by Joe Jackson
“Ashurinax, I hope that’s not you,” Kari whispered.
“Do you have your bow?” Aeligos asked.
Kari scoffed. “Bows are useless against a dragon, unless maybe you’re a brys,” she said. “Unless it’s stupid enough to land, we’re going to need harpoons and chains. Let’s see if we can find that lieutenant, or another officer of the watch.”
She led Aeligos toward the worst of things, where the watch officers would undoubtedly be organizing relief and rescue efforts. The press of the fire’s heat was incredible even at a distance, and the oily smoke that was billowing from the buildings being consumed made it difficult to breathe. Kari pressed on, trying to find the watch officers. They passed through throngs of fearful, panicked people, but eventually, following the sound of yelled commands, they came across an armored man with the markings of a captain.
“Demonhunter!” he yelled when he saw Kari. “Gods, I don’t suppose you know how to fight a dragon?”
“I do, but not unless we can ground it,” she answered. “Captain, if you have ballistae, you’re going to need to try harpooning it with chains to bring it down. Then we’ll have a fighting chance.”
“Lieutenant, relay those orders to the keep, get those arbalests ready!” the captain said, sending his subordinate running toward the center of the city.
“I’m going in to see if there’s anyone I can help,” Aeligos said. He shed his cloak and weapons, anything metallic that would absorb the heat too fast, leaving himself with just his leather vest and trousers.
“Are you crazy, man?”
“Half-demon, sir,” the rogue explained, and he dashed off into the inferno.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the captain said, watching Aeligos’ retreating form. “Can’t say I’ve ever thought we could use more of them around, but we certainly could about now. Ma’am, what do you suggest?”
“You’ve got a bucket brigade forming, I assume?” Kari said. She realized, from the rawness of her throat, just how loudly they had to talk to be heard over the roar of the flames. Her eyes, too, were squinted from the bright blaze and the smoky air.
“Aye, and there’s one of those nature-witches in the city, too. I sent some men to ask her to make it rain if she could,” he answered, looking eastward across the city. “I’m not sure how much of their power is real and how much is storytelling, but it can’t hurt to ask.”
Kari ducked again as the whoosh of the dragon’s wings passed overhead. She hissed in pain and moved away as the blast of its passing shoved the heat of the fire into her and the captain. She turned and looked back over the conflagration as the dragon loosed a deafening roar, and though it was hard to follow against the night sky, she saw that it turned northward and flew off. “Better get some men to the north side of the city, the dragon headed that way,” she said, and the captain called for some of his men to come relay the orders.
There was still screaming and shouting coming at them from all sides, but Kari couldn’t get close enough to the flames to really help. She shook her head as the captain’s words echoed in her skull, and briefly wished she was serilian-rir so she could shrug off the effects of the fire and lend her aid. She hoped Aeligos was all right, and that he wouldn’t be overcome by the smoke or have something fall on him. He was resistant to fire and heat to some extent, but those were only the primary dangers of an inferno like this.
People began lining up for the bucket brigade at last, passing water from the city’s central well. Kari joined in, and the captain followed her lead. They started to make some headway on the buildings closest to the city’s center, but Kari assumed much of the western quarter would be lost by sunrise. She kept looking over her shoulder to the north, waiting for the dragon to return or begin burning another section of the city, but no more attacks came just yet.
“Kari!” she heard her name from within the burning district. She was afraid Aeligos might be in trouble, but soon she saw the rogue’s smoking-armored form emerging from the flames. He huffed out some smoke and coughed a couple of times, stumbling as he reached her. “Kari…the dragon…it’s…”
“It’s gone, I think,” she said, glancing northward over her shoulder again.
“I know,” he said, trying to get his wind back. “Kari, the dragon…it’s a diversion.”
“What do you mean?” the captain demanded.
“It set the commons ablaze,” the rogue said, gesturing over his shoulder. “Its goal wasn’t just to kill some people, but to draw the city’s defenders to the western quarter.”
“What for?”
“So its companion could attack another part of the city unnoticed,” Aeligos answered, his gaze locking with Kari’s.
