by K. M. Shea
The stance Josh ordered me to use was actually super difficult. You hold the sword above your head, then cut down directly in front of you. There’s way more to it—balance and pressure play a huge role in it—but it was tough for me to do with as many repetitions as the vampires liked to give me because it required holding my sword steady and lifting it above my head, things my chicken arms had a difficult time doing.
Josh waited until I had completed the motion twice before interrupting. “Hold,” he said when my sword was shoulder height. He drifted closer and tapped the blade of my sword with a finger. “Put a spark of your magic there.”
I blinked. “Not my hands?”
“Correct. It might take some practice, but try to isolate your magic to the sword blade—not the hilt.”
I pulled at the magic that freely floated around the air, channeling it through my blood and into a usable state. Since I had so little this was pretty hard, and I was grimacing before I’d even managed to produce a spark. But it was even harder to make the magic manifest on the blade, not my hands. It took about five minutes, then a tiny spark of blue magic flickered on the edge of the blade.
Josh waited a minute before the magic stabilized, then nodded. “Good. Now continue.”
I gritted my teeth as I continued with the kata, raising my sword above my head and then swinging it down. It was hard to keep my magic flowing and wrapped around the sword like tiny sparks of electricity.
“I believe your lack of magic will be a boon as you learn finesse.” Josh folded his arms across his chest and nodded in satisfaction. “It should be easier to maintain control over your spark of magic and learn how to control it with your movements as opposed to struggling with a great deal of magic and spending most of your concentration on keeping the amount right. Here, try on this dummy.”
“Celestina said I shouldn’t practice on dummies—I’m so weak I might hurt my arms on impact,” I gloomily said.
Josh forcibly made the dummy—a creation of hardwood lined with cut lengths of tire rubber—bow its box-shaped head at me, then stepped back. “It won’t be a problem this time.”
I approached it—moving slowly so I could more easily keep the spark of my magic going. I adjusted my feet into the proper stance, then raised my sword above my head and dropped it down in the practiced cut.
The spark of my magic flared on impact, burning through the layer of rubber as if I was cutting through butter and digging into the dummy’s wooden shoulder. The smell of burnt tire filled the sword studio, but I stared at the mutilated dummy, shocked at my own success.
“You’ll get better as you expand your sword stances,” Josh said. “I’ve been researching the possibilities, and it seems to me that you could use a sword to point and direct your magic. I don’t understand why fighting with weapons fell out of fashion with your kind. It’s much more efficient.”
“That’s amazing.” I stared at my sword with new eyes. “It’s that powerful, even with magic as small as mine.”
Josh shrugged. “You are layering your magic—however thin it may be at the moment—over a deadly weapon with an edge that is fearsome on its own. It’s expected.”
“Josh!”
We turned around to see my “favorite” vampire—Rupert—standing at the other side of the sword practice studio, his jaw clenched.
“Must you teach the wizard here and stink up the rooms?” he growled.
Josh blinked. “The burnt rubber smell should fade soon.”
Rupert rolled his eyes and pointed to me. “I meant her! Her rat-blood reeks.”
Josh shrugged. “That seems like a personal problem. You should meditate on it—lest the void will take you.”
Rupert curled his lips back in an almost werewolf-like snarl. (Vampires usually liked to be much more refined.) “Your bizarre words have been tolerated long enough. I’ll—”
Before he could utter his threat, another vampire smacked him on the back of the head. “Enough with that—or haven’t you learned your lesson? You don’t want to tangle with Josh.”
I wasn’t certain I heard the other vampire right, so I glanced at Josh.
He looked especially benign today in his black workout pants and bright orange t-shirt that had a video game logo on it.
But he was apparently stronger than Rupert? Interesting…
“Don’t touch me.” Rupert ran a hand through his short red hair. “You might be too frightened to challenge him, but I will.”
