She swept across the room in a flash. I dashed away, but it wasn’t me she was going for—it was Lionel. She grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up. “Healing is even quicker when I get renewed by a shot of life force.”
Lionel’s legs dangled above the floor, but he managed to summon the energy to punch her in the face.
Mortissa just smiled. “Still spirit left in him,” she said. “His life force will have juice.” She crashed an elbow into his jaw, causing his head to snap backward.
“Leave him alone.” I charged, using my speed to be upon Mortissa in an instant. She was ready, discarding Lionel behind her and spinning away from me, but not before she managed a vicious cut in my lower right side.
Agony tore through me; I could barely stand. Shifting dizzily from side to side, I glanced behind to check on Lionel. He was still conscious.
“So it isn’t just he who has fallen for you,” Mortissa said. “You love him too. How Shakespearean! When you are both dead, I’ll have to have one of the fawns write a poem.”
My stomach was slick with blood, and my pants were becoming soaked. I touched my free hand to my side to stem the spurting. Hot pain lanced into my core, and I staggered and almost collapsed backward.
“It’s okay. Fall on top of him,” Mortissa said. “Wrap your arms around him. I’ll skewer the two of you together with a single thrust. Let no one say I’m not romantic.”
“I don’t want to die like this.” It had been the same thing I’d said trapped in Val’s basement. I was willing to die, but I needed to accomplish something first.
“How do you wish to die, little dove?” Mortissa asked. “Due to our long history together, requests will be accepted, within reason.”
“I wish die with another, so we may take our last breath together.”
“Lie down next to him, and I’ll make it happen,” Mortissa said.
“Him?” Drawing on a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I straightened my back and raised my katana. “No, I wish that you and I take our last breath together, little dove.”
Mortissa snarled and flew at me, sending her broadsword plunging toward my heart. I didn’t try to escape, just shifted slightly to the side, allowing the sword to sink home. The blade went all the way through, the point of it coming out my back. I screamed an unholy scream, but didn’t let the pain stop my counterstroke. I took careful aim, and thrust my katana straight into Mortissa’s heart.
She staggered backward, and both our swords came free of each other’s bodies. Mortissa eyes were wide and glaring, and for a moment, I thought I had missed the heart. Then she keeled over dead.
My katana fell from my fingers, and I pressed my hands against my right breast. Both hands weren’t enough to stop the bleeding, and I fell into a pool of my own blood.
My mind floated in a sea of pain, but I accepted it serenely. After a life of horror, I had finally gained a sliver of redemption by killing Mortissa and saving Lionel.
I had tried to change, but there was no changing for someone like me, just an ending.
I let the blackness take me.
Chapter 15
“Essa, Essa, wake up.”
My shoulders shook, and I reluctantly opened my eyes, surprised that I still could. Lionel’s face swam into view.
I felt him on top of me, his body weight sealing off the wounds somewhat. “Essa, you have to heal.”
“It’s too late. You’re alive. That’s enough for me.” I had done one good thing, at least.
“My blood,” he said. “My life force. It’ll give you strength. Drink from me.” He lowered his neck toward my mouth.
“No.” I shook my head. “You don’t want to be a bloodbag.”
“I don’t want to be a bloodbag. But I’m willing to be your bloodbag.” Lionel used his fingers to claw at the wound in his neck. He broke it open and fresh blood trickled free.
“I can’t. Your life force is almost gone.”
“Take some, then. What you need.”
With his fingers, he dribbled blood onto my lips, and I was unable to stop myself from transforming.
I was ready for it all to end. More than ready. And I couldn’t let Lionel undo my sacrifice. “Look at me,” I said to him. “A skeletal face, sharp fangs, red eyes. This is the real me. I’m not someone to be loved. I have been in the world too long. I can’t undo all the horrible things I’ve done, but I can at least leave having done one good thing in saving you.”
“You haven’t saved me,” Lionel said. “If you have no strength left to keep living, then we shall die together. Do you really think the rest of the vampires will let me out of here with their queen and you dead?”
Damn it. I hadn’t thought of that. “Your life force is near critical. If I start, I won’t be able to stop in time.”
“I already accustomed myself to dying in that manner,” Lionel said. “You’re already forgiven if it goes wrong. I trust that it won’t, though.” He touched his neck to my lips.
As drops fell into my mouth, my instincts took me. My fangs bit into Lionel’s skin, and I sucked in a mouthful of glorious-tasting blood.
The single gulp shot through my whole body like a jolt of adrenaline. Blood always tasted fantastic, but in five centuries it had never tasted that good. Like a man dying of thirst finally reaching water, I gulped down mouthful after mouthful. Energy flowed through me, and I opened my mouth wider to draw on the last of the life force.
No. My mind realized what I was doing just in time. With a wrench, I pulled my mouth off his neck. I pushed him off me, and lifting myself out from under him. His face fell against the carpet. “Lionel.” I knelt beside him and turned him onto his back.
His head was bent back at an angle, his eyes were closed, and blood gushed from his neck. “No!” I shouted. I should have stopped earlier. Why hadn’t I managed to control myself better? “You have to be alive.” I cupped the back of his head. “Lionel, tell me you are alive.”
