Prince of Blood and Thunder_An Urban Fantasy Novel

by J. A. Cipriano

  “I think we’ll have to make the rest of the way on foot, Maddocks,” the gunsmith said, glancing at me for a split second before returning his gaze to the metal mage. “Have it in you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding to me. “She’s an Animator, so if Armen’ll do his thing, we can light these fuckers up like Fourth of July.”

  “What do you mean?” the one who I hadn’t been able to identify— Armen— said as he came toward us.

  “You’re an alchemist. Instead of messing around with that homemade napalm, put your skills to use and turn my bullets to silver, dumbass,” the gunsmith said, holding his dual Colt Anaconda revolvers out to Armen. “She’ll make sure the silver kills them.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Armen swallowed as he waved a hand over the guns, causing them to flare with silver light. “Never met an Animator before. I didn’t put it together.”

  “My name is Annie,” I said as Maddocks threw one of my arms over his shoulder and helped me walk. I was about to say I didn’t need his help, but the first step caused my knee to twinge in pain. I could probably walk, but I wouldn’t be running any marathons, that’s for sure.

  “For now, let’s just get to the hospital and save Abigail. We can do names later. That way if you die, I won’t feel as bad,” the gunsmith said as he offered me the revolvers. It was a fair point, to be honest. Names had a way of making you empathize with people, and chances were we weren’t all going to make it into the town center. I mean, these guys seemed pretty badass, but at the same time, if I hadn’t pulled the trick with the silver, I was pretty sure those werewolves we’d just encountered would have turned them into sausage.

  Either way, we’d be a lot better off if I charged up his guns. It would only last a few minutes, but I’d cross that bridge later. I touched his guns, infusing what little magic I had regained into the bullets. Twelve shots. He’d have to make them count.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to smile, but as I did, his revolver whipped up beside my ear and fired. It happened so fast, I was still staring at him with a dopey look on my face when I realized what happened.

  Slowly I turned my head to see the werewolf who had gone through the window. He lay on his back in the middle of the street, blood leaking from the huge hole in his skull. Had he been shot out of mid-air?

  “Nice one,” Armen said, nodding approvingly to the gunsmith. “Just try not to kill my hearing next time.”

  “Yeah, helps when the things you shoot die. Otherwise it’s just a waste of bullets,” the gunsmith said, reaching into his pocket and handing me a small package. I glanced at it and smiled as the piercing whine of tinnitus rang in my ears.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the earplugs from him, and with that, we began moving forward.

  6

  You know what I hate about wearing ear plugs? Putting them in. I always have to squish them up really well and then tug on my ear while trying to shove them in before they naturally unsquish. It’s annoying, and if you don’t get it right the first time, the next time you try, the plug is all smeared with ear wax. It’s both frustrating and gross.

  Still, I was glad I had them because otherwise I’d have been deaf by the time we reached the medical center. Between Deschain the gunsmith’s revolvers and Maddock’s metal mage powers, we’d torn up six werewolves, and a huge amount of real estate, along the way. And no, they hadn’t told me their names. I’d picked it up from conversation.

  While I seriously thought I might be falling for a werewolf, the growing carnage the werewolves had left in their wake was starting to make me sick on a visceral level. While I knew this had started because of what my brother had done, the werewolves had still done this. They were still responsible for everybody they left in their wake. A lot of the werewolves had been innocent victims of Gordon’s bloodline attack, but so was every person in Atlantis.

  “Finally made it,” Deschain said, gesturing toward the front of the medical center with his Colt Anacondas. They looked so cool when he used them, I almost wanted to get myself a pair. I could wear them low slung over my jeans like he did and be cowboy Annie. Then again, I’d never really liked guns, so they’d be just for show, and what was I? Made of money?

  “Yeah,” I said, pushing the silly thought out of my mind as I surveyed the place. The steel shutters had been ripped off the windows and lay embedded in the street beside the blackened crater just in front of the main entrance.