I adjusted my grasp on my sword, but I didn’t dare lower it yet. Last time I let the tip touch the ground Celestina made me carry my sword on a pillow for half a day. “Challenge?”
“He means to fight me for my position in the Drake Family,” Josh said in the same tone of voice he used to announce the kitchen’s dinner menu.
“Oh. What’s your rank?”
Josh adjusted the dummy. “Second Knight.”
“For real?”
“Yes. I don’t have a hope of ever achieving First Knight,” Josh said. “No one does. Celestina is a beast to fight. I lose more weapons to her brutish fists in our friendly matches than I ever do in field combat.” He sighed. “So many delightful weapons forever broken…”
I slightly shook my head. “Wow. Staying here is definitely going to make me deal with all of the stereotyping I apparently do.”
It did make me pause for another reason, though.
Why on earth did Killian Drake have his top two underlings playing nursemaid to a wizard? Given that I was such a total beginner, any of his vampires would be more skilled and able to teach me the basics. But he’d chosen Celestina and Josh. (And Rupert, but I suspected that might be an underhanded maneuvering on Killian’s part for some complicated reason I didn’t want to understand.)
“Regardless, the rat-blood should be trained in a different part of the house,” Rupert continued. “Heavens knows she stunk the whole place up when the mantasp monster nearly succeeded in killing her.”
“She’s Killian’s new pet,” another vampire said in a steely voice. “She goes wherever he wants her to.”
“He doesn’t care where she is,” Rupert said. “That’s why he dumped her off. He’s probably just using her for bait anyway.”
He swiveled to stare at me.
What a puke. If my wild speculations were right and the murderer really was an insider, I’d bet Rupert was the one—not because of his terrible personality, but because he just seemed to hate everyone. Obviously, he had some buried issues.
Several long seconds passed, and Rupert still didn’t look away from me.
“Oh, sorry, were you expecting a reaction or something?” I asked. “Because he’s Killian Drake. I’m realistic enough to know he only ever brought me in because he thought he could use me in some way.”
Josh nodded approvingly.
Rupert curled back his upper lip, showing off his fangs.
“Don’t pick fights with the wizard,” the steely voiced male vampire ordered. “It only makes you look stupid.”
“Because I refuse to subject myself to the rat-blood’s stench?” Rupert scoffed. “Please. The rest of you are too soft. I can barely stand to be in the same room as it. It speaks to the quality of your abilities.”
A female vampire sighed and rolled her eyes. “This is why everyone knows you’re adopted,” she said, dryly. “Drake vampires have too much pride to throw temper tantrums.”
“Careful,” another vampire warned as he eyed the female. “More than just Rupert have been brought into the Family externally.”
“And all of us have enough sense not to argue in front of the wizard,” a tall, willowy male vampire said. “Enough.”
He must have been high enough in the pecking order to command their respect, because they all fell silent—Rupert included. (Though he cast me a dirty look—as if his big mouth was my fault.)
Josh seemed unbothered by the tense mood. He studied the clock on the wall with the same meditative scrutiny he gave life. “We have
tarried too long; it’s already sunset. Come, Hazel. It’s time for your evening run.”
My magic had faded while I was pre-occupied listening to the fight, so all I had to do was slide my chisa katana into its scabbard with a click that was so, so, so satisfying after a long practice. I tied it to the weighted belt Celestina had gotten me, then followed Josh out of the hallway.
I waited until we reached the stairs that would take us out of the basement before I risked prodding Josh. “What were they talking about?”
“To what are you referring?”
“Being adopted into the Drake Family.” We reached the top stair, and I was pleased I hadn’t lost my breath while scurrying up the steps and talking. (Maybe I was improving!)
“Oh. Rupert was originally part of a European vampire lineage—the Cotelleon Family. Killian formally adopted him into the Drake Family several years ago when everyone in the Family—excluding Rupert—was killed for colluding against their regional committee. Many of us here in Drake Hall are not actually Drake vampires, turned by Killian, but adopted from other Families.” Josh led me through the front door and outside into the purple of twilight as he casually dropped his truth bomb.
