“Bashing the guild won’t win you any favours,” I said. “It’s thanks to the magical laws set by the guild that people like you aren’t running amok, sucking the souls out of innocent people. No wonder you give zero shits that the person you just fought off two vampires with carries the soul of a dead witch who hijacked my body without my permission.”
“Don’t mistake my pragmatism for indifference, Jas. I’ve been trying to work out how to handle this unfortunate development ever since I realised the shade wasn’t you.”
“Guess we’re back to square one now your exorcist friend’s met an unfortunate end.”
“I wouldn’t call us friends,” he said. “More acquaintances.”
My hands curled into fists. “Are you incapable of taking this seriously? There are dead bodies here in broad daylight, and now I’m required by law to hand them over to the guild before a rogue reanimates them.”
“Technically, they belong to the vampires, since they’ve already been used as hosts.”
“You and I both know that so far I’ve met more vampires who want to kill me than not. Dispose of them.”
Apparently he saw something in my expression that wasn’t worth arguing with, because he pulled out his knife and hacked the nearest undead’s head clean off.
“I meant with magic, you complete dingbat.” How I had I ever thought this guy would actually help me out?
“I wanted to identify him first.” He lifted the man’s head, then put it back down. “From the smell of him, he’s been near the covens recently.”
“What? Seriously?” Maybe it was the witches I should have spoken to after all. Isabel had yet to text me with an update on her progress with questioning people at the market, though I’d asked her to call me if I didn’t return from my meeting with Keir within the hour. I felt in my pocket and found one of the spells Isabel had given me. “Watch out,” I warned Keir, and threw it at the bodies, which instantly dissolved in a flash of flame.
“That’s an impressive spell,” he commented. “One of yours?”
“Nah, my mentor made it,” I said. “It’s not like it’s much help in the spirit realm, with my witchy alter-ego piloting my body. So, if you hate the guild so much, who do you report rogues to? Or is it every vampire for themselves?”
“No, I’m planning to tell the king of the vampires in this city,” he said. “He’s no friend of the guild, but he’s met with Lady Montgomery and is considered a trusted asset of your council. I’m sure he’d be willing to answer your questions. Provided you don’t let on that you’re from the guild.”
“There’s a king?” I raised an eyebrow. “And he’d believe I’m a rogue?”
Despite my reservations, I was through playing it safe. The spirit had taken control of my body without my permission, and if there was a vampire who might be able to help, even a little, it was worth a try.
“I think you can convince him,” he responded.
I blinked, unsure whether he was making fun or not. “All right, then. I’ll come and meet the vampire king.”
12
Keir led me through the back streets for long enough that I wished I’d sketched a map as we walked. I was generally pretty good with directions and had purposefully got myself lost in different places each week when I’d first arrived in the city so I’d learn my way around quickly, but the vampires’ haunts were an unknown territory. Especially the home of their king.
“It’s more of a chosen title than a ceremonial one,” Keir explained as we walked into a darkening street lit by a single street lamp. I’d be in the wrong job if I was scared of the dark, but today’s encounter with the fury had made me edgy. Fighting in near-darkness was tricky at the best of times, but conventional necromancy didn’t work on vampires the way it did on my usual opponents. And besides, I’d barely escaped a fight with two of them unscathed. I didn’t want to go up against a horde.
“Relax,” Keir said softly, apparently picking up on my tension. “They won’t hurt you.”
“Look, I literally just got attacked by two of you. I’m not optimistic.”
“That’s why we need to speak to the king. Rogues make the rest of us look bad. Even worse than normal,” he added, having apparently caught my train of thought. “If you can believe that.”
“I raise and lay the dead to rest for a living,” I told him. “I’m in no position to question anyone else’s life choices. Does vampirism run in the family in the same way as other magic types? I guess it does.”
He shrugged. “In a way. Why?”
“Just curious if you follow the same rules as other supernaturals. You don’t have council representatives…”
“Because while we might have a king, we’re not an organised collective,” he said, passing underneath the street lamp. Its light made his skin glow faintly ghostlike. “And there aren’t enough of us.”
I’d suspected there must be, otherwise I’d surely have run into a vampire or three in the spirit realm before. “Can a necromancer be born a vampire? I mean, you’re related, right?”
“Only as superficially as a wolf shifter and a dragon shifter.”
“With you as the dragon?”
Even white teeth showed as he grinned. “Naturally.”
I gave him an eye-roll. “Is this vampire king a relation of yours, then?”
“No,” he said. “My family is gone.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I looked away for a brief moment. “The invasion?”
“Mostly,” he said, not elaborating further.
Okay. Sore topic—and none of my business. He didn’t need to know my history any more than I needed to know his. “So what do vampires do for a living? I take it you’re not filthy rich like the mages are.”
“No, I work as a freelancer,” he said. “There are a lot of specialist jobs only a vampire can do.”
I cast my mind around. “Spying on people? Pretending to be the recently dead? But you don’t actually… kill the people you possess. That’s illegal.”
“Oh, I play by the rules.” Another flash of teeth. “Mostly. I can use my zombies to get into places that it would be difficult for a living person to access.”
