by E. M. Knight
I regard him carefully. “Victoria wants me to keep you alive,” I say. “I’m still unconvinced. However—” I grab him by the front of his jacket and yank him forward “There is no sport in killing you as you are now.” I grunt. “Unlike you, I take no pleasure exploiting others at their weakest.”
When I let go, he falls like a toppled pile of hay.
He laughs again from the ground. It’s a deranged sound, full of misery and anguish and hopelessness all in one.
What happened to him? I wonder. Where is the man who once commanded so much power?
Unless, of course… this is all an act.
I reach into my back pocket and take out the slender silver cuffs I had stashed there. I clamp them around each of Smithson’s wrists before pulling him up.
I note the empty sheath on his belt. “Where is Witchbane?” I ask, a note of derision in my voice.
“Gone,” he says. His crazed laughter does not give up. “Broken into a million pieces with a single spell! After withstanding so much, after surviving even the Narwhark, the sword is no more!”
He sounds borderline delirious, almost crazy.
Is it the transfusion? I wonder. Did he give away too much of his own blood?
I open my mind, searching for the female he created. She is obviously weak, as a fledgling, and thus her trace is not very strong. I cannot feel her anymore.
At that moment, Victoria appears at the head of the stairs. Her eyes darken for a moment as she looks over Smithson. Then she ignores him completely and addresses me.
“The girls are feeding,” she says. “I couldn’t stop them. If you want to interrogate any survivors, it’s up to you to call them off.”
“Let them feed,” I say. “They need to grow.”
Victoria opens her mouth—then, considering Smithson, closes it again.
“Just remember what I told you,” she says after a moment. “Remember where they get their strength.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I note. I’m still not entirely convinced of the danger. Why should my strength be sapped as my fledglings grow stronger? It’s preposterous.
I shove Smithson forward. He stumbles and falls.
I stare at the groveling vampire in disbelief. “This is pathetic,” I say. “Look at him! Even if he gave all his blood when he transformed her, he shouldn’t be this weak.”
Victoria frowns. She comes closer, then squats at his side and turns him over.
He groans.
“James,” she says slowly. “I don’t think he’s well.”
“Of course, he’s not well!” I snap. “The question is, what the hell’s the matter with him, and—”
Without warning, Victoria grips the two sides of his shirt and rips them apart.
Over his whole abdomen is a dark, swirling bruise that just oozes with corruption.
Victoria gasps. I remain stoic on the outside.
Inwardly, I’m disgusted.
“He’s being leeched,” she says.
I frown. “What?”
“Quick, help, get him naked!” she exclaims. She starts tearing off his clothes.
Smithson only groans, then giggles, then groans some more as Victoria’s hands tickle his body.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Victoria doesn’t answer. Her face is knotted up in concentration. As soon as Smithson is stark naked on the floor, she presses her hands to either side of his face. A blue light surrounds her—faint, but undeniable.
Slowly, she moves her hands down over his body. Once they pass over his chest, Smithson begins breathing hard.
“Cierra impaled him with something,” Victoria explains in a rush. “An object, a shard of glass, a tiny stone—something that could be too small to even see. But she linked herself to it, and now, she’s drawing on his energy to revitalize herself!” Victoria’s hands reach his knees, and keep going, over his shins, and down to his feet. “I’m trying to probe him to figure out what, and where. The bruise is a dead giveaway. We need to find it, and get it out of him. Fast.”
“Why?” I say. “Why should I care? Why should we help him?”
“Because if we don’t,” Victoria stresses, “Cierra will grow stronger. Look around you, James, look at what she’s done! She’s been assumed dead for centuries. There are legends about her! But witches are not like vampires; they don’t have eternal life. Yet somehow she’s held on and come back now.”
Victoria snaps her fingers. “The Order must have kept her alive. Put her in a coma, kept her stable, or… something. I don’t know what. But it backfired.”
“Clearly,” I sniff.
“I can’t guess how long she’s been awake. Maybe she’s been gathering strength, waiting for the moment she could escape. Somehow, though, I doubt it.”
Victoria’s hand hones in on a spot in Smithson’s thigh. “Here,” she says. “The object is here. We’ll have to cut open his leg and draw it out. It’ll be too small to see. Even for us.”
“Then how—”
“I can conjure it out with a spell,” Victoria answers in haste. She rolls her sleeves up. “But it will be painful. You’ll have to hold him down.”
“Fantastic,” I murmur. “Remind me again why we’re saving him? I didn’t want to kill him, not with him like this, but that doesn’t mean I’m itching to help.”
“You don’t get it,” Victoria hisses. “James, look past yourself and your petty vengeance for just one moment! How many people here did Cierra kill? She showed no qualms doing it. There’s a reason she’s called the Black Sorceress, and it’s not just that she uses a different type of magic. She uses spells that corrupt. She draws upon power that destroys. It’s not about saving Smithson. It’s about halting Cierra from expanding her might!”
“Fine,” I say. “Though I don’t see what we have to fear. Mother’s a witch, and so is Eleira, and so are you—”
“Just do it, James! Turn him over and hold him down!”
