asked doubtfully. “Are
you sure it isn’t some kind of acid gas bomb? I know you can buy ultraviolet
lights, but it takes a lot to burn a vampire.”
    He had a point. Vampires weren’t invincible, but they
didn’t instantly burst into flame when they encountered sunlight. If that were
so, they would be in danger constantly from things other than the sun that put
off ultraviolet radiation. Of course, I had recently learned that all vampires
of Earth were “diluted” descendants of the vampires that came here from the
vampire world. Since the pure vampires burst into smoke when shot with a silver
bullet, it was possible that they would do so when subjected to sunlight.
    Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with Earth’s
vampires. For them, the sun just burned like a blowtorch. How quickly it took a
vampire to die from direct sunlight was determined by the atmospheric quality
and the vampire’s own blood. Darwin once told me that converted vampires, like
Marcus, were more susceptible than born vampires, like Stephen.
    “Maybe it is more than light. Whatever it is, we need
to follow them back to their base and destroy all of it.”
    “So you want me to get Marcus?”
    “No, this is way too dangerous for him. I’m not
taking a vampire into a vampire-hunter’s lair.”
    Although he didn’t say anything, the concern on his
face was obvious. He thought I was being overprotective of Marcus. I didn’t say
anything because he didn’t know Marcus like I did and there was no point in
arguing. Vampire or not, I still saw Marcus as the sixteen-year-old on the run
from his father. I was not going to compromise on the young vampire’s safety.
    “You stay here and find out which shifters are
traitors. Get those things out of the ground and away from the vampires, too.
Don’t take out the traitors until you know how many there are and who they are in
case they attack the vampires. I’ll follow the humans.”
    “Wouldn’t I be better use to you with the humans? I
can get through any lock.”
    I considered it. “I would be able to figure out which
shifters are traitors.”
    “I’m not the only one who’s got your back anymore.
Maseré deals with traitors all the time and ridding Stephen of a few of them
would strengthen their alliance. You and I could go after the humans.”
    “I don’t know.” I normally didn’t get any more people
involved than I had to.
    “This isn’t a matter of asking for help,” Henry said,
putting his clothes on. “In the human world, the rules are simple. You’re
expected to take care of human cases on your own because your clients, allies,
and enemies are all human. In the paranormal world, you’re still just a wizard;
you can’t be expected to deal with vampires, shifters, and fae all at the same
time. No paranormal is. You have me, Darwin, and your familiar, but Darwin’s
off doing something else and so is Rocky.”
    “Crap, I forgot to check on Mr. Thomas.”
    “That’s exactly my point. You’re used to dealing with
human cases all on your own. Now you’re still doing human cases, but you’re
also taking on vampire, shifter, and