Maid of Ice

by Shona Husk

  “Ready?” Alina lifted her eyebrows.

  He felt like shit and he was pretty sure he looked that way too. “Let’s get this done.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I’m going to try to act like this isn’t a life-threatening condition. I don’t want to give Walter any ideas.” He held her gaze. “And I don’t want you coming in.”

  “But he’s my grandfather.”

  Finley nodded. “He’s also a potential vampire and your mother took you away for a reason.”

  “Because of his obsession with magic.”

  “Which at this time points to him experimenting with the forbidden magic of making vampires.” He really didn’t want to be going in alone, but if Alina walked in with him Walter might know she was Albah on sight even if he didn’t know her as his granddaughter. “Give me an hour. If I haven’t texted you, or come out by then, come up.”

  “An hour is a long time.”

  “Not long enough to turn me into a vampire.” He tried to sound upbeat, was pretty sure he failed.

  “Are you sure?” Her eyebrows lowered.

  “Yes.” Not at all. But any big magic required preparation and making someone a vampire wouldn’t be easy. He hoped Walter didn’t have a vampire-making kit prepared and ready to go. He drew in a breath, gritted his teeth, and hoped that he could make the walk up the block and into the building. It wasn’t that far. “Let’s keep one of us safe and able to call for help.”

  “And who should I call?”

  “That is a very good question. My father probably.”

  “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “He’s like that with everyone.” He sent his father’s number to her phone. “Hopefully you won’t need it.”

  “Good luck, but hopefully you won’t need it.” She kissed his cheek.

  He was going to need all the luck he could get. Smart people didn’t walk into to a vampire’s lair covered in blood and asking for help.

  Chapter 18

  By the time Finley made it to Walter’s office building, his legs were wobbling like he’d run a marathon. He leaned against the elevator wall and tried to compose himself. The doctor had better be in. When the doors opened he straightened and put on his best everything is great face.

  He ambled out of the elevator and over to the nurse who’d taken the photos of his ears. “Hi.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Mr. Ryder! You’re early. Your appointment is next week.”

  “I know, but I find myself in a situation where only Dr. Silverman can help me. Would you be able to let him know that I need an urgent appointment?” He smiled and hoped sweat wasn’t beading on his forehead. He couldn’t do anything about the blood on his clothes.

  The nurse shook her head. “We can’t fit you in today. He’s fully booked.”

  “He’ll make room for me.”

  The nurse lifted her eyebrows and stared down her nose. “We can’t make allowances just because of who you are.” She’d lowered her voice, but the other people in the waiting room were already curious.

  He could feel their gazes sharpening at this unexpected intrusion. There was blood all over his jeans and he hoped more wasn’t dripping on the floor. This had everything to do with who he was, but not in the way the nurse was thinking.

  She stared at him, her eyes widening. “Are you all right, Mr. Ryder?”

  No, he wasn’t. He was sure that if he didn’t sit down in the next minute he was going to fall over. “If you could just let the doctor know I’m here, that would be great.”

  The nurse hesitated then picked up the phone. “I’ll see if we can squeeze you in,” she said as though she’d had the idea, then turned her attention to the phone. “I have Mr. Ryder here and he is most insistent that he needs to see you.”

  “Tell him it’s something only he can help me with.” Finley did not want to say magic out loud, but if that’s what it took he would.

  Instead the nurse held out the phone to him and he took it.

  “How can I help?” Walter said. His words were brisk and his tone cold.

  He couldn’t say iron poisoning and needing a vampire’s help in public. In a soft voice he said, “I tore my hand open on a rusted nail.”

  Walter would know what that meant and how serious it was. The doctor was silent for a heartbeat or two, but when he spoke his voice had lost the edge. “Put the nurse back on.”

  Finley smiled and handed her the phone. Blood smeared the white plastic. She grimaced and tried to hide it by widening her fake smile. She nodded a couple of times as she talked to the doctor. “Are you sure? Okay. Okay. I’ll do it.”

  She hung up and took a moment to compose herself. “Follow me, sir.” Her voice was full of ice.

  Apparently, he was abusing some kind of privilege as well as making her life hard. She took him to the room where she’d taken the photos of his ears.

  “He said to have a seat and wait for him.” It was then she glanced down and saw the blood on his jeans and hand. “You should have gone to the emergency room. Dr. Silverman does plastic surgery, not stitches.” She spun on her heel and left.

  Finley sat, tipped his head back and rested on the wall. At least Walter was going to see him. That was a win. He texted Alina to let her know that so far everything was okay.

  The cut on his hand wasn’t that bad. It probably needed a stitch or two, but that wouldn’t stop the bleeding. With no clotting, he’d bruise more easily and every injury could be fatal. Because he’d eaten iron it would happen that much faster. His intestines would start to leak and then if he was really lucky something in his brain would rupture. Julian had given him far too much information about what was going to happen and not nearly enough on how to stop it.

  Alina was right; the Albah really should have spent some time looking at ways to fix this. But he’d also been right about why they hadn’t.

  The door opened and the doctor walked in. He looked at Finley and genuinely seemed shocked. For a vampire, he seemed very alive. It was disconcerting.

