Blood

by Kay Williams

  This one had a large work area below, there must have been a cellar of some kind below that had been reinforced in an effort to contain me. This large space above that looked more made for office staff and the windows had been put in place so the manager could look down from on high and judge his resources without having to engage them, how like Long to have taken this place as his.

  At the other end of the building the steel roof had long gouges in it, claw marks and tears that had been left by Aolir, he swept by in that instant, hard and fast in a fly by that rattled the windows and the steel.

  There was no sign of the Councillors, or of Long, and surprisingly few guards. Aolir had said the day at the fair there had been five of them, including Long, which left how many?

  Snow I had killed inside the museum.

  The Mage was dead before I woke.

  The Doctor by the axe.

  That left Long and one more.

  The problem with my math was that the Doctor had mentioned that Aolir had reduced

  three more to ash, that meant I couldn't rely on there just being one more foe to decapitate. There could be more than I realised, Aolir did another fly by at that instant this time using his claws on the steel and ripping a huge slice of the roof top away. I caught the fleeting impression of dark red scales, pale claws, and a tail at least twice as long as I was tall before he was gone.

  I followed the windows which led to a door, that opened onto an iron walkway, I leant over the rail I was worried that I couldn’t see Long or at least the one remaining man. I tried to be quiet on the iron and my trainers were soft soled but everything was so quiet, and the warehouse so empty, that even my best efforts echoed.

  I didn’t feel safe, my blood was running hot, and I could hear my own heart against my skin as if it was trying to break free. I consoled myself that Aolir’s distraction could have been successful enough to lure Long into the Council and they had them in custody already. But if that was the case, why was the dragon still conducting his fly-bys. Unless it was to give me confidence that he was still there and still trying to help.

  If the size of his tail was anything to go by he would be a massive creature, far too big to fit in the warehouse.

  I tightened my mental grip on the axe, I wasn’t going to run the risk of assuming I was safe until I actually was; I had never been much of a gambler.

  I crept along the walkway, eased down a set of stairs, at the bottom the warehouse stretched out in a daunting amount of open space before the huge shutter and the door at the other end. Behind me was a windowless room with an empty doorway. I inched towards it; buildings were always designed with emergency exits, if there were none in the warehouse except the shutter and the door at the other end there must be other closer exits through whatever this room was.

  I erected a shield, I needed the reassurance the extra level of protection offered me. Stepping through the door I was instantly grateful for it when a fist came out of the concealed left side.

  It made me flinch and I fell against the door jamb just as the fist connected with my shield. If it had been my cheek it would have shattered my bones and I would have been unconscious before I even knew what had hit me. Dependants didn’t have an active nervous system and couldn’t feel pain, which meant that they could throw a punch or a kick as hard as they liked. Any damage they did to themselves would be healed by the virus and feeding on fresh blood.

  As it was, the huge fist met my shield and my shield held firm.

  The breaking of bones echoed as the hand crumpled, the fingers broke out of the knuckles, the metacarpals fractured and snapped upwards out of the flesh, the wrist broke and with a grunt born of shock and surprise the rest of the body slumped against what looked like thin air. He was a big man looking in his early sixties, at over six foot he was the taller than Aolir, he was unfit with a pot belly, double chin and had been ageing ungracefully with a receding hairline. Unlike popular Earthling Pre-Pause Vampire myths becoming a Dependant didn’t lend any grace or physical perfection, once you died you were stuck with exactly what you had died with. Dieting and exercise had no benefit on a dead body, the only thing that was a given was that they would wake being able to Bespell. With a flick of a mental command he was flying across the room and landed in the midst of abandoned tables and chairs that had one time been some kind of lunchroom or cafeteria.

  I didn’t give him a chance to find his balance, the axe swept past me, he sat up in the wreckage and managed a strangled kind of scream that sounded like he was calling for help before the axe arced in a perfect swing and took his head off.

  His body dropped, his head bounced off the axe handle and landed on the wreckage.

  My shield was covered in blood and the axe was also wet with it, the thick liquid dribbling down the metal to drip like a leaky tap on to the floor with little splashing sounds that were too loud to my ears.

  I was shaking now, not because of the continued use of my abstract as I had expected but because of the adrenaline that was flooding my system and wouldn’t be ignored.

  I eased a little further into the room and leant against the wall trying to calm my breathing. I was too powerful to be called helpless, but it would have been nice to be rescued. To have someone come to my defence and wrap me up and promise me everything would be alright. Instead, I had killed twice more, it had been my choice to do that; I couldn’t blame anyone else for it. I was accountable and I dearly wished someone else had given the order and was to take a share of the responsibility.

  These people had threatened me, they would have done much worse to me then given me a swift clean death but I was guilty for defending myself. I had never struck first, but looking down at yet another body I couldn’t help but see it as a waste of life. What could that man have done with Eternity if he had put aside his power hungry ambitions and likely petty injustices?

  Was he a thinker or a doer? Could he have had some great latent creative talent?