Killian allowed other vampires to join his Family? It seemed strangely generous for him—though I suppose it was for his own race, not another. “And Killian willingly took Rupert in?”
“Yes.” Josh made his way around the house, choosing what running path we’d go down. “Of course, it meant he inherited all Cotelleon land and resources with Rupert’s adoption.”
Ahhh. There was the manipulating and selfish Killian Drake I knew.
I actually sighed in relief that I wasn’t so far off my mental picture of the Eminence. “I see.”
Josh selected one of the longer paths—or rather longer for me. (Celestina told me there were trails that wove several miles through the Drake Family’s apparently vast acreage.)
This particular path wound toward the wrought-iron fence that encased the entire property, following it as it divided Drake land from the neighboring property and made for the road at the front of the hall.
The moon was bright in the sky, and only the smallest sliver of sun was left, so I kept my jogging pace brisk. If I didn’t finish in time it was going to be totally dark, and the likelihood that I’d trip on something would rapidly multiply.
We’d been running for only a few minutes when a hideously loud, shriek-like bray shattered the silence.
I skid to a stop. “What was that?”
Josh peered past the fence. “I believe that was the neighbor’s donkey.”
I tried to process this information. “Wait, you guys know your neighbor?”
“Indeed. The dogs are rather fond of her because she gives them biscuits. They slip through the fence and run off to her house when possible—though sometimes the aforementioned donkey chases them away.”
It seemed weirdly domestic that the Drakes had problems with their dogs—which I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around—going to visit the neighbor. (A donkey-owning-neighbor, no less! It just seemed like something Killian wouldn’t normally tolerate living next door to him.)
“You have caught your breath, so I believe it is time to move on,” Josh said.
I nodded and started running again, staying silent as I mulled on the peculiarities of the Drake Family.
I happily noticed that my lungs didn’t burn much—maybe I was right about the stairs and my stamina was increasing?—but my sword started to feel really heavy around the time our jogging trail ran parallel with the road and looped near the front gates.
The gates were more for visual appeal than actual defense. Each gate was cut in the shape of a roaring dragon, and there were plenty of spots where you could wriggle through it, or the wrought-iron fence that separated Drake Family land.
My steps were getting heavier as I trudged along, so when Josh stopped, I assumed it was an air break for me. “Thanks,” I panted as I kept walking.
Josh, however, was statue still. He stared past the gates, and something in him moved.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled as my instincts made me shiver and I finally understood how Josh came to be Second Knight in the Drake Family. I cleared my throat. “What is it?”
“Intruders.”
I blinked, and Josh had his cellphone in his palm, dialing a number with a careless swipe of his hand as he stared at whatever had his attention. “Intruders,” he repeated.
I casually shifted closer, trying to hear the other voice, but vampire hearing is so good they must set the volume on almost silent, so I couldn’t make anything out.
“Two,” Josh said. “A wizard and a werewolf.”
I squinted in the direction he was staring and could just make out two figures standing in the middle of the road just beyond the gates like a pair of idiots waiting to get hit. It took a moment, but I saw the suitcoat and the distinctive orange shade of the tie, and I realized at least one of the figures was a House Tellier wizard. Which probably meant the other person was the werewolf.
I stiffened. There was no way either of them was the murderer who was out on the loose—not many werewolves hunted alone, and those who did were carefully watched, and it would take a lot for a wizard to be able to take out a vamp. Plus, the wizard just happened to be from House Tellier?
Not likely.
He’d probably been sent by Mason—though I had no idea where the werewolf fit in all of this. Slowly, I untied my sword from my waist and considered sliding it from its scabbard.
“I assume they’re here for your wizard,” Josh said, still talking on the phone. “Do you wish for me to dispatch them, or…?”
“No, I’ll handle it myself,” Killian said directly behind me.
