Bounty: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 3)

by J. C. Staudt

  “Yes,” I confirm, with no clue what that means.

  “An interesting way for your superiors to monitor our meeting. Why don’t you tell us about your experiences in Chatham-Kent? I understand Tenebris has thrived despite the boundaries some here are so determined to see removed.”

  It’s official. Elona Anarian has thrown me under the bus. She didn’t prep me to answer a question like this. I know what Sebastian wants—evidence from a smaller coven to support his large-coven point of view. But I never went to college, so I’m an amateur bullshitter at best. “Yes, we have indeed thrived,” I say, struggling to keep my voice steady. “What did you want me to speak on, specifically?”

  Frustration flashes in Sebastian’s eyes. “I’m sure we’d all benefit from hearing about your dealings with the underworld.”

  “The underworld?” says Moira. “What business do the Lords of the Underworld have with you?”

  “Rather a lot, actually,” says Sebastian. “Nikolai. Please.”

  I clear my throat. It’s dry as dust. What do you do when you need to sound like you know what you’re talking about, but you have no clue? The answer, I realize, is simple.

  You ask.

  I stand and circle the table at a lazy stroll, shifting my demeanor to that of a seasoned professor. Hopefully by the time I run out of things to say, I’ll be close enough to the door to make a run for it. “Can anyone here tell me what the Lords of the Underworld want most of all?”

  “Control,” someone volunteers.

  “That’s part of it. Anyone else?”

  “Power.”

  “What sort of power, specifically?”

  No one else speaks.

  “Come on. You know this.” I can’t believe I’m lecturing a room full of vampires. I’m really just stalling for time, but their faces betray the shame of students who didn’t complete their reading assignments.

  “The power to gain a foothold in the mortal realm.”

  I stop. “Who said that?”

  A man with long auburn hair and eyes rimmed in dark blue lifts a tentative hand.

  “A foothold in the mortal realm. What makes you say that?”

  The vampire glances around self-consciously. “The objective of the demon lords is to tempt humanity into embracing their vices. They seek notoriety, and to be feared and served by mortals.”

  “That’s right. And why is that? Because the demons need mankind. They cannot prosper here in our world without a foothold, and they cannot gain a foothold without a dedicated following to summon them here. Souls are their currency, as blood is ours. Why, then, would the denizens of the underworld carry any interest in our affairs? Sebastian, why don’t you answer this one, since you were so keen on pointing out this particular nuance?” I’m almost halfway around the table, taking my time but set on eliminating every obstacle between me and the door.

  Sebastian’s eyes twitch and narrow. “What Lord Vosmik is referring to is the struggle of the demons to gain mental dominance over their subjects. We of the blood have typically proved a nuisance to them, commandeering the minds of humans to disturb otherwise fertile ground. Their hold is tenuous and temporary; ours is immutable and unending. Therefore, our very existence thwarts their progress. We steal away mortal souls and grant them long life, expelling them from the grasp of hell for an indefinite period of time. The more of us there are, the fewer available souls remain for the underworld to accumulate. Yet should our kind become too numerous, our sources of nourishment will grow scarce. There must be balance. The laws and hierarchies of the covens ensure our population remains stable. So Lord Vosmik and the leadership of Tenebris have made peace with the demons. Go ahead, Lord Vosmik.”

  “Yes, we have.” I’m running out of steam here. I still have no idea where this is going. The vampires of Tenebris have made an agreement with some demons. What would an agreement between vampires and demons look like? Sebastian has given me a few clues. I’m not going to get through this unless I can turn it around on him again. I give him a long, appraising look. “I wasn’t aware you’d been informed of the details of our arrangement, Sebastian. I’d thought we were operating in secrecy.”

  Sebastian doesn’t take the bait. “Good news travels fast.”

  “This is ludicrous,” proclaims a wispy-haired male elder. “A deal with the underworld? Surely there are plenty of mortals to go around. You speak as if there’s a shortage.”

