The Innocence of Death

by E G Stone

  Under Pain of Death

  I barely had a chance to take a step towards the poor artists—who were just beginning to realise how badly they were bleeding—before the grassy yard became crowded with people. Well, vampires. These were armed to the teeth, even beyond their own fangs. They wore armour and some had swords belted at their waist, while others pointed spears. Of all the vampires I had met thus far, these ones actually looked like they knew what they were about. They didn’t seem to be worried about their clothes clashing with their skin, be it pale or dark. They just wielded weapons with a practised, deadly grace. They looked wildly around before settling on me, the only human not bleeding, though I think some smears from Thaddeus’ pitiful feeding remained. The artists just blinked and looked dazed, though I could see one of them start to blink and squint at the world around her.

  “Don’t move,” the leader of this very impressive ragtag guard hissed at me. A spear settled beneath my throat and I held up my hands. The vampire holding the spear pressed it closer to me. “What happened?”

  One of the vampire females that had been posing for a portrait pointed an accusing finger at me. “He killed Prince Thaddeus!”

  The leader turned to me, teeth bared. “Is this true?”

  “In my defence, he did try to feed on me,” I said. “I said this was a bad time, but he didn’t listen.”

  “Your attitude will not help you here,” the guard growled. I shrugged and received a jab at my shoulder from the spear in response. Ow. I looked down and saw a small trickle of blood running down my sweater. At this rate, I was going through clothes faster than any teenager. “Move, human.”

  I didn’t ask where I was being taken. Wherever it was, it wasn’t going to be good. And I couldn’t even keep an eye on the artists. They were herded into the group of guards behind me. I tried to turn and see what was happening, but received another jab for my efforts.

  I was corralled through the courtyards and into the castle proper. As I passed through the enormous walls of stone, something in me withered a bit. Fear started gnawing at the pit of my stomach. These walls were built to keep enemies out and people in. They were not designed for average humans to escape. If we became trapped here, then very little would get us out. Then the massive wooden doors closed behind us and that fear started writing in earnest.

  The weird part was that I wasn’t afraid for me. The vampires could kill me—or try—but there would be no lasting damage. They could torture me, and I’m fairly certain I would start weeping like a child within minutes, but I had walked into this situation with my eyes open. Sort of. I was fairly certain that Death would come for me eventually, once Life started getting really angry. And if not, then I would probably end up insane, which didn’t sound particularly pleasant but could be worse. Still, I had a better chance of understanding what I was doing than the artists did. It was my fault that they were here, my stupid suggestion that had Thaddeus kidnapping humans and enthralling them into working for him. And they were a lot more breakable than I was.

  The guard spread around a massive room until it was just me standing in the centre, the four other humans sort of cowering a distance behind me. Whatever conditioning had happened to them was wearing off and panic was setting in.

  I stood as calmly as I could, trying to exude confidence and prove that the others could trust me. I don’t think it worked. The lead guard still had a spear to my back, marching me forwards. The room we were in was not meant to be confidence-inducing.

  The stone walls were oppressive and dark, despite being meticulously clean. The floor sloped gently upwards to a dais, where a stunning and inhuman beauty sat on a chair. She had the sort of looks that would have been average had they not been so perfectly appealing. Her dark hair was pulled back and she wore a red gown shot through with gold. It reminded me of those ones that you saw in pictures of Marie Antoinette. Ridiculous and opulent and somehow intimidating.

  The one thing that was a bit weird was that the vamipress had not a single hair out of place. There was none of that scruffy, not-quite put-together look that everyone else had. She was perfectly sculpted. And all the more inhuman for it. My heart started beating a touch faster.

  “You were the one who killed the prince?” she asked, lifting her chin. I was shoved forwards by the point of the spear.

  “It wasn’t intentional,” I defended, turning enough to glare at the guard. “Thaddeus—”

  “Prince Thaddeus!” the woman demanded, tightening her grip on the arms of her chair so that the stone creaked. I swallowed, that fear in my belly rearing its head.