I was actually pretty proud that I didn’t jump at his abrupt arrival—another sign of improvement! (Or maybe living here had shot my nerves and adrenaline?)
“You think they’re here to spy on me?” I stepped aside as Killian adjusted his fancy gold cufflinks (dragon shaped, of course).
“Unless you have a secret boyfriend, or two.” Killian smirked.
“The wizard is House Tellier,” I said. “They helped Mason with his coup.”
“Are you certain the whole thing wasn’t a lovers’ quarrel?” Killian was almost purring.
“Mason threatened me with marriage, or the death of my House,” I said flatly.
“Very well. I’ll take care of it.” Killian frowned and adjusted my arms so I held my sword correctly.
“Yes, Your Eminence,” Josh said.
“Wait. Take care of it? What does that mean?” I asked.
Killian ignored me and jumped the fence. He was a smudgy blur in the blue shadows that were slowly taking over, so I actually only knew he went over because I heard the rattle of the gate. Moments later he was out in the road with the House Tellier wizard and the werewolf. He had them both by the throats—the werewolf was pinned to the ground with a foot and the wizard he held up so the wizard’s feet dangled in the air.
I didn’t even know how he did it so fast. There wasn’t a scuffle, Killian was just that overwhelming and moved like quicksilver.
Killian’s gaze wandered from the werewolf to the wizard, and his eyes started to glow an eerie, bright red. “You thought you could intrude on Drake land?” His voice was dangerously smooth, like a sword slicing through meat. “And escape with your lives?” He smiled savagely, his white teeth flashing in the darkness.
The werewolf and wizard made choking noises, their thrashing becoming increasingly more frantic.
Killian’s smile hadn’t dropped, and there was something…wild in his eyes.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I sucked my neck into my shoulders and scooted closer to Josh. “He’s going to threaten them and tell them to get lost?”
“Not at all,” Josh said. “He’s going to kill them.”
“What? But they aren’t doing anything!”
Josh shrugg
ed. “It’s their mistake.”
My thoughts whirled so fast in my head I could barely contain them. “Hold my sword.” I thrust my sword into Josh’s hands, then sprinted to the fence. I wriggled between the spokes on the gate—one of the benefits of my small frame—and popped out on the other side. “Killian, wait!”
Killian shifted slightly to watch me as I ran to join him. The wizard wriggled in his grasp, his feet kicking, but I could tell he could still take shallow breaths—same thing applied to the wolf that was clawing at Killian’s foot. Though Killian must have been putting more pressure on the werewolf. He was red faced, and the muscles in his neck were popping.
“You can’t kill them,” I said when I finally reached him. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“They’re loitering on Drake land.” Killian’s voice was as frosty as winter. “That’s reason enough.”
“They didn’t even make it past the fence!”
Killian shrugged casually, holding the struggling wizard above his head as if he were merely stretching. “If I kill them no one will be around to say otherwise.”
“But that’s wrong!” I argued. “They didn’t try to kill or hurt anyone.”
Killian lifted an eyebrow. “I had hoped you were intelligent enough to realize they are here to spy on you and take news back to the traitor that threw you out. Perhaps I overestimated you?”
“I know why the wizard is here,” I said. “But I still don’t want him dead.”
“You’re from House Medeis.” The ice in Killian’s voice was starting to mellow to a bored tone, which was good for the werewolf, the wizard, and me. “You don’t want anyone dead, no matter what atrocities they commit,” he continued.
I opened my mouth to argue, except he was correct. Based on the rules of House Medeis, if—no, when—I reclaimed House Medeis, Mason would be handed over to the Wizard Council to be judged. Even if he did kill a member of my family, at worst he’d be exiled. Which wouldn’t be much of a hardship based on his relationship with House Tellier.
But that was a dilemma for a different day. “Maybe, I don’t know,” I finally said. “But I know killing them would be wrong. Can’t you just question them and send them on their way?”
