Scarlet Curse: A Vampire Mystery Romance: (Cursed Vampire Book 1)

by T. H. Hunter

  When they had passed and settled in their seats, Steve turned to me.

  “What a b-”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I hope they don’t treat all of their subjects that way. They might have revolution on their hands.”

  “Pssh,” Steve said in a hushed panic. “Are you crazy talking like that? That sort of talk can land you in serious trouble.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was a plot to kill the Royal Family two years ago. They’re really sensitive about that topic, believe me.”

  “Who tried to kill them? The Slayers?”

  “Nobody knows for sure, but a lot of people reckon it’s the Outlaws who were behind it. I don’t think the Slayers would care, they hate all vampires.”

  “Why would the Outlaws be interested in assassinating them?”

  “’Well, they backed the whole peace process. And they were the driving force for banning bloodsucking. That made them unpopular everywhere.”

  ***

  The first match was very one-sided and was over pretty quickly. Sarah was to fight in the second match and both of us waved encouragingly to her before the start. She was on top of her game, but her opponent – a wiry girl with outstanding technique – gave her a run for her money. She managed to scrape a victory at 7 – 5. The crowd cheered.

  After a short break, the next match was about to begin, though there was only one person in the ring. A massive man I’d never seen in the castle before, built like a rock. He must have been over 7 feet tall. His huge arms made the sword in his hand look like a toothpick. On closer inspection, I noticed to my surprise that his weapon was not a rapier but a scimitar. Other weapons were allowed (with exceptions such as polearms and spears), though most people chose the rapier since it was such an excellent duelling weapon. The curved scimitar, however, was a cutting weapon that was not ideal for duelling, though very good for larger engagements.

  “Who’s the giant?” I asked Steve, who was browsing the match list in his hand.

  “Lord Rankin,” he said. “Never heard of him.”

  And then, I saw Raphael enter. He was dressed all in black, sporting a quilted vest with the royal emblem – a crown with a red ruby in it. It matched his dark hair and rather dark mood. The crowd’s obvious favourite, they burst into applause as soon as he entered the courtyard. He didn’t react. He was focussed only on his opponent.

  The match began with a vicious first exchange. Lord Rankin, his massive body moving with unexpected speed, was using sweeping motions to cover his body. Raphael, who seemed unperturbed by any posturing, was testing his defences. Lord Ranking was parrying Raphael’s attempts until he himself unleashed an extraordinarily powerful series of attacks of his own, his hammer blows hitting steel with deafening clangs.

  But brute force couldn’t contain Raphael’s skilful mastery for long. Instead of bearing the brunt of Lord Rankin’s attacks, Raphael’s clever deflections and evasions allowed him to use his opponent’s enormous strength against him. Lord Rankin’s misses were costly, for the force behind his blows meant that he recovered far slower to meet his opponent’s counter-attacks. At the first sign of weakness, Raphael quickly took advantage by landing a dexterous blow on Lord Rankin’s massive chest. Raphael was in the lead, and the crowd erupted in enthusiastic cheers. The monarchy might be extremely unpopular, but the young Prince certainly wasn’t.

  The rest of the match continued in a similar vein. Lord Rankin managed to score a points later on – a particularly painful hit to the shoulder – but was no match for Raphael. It ended 7 – 1 in the latter’s favour. They bowed and shook hands.

  “I wish I could fight like that,” Steve was saying as we stepped down the stairs leading to the courtyard again. “And against Lord Rankin! What a beast.”

  “Yeah,” I said, thoroughly enjoying the post-game. “He made it look easy, but just a couple of more hits from that guy and you won’t be too quick on your feet anymore.”

  “Who’re you up against later?”

  “I’d better check. I’ll catch you later, Steve.”

  “Yeah, see you, Beccs.”

  ***

  Due to Jayden’s mysterious absence, I had qualified for the quarter-finals. As fate usually had it, I was sure I’d pay heavily if I’d wanted to reach the next round. I was up against Sarah once again. There’d be no second chances this time. If I lost this one, I was definitely out.