  “There’s no shortage for the demons,” says the younger man two seats down. “The shortage is ours, limited as we are by our hunting grounds. Many covens control only small towns covering a few square miles of civilization. The herd thins quickly. Our hunts grow ever more dangerous in the tiny communities where rumor and legend breed fear and precaution among the humans. Our threat is greater with every feed. Lord Vosmik and Tenebris have the right idea. Demons direct their possessed into our territory to be fed upon, and in exchange we agree not to turn them or take them to thrall. The vampires drink, and the demons carpet the underworld with souls. We both get what we want. Sounds like a fine arrangement to me. Is that about the gist of it?”

  I watch for Sebastian’s reaction.

  “It is,” he says, his face a mask.

  “What about here, in the city?” asks the auburn-haired participant from earlier. “Our choices are near-limitless. Must we all make deals with demons?”

  Sebastian shakes his head. “This is merely an example of a creative solution to an ongoing prob—”

  The boardroom door bursts open. In marches a tall, slender woman with ice-white hair flowing over pointed elven ears. Her leather corset and form-hugging black pants are wholly unsuited to tonight’s dress code. There’s an agelessness about her pale unblemished skin, and a shrewdness in her cold gray eyes. She crosses the room without slowing. “I told you she would be here.”

  Felix stands. “Irys. Now’s not the time for this. We’re under a Pax.”

  “Curse you and your Pax. I told you that bitch would have the audacity to show her face tonight. She’s mine.”

  Irys draws a thin curved blade from her boot as she slides feet-first across the coffee table. Desdemona sees her coming and tries to sidestep, but her gown makes her falter. Irys regains her feet and slams Des into the wall, knife nicking the top of Des’s shoulder. Des crosses forearms with Irys to thwart the next stab. Irys stabs again, this time slicing Des down the side of her stomach. She screams and pushes Irys away, the knife trailing blood as it withdraws.

  Des evades Irys’s next stab, which punctures the wall beside her head. Irys lands an elbow across Des’s face, then slams her with a headbutt to the mouth. Des punches Irys in the ribs and drives a knee upward into her crotch. Irys yanks the knife from the wall as she stumbles backward into a pair of chairs at the conference table.

  Des’s date shoves his chair aside and advances on Irys, but she swings out and catches him on the cheek with her blade. Steam rises from the wound, which fails to close with typical vampiric quickness. The blond-haired vamp goes rigid and backs away, clutching his face.

  “She’s got a silver blade,” someone shouts.

  “This is heresy,” shouts someone else. “A violation of the Pax.”

  Irys lunges at Des, who grabs her wrists and flings her into the wall before somersaulting over the table. Irys’s knife cuts a slash across Des’s knee as she rolls away, tearing her skirt. The silver blade doesn’t have the same effect on Des as it did on the vamp, but it’s enough to keep the other vampires in the room cringing away whenever it comes near. Felix screams at his half-sister to stand down, but she ignores him.

  I’m no match for a dhampir in physical combat, but I’m more than a match in magic. I extract the two residue pills from my pocket and gulp them down as Des darts across the room with Irys on her heels. Des lifts her dress and bursts through the door into the hallway.

  I follow, though even as the arcane fuel awakens inside me and I lend myself a magical burst of speed, I’m nowhere near as fast
as the dhampirs. Rather than flee down the stairs, Desdemona veers left down the next hallway, slamming the door shut behind her. Irys charges through so fast she blasts the door off its top hinge.

  Three other vampires overtake me in a blur as I run. My pathetic human speed will never stand up to scrutiny if any of them call me out on it. I’d rather be found out than let Des get butchered by that lunatic. For someone who supposedly values tradition, Irys must hate Des with a passion if she’s willing to break the rules of the Pax to physically assault her.

  I round the bend in the hallway, which ends in a railed balcony overlooking the stage. The strains of a dramatic third act echo through the rafters. Below, decadent set pieces surround the gathered ensemble performing the final number. Des leaps the metal railing and backs across the catwalk, drawing a small five-shot police revolver from an ankle holster. Irys follows, advancing step for step with her silver blade drawn. Felix, Sebastian, and Moira blur to a halt at the railing and look on in suspense. I stop beside Moira, winded but trying not to show it.