  It didn’t matter now, he was to face the Dark before Lore with the decisions he had made, and the pain he had suffered, and the grievances he had caused.

  I wished him luck, everyone needed that hope, and each time I took a life, though I knew the tally would not be held against me, I couldn’t help but feel that the death couldn’t possibly be helping my soul to fill with the strength it would need to find peace.

  I passed the body and found the emergency exit at the far end, half hidden behind a stack to chairs that looked as though they had been moved there to conceal it.

  I wanted to move them aside with my hands, they weren’t that heavy and I was feeling disconnected from the world and the moment I was in by constantly hiding behind my shield and swinging an axe with an abstract command rather than with my own two hands. But there was far more blood on my shield from the close fight then there had been before and I didn’t want to run the risk of infection.

  The whole building suddenly tilted violently to one side and huge pale claws penetrated the brickwork as Aolir landed on the flimsy structure.

  A command threw the chairs to one side and another opened the door.

  “Hannah! No!”

  I hardly heard Carson above the bang.

  I had never heard a gunshot outside of a movie before and I had no idea they were so deafening, or the silence afterwards so charged and laden with expectation.

  I had turned my head away and closed my eyes, my shoulders hunched up as I waited for the pain, but there wasn’t any.

  It took me a full minute of standing there, in the doorway, my shield up, the axe hovering in the air behind me, with only my quivering and frightened breathing for company before I realised I was safe.

  I opened my eyes, they were still directed back into the room and it was strangely

  comforting to see the blood still dripping off the axe and knowing that it wasn’t mine.

  I finally found the strength and self-possession to lift my head.

  Outside the room was a yard surrounded by
a partially collapsed fence and lines like parking bays painted on the tarmac, to one side was the Dependant Council the four of them rather uselessly tied and contained. I momentarily forgot everything at the sight of Aolir in all his glory. He was a massive creature the scale of which I couldn't compare to anything I had ever seen , he had a long thick tail, a massive body with powerful back legs, a wing span larger than any plane constructed. Instead of front legs he had large claws at the elbow of his wings, he had a huge rounded chest, a relatively short neck that supported a head the size of a saloon car with a long rounded muzzle that appeared to be mostly mouth and teeth and decorated with a crest made of bone.

  The scales that had always felt tiny, soft and delicate on my skin were now larger then my head. Still in the same hexagonal pattern but each one looked impenetrable, solid and unforgiving. He was staring at me through the same dark expressive eyes as I was used to, I saw the shock, relief and hesitation there and I wished he were low enough, and it was safe enough for me to lower my shield so that I could touch him.

  A knowing look softened the tightness in his eyes and I knew that it didn’t matter what his form was, in his head and his heart he was still my dragon.

  My gaze jumped to the shocked faces of all four Councillors, each one chained to the ground, and then down to see where the bullet slug had hit my shield and bounced off it.

  A fist was one thing, but a bullet?

  I looked up to find the gun in the hand of Long, he was clearly as dumbstruck as the rest of us, his hand was shaking with his frustration and his anger and I had the feeling he would pull the trigger again sooner rather than later. I swiftly sidestepped and the axe whistled passed me. Long had time to open his eyes wide in surprise; before the axe embedded itself in a table that hadn’t been in front of him moments before, the force of my throw still threw the table back into Long and took him off his feet.

  Long shoved the fragmented table to one side and I was too busy trying to work out where the table had come from to realise that Long was ready to disarm me. He shattered a vial of some liquid over the axe blade and the instant Long struck the tarmac with it the axe became semi swallowed by it.

  For the first time since waking I discovered a limit to my abstract, I could stop bullets but the axe refused to break free of the tarmac, whatever potion or magic Long had used was stronger than I was.

  Long’s smug expression as he lifted the gun again was short-lived when I took hold of his hand and turned the weapon back on himself. He dropped his hand as if he thought that it would mean that the gun would fall to the floor, but it made no difference, the Council couldn’t be harmed, Aolir was safely behind me and my shield was up so I pulled the trigger.

  Long spun as the force of the bullet whipped his head hard to the left and he crumpled.

  The air around him shimmered and several tables made up in a haphazard wall appeared. Long had never shown any sign that he was capable of magic without help and as potions and enchantments would continue once cast until the effects wore off; there was only one explanation for the invisible furniture that made sense. At some time, or somewhere, Long had had an abstract capable of invisibility.

  I had no idea if Long would be getting up quickly from a gunshot wound to his head. He wasn't beheaded so he wasn't really dead; he was just resting while waiting for the virus to repair the damage. Even so I felt relatively safe to just sit down and catch my breath and wonder about how I was supposed to clean my shield.

  Aolir slithered down off the building and got as close as he dared to too my bloody shield, he purred softly and shot the Council a look I didn’t understand before he turned, leapt onto his front claws in a bound as large as a football pitch was long, brought his back legs together just behind his front ones and launched skywards beating his massive wings to get airborne.

  I couldn’t help but feel abandoned after I had done all the work.