“The Red Mask,” she whispered. “Captain, if you can spare a squad, send some men to the headquarters of the Red Mask. Aeligos, let’s go!”
The streets were eerie as they moved away from the conflagration, most of the residents and watchmen busy fighting the fire. Long shadows draped the wide streets from the light of the moons, filtering down through the tendrils of smoke. It was hard to hear much beyond the shouts and screams emanating from the west side of the city. Aeligos was still catching his breath, so Kari outpaced him, and though she made one wrong turn, she eventually found the headquarters of the Red Mask.
Two still forms lay in the street before the building. Kari slowed her approach and strained to hear anything besides the chaos to the west. Soon, she caught the sound of swords clashing, and she rushed forward to open the door to the building. She threw it wide but stepped to the side to avoid any immediate attack. When nothing flew from the portal, she pushed the door wide again with one of her scimitars and then dashed inside.
More bodies littered the floor of the main level, men killed as they came down from the barracks ill-prepared for a fight. They were unarmored, barely dressed really, and the bodies showed numerous precise stabs and cuts, much like Turillia’s victims in Barcon a year before. Kari started to mount the stairs, pausing only when the front door flew open again and Aeligos came in behind her. He drew out a pair of longswords, and Kari nodded, thankful to have him at her back.
Aeligos had been quite dissatisfied with his fighting skills when he’d returned with the rest of the family from hunting the Tilcimer. Erik had begun training him to dual-wield longer blades, the better to use distance and leverage to his advantage. Apparently, Taesenus had once again humiliated Aeligos in close-quarters combat, but rather than shy away from fighting, the rogue took up sword-fighting lessons with a voracious will. He was becoming quite proficient, from what Erik said.
They reached the top of the staircase, and Kari realized the sounds of combat had ceased again. There was only a low groaning, and she stepped from the stairwell to the upper floor and crouched. In the sparse lighting, her rir night vision took over, and she could see two forms in the office where she’d sat with Eugene. As her focus improved, she realized it was a rir woman holding a human man, sucking on the side of his neck.
“Stop!” Kari yelled, rising to her feet and tightening the grip on her blades.
The rir form straightened up, the white teeth glistening with blood even in the little light of the moons that made it this far into the building. “Ah, I wondered when you would make an appearance,” it rasped, releasing the human body to crumple to the floor. “I had heard you were coming, so I thought I would save you the trouble of coming to me.”
“That’s Annabelle?” Aeligos asked as he stepped out from behind Kari.
The demonhunter looked at what was left of her friend. Once, Annabelle had looked a lot like Kari: a little under six feet tall with ebon hair and eyes. The wings were the biggest thing that had separated the two. Now, though, Annabelle was a shell of her former self, her black skin turned pale grey, her eyes dead and milky white, the snout shriveled so the fangs stood out in a permanent grin. Her hair was unkempt and haggard, and there was a terrible gauntness to her that was even more pronounced than Grakin’s. You call endi
ng up like this a gift? Kari thought as she looked at her friend. I’d rather just die again.
Annabelle wore the same armor Kari remembered, though it was covered in so much dried blood it was sickening. The vampire fingered the hilts of her longswords and strutted side to side a few times. “What’s the matter, Kari? Not interested in another taste of what I have to offer?”
“That was a mistake,” Kari said forcefully.
“A mistake? You slept with hundreds of men you cared nothing for, and sharing one intimate night with someone you cared for was a mistake? That is rich. Is that why you cast me aside? Refused to teach me all you knew? Sent me off to die on my own, so you could live with yourself for making a ‘mistake’?”
“What’s she talking about?” Aeligos asked, though Kari was pretty sure he knew.
“I didn’t cast you aside. Our partnership was ended by the Order, not me! Damnit, I loved you like a sister!” Kari shouted.
“Oh, you loved me like far more than a sister,” the vampire taunted, her blood-coated tongue sliding forth between her teeth. She pulled it back within and hissed over it. “Pathetic whore. How many did you sleep with before Dracon’s Bane mercifully rid the world of you?”
