by Sean Hayden
Or die trying. My brain added for me.
I shrugged and attacked, not wanting to let him hit me with those blades. Time slowed once again, and we met in the center of the room. One blade sliced at my head and the second was set to gut me. I ducked low and hit the arm holding the knife by my belly. It would have worked perfectly, but he read my movements too easily. The blade aiming for my head changed its sideways momentum downward, slicing me from shoulder to hip.
I sprawled ungraciously across the floor, bleeding horribly and kneeling in a pool of my own blood.
The slice felt like liquid fire on my back. My eyes watered bloody tears and my breathing became ragged. I fought the urge to throw up on the cold tile of the suite and tried to hang on while my body healed itself.
"The pain you are feeling is finely ground silver powder. The sheaths the blades sit in are filled with a gelled version I came up with myself. Your circulatory system should be quickly spreading it throughout your body. I'm anxious to see how you're going to react when it hits your heart. We'll see how tough you are then."
I fought through the pain and pushed myself off the ground, forcing myself to stand up. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of watching me suffer. I was going to tear him a new one with my claws.
I ran at him again. He laughed it off and set his blades in front of him. I feinted left and as he began to turn, I dropped to the ground and slid next to his right side, slashing his leg as I passed him. I came up on the other side of him as he howled and dropped to his knee. Not hesitating, I slid up behind him and grabbed his throat in both hands and put a little pressure, just enough to let my talons pierce his flesh. I didn't want to kill him and start an all-out war. He was just the Herald of The Council. They had yet to make an appearance.
I leaned in close to his ear. "If you don't tell me where Marcel is, I'm going to rip your fucking throat out. Do you understand me, Herald?"
His blades dropped to the ground in front of him.
"You have bested me," he whined incredulously. "How? You should be writhing in agony and dying."
I lifted him up off the floor, letting him get his feet underneath him. I didn't care if his leg hadn't healed yet. With my mouth still by his ear, I whispered, "That's because silver doesn't do shit to me."
He slumped, defeated. Or, at least I hoped he was.
"Take me to Marcel."
That was the last time I was going to ask.
He started to lead the way. I let go of him but stayed at the ready to gut him if he tried anything. We passed through the double doors and I found my partner, sitting on top of the vampire who was face down on the ground and bleeding from a few places. She was slowly being crushed by six-hundred pounds of werelion. I was a little shocked that he had to go full lion to subdue her. She must have been tougher than she looked.
"Good kitty," I said.
He answered with his little lion chuckle.
"So where is this Council I've been warned repeatedly about. I guess they aren't here, if they haven't saved your ass yet."
"They sent me here to bring you back to them. I have failed."
"You go back and tell them to leave me the fuck alone. I don't want to have anything to do with them or this vampire political bullshit. I work for the government of the United States. If they keep up their shit, they're going to be in for a world of hurt."
Thompson growled in affirmation as Pietro led us down the eastern hallway from the elevator. It curved around the shaft of the elevator and we passed several doors before he stopped before the last one and motioned to the door.
"Open it."
He sighed, turned the knob, and pushed it open for me. I shoved him out of the way as I practically ran into the room.
A six-foot tall wooden X sat in the center of the room. Leather straps ran from the top of it and I could see Marcel's arms cuffed, his hands hanging limply. The entire contraption was turned to face the wall away from the door.
"Oh, thank fuck," I said and ran around it to let him down.
I came around smiling, never happier to see him in my entire life. I slid to a stop. I hadn't noticed the amount of blood on the floor.
And that’s the exact moment I couldn't take any more pain.
I felt something die inside me. Something that had already been hurt, battered, beaten, and broken. It fucking shattered. I dropped to my knees and stared up at Marcel's headless body strapped to the wooden device. Hot, wet, bloody tears began pouring down my face.
"You should have heeded the council, bitch." Pietro laughed maniacally and made a run for it. The lion's roar told me Thompson was dealing with him. I didn't even care if he finished the job. It was time to go home.
Fuck The Council. Fuck the demon. Fuck the ties to the other cities. I'm done.
I stood up and reached out, putting my hand over Marcel's heart, the cold flesh of his chest chilling me to my bones.
"Thank you, my friend. I love you. Be at peace with your Sophie." I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand.
And then I walked away.
Thompson had Pietro's neck in his mouth, pinned to the floor, flailing widely. I knelt beside them and brought the talons of my right hand together in a point, shoving them through the flesh of his stomach and reached up into his ribcage. I dug around until I found his heart and grabbed it, yanking it unceremoniously from the wound I had made. He stopped flailing. I crushed his heart in my hand and squeezed until it oozed between my fingers. My talons had dug into my own flesh and I didn't care.
"Rip his fucking head off, just to be sure." I looked into Thompson's eyes, and walked away, stopping near the still-healing vampire by the elevator. I picked her up by her neck and turned her to face me. Her face was a bloody mess. I shook her until she woke up and stared at me in horror.
