Free Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1) by C.N. Crawford Page B

a serial killer. She caught a glimpse of a few words, BlOoD and RaGe among them. Instead of a bed, a coffin lined with red silk lay in the center of the room.
    The room looked like a playground for the criminally insane. Holy shit. This is who I’ve thrown in with.
    Aurora turned to stare at her. “What do you think of my room?”
    Rosalind took a deep, steadying breath, her foot crunching on a cassette tape. “The paintings are… interesting.”
    For the first time, she saw Aurora’s face brighten into a smile. “Do you like them?”
    “Are the crossed-out eyes a vampire thing?”
    “What? No. I made those when I was human. I was an art student at Goldsmiths before I died.”
    That was a slight relief. “Ah. And the handwritten notes, too?”
    “I’ve been dead nearly thirty years, but I like to think of my art as avant-garde, you know?” Aurora looked her up and down. “Just be careful what you touch in my room, Hunter.”
    “I’m not exactly eager to rifle around.”
    Aurora narrowed her eyes. “Like, if you touch my Tears for Fears cassette tapes, I will rip your head off and light you on fire.”
    Rosalind’s stomach lurched.
    Aurora stared at her. “It’s just an expression.”
    “I won’t touch them.” Rosalind nodded at the casket, her skin growing cold. “I didn’t know vampires actually slept in coffins.”
    “Most don’t. I just thought it was kind of cool, so I made a coffin. Only they’re not so good for shagging.” Aurora cocked her head. “I’ve never seen Ambrose take such an interest in a human before.”
    “I didn’t enjoy his interest. He seemed a little off-key.” Insane, really. Then again, everyone here was obviously slightly mental.
    “He’s six hundred years old, so he’s a little old school; that makes him different. Like, when he was a kid, there was nothing to play with but a wooden circle and a hoop. Public executions were entertainment in those days. But he’s sexy as hell, and he’s always been good to me. And if anyone messes with him, I would feast on their heart.”
    Rosalind tried to force a smile. “Another vampire expression?”
    Aurora blinked. “No. That was literal. Anyway, he said I’m supposed to be hospitable and shit. So what do humans drink?”
    “Water is fine.”
    “We don’t have that here.” Aurora rifled around on the desk, bottles clinking. “I know!” She unscrewed a cap from a bottle labelled whiskey , pouring it into a silver goblet, then decanted a measure of blood for herself, topped with whiskey.
    She handed Rosalind the bloodless goblet and gazed at her, raising her own. “To the dark side.”
    Rosalind lifted her drink. “To the… whatever.” She didn’t want to be rude, but she wasn’t about to toast to the dark side . She took a sip, and the whiskey burned her throat.
    “You know,” Aurora said. “Vampires aren’t as bad as everyone thinks. People think that we’re horrible monsters, but we’re not really. We’re just like regular people.”
    Right—apart from all the slaughtering, and walls made of human skulls. Rosalind scanned the room, and her eyes landed on something that churned her stomach: fingers poking out from below a pile of clothes on the floor. “Is that a human hand?”
    Aurora turned and snatched a severed hand from the floor. “Oh, yeah.” She looked up at Rosalind, her face a picture of innocence. “But he was a very bad person.”
    Oh gods. Do I really have to spend the night in here?
    “Are you hungry?” Aurora asked. She dropped the hand on the desk and rummaged through the papers, pulling out a half-eaten Snickers bar. “We don’t really eat food, per se, but I took this off the severed-hand guy. He didn’t look like he had any diseases or anything, so it’s probably fine.”
    Rosalind’s mind spun like a cyclone. She didn’t belong here, yet she’d willingly plunged into a city of the dead. Maybe the demented witch’s spirit had compelled her to do it. Either that, or she