Even with the smell of fresh blood strong, my fangs retreated and the bloodlust left me. With my palm, I applied pressure to the side of his neck, stopping the blood flow. “Lionel,” I called again.
Nothing. I shook him. A bit too violently, because blood leaked from his neck once more. I reapplied pressure.
“Please,” I said. “You can’t be dead.” After many instances of wanton murder, this was the one time I had touched my fangs to a neck while desperately wanting not to kill. Was this time going to end up like the others as a punishment of fate? “You just can’t.”
I grabbed his wrist, seeking a pulse, but I was too frantic to feel anything. I opened an eyelid. Did his eye stir?
“Lionel,” I said. “I need you to wake up.”
Nothing. I exhaled a breath of pure despair. Had it been my imagination that his eye had moved?
I slumped into a sitting position beside him, glancing across at Mortissa’s corpse. Defeating her meant nothing now. Less than nothing. Better I died than he did. Better she killed him than I did.
Lionel’s eyelids fluttered.
I leaned forward again. “Lionel,” I called. Had it been my imagination again?
Then his eyes opened fully.
“You’re not dead,” I said, a stupid grin on my face.
“Are you...?” He stumbled over his words. “Did my blood help?”
“I’m feeling fantastic.” The wounds on my torso had closed up. “You?”
He shivered. “I feel like I should be dead.”
We both should be. “Let’s see if we can manage one more miracle.” I slid one arm under his neck, preparing to lift him. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Where are you going to take me?”
I thought for a moment. “To your home. Cress House. They’ll take care of you there. Heal you.” I wouldn’t exactly be welcome. “I’ll have to drop you off at the gate and leave.”
“No.” Lionel shook his head. “I don’t want to return there. And I’m not being separated from you right now
. Not like that.”
“We need someone to give you healing.” Life force couldn’t be renewed by magic, but the wound on his neck could be healed, as well as the other damage Mortissa had inflicted.
“Give me a phone,” he said.
I took my cell from my pocket and handed it across. As I did so, I noticed the time on the display. There wasn’t much night left in the night—we needed to get moving.
Lionel dialed. “What’s the address of this place?”
“Near Cherry and Fifteenth.”
For twenty long, drawn-out seconds, the phone rang unanswered. Then a woman spoke, “Hello?”
“Essa and I need your help. Can you collect us at the corner of Cherry and Fifteenth Street?” He waited for a response, then said, “We might be dead in twenty minutes. Can you make it ten?”
I couldn’t make out the reply.
“Good.” He hung up, and handed the phone back. I pocketed it, then tucked one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees and lifted.
I staggered slightly as I took the full weight of him.
“Are you okay?” Lionel asked.
“Fine,” I said once the immediate wave of dizziness faded. I wasn’t bleeding badly anywhere, and with the help of Lionel’s life force, my healing powers meant I’d continue to improve. Still, I wouldn’t defeat the weakest vampire in a fight. “Maybe act unconscious for a while.” With Mortissa dead, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the other vampires. It was best that Lionel not draw attention to himself. “Or at least don’t say anything.”
“That won’t be hard,” Lionel said. “I don’t feel very awake. Or even alive.”
I turned my back to the door, and used my hip to twist the handle. Then I swung around to face forward again as I passed through the doorway. In the corridor beyond, the Colescu vampires and many of their fawns had begun to gather, attracted by the scent of blood.
Chapter 16
I was glad Sistine wasn’t among them. Spotting the youngest Colescu hovering not far away, I called out to her. “Giselle, come here. Now.”
Giselle looked hesitantly to either side, then hurried forward. Lionel shivered violently against me, and I held him tighter. I didn’t know if he was actually unconscious, or just pretending like I’d told him, but having a critically low level of life force was extremely serious.
As Giselle reached me, the sudden hit of powerful blood-smell caused her to instantly transform. I shifted Lionel across to my right side, freeing my left hand. Then I slapped Giselle across the face. “Control yourself,” I ordered.
With a visible struggle, she forced her fangs to retract.
“Look inside the throne room,” I ordered.
She did so, her eyes lingering on Mortissa’s body.
“Now repeat after me: The queen is dead, long live the queen.”
“The queen is dead, long live the queen,” she muttered.
I slapped her again. “Louder.”
“The queen is dead, long live the queen.”
Lionel’s head lolled forward slightly, and I adjusted him into a more comfortable position. Even holding him with one hand, he was beginning to feel less heavy as I continued to heal. “Lead the way to the elevator. Slowly.”
As I followed behind her, I glared at one of the nearest fawns, nodding downward until he got the hint and went down on one knee, lowering his head.
“Giselle,” I said.
“The queen is dead, long live the queen,” she intoned.
The other fawns began to kneel, followed by first one vampire, then another. As I passed by, I touched the heads of those on either side. Seeing them kneel, feeling their heads bowed to me, a surge of emotion came upon me, similar to what I had felt when I’d pressed my knee to Sistine’s throat. All this could be mine. I didn’t have to walk out into the unknown. I had killed Mortissa, and, to take control of the Colescu family, I just had to stay and seize it.