"Go. Look at your lord. Then I want you to fly your ass back to Rome and stand before The Council. I want you to tell them that they fucked up royally. They took Marcel from me, I killed their Herald. I ripped out his heart and then decapitated him. Look at them and tell them if they come at me again, I will rain down the fury of hell upon them. I will kill them, I will burn them, and with every ounce of my fucking being, I will end them. Do you understand me, bitch?"
She wisely nodded and didn't say anything else.
I threw her against the wall and hit the button for the elevator, Thompson silently padding up to me.
He sat next to me and butted my leg with his head. I absentmindedly reached out and scratched his ears. We got on and rode it down to our own floor. Thompson followed me until I got to my room. He butted me again and looked at his door. I nodded and knocked on it for him until Cosmo opened it. Thompson ran in and I heard Lurch give a strangled yell of surprise as he turned back into a person.
He turned back to me and opened his mouth to speak. I held up my hand and went back to my own room, opened the door and went inside. There was a long shower in my future and nothing else.
At some point I must have fallen asleep on the shower floor, water still pouring over me. I felt the water stop and gentle arms pick me up, cradling me to an unfamiliar chest with a smell I didn't quite recognize. Everything was a blur as I was laid on the bed of my hotel room and the covers pulled over me.
"Rest, young one," was the last thing I heard before oblivion overtook me.
∞ ∞ ∞
I woke two days later.
Thompson was sitting in the chair at my hotel room desk, calmly reading the paper and sipping a cup of coffee. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
"Welcome back, kid."
"Please tell me that was all some horrible nightmare."
"Sorry, kid. Life don't work that way. You know that probably better than anyone."
I sighed, and flopped back down on my pillow, and stared up at the ceiling. "I don't think I can do this anymore, Jim."
He closed his paper and folded it up, putting it on the table next to him. Staring off into space, he gulped down the last of his coffee
before standing up and coming over to me. He pushed the other pillows strewn across the bed up against the headboard and lay down next to me, crossing his hands over his chest.
"If you're looking for words of wisdom from me, you're barking up the wrong tree. I could send the elf over if you want that."
I shook my head.
"If you want encouraging fluffy words that everything is going to be peachy fucking keen, you're barking up the other wrong tree. I can call the bureau shrink if you want me to."
I shook my head.
"If you want a fucking friend to be sad with, and someone who will slap the shit out of you if you decide to slip down into a pit of misery, and not let you self-destruct or give up on everything you've worked your little ass off for, you finally found the right tree. Is that what you want?"
I nodded.
He reached over, put his hand on mine, and squeezed it.
"I hurt too, kid. Marc and I had some crazy ass adventures over the years. But you wanna know something?"
"What?"
"I've never seen him more animated or alive in all the years I've known him, than when he was working with you."
I sniffled and smiled and tried not to cry. "I'm going to miss him."
"Me, too, kid. Me, too. You hungry?"
I nodded.
Thompson got up and grabbed a few pouches of blood I had stored in the mini fridge. He tossed them on my lap and I slurped them down while he pulled up the chair to the bed. "So, what do you want to do?"
His question caught me off guard. "We need to get back to Chicago."
"Why?"
"Because. If I have to spend another minute in this gods-forsaken state, I'm going to kill something. Else," I added, remembering the body count so far.
"What about your other problem?"
"Which one? Demon or mystical ties problem?"
"Mystical ties."
"Yeah, well. That's gonna have to wait. Marcel is dead. Quentin is dead. They were the ones who set up the replacements. I don't even know what happened to Los Angeles. It's not tied to me anymore… Wait a minute. I didn't kill Jeffries." I sat back up and stared at Thompson in horror.
"Good job?"
"No. The demon killed Jeffries. The link to the city went with him. Either Rayna is now the Master of Los Angeles or the vampires here tied themselves to someone else…"
"Are you sure?"
I closed my eyes and went to the place of my power. After some fumbling, I found them. Three of them. I was free of one of my burdens. Something had actually worked out for once. Or Rayna had it, in which case we were screwed.
I opened my eyes and shrugged. "Not me."
"Well, that's good."
"Not if it's tied to the demon. She could be a whole lot stronger for it and that is the last thing we need."
Thompson nodded and pursed his lips. "Is there any way we can find out?"
"Tell Cosmo and Daren to come here. I'll get dressed." I slipped out from under the covers and that’s when it hit me. I had a T-shirt and sweats on. "Hey, Thompson. Who picked me up out of the shower and dressed me?"
He shrugged. "Wasn't me. I don't think anybody else had the key to your room?"
"Okay," I said and let it go.
Thank you, I said silently to the only other person it could have been. Raphael. It would have been nice if he had saved Marc, but I guess that didn't fall under the miracle category.
It only took a minute for my door to open again. My partner sat back down by his empty coffee cup and paper and poured himself another cup from the silver pot on the table. Cosmo sat at the table with him and Daren took the chair by the bed. "I am sorry for your loss, youngling."
I nodded, not really wanting to go there right now. Too many questions and too many plans had to be made. "I'm not tied to the vampires of this city anymore…"
"That's great!" Cosmo blurted out and began pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"It would be, but we might have a bigger problem. The demon killed Jeffries. He had the link. Could it have tied itself to the demon? Is she the Master of Los Angeles now?"
