Vampire in Atlantis

settlers who first arrived here in the 1800s named this place Montezuma’s Castle, since they apparently had the same mentally deficient history teacher as you did.”
    “But—” Aretha bit her lip, probably wondering what “deficient” meant, and Ivy thanked the goddess again that she could afford to send Ian to private school.
    “Sinagua. Native Americans. You’re in a national park . Buy a book . Get a free brochure. You can read, can’t you?” Ivy carefully smoothed the sneer off her face. She didn’t want to add wrinkles to her face if at all possible. Magic kept her looking at least ten years younger, but her impatience with stupidity threatened to add it all back. Anyway, she only needed to be patient with this one a little while longer. Surely Nicholas would find her better help after this, and Aretha Moon Blossom Moskowitz could find another hobby.
    “I’ll get a book, Ivy. I mean, Priestess. I will. I’m sorry.”
    Ivy tuned out the witch’s babbling and raised her hands in the air, opening herself to the elements and letting the biting rush of power flow into and through her. The sun was rising, offering its heat and energy to any who could reach out and grasp it. Ivy’s hair crackled with electricity and lifted into the nonexistent breeze to float around her head as she pulled enough power through herself to try again with the gemstone.
    First, though, the shield. Brick by unseen, mental brick, she built the wall of silence and cover—the glamour that shielded them from inquiring eyes and unwanted attention. All anyone would see was a shimmer of heat on a sunny Arizona day. Normal, so very normal—and fewer than five small animals had to die to give her all that lovely power. Seemed like a fair enough trade. There were certainly rodents enough out here in the almost-wilderness.
    Aretha squeaked with delight as the shimmer of Ivy’s power floated around and over them. The view from the opening of the room in which they stood was now like looking through lightly frosted glass, and Ivy knew from experience that she’d succeeded perfectly. No rangers or guests were scheduled to enter the castle structure for any reason today, or so her sources had told her, and it was still well before the park operational hours, in any case.
    Time for the main event.
    She returned to the spiral design, etched so long ago into the wall, and took a deep breath. She’d found it almost by accident the first time, in spite of the vampire, drawn to the site by the booming waves of energy that had centered here during the last thunderstorm. She loved driving around in storms, attracted by the raw power of nature’s fury. Ian had liked to go with her when he was a baby, and the sounds of the storm had made him laugh and then lulled him to sleep. But thirteen-year-old boys rarely wanted to hang out with their mothers, and she wouldn’t want him to see this morning’s work anyway.
    The results, perhaps. When she was so powerful that nobody could ever harm them. Then she would teach him. He was almost old enough to come into his own powers.
    “Um, Priestess?” Aretha’s hesitant voice jolted Ivy out of her reverie. “That drawing is glowing. Is that supposed to happen?”
    “Oh, yes.” Ivy carefully curved her hand to curl around the outside of the spiral and then flattened her palm to cover it. Just like last time, when she’d first found it, the heat of the power surge inside the wall felt like it was searing her skin from her hand. She’d wrenched her hand away, only to discover that the heat was magically created and had done her skin no actual harm. The gem had been almost in her grasp, but when she’d pulled her hand away it had disappeared into the wall again.
    She wouldn’t make the same mistake this time. She clenched her jaw tight against crying out, in case any sound would cause a glitch in the magic. The familiar spinning feeling of vertigo channeled through chaos began to manifest ; first in her hand and then rapidly traveling up her arm and through her body in both directions. Her head started to feel wobbly, and her torso tightened as the magic pulsed and swirled, and finally—just when the nausea threatened to force her to release her hold—finally, deep in the stone of the wall, she could hear the resonance of the spell’s connection.
    The sound echoed through Ivy’s bones, and dimly, as if from miles away, she saw Aretha fall to her knees. If the deep toll of a cathedral’s bell