  “Irys, you can’t do this,” Felix calls.

  “I can, and I will. This damned bitch and her accomplices are ruining everything. They wait for me, lurking in the shadows; striking without warning before fleeing to their hidey-hole like cowards. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to end you for a long time, Desdemona. Or should I call you Officer Dolman?”

  “She’s with the police department?” Sebastian asks.

  “Oh yes. She and her folk are kin-killers.”

  “Vampire slayers? Enemies of the bloodless?”

  “No,” Desdemona insists, backing across the catwalk toward its abrupt end. “That isn’t true. We guard the pathways between worlds.”

  “Where’s your little hideout, eh?” Irys asks. “Tell me and I’ll make this quick.”

  “Irys, whatever your feud with her, you must not violate the Pax,” Felix calls. “It’s our duty to uphold the ancient laws.”

  Irys casts a sneering glance over her shoulder at Felix. “You care nothing for the ancient laws, brother. You piddle with our father’s empire while I do the true work of our kindred. Our enemies encroach on every side, yet you do nothing. They come from the old world in droves, disrupting our way of life and threatening all we know. My work is the only thing that will uphold our laws over the centuries to come.”

  “You’re murdering them, Irys,” says Des. “These are creatures who’ve never done anything to you.”

  “Every soul who crosses the boundary between worlds brings us closer to extinction. The others have hunted us since the dawn of our existence. They are a plague upon this world. Why should we wait in fear for our own deaths? We will not survive unless we take action now.”

  “Irys, you know the covens are working to restore balance,” Felix pleads. “Don’t counteract our efforts with this madness.”

  “When we must make deals with devils to secure our future, the balance is already lost. Down this path lies folly. This deceiver—” she gestures toward Des, “—and her ilk are protecting the others. Granting them freedom while we suffer the consequences.”

  “Your sister has flown too far off the handle this time, Felix,” says Des. “Did you know she was doing this?”

  Felix flashes Moira a glance. “Of course not. I had no idea. Our father may have been a traitor, but I am nothing of the kind.”

  “Is this what the covens want?” Des asks. “To see innocents slaughtered? To see their prey eradicated without sense or warning?”

  “Shut up,” Irys seethes. “I kept this from you as long as I could, brother. Don’t listen to the empty posturing of this filth. She’s a stain on our kind. The covens are crippled. We must heal. Either we grow, or we die.”

  Sebastian’s gaze flits to the ongoing performance on the stage below. “The both of you, come back here and let’s talk this over sensibly.”

  “The time for sensible solutions has passed,” says Irys. “This bitch dies tonight.”

  “How are you finding the portals before they open?” Des asks. “Someone’s helping you. Protecting you. Who?”

  “As if I would simply volunteer such information,” Irys says, taking a step.

  Des sights down the barrel of her revolver. “Easy, Irys. You don’t want this getting out of hand, and neither do I. Predicting weaknesses in the fabric of worlds requires powerful magic. Magic you couldn’t possibly possess on your own. Where are you getting it?”

  “What have you done, Irys?” asks Felix. “Who have you allied yourself with?”

  Irys straightens, lowering the knife. “This isn’t my fault, brother. I know you’ll think me unwise, but hear me out. It’s time you knew. Time you all knew the true path toward our survival. The sidhe Elona Anarian has granted me her protection under a pact which will further the interests of both the fae and vampire kind across this city and its surrounds. She offers a nobler end than the demons you’ve sanctioned. Every creature who comes here from the old world puts us at greater risk of exposure to the human population at large. We will work together to ensure that never happens.”

  Felix’s face is a rictus of disbelief. “The fae? Of all the creatures in this great world… the fae?”

  “The fae desire secrecy above all else. We wish to exist without being hunted down for what we are. So you see, their ambitions and ours are two rivers converging. Do not fight the current.”

  So this is the sidhe’s investment in the vampire community. Irys Montrovia. This is how she does business—not only imprisoning fiends like Calyxto for what she perceives as putting the supernatural world at risk, but hiring thugs to commit genocide on othersiders in a vain attempt to stem the tide.