  There were several overturned cars out front, and while it looked like a fight had definitely broken out, I didn’t see any bodies, werewolf or otherwise. Better still, I didn’t hear screams of agony, explosions, or magical cracks of lightning inside. That was a good thing. I’d heard far too much of that on the way here and saved a lot fewer of the screamers than I’d have liked. Acceptable casualties, my ass.

  “Are we pushing inside?” Maddocks the metal mage asked me as he took a step forward. Shards of silver were suspended in the air in front of him by his will. Each of them gave off the faint green glow of animator power.

  Thanks to Armen, we had no shortage of silver, but by the look of things that would change soon. He was pale and trembling. Sweat clung to his face and every step he took was a bit shakier than it should have been from normal magical exhaustion. No, something was definitely wrong with him, almost like he was afraid to step into the hospital. Did he think Abigail was already dead? I sure hoped not…

  To be fair, I wasn’t much better. In addition to having used up a ton of magic already, I was growing increasingly worried about Justin. Sure, the werewolves might not kill him, but he could be captured already. If that was the case, I’d have to go in and rescue him, and while my little posse had grown proficient in taking out werewolves, I was pretty sure they weren’t going to pitch in on an epic side quest once they found Maddocks’ wife.

  “Yeah, we have to get to Abigail,” Deschain said, glancing at Maddocks before turning his gaze to me. “And whoever she’s here for.”

  “Let’s do it then,” Maddocks replied, voice hard and determined. He moved forward. His footsteps crunched across the debris strewn parking lot as we approached the eerily silent entrance while Deschain stayed back, revolvers ready to take out something we didn’t see.

  Between the two of them I felt relatively safe, which was good because I didn’t have a lot of power left myself. Keeping silver bullets and the like active for the twenty-minute jaunt had put me on near empty. As it was, I was running on adrenaline alone. If we didn’t rest soon, I’d run out of juice, and then we’d be screwed.

  At the same time, I wondered how many more werewolves there could be here. Our merry group had taken out a bunch, and while the streets were red with blood, not all of it was from mages. Probably. At least I had to hope not all of it was ours.

  Part of me wondered how Madisyn fared, but something told me the little Yu-Gi-Oh! wannabe was probably fine. I wasn’t sure how she’d made those cards work the way they did, and I wanted to ask her about it. If it was as simple as just knowing how the cards worked or something, I was definitely gonna copy that trick.

  “I don’t see anything,” Maddocks said, peeking through the blown out entrance to the medical center. Bits of glass littered the front walk and rubble from a statue of Apollo had been strewn across the steps, but otherwise there was nothing of interest. Part of me was saddened by the sight of the statue in pieces. Apollo really should have stepped in and done something, but like always, the gods were curiously absent when you needed them the most. Guess this was supposed to be a teachable moment because if the statue hadn’t been broken, I could have brought it to life.

  The metal mage stepped through the broken doors, carefully avoiding the jagged bits of glass clinging to the frames, and looked around. It was too dark inside for me to see much of anything from my vantage point, and that made a lump of fear swell in my throat. That meant there was no power, magical or otherwise because the emergency backup systems hadn’t come on.

  “If the power’s off, what
happens to the people on life support?” I asked, glancing around the place for any sign of life but finding none. It was both comforting and concerning.

  “They’re probably dead,” Deschain said, moving past me and stepping into the darkened corridor next to Maddocks. His boots crunched noisily on the glass strewn floor as he moved. Evidently, he wasn’t worried about people hearing him. “Though I’m not sure how they could kill the magical backup systems. The electrical systems, sure, but the magic ones.” He shook his head.

  “Either way, let’s find Abigail and get out.” Maddocks glanced at me. “If you wanna help us get her, we’ll help you after.”

  As I opened my mouth to respond, a shotgun blast blew apart my hearing. I spun toward the source of it to see Armen standing there trying to figure out why his guts were all over the floor. My eyes widened in shock as another burst of sound erupted from behind him.