  “Prince Thaddeus,” I corrected, “tried to feed from me.”

  “Tried? He obviously succeeded, or you would not have the puncture marks on your neck,” the woman hissed.

  “Well, with all due respect, ah, ma’am,” I tried to explain. My ignorance got me yet-another stab with the tip of the spear. I flinched and tried to ignore the fact that my back was feeling quite warm and sticky.

  “Her Majesty Queen Alsatia, of House Vampyr,” the guard snarled at me. Alsatia, seriously? Like an Alsatian dog? They were what people called German Shepherds for ages in Europe. I had done a marketing campaign for a dog breeder to the celebrities and learned all sorts of trivia about dogs. The image of a dog in a dress flashed into my head and I quickly covered my snicker by coughing into my hand. That thought wasn’t going to help my cause at all, so I kept it to myself.

  “Right, Your Majesty,” I bowed slightly at the waist. “Prince Thaddeus did actually start to feed on me. He was trying to, ah…ensure my compliance.”

  “And why would my grandson bother with you?” the queen asked, disdain practically dripping from her voice.

  “Because I’m a marketing agent? I work for Death—”

  This was startling enough to have Queen Alsatia rise from her seat in a swift rush of wind. She stared at me with mouth wide open. Okay, yes, I know I wasn’t all that much to look at what with the not-quite athletic physique and glasses and average hair and looks and what-not, but surely an employee of Death could look like anything? I mean, look at Yolanda! I wouldn’t have thought she would be an employee of Death. Justice and Mercy, sure. But—

  “You are a marketing agent?” the queen breathed, eyes wide.

  Oh. Right.

  “Yes,” I said. “I work for Death. His PR manager and image consultant. As a matter of fact, I was running an errand for him when Prince Thaddeus kidnapped me and—”

  “And with good reason!” Queen Alsatia watched me and I was fairly certain that she would start drooling at any second.

  “Anyways,” I said more forcefully, “I tried explaining to Prince Thaddeus that I was busy, but he wouldn’t listen and so he tried to make me compliant.”

  “Fool!” Alsatia hissed through her teeth. Finally, some sympathy. “You are far too valuable to ruin in such a manner!”

  “You people have some seriously messed up priorities!” I said. I think the guard would have happily stabbed me deeply for that, but at learning my profession even he was treating me deferentially. “You do realise that because your Prince Thaddeus tried to feed on me, that he just turned into dust?”

  “Yes,” Alsatia drew the word out in distaste. “And it is an unfortunate accident—”

  “What is wrong with you?!” I demanded. “You’re more worried about my marketing skills than the fact that your grandson is dead!”

  “Is that a confession of murder?” Alsatia took a step forwards to the edge of the dais.

  “What? No! It was an accident,” I said, raising my hands. “I didn’t mean to kill him. He just…I think it has something to do with my working for Death. And—”

  “As long as we don’t feed on you, then we are safe,” Alsatia asked, but I got the impression it wasn’t really a question. She looked slowly around the room and settled her gaze on the artists. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips, faster than anything normal. “But they do not work for Death.”

&n
bsp; “Now hold on just a minute,” I protested, stepping back so I stood in front of the artists. I got nowhere with my protest.

  “Take the food to the pens. Take our honoured guest to the dungeons,” Alsatia waved a hand imperiously. “I shall enjoy talking with him about…image.”

  The guards around the room surged forwards with their weapons drawn. The youngest artist, a girl who still had her hair in braids, let out a piteous scream and collapsed against an older gentleman. The four artists huddled tightly together, hoping that somehow they would be spared. Or maybe they were just hoping for a little comfort in the last moments of their lives.