  “Do you think you can rummage through Long’s pockets and find the key to our shackles?” Carson spoke in the silence his voice tinged with no small amount of embarrassed chagrin.

  I sighed, was a proper rescue too much to ask for?

  Ignoring the little indignant voice in my head that told me to leave the useless lot right where they were, I did as I was asked and offered up the keys to Carson who gratefully accepted them out of the air, freed himself and then his friends.

  # # #

  Long met his end on his knees in front of Valdine.

  It had taken almost nine hours for the virus to reanimate his body. He had come around in Council custody, he was read his rights, and he was offered the chance to call a lawyer, which he refused.

  In the end, despite all evidence to the contrary, the Council had worked together very effectively to offer any Dependant the chance to come and speak in Long’s defence. When no-one had stepped forward they had taken Long into a contained room and read him a long list of his crimes, including murder, kidnap, forced imprisonment and forced Bespelling, along with a lot of other smaller charges I hadn’t really been interested in. Long hadn’t been given another chance to defend himself, Valdine had quietly moved behind him, unsheathed a sword and had removed Long’s head in a much more elegant display then my blunt force axe swinging.

  Throughout it all Aolir had stood behind me, once again in his Human form, one arm looped around my waist, his cheek resting against the side of my head. He had recommended I skip this but I needed to see it.

  I had killed three people because of Long, I wasn’t sure I knew who I was anymore, I didn’t know what I was capable of, I didn’t even think I liked the person who had allowed an axe to drink deeply of so much blood.

  Carson had also told me that several record books and data discs recovered from the warehouse had led to three raids across the Greater London area, which had resulted in the rescue of four other abstracts being held and abused by Long, including the man who had been able to make things invisible.

  So I had told Aolir that I needed to see this, I needed to see this loose end tied off, it felt like the only one I would get.

  When it was over I had turned and buried my face into Aolir’s soft scale neck and closed my eyes suddenly exhausted, he petted my hair and made that comforting purring

  noise.

  It had felt like more than nine hours since I had put a bullet in Long’s head.

  Once Carson had freed the other members of the Council they had divided. Ross and Valdine had secured Long while Carson and Shay had started to clean my shield, Aolir had come back after a couple of minutes. Although I had managed to remain serious at the time. I knew that the sight of the mighty dragon descending with his cheeks puffed out with water was a memory that would always make me smile when I was alone.

  Aolir had sprayed my shield, washing it down so I could drop the top and half of it. Aolir had reached inside very gently with a large front claw and lift me out of the dry safe box and away from the water and blood mix. When he had put me back down he had looked too worried and I had been compelled to lean against his wing bone and tell him how magnificent he was. His smug, pleased expression left me in little doubt that he would never let me forget I said so.

  I had stayed by Aolir’s side in safety while the Dependants called in reinforcements and secured the area against the risk of infection; Carson had eventually disengaged himself from the task and come to explain what had happened.

  After I had passed out, before anyone could have done anything, Long had grabbed me and the mage had teleported the three of them out of the line of sight, leaving him, the Council and Cornwall in a battle with the men Long had arrived with who had apparently become very surprised to be abandoned by their leader.

  By the time they had contained them Aolir had felt the tamper with his Spell but had confirmed that it had been a poor attempt and he could trace my exact position.

  They had arrived quietly enough but they had all made the mistake of thinking that because the mage hadn’t been able to deconstruct Aoli
r’s layered wards that he had been weak in all areas. In fact the mage had been very talented in triggers and traps, which had been set in advance. Coupled with the invisibility abstract that Long had consumed and absorbed in preparation for my kidnap, the Council had found themselves shackled before they had a chance to even attempt a rescue.

  Aolir had done much better, Long hadn't been ready to contain a dragon and he had shifted and burn the last of Long’s support staff. He had done what he could to make things difficult for Long and the one man who had avoided becoming ash but he hadn’t wanted to risk collapsing the building when he had no idea where I was being kept and if tearing the warehouse down would trap me in the rubble.

  Carson had given me a lift back to his bungalow where I had taken a long hot shower and been given a change of clothes. I had emerged from the bathroom and had almost jerked back in surprise when I had walked straight into Aolir’s arms. Where the dragon had landed, shifted, and gotten the thick wool floor length robe from was beyond me but I had been glad of the embrace. The first thing Aolir had wanted to do was apologise for not being able to speak to me while he had been in his true form. In his human body his mouth was able to move in more complicated patterns of language, as a dragon all he was capable of was the grunts, snarls and growls of his own language.

  The second thing he wanted to do was feed me and as I had finally begun to fade I hadn’t protested, or questioned where the bag of groceries had come from that Alior chose to cook my meal with. Carson had been busy talking to Valdine about the preparations for Long's True Death so he simply shrugged when Aolir decided to take over his kitchen.

  “You are exhausted,” Aolir protested softly drawing me back to the moment.

  Curtains had been pulled to hide the body of Long from public view and the people who had come to witness the Dependant's death were beginning to drift from the viewing gallery.