I grunt in annoyance but do as she asks. I pin Smithson to the floor. He’s laboring beneath me, his body struggling against the darkening wound.
It strikes me as odd that the wound is not in the same place as the object Victoria spoke of. Then again, it’s not like I have this vast understanding of magic.
Victoria draws out a small, silver knife. It was hidden so well on her leg that I didn’t know she had it.
She’s more wily than I give her credit for.
The glow extends from her into the blade. The aurora around it concentrates to a single point.
Beads of sweat break out on Victoria’s forehead as she focuses.
I don’t even know why she wants me holding Smithson. In his weakened state, it’s not like he—
He convulses like a grounded fish.
Growling, I lean my weight onto him.
Victoria in in a world of her own, her eyes focused narrowly on the spot on his thigh. She twists the knife and moves it this way then that.
Wordless cries of pain come from Smithson’s lips. They are terrifying.
He kicks his free leg like a horse and tries to break away. He starts making savage animal sounds as he fights against whatever spell Victoria is using.
She digs the knife in deeper, opening up a hole in the side of his leg. The glow from its tip is no longer visible, lost somewhere in his muscle fibers.
Smithson struggles and kicks and fights and flails with a vigor I did not think he had left. It takes a sizeable amount of effort to keep him down.
He snarls, hisses, and twists his head to snap at me. It’s like holding down a wild boar.
The light around Victoria intensifies. It grows and grows, and then gives off a brighter, blinding flash.
For the briefest moment my vision goes white.
When it returns, Smithson is still and Victoria is sagged back half a dozen feet away. She’s breathing hard. The silver knife in her hand is dripping dark red blood.
I look at the man below me and then at her.
&nb
sp; Slowly, she opens her eyes. She brings her free hand over the blade of the knife and closes her fist around it. She runs it slowly, carefully, along the metallic edge.
And then she opens her palm and upends the contents.
A trio of small bone fragments, no bigger than a fingernail, fall out.
“Not one,” she says. She shakes her head in a mix of wonder and exhaustion. “But three.”
“Is that… impressive?” I ask.
“It’s unheard of,” she answers. She points at the fragments. “Look.” I turn my attention to them and watch as they slowly begin to smoke and turn to ash.
“They were hers,” she says. “Her own bones. That made the link stronger. And now that the force sustaining them has left…? Well, you can see what’s happened to them.”
“Wouldn’t the same thing happen to her?” I ask. “If the force was somehow removed?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she says. “I hope, yes.”
Smithson gives a feeble groan behind me. I look back. That wound is oozing with puss.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Given time, he’ll recover,” she says. She gestures over her own abdomen to mimic his bruise. “Now that the fragments are gone there is nothing sapping his vampiric strength. The blackness is not like the corruption that ruined Wanda.”
Smithson gives one last convulsion, straining against the silver bonds holding his wrists, and goes still.
“So we’ve kept him alive,” I say.
“Yes,” Victoria agrees. “For now.” She looks over her shoulder. “Cierra will know that another witch interfered. I don’t think she’s strong enough to return yet, but when she does recover? I want to be far gone.”
With an exhausted sigh Victoria pushes herself up. “We’ll bring Smithson with us. He can tell us what we need to know. I’ll collect the girls, and—”
“Hold on,” I say, vaguely amused. “You forget who’s in charge here.”
“I think you’d be smart, right now, James, not to test me,” Victoria warns.
I have to give her credit. The vampire has spunk.
It’s what attracted me to her in the first place.
“You may be right on some things,” I say. “But you’re overlooking one critical fact.”
“Oh?”
“Smithson isn’t the only one who can tell us what happened here. His fledgling can, too.” I go to the railing and look out over the ruined facility. “We need to find her, and bring her with us, before we leave. Through whatever means necessary.”
Chapter Three
Dagan
The Crypts
Scowling, I force my way through the mass of vampires partaking in the night’s festivities.
The dining hall is overflowing with bodies. Before coming to me, the King must have announced an impromptu celebratory feast. Vials of blood are being passed around. Golden goblets are being filled from the central fountain, at the top of which, encased in glass protected by an unbreakable spell, is the most intricate decanter of The Ancient’s blood.
Before I had always assumed it was Riyu who cast the protective spell. This time, knowing what Logan reveals to me… I am not sure.
There is a transparent panel in the decanter showing how much of that most-precious blood is left. Once it runs dry, the fountain will stop flowing, the remaining human blood will be drunk, and then, festivities will end.
I stop in the midst of the teeming crowd and watch as the next bead slowly forms. The Ancient’s blood is thick, so it takes a long time for it to collect enough weight to be beckoned down by gravity. A drop once every half hour, no more. It all mixes in the fountain, where The Crypt’s vampires are free to have their fill.
I tower head and shoulder over everyone else. When a few of the already drunk vampires notice the direction of my gaze, they call out in excitement. A chant starts up, counting the seconds to the fall in our archaic language.