Lionel’s warm breath touched my neck. I hugged him tighter to me, feeling his heartbeat against mine. No. I wasn’t Mortissa, and I wasn’t going to take her place, become her.
“The queen is dead, long live the queen,” Giselle intoned.
As we reached the elevator, Sistine walked slowly toward us, arriving down a cross corridor, a calculating expression on her face as she surveyed the kneeling vampires and fawns around me. I cursed under my breath. I doubted Sistine would kneel, and if she decided to make a play for leadership, I had no idea how much support she could call on. And I didn’t want to find out.
“Sistine, sister,” I said. “Come with me, we need to talk.”
“Sister?” Sistine showed surprise.
“A great change has happened, and we need to decide how to handle it. For the good of the family.” The elevator doors opened and I stepped inside. “Let’s talk.”
Sistine hesitated for four long heartbeats before deciding to follow. The doors shut and the elevator began to descend. “What’s going on, Alessandra?” Sistine asked.
“It’s your lucky day. You are going to get everything you always wanted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Mortissa is dead, and I’m not interested in taking over the family.”
Sistine, uncertain, snorted out a half laugh. “That doesn’t make any sense. What was all that ‘long live the queen’ stuff, and the corridor of kneeling subjects?”
“I wanted to make sure I could leave.” The person who murdered a queen couldn’t just walk out and get away with it unless she had the power of a new queen. “Without having to face any questions.” And while bringing Lionel out with me.
“So what do you expect to happen now?”
“You go back up there without me and explain that my grief over killing Mortissa means that I decided I cannot usurp her position. So my only choice is to leave the family, but I do so in the sure knowledge that our family is in great hands with Queen Sistine,” I said. “My only condition is that my killing of Mortissa is not considered a crime, and not subject to any revenge, led by a new queen or otherwise.”
“And if I don’t agree to any conditions?”
“Things become more complicated.” I held my free hand out toward her. “What you want is within easy reach. Just take it.”
Sistine hesitated, then grasped my hand and shook it. The elevator’s doors opened and I walked out. I looked over my shoulder to watch the doors close on Sistine, on the Colescu family, and on my life as I’d known it.
Out on the street, the city was beginning its shift from the quietness of night to the bustle of morning. Traffic was light and fast moving; the passing pedestrians were sporadic.
“Lionel?” I gave him a gentle shake. His eyes opened and then closed again. He was still alive, at least.
Anyone who glanced my way looked away again quickly, not wanting to get involved in the reasons that a woman was carrying an unconscious and bloodied half-naked man along the sidewalk. Half a block down, I found a bench and sat. I placed Lionel beside me and leaned him against me.
Dawn wasn’t far away, but I wasn’t going to leave Lionel like this, whatever happened. If my destiny was to see the sun this morning for the first time in almost five hundred years, then so be it.
It wasn’t. Brakes screeched, then a car at the opposite end of the street did a violent U-turn, the front wheel jumping the corner of the sidewalk as the car came to a halt. In the driver’s seat, Danielle’s face was pale.
I stood and gave Lionel another gentle shake. His eyes opened again. “We’re both still alive, fancy that,” he said.
“Fancy that.” I smiled, bent to kiss him on the lips, then I guided him across to Danielle’s car. Looking into Lionel’s face, a feeling of peace and happiness descended upon me. It was a new feeling.
I wasn’t going to die, not yet. Would I have to join the Huntley family? That was a decision for another time. Lionel was with me, and Mortissa was gone.
A new life awaited.
* * *
&nb
sp; Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.
The story of Lionel, Alessa, Danielle and others continues in The Mage Team, which is available as part of the Gypsies After Dark multi-author boxed set. Click here for links.
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A power-hungry necromancer is seeking a world-ending artifact. Only the mage team can stop him—that is if they don’t kill each other first.
Slate Blackthorn is a vampire hunter who’s ready for anything; except for being teamed up with a vampire. However, with the threat of an undead apocalypse looming, Slate and the rest of the mage team will have to learn to work together. The magical artifact is kept in an enchanted safe within an impregnable tower. To get to it before the necromancer, the team will have to overcome an assortment of challenges including mages with machine guns and fighting robots, lethal mindtraps and bloodthirsty demons.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Slate knows something the others don’t. One of the team members is a traitor.
A magical heist story—Mission Impossible meets Dresden Files—The Mage Team is the first book in the Dragongods Saga, a new urban fantasy series. It will be initially released as part of the Gypsies After Dark multi-author boxed set.
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this story. I always love to hear from readers so send an email ([email protected]) or message me on FACEBOOK if you want to get in contact.
To discover more about me and my books, check out my WEBSITE
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Also by David J. Normoyle:
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THE SENTINELS (urban fantasy)
Fire Sorcerer
Fire Summoning
Fire Soldiers (due 2017)
Fire Serpent (due 2017)
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WEAPONS OF POWER (epic fantasy)
The Silver Portal
The Black Bearer (due 2017)
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THE NARROWING PATH (dystopian fantasy)
The Narrowing Path
The Treacherous Path
The Collapsing Path
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THE DRAGONGODS SAGA (urban fantasy)
The Demon Mirror (Dragongods Saga, #0) Page 11