  Walter’s gaze quickly assessed Finley’s condition. “Well, I didn’t expect you to come here and bleed all over the place.”

  Finley was very tempted to make a comment about vampires and blood but didn’t. For the moment, he’d act as though he didn’t know that Walter was a vampire. “You’re the only Albah doctor I know.”

  Walter pulled over a stool, snapped on some gloves and examined Finley’s hand. The gloves protected him from the silver ring, but they were also part of his job. No doctor wanted to get bodily fluids on them. Walter’s hands were cold. But some people had cold hands. Finley needed to know if Walter had a pulse. It was hard to tell by simply staring at the doctor’s neck above his collar.

  “Guardians did this? Are they still making a nuisance of themselves?” Walter spread the skin and inspected the wound.

  Finley had to look away. The pain in his hand wasn’t any worse than the ache in his body. The rust was spreading and he couldn’t eat enough silver to counteract it. Even if he hadn’t eaten rust, there would’ve still been enough in the wound to make him ill.

  “Yeah, they’re pissy about the Albanex being made, broken treaty and all that.” He lifted his gaze to Walter’s face, searching for a telltale flinch or something. Nothing.

  “They have been killing us from the day the treaty was signed. Those who signed it were too stupid and too trusting to believe anything else.” Walter’s words were laced with disdain.

  While Finley knew he was getting dangerously close to calling Walter a vampire, he couldn’t retreat now. “Is that why your family broke away?”

  Walter nodded. “Guardians have always wanted us dead. Why would they settle for anything less?”

  Maybe they’d hoped for peace. There was nothing wrong with hoping for an end to hostilities. Perhaps the Albah had thought they
’d struck a good deal with the Guardians, one they could all live with. Finley kept those thoughts to himself. Walter’s family had walked away from the Albah in disgust, believing the Guardians would keep killing and they’d been proven right. “Tell me you have been searching for a cure for iron poisoning, because no one else has.”

  “There’s always been a cure. Even two hundred years ago, they knew the cure.” The cold from Walter’s hand seeped through the thin plastic glove.

  Finley had a horrible feeling he knew what that cure was and he didn’t want it to be offered. “Albanex? There has to be another way. They can treat humans for lead poisoning.”

  Walter stared at him. “It’s not so bad.”

  “No. It’s not for me.” He wasn’t going to let himself think about it. But he already was. Was it better to be alive in any form than be dead? There were things he still wanted to do. He needed to talk to his mother. The last time she’d tried to make contact he’d brushed her off, not wanting her to see his wounds. Now his wounds would never heal. He was very tempted to ask what it was like living on blood magic. Did it really feel like living? Walter seemed alive. No. “I need something to make my blood clot. There has to be some other way to slow this down or stop it.”

  “I can give you something to get your blood clotting, but that won’t stop the poison. It’s not like lead poisoning in humans. It can’t be chelated out. The microscopic particles are the poison. They aren’t binding with your blood and tissue. They’re simply stopping your body from doing what it should because of what you are.” Walter spoke with the level tone of a doctor used to talking to a patient who didn’t want to hear bad news.

  “Silver won’t help?” Finley was hoping for a miracle, but he already knew the silver he’d had earlier had had no effect.

  “It will buy you time. But eventually you will want to be free of the pain. You will want magic back. You will want to know the secrets of the Albanex.”

  “How did you learn them? Did you make yourself?” They were questions that his father would want to know the answers to. Finley just wanted a cure that didn’t involve becoming undead. There had to be one.

  Walter smiled. “My family has always known. Only I was brave enough to try to help others make the change. It didn’t work at first. It was most unfortunate.”

  “Didn’t work?” Walter had killed Albah while experimenting.

  “They died. Blood magic is more powerful and more dangerous than anything you’ve ever touched. You think mastering an element is skill.” Walter shook his head. “That’s like a child who has learned to catch comparing themselves to a professional baseball player.”

  “So why haven’t you killed me?” It would be easy for Walter to kill him and make sure that Finley never revealed what Walter was. “Why help me when you know that the making of Albanex is forbidden?”

  “I don’t answer to the king. Families that walk away have left that behind. Sometimes we get together, and other times people vanish.” A flicker of sadness crossed his face.

  Finley nodded. “Some choose to try to be human.” It was dangerous being Albah when Guardians still hunted.

  Will wasn’t even a Guardian. All it took was one man who wanted revenge for some imagined slight. One man with a bit of knowledge about the Albah and Finley was done, murdered in a way no one would ever pin on Will.

  Walter brought over a bright metal tray. A needle in its crisp packet and sterile swabs slid around the shiny surface. “I’m going to stitch your hand. Give you something to buy you a little more time. I’ll even prescribe a painkiller. I want you to realize that not all Albanex are bloodthirsty monsters.”

  “Some of the Albah you turned have become exactly that.” He drew his hand back as Walter prepared a syringe. “How do I know you aren’t about to drug me and turn me against my will?” He was putting a lot of trust in a man who wasn’t even alive, and who’d admitted to killing other Albah in his quest to learn how to make Albanex.