  It was crazy. One moment Armen had a head, and the next he just didn’t. Chunky bits of warm raspberry jam sprayed across my face as he collapsed forward onto the ground in front of me. Behind him stood a werewolf with fur as dark as the hair on Satan’s ass. He wore a bandolier decorated with a severed mage head. The mouth moved, mumbling silent, unheard words as pulsing crimson light spilled from its doomed throat.

  “Nullifier,” I cried as the wolf racked another shell into his Mossberg 500 tactical persuader. It was pretty much the scariest thing I’d ever heard because combined with the nullifier he wore, it meant we were screwed. Why? Because that bandolier wasn’t just a macabre trophy. No, his nullifier was a magical artifact that not only negated all the surrounding magic, but it also stripped magic out of the fucking air, and the only way to stop it was to destroy the severed head.

  Sure, it wasn’t enough to take out all the magic in the hospital, but if they had a couple of them and had dropped them near a power source, well, they’d just continue to leech magic out of the system until the place shut down. If I had to guess, judging by the lack of power here, that’s exactly what had happened.

  Even if the wolves had come just to get me, Justin, and whoever else they’d fancied, taking out the hospital like this was on a whole other level. Doing something like this, to all the innocent people here, was making a statement to mages as a whole. Even though my brother’s ritual had decimated their ranks, they could still fuck us over bad.

  Deschain’s twin revolvers fired from behind me, and the sound reverberated in the tiny corridor as I threw myself to the ground. The silver rounds tore into the wolf, but there was no silver fire, no burning flesh.

  Instead as the bullets burrowed into the meat of his chest like normal gunshots, the head on the nullifier screamed. Golden light pulsed from the dead mage’s lips, dispelling my animator powers as the shifter’s flesh pushed the silver bullets back out of his body. The spent rounds clanged emptily across the linoleum floor as he lined up the Mossberg on Deschain and pulled the trigger.

  The blast caught the gunsmith full in the chest, throwing him backward in a spray of red. He crashed to the ground as Maddocks screamed in fury and made a sweeping, tearing gesture with one hand.

  The entire hospital groaned in response as the werewolf racked another shell. Before he could pull the trigger, the rebar ripped out of the front walls, skewering him in place. He glared at us, rage filling his features moments before the entire front of the hospital collapsed on him, shutting us inside.

  “Negate that, bitch!” Maddocks said as I scrambled to my feet. I could already tell Armen was gone. While I hadn’t known him for very long, his death hit me so hard, I wished I’d kept my humanity off. Still, that wasn’t the right call. Running away from this was too easy, and as adrenaline rushed through my veins, I turned my gaze to Deschain, hoping I could save him. The gunsmith lay in a slowly spreading pool of crimson, but he was still alive. Barely.

  Deschain’s hands clasped his ruined stomach, and an amused smile was plastered across his face.

  “Who’da thought I’d die by a fucking shotgun,” he wheezed, blood spraying from his lips as he spoke. “It’s like a rookie pitcher striking out Babe Ruth.”

  “Don’t talk,” I said, pulling a healing potion off my charm bracelet. I tried to push power into it, but as I did, stars shot past my eyes. I didn’t have enough juice to make it work. “No, no, no…”

  I tried again. This time my vision swam, and I collapsed onto my knees as I tried to call up everything I had and force it into the healing potion. The charm in my hand glimmered for a second, the liquid inside growing hot with magical energy. Colored circles of pain exploded between my temples as I tried to give it to Deschain, and even though I only had to bring the charm a few inches away, it felt like it took forever.

  Maddocks caught me just before I could face plant into the cheap linoleum. His strong arms held me aloft as he looked at me. The sound of metal hitting the ground filled my ears as his chunks of silver fell from the ground, and as they did, the potion in my hand turned back to plastic.

  “The nullifier is too strong,” Deschain breathed into my ear as he smiled me. “Save your strength for the next werewolf.” There was peace in his eyes, which struck me as odd since he was dying. “Now go, I’ve got a man in black to follow across a desert.”