  The sun had bathed the courtyard in a golden shade when we walked out into to fight against each other once again. I knew she had deserved her last victory, but I was dying to prove myself, to win.

  It started off as badly as the last match. Before I knew it, I was down 0 – 3. Her defensive posture as impenetrable as ever. But as tournaments went, the wear and tear of the previous days showed on all of us, and I knew that Sarah wouldn’t be an exception.

  I decided to play the long game this time – no quick victories were possible. If I could lower her concentration through exhaustion, I might stand a chance.

  I fell into a defensive stance myself, letting her do the work for a change. Her eagle eye was looking for openings, but I had learnt to see her attacks coming from our last match.

  With extraordinary speed, she launched a series of attacks that aimed for my torso. I parried all of them, starting my own attack afterwards. We went back and forth like this for quite a while. She was an exceptional swordfighter.

  I was catching up slowly, landing a hit once every few minutes, always after long engagements. She landed a few of her own, but her technique was getting less perfect. Finally we reached a tie at 5 – 5. Two more points to win.

  The game had been very competitive so far. But now, it turned into something else as our will to win overshadowed the mutual friendliness. Sarah was white in the face, biting into her lip in determination. She lunged at me, a stab I deflected just in time, only for her to spin to my side and aim a blow at my shoulder. I dodged sideways and moved in, closing the gap between us. Before she could recover, I struck her right ribs with the blunt tip of my rapier. I was in the lead, for the first time.

  Until then, I had been so focussed that I hadn’t heard the crowd at all. But now, as my concentration briefly slipped, I heard the eruption of applause and roars from the stands. The spectators were enjoying the show, so much was certain.

  Taking advantage of my wandering mind, Sarah rushed towards me. I side-stepped her again, and lunged, though she managed to parry just in time. She was in an awkward position, so I decided to stay on the offence.

  The fought like a lion. Caught on the backfoot, she dodged, parried, riposted, and lunged as if for her life. There was no getting through.

  I relented, making time to think. She remained in her defensive posture now, recognising her earlier mistake. I couldn’t lose my initiative and the momentum for attack. It was time to think outside of the box.

  I noticed that the blow to her ribs must have hurt quite a bit, as she was subconsciously wary of any attacks in that direction. She held the hilt of her blade unnaturally to that side.

  With a burst of energy, I feinted an attack on her right rib again. Her defensive movement was overdrawn, too wide to allow for a reaction to my quick follow-up – my real attack – that was aimed at her left thigh.

  She was mere milliseconds too late. My rapier made contact with her quilted vest just enough to count as a solid hit. The match was over.

  Sarah dropped her guard and looked at me in a peculiar manner. I could see she hated losing. Who wouldn’t at this stage? I took her some time to process the shock of defeat, but finally she came forward.

  “Well done, Beccs. Congrats.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. Well fought.”

  She attempted to smile, but the disappointment in her face allowed only for a brief twitch of her muscles. I knew she didn’t want it, but I felt sorry somehow. Even guilty for winning.

  But as I looked around me and saw the elated crowds standing for me, clapping furiously at the matc
h, the taste of victory felt sweet again. I beckoned to Sarah, took her hand, and held it up. The spectators roared even louder, whistling in jubilation. And Sarah’s eyes, saddened from defeat, were now watering with gratitude. They were celebrating her as much as me. We had given them a fight to remember.

  And then, that was the best thing, I saw Lynn standing in the crowd. She was clapping harder than anyone, her eyes ablaze with pride for me. As the applause ebbed away, I made my way through the crowd to her. We hugged.

  “You were brilliant, Beccs. What a match!”

  “Thanks, Lynn. You ok?”

  “Sure, sure,” she said, averting her eyes quickly. I knew she wasn’t telling the truth but I didn’t want to risk this moment for anything.

  We spent the next two hours before my next match laughing and joking as if nothing had ever happened. I felt that I had regained something truly valuable, like a whisper from a long-forgotten past. Nothing could dampen my day now, or so I thought.