“Useful,” I commented. “Seems like a good fit for the guild. I take it you can use standard necromancy as well?”
“I can,” he confirmed. “But I’m self-taught, for the most part. I had a somewhat unstable childhood. You haven’t always worked for the guild? You’re English.”
“I grew up in a witch orphanage.” I didn’t add the part about Lady Harper taking me to live with the mages. He didn’t seem to be particularly keen on supernatural authority figures, and besides, the less he knew about my coven, the better. “Then I moved here to train at the guild, since I was better at necromancy than witchcraft.”
“And now you have both.” His eyes gleamed with interest. “We do have more in common than I thought.”
I didn’t take his bait. “Yes, my relatives decided to make me into a host for an evil spirit, so I’m starting to think crazy attracts crazy.”
His brow arched. “And there I was thinking you disliked my company.”
Oh, shit. Bad choice of words there, Jas.
His steps halted beside a tall house with a high railing around the front garden. Behind, a set of stone steps led to a basement flat. “The vampires’ king lives down there.”
“I expected a palace.” I hesitated, then walked after him down the steep stone steps. “Unless there’s a cave down here?”
“More of a tunnel.”
Of course. Even the necromancers weren’t that stereotypical. Okay, we did have an underground dungeon beneath the guild, but most of our activity was aboveground.
Keir rapped on the chipped black-painted door with his knuckles. His shoulders were a little tense, while his free hand twitched on the knife handle visible in his pocket. Maybe he wasn’t as sold on their accepting a guild necromancer—not to mention a Hemlock witch—wandering into their territory as he’d claimed.
If they all knew the Hemlocks, everyone in here might be a potential enemy.
The door opened, but nobody greeted us. Keir paused briefly, then walked into the darkness. It was so pitch-black that the room within might have been any size and I wouldn’t have known. Stretching my hands out either side and finding walls made of cold plaster, I figured we must be in a hallway. “Why not buy electric lighting? He’s a king, right? Nobody can see in here.”
“Technically, we can, if we use the spirit realm,” he said. “And on that note, he’s been able to hear everything we’ve said ever since we reached the house.”
“Wonderful.” Any powerful necromancer could do the same, but if I checked into the spirit realm to sense whoever was in this room, I’d leave myself open to being taken over the person who shared my body again. If Evelyn saw the vampires as a threat and lashed out, the consequences would land on my head, not hers.
We walked for several more metres before a ceiling light snapped on, revealing a room with earthen walls. I’d call it more of a cave than a tunnel, though several other openings branched off in places which might have contained doors before someone had torn them down and turned the basement into an underground lair.
I tensed as several people came out of those cave-like openings, all dressed in casual clothing and not visibly armed. I’d peg them as non-supernatural from the outside… if not for the shadowy outlines that appeared behind each of them when I risked a glimpse into the spirit realm. Needless to say, there wasn’t a pair of fangs in sight.
“Why did you bring a guild necromancer here?” One of the vampires stepped towards me. He had a strong jawline peppered with light brown stubble, and muscles that would make a full-grown shifter whine with envy. What was with these people? Did they spend every moment they weren’t vamping out tossing weights around?
Wait. How did he know I was from the guild? It wasn’t like I wore the coat. Dammit, Keir.
“I brought her here,” said Keir, “because both of us were attacked by rogue vampires. They murdered Nate and sent him to kill both of us.”
“Nate?” The vampire sat down in an armchair as though it was a throne, his fellow vampires milling around him. “I never liked him.”
Keir stiffened next to me. “Did you hear me? At least one rogue is still out there. He stole a group of undead from me and used them to attack several innocent people.”
“Bring it to the summit on Thursday,” said the vampire king, putting his feet up on a stool. “You can make your case then.”
“That’s too long,” said Keir. “The rogues have tried to kill us multiple times in the last few days. They’re risking our security.”
The vampire king shrugged, accepting a drink from one of his fellow vampires. It looked blood-red in the light, but I’d bet it wasn’t actually blood. “I hardly think we can keep track of every rogue. You’re too good at making enemies, Keir.”
“Does the guild know that?” I asked. “Because that’s skirting awfully close to violating the necromancers’ rulebook, if you let these vampires walk around unchecked while knowing they’re likely to assault innocent people. Just saying.”
Keir shot me a warning look.
“If they violate the laws, we take care of them ourselves,” said the vampire king, removing his feet from the stool and rising smoothly to his feet. “As we will be doing, in our own time. You’re responsible for your own safety, not us, guild lackey.”
“What did you just call me?” Picking a fight with the vampire’s king had not been on my plan, but this was the guy who’d met with Lady Montgomery, and I’d bet he’d never dream of speaking like that to her.
“That’s not all we came to ask you,” interjected Keir. “The vampires who attacked us might be working with someone from the witch markets.”
The vampires’ king scanned my face. “Witch, are you?”
“None of your business,” I said. Considering his cavalier attitude to us being attacked by two of his fellow vampires, I didn’t need everyone in this cave to know I had anything to do with the witches whatsoever. “We came here to ask if you were aware of any vampires going rogue. Since the answer is ‘I don’t give a shit,’ I think we’re done.”