The bead pulls from the tip. A hushed silence descends. The drop stretches, then breaks away completely and falls through the air. It hits the surface of the red pool in the fountain and mixes with the rest.
An enormous cheer goes up, and vampires greedy for more of the aphrodisiac fight and push to be the first to get re-energized blood.
I grunt and continue my way against the flow of the crowd. There are thousands here. There is a chance Riyu is, too… but I would not bet on it.
He never much liked the company of the usual vampires of The Crypts.
And Riyu is the one I have to get to. He is not my most trusted acquaintance, but he is, for better or for worse, the only one positioned to give unique insight into what I saw with the King.
I nearly shudder in revulsion as the memory of the spell he cast in my room comes unbidden. Magic is unnatural enough as it is. In the hands of females, it is relatively… tolerable.
In the hands of males? It is an abomination of the highest kind.
My wavering loyalty to the King whom I swore my life to is the single biggest obstacle I have known in decades.
What do you do when the man you would have followed blindly into any battle, would have given your life for without thinking twice, shows himself to be such a… such a miserable disgrace?
I follow Logan not only because he is strong, but because he is also intelligent. He’d crafted the entirety of The Crypts with his bare hands. I was there with him from the start. The coven rose from absolutely nothing to being the most powerful in existence today. Of course, Logan’s mysterious procurement of The Ancient had no small part to do with it.
That particular vampire’s whole presence is shrouded in mystery. I have no idea where he came from. No idea who he was before. I have no idea how Logan found him, or what our King offered him, to get him to agree to cooperate with us.
From my perspective, The Ancient had absolutely nothing to gain from aligning himself with The Crypts at the start. He had simply appeared one day. His coming was announced by Logan at a great ceremony.
That was the first time he shared his blood. And from that moment on, the King made himself an absolute monarch. None would go against him, none would challenge him, not while he had The Ancient at his side.
In fact, the only vampire who rivals our King in strength is The Ancient himself.
I reach the far exit and finally emerge from the teeming mass. For the first time since entering the feasting hall I feel like I can take a proper breath.
I look down at my arms. Watching my fingers, I flex and unflex both hands.
The feeling has almost completely returned to my body. My fingertips may still be a little numb, but it’s no worse than having a muscle fall asleep.
Curious, how I can remember that affliction, even though I have not felt it since I was human.
I shake my head and continue on. Human. How strange. How peculiar.
How discomforting to think that I was once one of them.
Logan was the one who found me in a far-off village in Eastern Europe. I was the leader of a band of raiders. We’d just returned to our homes after a very… prosperous… journey across the mountains.
We were settling down for winter, lying with our women, sharing the spoils of our victory, when we were attacked.
I remember that night like it was yesterday.
The full moon is out. The girl sharing my bed was scarcely more than a child when I had left. But two years had developed her nicely, and I’ve always had an appetite for untouched flesh.
All the members of my company knew to give me the pick of the litter when we returned.
Now, she lies slumbering in my cot, a blanket covering her half-naked body. I look at the marks I left on her neck with my hands. How she struggled when I choked her. But in the end, she learned to like it almost as much as me.
I turn back and walk to the window. The village wisdom always warned against making love under the light of a full moon. I am not a superstitious man, but even I know to listen to those smarte
r than me
Good thing what I did to the girl could in no way be constituted as ‘making love’.
A cool wind blows through a gap in the hut’s siding. The village fell into a state of ill repair while I was gone. Of course, since I’d taken all the most capable men with me, it would make sense…
Still, I expected better. The boys who have turned of age in my absence should have taken up the gauntlet. Perhaps I’d been too lax with them prior to my departure.
Well, all that can change. All that will change, now that I’m back. I’ve brought enough riches to build a village twice the size entirely from scratch. There is enough coin and gold and jewels in our sacks to sustain us for half a decade, maybe more.
Of course, I have no intention of staying still. Not for so long. I was born to roam, to fight, to raid and steal and pillage.
It’s not the end reward that excites me. It’s the process itself.
And clearly it doesn’t hurt that I am far and away the best swordsman who’s ever graced this land. One day, there will be legends told about me. One day…
The girl in my bed turns over. I feel her sit up. “Dagan?” she asks.
“Go back to sleep,” I grunt. I am in no mood to talk. Talk to women, and they have the nasty habit of developing feelings or some such.
I have no time for that nonsense.
Besides, tonight I am feeling a particular kind of wanderlust.
Without a word I move for the door. At the last moment, I decide to pick up my sword. I wrap the belt around my waist and clip it on.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Out,” I say. “I want you gone when I return.”
My voice makes it plain I will broker no arguments.
She makes a stifled sound of hurt but otherwise does not protest.
I step out into the night. The cool air flows around my body with a welcoming caress. Night has always been my favorite time. When everyone else is sleeping, the predators prowl.
I have no prey in mind for this night, but that does not mean I want to stay still.
I head to the nearest hill. On the other side of it runs a river and down that river, a clearing of flat sand. That is the place I spent all my time as a boy. I grew fast, and because of that, could hold a man’s sword in one hand before others my age even had their balls drop.