The coffee stopped pouring. Cosmo looked at Daren wide-eyed. "I don't know. If their power is similar maybe?"
"Is there any way to find out?" I didn't want the power back, but I really didn't want to leave a few thousand vampires tied to a demon, either. While technically, I wasn't a vampire, I wasn't a full-blown demon. At least I was a nice part-demon.
Cosmo turned to Daren. "What do you think?"
"No. If the tie that binds is gone from you, we have no way to observe it."
"Then we'll leave it for now," Thompson chimed in. "We just need to make sure she doesn't gather any more and then send her back to where she came from."
I nodded glumly.
"So, do we continue with the plan?"
I shook my head at Cosmo. "We can't. Don't know which vampires Marcel had picked to replace me or how to find them."
"And there is a chance the ties will follow the other if we just forcibly remove them. If the Demon has the one, the other three might be attracted by the first. Principles of familiarity," Daren said thoughtfully.
"And that is the last thing we need right now. A demon with four cities full of vampires feeding her. I'll hang on to the other three until she's dealt with."
"Then for us, at least, this mission is over," Daren surprisingly said, motioning to himself and Cosmo.
"Yeah," I said sadly, not wanting the elf to leave.
"There is just one more thing we might be able to resolve," he continued.
"What?"
"How to teach you to draw upon this power as well. If you're going to be fighting a demon, you shall need all of your strength."
"I've tried."
"You did not try hard enough. Gentlemen," he said to Thompson and Cosmo, "may we have the room please?"
They nodded and left, Cosmo leading the way.
"Sit," Daren said to me.
I moved to the end of the bed and sat there. He moved the chair over to there and sat facing me, staring into my eyes. I couldn't capture his mind like a vampire's, so I had no idea how he planned on teaching me.
"Go to the place where you can see your power and the ties."
"Okay," I agreed and closed my eyes. Slipping into my head became a little easier each time I did it. I used to only be able to see it when I did thrall another vamp. I mentally opened my eyes and floated above my ocean. A slight chop rippled the waters, but there were no waves. It always amazed me how much my power was affected by my emotions. The more turbulent they became, the more my waters churned.
"Find the ties," Daren called softly from outside my little world
"I see them."
"Gather them and hold them in your hands."
I reached out and grabbed the closest to me, feeling its pulsing heat. I floated closer to the other two and gathered them, as well.
"I have them."
"Feel your power flowing through them?"
"Yes."
"Now feel for the power at the other end."
I stared at the rope in my hands and imagined myself slipping into one of them. I followed it until I reached the other end and could feel a thousand smaller lakes spread out by smaller threads from the end of the rope.
"I feel them. All of them at the end of one of the ties."
"Now pull."
I started pulling on the tie and I could feel cries of surprise and anguish at the other end.
"I think it's hurting them!"
"Are you pulling on the link?"
"Yes!"
"I meant pull on their power through the link. I apologize."
"Jesus," I said and let the tension loose. I concentrated again on the pools of power at the other end and gave a gentle mental tug, like sipping on something through a straw.
It felt like priming a pump or siphoning gas. Once the flow started it raced back up against the flow of my power, but they didn't impede the flow of each other.
"Cool."
I quickly did the same to the other two ties and then let go, exiting to the real world and Daren sitting calmly in front of me with a proud smile on his face.
"What?"
"I can feel the energy flowing back into you," he said, and I looked down at my hand in his. "How does it feel?"
I closed my eyes and tried to feel the difference. It took a moment for the rush of energy to hit me. Before, I felt consistently drained, which was completely understandable. Now, I could feel that power not only being replaced, but increased. I let the warmth flow through me and fill me.
"Much better."
"We should have done this first, but you seemed so adamant about giving it up, I did not want to try."
"Don't get me wrong. It feels better, but I still don't want it. I still want to get rid of it."
"I understand. I didn't before, but I do now," he said and gave my hand a squeeze.
"Thanks for the help."
"My pleasure. So, what will you do now?"
"I really just want to go home. I have a lot of things to deal with, but I can't yet."
"I understand. May I make a suggestion?"
"Don't ever hesitate."
"Take a break. Go home, plan, and come back. You are not fit to take this problem on right now. Deal with the other things first, allow yourself a moment to grieve, and come back ready for a fight."
"I wish I had that luxury, but if I do that, people will die."
"And if you don't, you will."
I really wanted to argue, but I knew from the bottom of my soul that he was right. The question was, did I care… Even with the ties somewhat fixed, I still felt drained. I had lost someone very special to me and he was just another in a long list of people. Marcel might have even been the most special. Even more than Vic. A tear slid down my cheek with the realization. And then I sobbed when I realized I was becoming numb to the death and the heartache.
Still, even knowing I might die, and my own personal problems aside, I couldn't knowingly endanger the lives of more people. If I did, the demon would run amok for gods knew how long. My death wouldn't solve anything.
Rayna had to be stopped.
I think Daren knew my resolve a little better than that. He began shaking his head.