  “No!” I cried out and did my best to get to the artists. Maybe I could demand that they be put under my protection. Or maybe I could hire them as temps for Death and some of my protection would rub off on them. Instead, I found my arms pinned to my sides by someone far stronger than any human. The artists were surrounded and the girl let out a whimper. Too scared to scream properly.

  “No,” I breathed desperately. I had to reach them. I had to do something!

  Then, just as the artists were being dragged to a side door, there was a booming thunder. The great wooden doors that closed us off from the outside world shook. There was more thunder and each rolling sound was preceded by the shaking of the doors. After six or so of these booms, the doors started to crack.

  Something wanted to get in. And it was succeeding.

  “Guards!” Alsatia commanded, her voice like iron. The guards gave up on the artists and fell into rank. The vampire holding my arms released me to fill in a gap in the defences. I ran to where the other humans huddled, eyes wide and frightened. They shrank together even more as I approached. I knelt before them, trying to smile encouragingly.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” I whispered. One of the men, a youngish sort with a beard that needed desperate trimming, furrowed his brows.

  “Or we will die,” he said in a thick accent. Eastern European, maybe. Maybe Russian. Either way, it wasn’t helpful.

  “That’s not helpful,” I told him. I rubbernecked around to look around for a way to get out of this room—and came up with two options which were both guarded fiercely—when the door splintered to pieces.

  The light from outside streamed in. It wasn’t sunlight, by any means, but the vampires hissed and shifted. Or maybe they were reacting to the shadow standing in the middle of the doorway. The shadow had hulking shoulders, massive muscles, hands balled into fists. It was the better part of twelve feet tall and it let out a bellow that rattled the stones of the castle. Best of all, I recognised her.

  The vampires surged forwards. Like their counterpart in Stoker’s books, they were fast. And strong. Some of them flickered into shadow and mist before appearing behind Yolanda and attacking her. She was surrounded on all sides and was going up against beings that designed to be the predator for humans. But Yolanda wasn’t human. She was a rock troll.

  The spears couldn’t cut her thick skin. They had to be directly stabbed to make any sort of difference and that required standing still for more than a second. Yolanda did her best to crush anyone who was that foolish. She backhanded the leader of the guards who had poked holes into me and he flew to the wall, landing with a sickening crunch. The other guards hesitated, which gave Yolanda the opportunity to step on them or, in one instant, tear the arms off of a struggling vampire.

  The battle seemed to be favouring Yolanda. The only problem was that she was fighting a bunch of not-dead weaponised predators. The leader got back up and headed straight for her, swiping his spear across the tendon on the back of Yolanda’s right ankle. She roared and wrapped her hand around his head, squeezing until there was nothing left.

  I threw up in the corner. Two of the artists did the same. The others just cowered, their eyes wide and their jaws working to produce soundless screams.

  Once I got my stomach under control, I realised Yolanda couldn’t keep this up. That cut had done some serious damage. She wasn’t able to move nearly as swiftly and even the little pricks from spears and swords were adding up. The vampires were gaining the upper hand. They were getting close enough to start using their fangs and claws, which were decidedly more dangerous. That meant that I had to do something.

  I looked around and saw Alsatia standing before her throne, expression twisted in annoyance. I shifted and felt a stab of pain in my wounded shoulder. My thoughts somehow managed to solidify into a potentially not-stupid idea. I pushed hard at the wound in my shoulder and nearly blacked out from the pain. But I was bleeding again. I collected a few drops of blood in my cupped hand. Then, I ran for all I was worth towards Alsatia.

  The queen flicked her eyes to me and ignored me. I wasn’t much of a threat against a full-blown vampire. The rampaging troll, on the other hand? A serious threat.

  That gave me the opportunity to get behind the vampire and wrap a hand under her chin, forcing her mouth up. I tilted my other hand so the blood was an instant from dropping into her mouth.

  “Everybody stop!” I yelled. Even through the sounds of the fight, my voice echoed loudly enough to draw the attention of the fighting forces. The vampires stiffened and started rushing towards me. Yolanda hit a couple of them hard enough that they stopped, twitching on the floor.