  I had been so grateful to have Lynn back as my friend that I almost forgot about the tournament. By winning against Sarah, I had qualified for the semi-finals. I excused myself briefly and checked the notice board in the Great Hall.

  I ran my finger down the paper until I found the semi-finals. In fresh black ink, it announced my opponent. It was Prince Raphael himself. My mind suddenly went numb and fuzzy.

  Stupidly, I had never considered ever facing him in a match. I had been so consumed by thoughts of the match against Sarah that I hadn’t given a thought about it.

  Of course, I had followed the match against Lord Rankin closely. He would be the best swordsman I’d fought so far. And a strange prickly feeling told me that I would have great difficulties in seeing him merely as an opponent.

  I tried to shake it off. This wasn’t the time to think about these things. I had entered the tournament to win. And I wanted to win against Raphael.

  ***

  The afternoon was already fading when I stepped back into the courtyard. Raphael wasn’t there yet. Up on the battlements, in the cordoned-off area Steve and I had stood next to, the Royal Family had congregated. To my surprise, King Rurik himself was present. They had placed his throne-like chair at the back of the stands. He was surrounded by grim-looking Scarlet Knights. Apparently, the rumours were true about his health. One of the knights had placed himself right at the King’s side, so that he wouldn’t keel over. The King’s skin was grey skin. His irregular, asthmatic breathing sounded like a death rattle.

  Many in the crowd, it seemed, had noticed this too. There was a fair bit of whispering among. I looked back up. The Queen was at his side, though it didn’t look like she cared. In fact, she pretended as if he wasn’t there at all. That was an unhappy marriage if ever I saw one.

  Suddenly, the drums announced the entrance of Prince Raphael. The crowd cheered him. His matches were always worth watching. I only hoped I could live up to it. A few paces behind him was Doctor Yurasov.

  Raphael didn’t look at me at first but scanned the courtyard like a hawk. His dark hair and eyebrows clashing spectacularly with his light skin. He walked over to the fighting area. Doctor Yurasov smiled encouragingly at me.

  “Are you going to be the referee, Doctor?” I asked.

  “Indeed I will be, Miss Flynn,” he said.

  At the sound of our voices, Raphael turned to me. His expression was unreadable, like everything about him it gave the impression of mystery and secrecy, an enigma that begged to be solved.

  The crowd had gone silent in anticipation. I was nervous. Raphael looked at me with a curious expression on his face. He was one of the very few people I couldn’t read properly. It seemed to interest and warn me at the same time.

  Doctor Yurasov held up his hand. It was the signal that the match would begin as soon as he lowered it.

  “You know the rules. First to reach 9, by a margin of two.”

  We lifted our rapiers in the traditional manner and bowed. Then, Doctor Yurasov lowered his hand. We began.

  At first, we both were hesitant. I seemed to feel short of breath from the very start. We circled each other for a while, unwilling to commit to an attack.

  After the previous fights that were full of immediate action, the crowd was getting restless very quickly.

  “Stop being the gentleman, go for her,” a voice shouted, no doubt a friend of Raphael’s.

  He grinned for the briefest of moments, as if waking from a trance, and launched his first attack on me. I was totally taken aback, quickly switching into defensive mode.

  He was by far the best fighter I had ever encountered. His attacks were extremely fast, though he did not succumb to the temptation of putting too much force into his blows. His posture on the offence minimised the possibility of counter-attacks, despite his height. That made landing a blow hard even after a decent parry from me.

  But I was determined to give him a run for his money.

  Without opening up too much, I kept testing his defences. A poke, a lunge, a stab. But just as he remained unreadable as a person, so did his defences remain immovable. More out of frustration than anything else, I decided on a counter-attacking strategy until I could discover some of his weaknesses.

  Raphael was deep in concentration. He must have been thinking along similar lines of testing me, for he was rotating attack styles and combinations constantly.