“The vampires in this room choose to be here,” he said. “I don’t require them to carry a membership card, which is more than I can say for your guild.”
“Good for you,” I said, not taking the bait. “If you want to argue with guild representatives, you’re welcome to speak to my supervisor instead. I’m sure she’ll be interested to know some of your people attempted to murder the two of us. Like it or not, if she thinks you had anything to do with their actions, it’s grounds for an arrest warrant.”
His face reddened. “How dare you threaten me in my home?”
“I’m not threatening you, but I have every intention of reporting your rogues to the guild, and if I do, I have to tell them that you refused to help us. I just figured I’d warn you first.”
The vampire king glared at Keir. “Get her out.”
“Think about it,” I said to him. “You can sit here in your mother’s basement and refuse to take any action, or you can help us find the rogues and not have to watch your reputation burn to cinders.” I didn’t know the in-depth workings of vampire society, but with the mages at least, reputation was everything.
“Great-aunt’s,” growled the vampire king.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Great-aunt’s basement. And besides, I don’t own every vampire in the city. Take your little feud elsewhere. I’ll have no part in it.”
“With pleasure.” I grabbed Keir’s arm and hauled him after me. Once I was sure the others were out of hearing distance, I leaned over to hiss in his ear. “You brought me here so I’d hassle the king into taking action, didn’t you? You can’t threaten him on the guild’s behalf on your own, so you decided to make use of your new contact. Me.”
His pause lasted a second too long. Before he came out with an excuse, I said, “Are you trying to get me fired on top of fucking up my life? Because I’m legally required to send guild people down here to bang a few heads together if someone doesn’t take some goddamn responsibility.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I can’t argue for the guild myself, and besides, it’s unlikely they would be able to pick up on a rogue vampire until someone’s life was at risk. I wanted to handle the problem before it came to that.”
“Well, it went swimmingly.”
Between playing games with him, the vampires, the Hemlock witches, and Evelyn, I was in dire need of a nap. I texted Isabel and Lloyd telling them the evening was a bust, and Keir and I climbed the stone steps into near-darkness. Even the lone street lamp had gone out—and two heavyset figures blocked the road.
“Can I help you with something?” My hand inched towards my knife. “Or are you here to see the king?”
“You never should have come here, witch,” said the vampire on the left, in a raspy voice.
“Seriously?” I reached for my own weapon. “You want to do this here, right next to your king’s house?”
“He won’t interfere.”
Oh, wonderful.
I blocked his strike with my forearm, kicking him in the shins. I’d had enough training to be reasonably confident in taking down someone with no combat ability, but his punch had been too well-aimed to belong to someone who didn’t know what he was doing. Unless I got lucky, I’d have to use my necromantic skills… which put me at risk of putting Evelyn in the driver’s seat again.
Bloody vampires.
The second vampire grappled with Keir, so I focused my attention on the big guy in front of me. I’d never gone up against a living human in a to-the-death brawl, and he had about a hundred pounds of muscle on me. But while necromancy might be designed for the dead, it could still deal a hell of a blow to the living.
Kinetic energy burst from my hands, but the vampire shook it off as though I’d thrown a handful of glitter at him. His hands latche
d onto my shoulders—not in the physical world, but the spirit realm. Coldness spread throughout me, grey fog filling my vision. Oh hell.
He was draining me—fast. I could no longer feel my living body, only the coldness of death, paralysing me to the very soul. Through the blurred fog, I watched my body drop to the ground, the knife falling from my grip--
“Where the hell are you, Evelyn?” It didn’t matter if he heard. I was going to die. No—both of us were.
No. I’m not.
I felt for that power—that relentless presence that I’d felt when the spirit took control of me the first time. The same magic that permeated the forest, a depthless force without end. My body glowed with it, and I wrenched myself free from the vampire’s grip. His shadowy form recoiled, and as I raised my hands to strike, a second pair of hands rose beside mine.
I tilted my head to the side and looked into grey-blue eyes in a face with high cheekbones, full lips, blemish-free ghostly skin. Loose curls flowed in a non-existent breeze.
“Shade,” growled the vampire, and I snapped my attention back onto him.
“He can only drain one of us,” whispered Evelyn Hemlock.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard her speak, but now I saw her in person, it struck me that she wasn’t much older than I was.
“He’s in two places at once,” I hissed, keeping one eye on his shadowy form, which he’d detached from his body to drain me without physically moving at all. “I need to take my body back.”
“Then take it.” Her hands lit up with blue light, and she blasted it at the vampire with all her might.
I closed my eyes and blinked out of Death back into my body, feeling ice crack on my hands as I clenched my fists. My knees smarted where I’d landed on the pavement, but the vampire’s body stood rigid in front of me. The spirit was occupying all his attention. Maybe he wasn’t such a powerful vampire after all.
I gripped my knife and stabbed upwards, but his hand caught mine. Okay, I take that back.
Witch's Shadow (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 1) Page 12