  “Nobody do anything, or I pour my blood down your queen’s throat. And we all saw how well that worked for Prince Thaddeus,” I said. Alsatia was smart enough not to struggle, though we both knew how much stronger than me she was. The other vampires seemed torn between flying off the handle in anger and doing what I said. Luckily for me, they were smart enough that they kept still.

  “What do you want, human?” Alsatia asked, doing her best not to move as she spoke.

  “First off, you’re going to let all the humans go. The artists, I mean,” I said. “You will release them into the custody of the troll. And I’m going to go with them. You’re going to let us go and leave your land. No sneaky attempts to try and kill us.”

  “What’s to stop me from killing you as soon as you move away?” Alsatia snarled.

  “Honestly, you can do whatever you want,” I replied, tilting my hand a touch more. “But I’m not sure you would like the result of that. And Death wouldn’t be too pleased with you killing his marketing agent. Not to mention twelve feet of angry troll.”

  Alsatia was quiet for a moment. “Very well,” she spat.

  “Get her to promise on the earth of her homeland,” Yolanda rumbled, her voice much deeper than usual. I nudged Alsatia.

  “You heard her,” I said. “By the earth of your homeland.”

  Alsatia let out a sound of rage and I saw her features twist. I understood, suddenly, why people used to think that vampires were malevolent demons, ugly and terrible. They might have learned how to blend in with the human population since then—sort of—but they were still terrible beings that fed on the life blood of others.

  Popular media had a lot to apologise for.

  “Very well. I swear by the earth of my homeland that you, your troll, and the food will have safe passage through my lands,” Alsatia spat. I looked at Yolanda, who nodded. I pulled my hand away from Alsatia and stepped aside. I wiped the excess blood on my already-ruined shirt.

  “Works for me,” I said. I walked up to Yolanda, passing by all those really-angry vampires. They stood there and did nothing, just glared at me with a good deal of malice.

  The artists had already pressed closer to the door. Yolanda helped me usher them outside and we walked in silence for a bit until we were well-away from the castle. The sun shining down on us helped dispel the fear that we would be followed, that the vampires would ignore their queen and hunt us down. We followed a dirt path through a meadow that looked like it had come straight out of one of those historical movies. The artists were trembling, though from relief or fear, I didn’t know. I understood completely.

  “So, you’re a bit taller than I remember,” I told Yolanda, who was indeed towering over me a
lot more than usual. Actually, it looked like she had done weightlifting on serious steroids. Even her teeth gleamed more than usual, almost blinding when they caught the full sun.

  “Troll battle magic,” she explained. “It will wear off in about an hour.”

  “Great. Because I might get neck strain trying to look up at you all the time,” I said. Yolanda grinned and let out a basso laugh. I was so relieved not to be prisoners of those vampires, all humans free and not-dead, that I laughed, too. The artists let out frightened squeaks, but they continued to follow along behind us, their hands all clasped together.

  I told Yolanda what had happened with Thaddeus and why she had, therefore, charged into a full-blown execution scene. She tilted her head and considered. “You are not connected to life-force. Vampires feed on others’ life forces. That could be why he, well, poofed.”

  “But shouldn’t he have just not been able to get sustenance out of me? I mean, why poof? I mean, does it have something to do with my connection to Death? Like, instead of a life-force, I have a death force or something? I think I’m going to have to make a list of things to ask Death, and not about his marketing campaign. Ah, well, it doesn’t matter right now. The real question is, how in the world are we going to get them back to Florence?” I gestured to the artists walking in front of us. The girl tripped and fell into the arms of the accented man. She smiled up at him and I just shook my head.

  Humans. Go through being kidnapped by vampires for the purpose of drawing their portraits, almost get killed by violent and bloody means, survive a rampaging battle, and what matters? Whether the guy caught you when you tripped.

  We are such a strange species.