  “No!” I said, but even as the word left my lips, Maddocks pulled me from the hallway and half-dragged me toward a door marked stairs at the far end. I tried to struggle, but I was too tired, too drained to do anything. Nullifiers required a mage skilled in nullification magic to make them and there weren’t exactly a lot of them running around. I wasn’t sure where the wolves had gotten them, but I was damned sure going to find out, and when I did, well, let’s just say Hell hath no fury.

  “If you want to make it up to them,” Maddocks said, kicking the door open and pulling us inside. “Help me get Abigail.”

  “All right,” I snarled, glancing at him as he shut the door behind us, sealing us inside the stairwell. As he did, I felt better.

  I wasn’t sure what that door was made from magical or otherwise, but closing it helped block the nullifier’s effects. That meant it was either still working or there really were more werewolves with them running around. That thought made me run cold. Either the werewolf we’d just buried under a ton of building was still alive or the other nullifier-using werewolves were close, or both. I really hoped it wasn’t both.

  “We need to hurry! That wolf I buried will get back up soon, and I don’t want to be here when that happens.” He took a deep breath of resignation as he glanced at the stairs. “Let’s go. Can you walk?”

  I reached out and put my hand on the banister of the stairs. “Yeah,” I whispered, hoping we made it to whoever he wanted to save in time because I was really starting to worry. If there were werewolves with nullifiers running around, the likelihood was that Abigail was dead and Justin was captured.

  Part of me wanted to say something about it, but that would make it real, and I couldn’t have Maddocks breaking down now. I clamped my lips shut and didn’t say anything about Abigail or Justin. He had to already know and denial was powerful. I’d like to say hope, but it wasn’t. It was definitely denial.

  “Yeah. Let’s go,” I whispered, trying to push the thoughts away as I took a tentative step onto the stairs. After all, Madisyn has told me Justin was supposed to be on the third floor. I’d make it there. I had to make it there. “What floor is Abigail on?”

  “Third,” he said, and the hollowness in his voice told me one thing. He’d had the same line of thought I had. The most likely scenario was that she was already dead.

  7

  I kicked open the door leading from the stairs into the hallway because what was the point in being quiet? Assuming they hadn’t heard us cave in the front of the hospital, any werewolves would have smelled us long before they heard us. Besides, it was bad ass, and my rule of thumb is simple. When in doubt, look as badass as possible.

  The flimsy wooden door splintered the jamb and flew inward, cra
shing against the wall on the other side and startling the werewolf standing there with a shotgun identical to the one his friend downstairs had used. I wasn’t sure if he’d been standing there or just walking by, but I was glad I’d surprised him because his nullifier instantly sapped my magic.

  Before he could turn his shotgun on us and turn us into so much raspberry jam, Maddocks whipped his hand out, and pulled the shotgun from the startled shifter’s hands. He spun the Mossberg and fired it into the underside of the werewolf’s chin in one smooth motion. Blood splattered across the walls as the creature staggered backward, grabbing its ruined face.

  “You got anything left?” Maddocks asked, pumping the shotgun and chambering a shell before unloading it into the werewolf’s nullifier at point blank range. Pellets tore the charm to pieces before tearing into the flesh of the werewolf’s chest with a lot less effectiveness than I’d have liked. The next round went into the werewolf’s face, but most of the shot bounced off the thick bone of its skull.

  The creature’s claws gouged into the cheap drywall as it tried to right itself. The werewolf fought for balance, and would have succeeded in staying on its feet if Maddocks hadn’t pumped another blast into its knee, blowing it apart in a spray of blood and cartilage. Even as it hit the ground, its face was nearly healed. We had a breath, maybe two, before it’d be up ready to go, and worse, it’d be pissed instead of surprised.

  Now that the nullifier was out of commission, I took a deep breath, called upon what magic I had left, and pulled the mana potion charm from my wrist. I quaffed it and felt my power return in a surge. A smile crossed my lips as I grabbed the silver dagger Maddocks had returned to me and animated the werewolf-killing silver.