  Walter gave a low chuckle. “It doesn’t work like that. It takes time, planning and you’d need to want it. You need to be willing to kill someone you love. Their blood causes the change. You don’t love anything but yourself and your microscopic stardom. If you died today, how long until you were forgotten?”

  Not long. He wasn’t ready to be forgotten when he was only starting to live. “And becoming bloodthirsty is a better option?”

  “Those that became killers chose to. It had nothing to do with the blood magic and everything to do with who they are.”

  “You need a better screening process.” Finley winced as Walter injected anesthetic.

  Finley didn’t want to know who Walter killed to make the change himself. It was reassuring to know that he couldn’t become a vampire because he didn’t love anyone, but then he thought of Alina waiting for him in his car. Did she love him? He liked her and they were having fun and it was so nice to be able to use magic around someone instead of hiding all the time. That wasn’t love though, was it?

  He’d managed to avoid falling in love simply because no one could ever get to know who he really was. That had been his excuse for never getting close to anyone. Alina had destroyed that reasoning.

  Finley kept his eyes on the bland cream wall as the doctor worked. There was no pain even though he could feel the tugging of each stitch. Asking a vampire for help was going to be a bill no insurance would ever cover. “Why help me, buy me more time if I am fated to die?” The word stuck in his throat.

  He didn’t have to die. There was another way. The rapid beat of his heart would stop if he chose that path. Walter only breathed when he spoke and his hands were cool because he was dead and had no circulation.

  “There is no such thing as fate. We make our own with every choice. I know you are wondering if you could be like me…what would it be like to be immortal?” Walter’s lip curved in a small smile. “You don’t love magic, and you don’t like power either. Life without a passion isn’t living, Finley Ryder.”

  “There are other passions.”

  Walter bandaged Finley’s hand. “If all you live for is sex then old age will disappoint you as much as being Albanex.”

  No sex. An eternity of no sex. Walter had thought that a fine trade for immortality. Finley would rather be dead. Maybe. Death was rather final.

  “You don’t need to become Albanex to live. The iron that kills you has no effect on me. It doesn’t dampen my magic. There has been a cure for iron poisoning for as long as there have been Albanex. Before the ban on making them one would simply pay the local Albanex a visit with an offering of fresh blood. I can draw the iron out of you.” Walter smiled.

  Finley’s heart stuttered. All this talk of becoming Albanex and there was a way to actually cure him. “So do it! Why do all of this?”

  “I want something in return.”

  “You want me to bring you someone to kill?” Not even Will deserved that fate, even though Finley had vowed to feed him to a vampire. That had been anger and fear doing his thinking. He glanced at Walter. Even if it meant saving his life, handing over Will would make him no better than Walter.

  Although Will did know rather a lot about the Albah, so maybe meeting a vampire would round out his knowledge and take care of the troublemaker at the same time. No. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t a killer.

  “Nothing so simple.”

  Of course it wouldn’t be. Walter didn’t need Finley to bring him food.

  “I want to know the location of the Keeper. I know there is one somewhere in the hills. I’ve sensed it. But I’ve never found it.”

  “Why would you want that?” But as he spoke he realized there was only one reason. Walter wanted to wake the Keeper. A vampire that had been sleeping for several thousand years was going to wake up hungry.

  The idea of waking such a creature was chilling, but Walter was excited. His eyes were bright, t
hough lacking silver. Finley was numb and not just from the anesthetic. No good would come from waking a Keeper.

  Walter’s passion for all things magical was clear as his expression became animated. “It is time that the Albah learned the truth about what happened and relearned what was lost before we are lost.”

  Meanwhile his father was talking about endangered species breeding programs. His father wouldn’t agree to waking a Keeper. Some magic was best forgotten. “That’ll never happen.”

  “You forget. I have all the time in the world to wait. Your father won’t be king forever. Nor will your brothers. I’m not the only one who wants to save the Albah and bring back lost magic.” The gleam in his eyes was most unsettling. It was a reminder that the doctor wasn’t human.

  Finley tried to move his hand. It was still nicely numb.

  He wished his heart was as numb. He didn’t want to hear his father veto the idea and sign his death warrant in the same breath.

  * * * *

  Alina leaned against the car, waiting for Finley. She was trying not to worry. Walter was her grandfather, but he was the same man her mother had feared and hidden them from after having her ears fixed. And he was possibly a vampire.

  It hadn’t been an hour since he’d texted her and she figured that text had reset the one-hour freak-out period.

  Maybe Walter was actually helping him.

  She checked her phone again, then scanned up the block for Finley. No sign of him. But someone across the road was watching her. A man in a cap. He lifted a camera and snapped a photo.

  Will. He had a face that was unmemorable, but it was imprinted on her mind now. She’d never overlook him again. Nor would Finley. In that respect Will had achieved.

  She gathered moisture from the air, coating her hand with the dew. Her magic may not be strong, but it was reassuring to have something that no one expected. She made herself smile at him as if nothing were seriously wrong. He didn’t know that she knew what was going on.

  Will lowered the camera and waved. Then he raced across the road as though she’d given him an invitation to come over and talk to her.