Kari felt like her heart stopped, time slowing all around her. She was aware of Aeligos turning to look at her, and she was pretty sure he said something, but Annabelle’s words rang so loudly in her ears that they started to burn. She was a vampire, but what did that really mean? Was this some malevolent force controlling her body, or was the soul and mind of the woman still in there, venting her true feelings at Kari? It knew that she and Kari had spent a passionate night together so long ago, and Kari wasn’t sure what was the truth of the situation.
“I’ve heard quite enough of this,” Aeligos said, striding forward. He engaged Annabelle and called for Kari to help, but she was rooted to her spot, still stunned by the vampire’s words.
She and Annabelle hadn’t just been partners, they had become the best of friends. Kari never slowed down in her hunting even once she took on the younger hunter as a sidekick, and Annabelle had learned quickly being thrown to the wolves. Through everything, they’d always had each other’s backs, and Kari could recall almost every time they had survived some risky hunt and returned to the nearest town or city to indulge in some celebratory drinking. Normally Kari drank to drown her troubles and the thoughts of her mortality, but when she was partnered with Annabelle, the drinking became more joyous.
And then everything had changed that one night. They had destroyed a unit of corlypsi, far more than any hunters would normally have engaged. Kari realized it was the very encounter she had been dreaming about over and over, with Annabelle biting her at the end, which would inevitably wake her up. In reality, they had survived the encounter and returned to Dira Ch’Tori to heal up and rest. And, as had become their usual routine, to spend the night drinking in toast to their victory and friendship.
How many double-godhammers had Kari consumed? Five? Six? More? Annabelle had helped her to bed, but then Kari remembered waking up to find her friend taking advantage of her. The girl she had loved like a sister for months had taken their relationship into uncharted waters. Kari’s taste had always been in men despite all her father had done to her, but she loved Annabelle, and trusted her in a way she often had trouble trusting any man. Suler Tumureldi had been a notable exception, but in Annabelle, Kari had found a lover she could trust for more than one reason.
But it had been a mistake. Professionally, demonhunters on assignment together were not supposed to fraternize. The Order most commonly assigned hunters to partners of the same gender, differing races, or both to try to discourage such. Personally, Kari loved Annabelle like a sister, and being intimate with her changed that, no matter how much her terra-rir partner wanted that to not be true. It hadn’t changed how close they were, not in terms of their effectiveness or camaraderie, but Kari was always very careful to never over-indulge with Annabelle around after that. In her mind, she was never able to reconcile loving Annabelle as a sister and a sexual partner; there was an either-or demand there to Kari’s thinking.
Being called a whore by her former partner now cut Kari to the quick. While it was more than likely that this wasn’t Annabelle at all, but some malevolent spirit controlling her undead body, it still hurt. It still knew her, had the memories of their travels and their intimacy together. And that left a cold inside Kari that had paralyzed her until Aeligos’ yelp finally broke her free of the hell of her roiling thoughts.
Annabelle was pressuring him, toying with him, forcing him to give too much ground and dance around what open area there was in the upper level. He did catch the vampire with a front switch kick, which she had clearly never seen coming, but it hardly fazed her. She laughed at him, openly taunted and dared him to come strike at her. As much as Erik had taught his brother in the last few months, Aeligos was still barely an apprentice when it came to swordplay, and if Kari didn’t intervene, this would be his last sword fight.
“Ah, the whore is finally ready to join the fray, is she?” Annabelle mocked when she saw Kari approaching. “When I kill you, I will give you the gift of being my thrall.”
Kari didn’t bother responding, but tried to push what the vampire had said out of her mind. She concentrated on her mate and her children, on Aeligos, the people of Solaris, and all the others Annabelle and Zaliskower threatened. The soft blue glow of Zalkar’s symbol began to pulse on her chest even without having sworn a Blood Oath. Kari recognized that he was with her, that this was her final test to become his avatar. Kari tensed, brought her swords up to their ready position, and stalked between her overmatched brother-in-law and the remnant of her friend.