  After one particularly complicated execution of an attack series, I finally saw what I had been looking for: an opening in his defences. For some reason, he favoured his left side. I feinted an attack to his right and struck him, harder than I had intended, on the left side of his waist. Unexpectedly, I was in the lead.

  “Good one,” he said, as if returning from a very far away place. “It won’t happen again.”

  He smiled, he was teasing me.

  “A bold statement,” I said. “And if it does?”

  Despite the setting sun, I was feeling a heat rising. I lunged at him, though he parried the blow with ease.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, Rebecca.”

  And then, he unleashed a three-fold attack that almost had my legs in knots, but I was hanging on. Then, I saw the opening again, that strange favouring of his left. I feinted a blow to his shoulder this time, and was aiming my next to his left when he got a square hit on my shoulder. He had baited me into attacking. We were now even in score.

  But from that moment onwards, my luck was running short. Raphael seemed energised by my initial blow. I hadn’t seen him fight this energetically throughout the tournament. I was defending with determination, but he broke through another three times, pulling ahead by 4 – 1. I managed to land another by feinting for his left and parrying his counter, which left him exposed on his right. A tricky move at which the crowd erupted with enthusiasm.

  Rubbing his side, Raphael gave me a look of intensity I hadn’t seen there before. A hunger had awakened. He wasn’t perturbed – far from it. He seemed elated by the challenge. That made him so different from Steve and all the others who threatened to crumble before adversity. Raphael thrived on it. Challenge was life.

  I fought like a lion to the very end. I wouldn’t budge an inch.

  We battled on for quite a while. During a short break, torches all around us were lit, bathing us in beautiful fiery glow that excited the crowd even further. I got in another hit, barely scratching his vest this time though counted nonetheless because it was right on the wrist of his swordarm. The extensive tournament rulebook dictated that a blow had to have potential for damage – and that depended greatly on the area hit. There was no nonsense about grazing the other person within milliseconds before the other did like in regular human fencing.

  Raphael went on to the last offensive. His feinting tactics were extremely advanced, mindgames of a sort I hadn’t witnessed in any other contestant. He landed two more blows, making it 3 – 6 in his favour.

  Now the pressure was beginning to really build on me. I could feel the stares of the cro
wd pierce me, you could have cut the tension in the courtyard with a knife. Raphael stepped in, trying to score an unexpected close quarters hit on me. I met his blade with my own, and for a while, we stood there, rapiers locked, our bodies inches from one another.

  “Time to end the first-year menace!” Raphael said, his smile wide as he looked deep into my eyes.

  “Ha! Is that what they’re calling me?”`

  “Yep,” he said. “Though I prefer Rebecca myself.”

  His face was very close, too close. Goosebumps were running down my spine. Slowly, I gazed up at his darkly handsome face, into his deep brown eyes. They reminded me of my grandfather’s, of a home I had long since lost. And then, a strange sensation suddenly spread through my body like a wave, engulfing me like a drowning sailor in a wild torrent of water in one instance, only to wash me safely ashore in the next.

  As if in slow motion, both of us broke free from our intertwined blades at the same moment, unable to look away.

  “Come and get me then,” I said quietly.

  He didn’t need telling twice.

  He lunged forward, but I was ready, darting to my left and aiming a blow at his shoulder. He parried just in time, swirling around with a lightning strike to my right thigh. I tried to parry, but he withdrew quickly, thrusting at my left shoulder. And this time, I was too late. The tip of his blade made contact.

  I had lost. But it felt less important with Raphael somehow, though I didn’t quite know why. I had been bested, but it was one hell of a fight.

  ***

  The final match in the Great Hall was scheduled for 10 pm. The gallery was now open to all visitors and students, so Lynn, Steve, and Sarah decided to get there early for good seats, and I promised I’d follow after a quick shower and a sandwich.

  A flight of stairs led off from the entrance hall and up to a corridor that went right around the entire Great Hall. I noticed with interest that a lot of staff and specialist rooms were located up here. I’d never been to this part of the Castle before.