  “There’s no such thing as an honorable deal with the fae,” says Sebastian. “This is madness.”

  “You want to secure our future, Lord Bordeaux?” asks Irys. “This struggle for power between the clans is not the way. You’ve succeeded only in breeding hatred and distrust amongst our kind. Endless squabbling will never avert doom; only bring it the faster. Our solution must be to band together as one, to seek the eradication of all who would bring about the great awakening.”

  There is no great awakening, I want to shout. I want to grab Irys by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. There will never be a great awakening. Humankind won’t embrace the existence of the supernatural world as a culture so long as they’re caught up in their modern lives of convenience. They’ll always have better things to do. You can’t reason with a psychotic dhampir any more easily than you can reason with a power-drunk sidhe. The two of them being on the same team makes sense, but it also lends a whole lot more crazy to the situation.

  “What would you have us do, Irys?” Sebastian asks. “Hunt down everything that moves? Why do you seek to control the winds of change as though you might gain power over them? We cannot force what was never meant to be. We must adapt and move forward. It is part and parcel of our kind, and the only way we have ever known.”

  “Sheathe the knife and let’s figure this out, Irys,” Desdemona says as the last of her wounds close beneath the slashes in her dress. “There’s a show going on.”

  “You bit me, you stupid bitch.”

  “To find out who was hiding behind that mask. This can’t continue, Irys. You can’t kill everyone. Give it up.”

  Irys twitches, unbalanced rage flashing in her eyes. She eases, and for an instant it looks like she’s going to give in. Then she leaps.

  The revolver goes off, a single percussive crack echoing through the backstage area. Irys slams into Des, the knife between them. Together they tumble over the catwalk railing and plummet to the stage below.

  Chapter 18

  The opera’s female lead is belting out the final notes of a high crescendo when the two dhampirs crash to the stage in a heap. Her note pitches into a shriek as wooden beams splinter and buckle beneath the weight of the bodies. I hurdle over the balcony railing and dash across the catwalk, grabbing a rope connected to
god-knows-what in the stage rigging. It’s my only way down, so I hold on tight and hop over the side as Irys kips to her feet. Turns out the other end of my rope is tied to a sandbag weighing no more than fifty pounds, which slows my fall but doesn’t counteract my sloth-like reflexes.

  I hit the stage hard, ankles tingling. The lights blind me from the audience, though their confusion has begun to ripple through the auditorium. When Des’s gun goes off a second time, performers and stagehands and orchestra musicians scramble for cover. Felix, Moira, and Sebastian leap down through the rigging to land gracefully on stage behind me, but I keep my focus on the two dhampirs.

  Another pair of gunshots. Irys grunts as the impacts force her backward. They must be silver bullets—Des would never show up to a vampire party without them—but they’re no more effective in the face of a dhampir’s fast healing than plain old lead. Irys lunges, cutting a slash across the thigh of Des’s gown. Des backs away, but Irys grabs hold of the tear in her dress and yanks, tripping her onto her tailbone.

  Irys clambers onto her, taking Des’s final bullet in the stomach. The slug exits her back in a red spray, but it hardly slows her down. She brings the knife around and drives it downward. Des shields herself. The blade pierces her hand and stops an inch shy of her face. Des drops the gun and punches the gunshot wound in Irys’s shoulder, then tucks a knee and flips her onto her back.

  Audience members and performers alike head for the exits. Irys staggers to her feet as Des turns and crawls away on her elbows across a stage slick with blood. Felix, Sebastian, and Moira keep to the edges, halted by the sight of the silver blade still in Irys’s hand. This is the first superhuman girl-fight I’ve ever witnessed, and it’s about time it ended.

  I step into Irys’s path. Her cold eyes, streaked with gray, don’t even regard me as a threat. For all she knows, I’m a vampire; a relatively unimportant one who’s standing in the way of what she wants. I might as well be a leaf in the wind, for all the resistance she believes I’ll put up before she cuts me down with her silver blade and moves on to Des. I don’t care how many people Irys has killed in her time. She’s never fucked with a wizard like me.