Kari waited for Annabelle to attack her the way she had against Aeligos, but the vampire made no move to initiate their fight. Annabelle remembered Kari well, and her fighting style in particular; she was not going to wade foolishly into Tumureldi’s defensive style. Kari instead used some of Tumureldi’s taunting jabs and measuring strikes to try to provoke a response. The vampire parried and dodged easily, not bothering to counterstrike yet. Kari pressed the attack, maneuvering to try to pin Annabelle near the wall.
The counterstrike was sudden and blindingly fast, but Kari met it and turned it aside. It was much like one of Tumureldi’s trademark counters, and Kari wondered where Annabelle had learned it. Even as Kari turned aside the counterstrike, the vampire went on the offensive, her swords whirling in a wild-looking but short, controlled weave that nearly knocked the blades from Kari’s hand. The demonhunter stepped back and then to the side, trying to reset her stance and strike sequence, but the vampire stayed in tight, driving her backwards.
Aeligos came in from the side then, working to flank the vampire and help Kari strike true. Annabelle hissed and met the rogue’s gaze, though, and said, “Bow to my will, and aid me in killing your friend.”
The rogue snorted. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Annabelle seemed surprised at Aeligos’ willpower, but she was canny enough to not let it distract from her current situation. She surprised Kari and Aeligos both by changing direction in an unforeseen way, cutting between them rather than trying to circle and put Kari between herself and the rogue. She cut wickedly at Aeligos as she danced through the gauntlet, but his reflexes were sharp enough to dodge and keep her at a distance. Kari caught her own attacks from Annabelle on the edges of her blades, parrying hard and sidestepping with the vampire’s momentum to attempt a counter of her own.
Annabelle closed her eyes briefly and backed up. When those dead, milky eyes opened again, she curled the end of her snout with what little mobility it had left to sneer. “Come, my pet, join me in death.”
Kari scowled and waded forward, their blades clashing each time they got within striking distance of the other. Annabelle had put the last two hundred years to effective use, learning to fight a much more controlled and deadly game than she had when they both lived.
She forced Kari to attack as much as she was attacked, stymying Tumureldi’s defensive style and forcing Kari to fight the vampire’s way. Worse than that, it suddenly dawned on Kari that Aeligos wasn’t helping and exactly why.
The body of the human she’d killed had risen from its place on the floor. Worse than that, it didn’t shamble after Aeligos: it drew its weapons and fought him like one of the living. If Annabelle was controlling it directly, such did little to divert her attention from fighting Kari. From the quick glimpses Kari could catch over her shoulder, it looked as though Aeligos was able to hold his own against the undead Mask, but for how long?
The sounds of men rising to their feet carried from down below; this fight was going to quickly turn against Kari and Aeligos. “Look on the bright side: at least you won’t have to fight your mate and children. They’re still in Flora with the rest of my pets,” Annabelle taunted, and that made Kari pause. The vampire took full advantage, slamming Kari hard in the head before she could get her defenses back in place.
She’d hit with the flat of her blade, and Kari saw stars, but she gave ground and brought her swords up before her to try to buy time. Four more undead thralls made their way up the stairs, and Kari could hear others moving around inside the building. All that was to say nothing of the raging inferno outside and the possibility that Zaliskower returned to continue his rain of fire. The day was lost, but Kari wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t give in. Not now, not ever.
“Come on, then,” Kari growled, waving the vampire in.
Annabelle looked at the approaching thralls. “My work here is done, my little whore. If you manage to survive this, you know where to find me. I have now beaten you on your ground. Come face me on my own and it will cost you your life.”
Great black wings sprouted from Annabelle’s back, and she walked and smashed one of the larger windows of the second floor. She jumped out with a taunting laugh and flew off into the night, but Kari had other concerns. Four of them, armed but thankfully not armored, undead but still full of the agility of life. This would be no easy contest against zombies and skeletons, she realized. She was about to engage four well-trained vampire hunters, and their recent failure didn’t belittle their abilities at all, to her thinking.
