‘This is the gift we will give the world.’ The Mother’s face shone with a conviction that brought fear into Natalia’s heart.
The older vampire rasped, ‘It’s human?’
‘Yes, Andrew, we have freed him.’
This was insane. The man looked human, but there was no way he could be. The older vampire – Andrew – began to walk from the platform, out onto the bridge.
‘Dispose of it, and I’ll get you more for your rituals, wytch.’ Andrew’s voice box whistled with mimicked life.
Natalia approached the man and knelt, feeling for a pulse. Life beat in his throat.
‘You’re turning vampires?’
The Mother smiled broadly. ‘This is why we need you, Natalia Torres. Together, we will cure the world.’
It was amazing. Unthinkable. To cure the world of vampires? To save those who had been cursed with un-life … Her mind suddenly caught what had been said a moment ago. ‘Eh, what does that vampire mean by “get rid of it”?’
Andrew turned around. ‘That is the price for my betrayal of my own kind, wytch. I will have no witnesses, no loose ends and no talentless fledgling to burden me.’
Natalia looked to the Mother, who avoided her gaze. ‘You’ve got to be joking! You can’t kill that man – he’s human now!’
The rasping vampire returned to the platform. Natalia whirled around to meet him, a war invocation to Mixcoatl forming on her tongue. The Mother stepped forward and gripped her arm.
‘It is the arrangement.’ The Mother’s voice was a resignation.
‘You can’t – you said this wasn’t going to break the laws!’
The wheezing rasp of mimicked life from the vampire erupted. ‘It doesn’t.’
Shit, the vampire was right. In a horrible, technical, deliberately-missing-the-point kind of way. There was plenty in the Armistice about humans not killing monsters, and plenty about monsters killing humans in controlled ways – but nothing about humans not killing each other.
‘That’s not what the laws intend! That shouldn’t need to be said.’ Natalia moved herself between them all and the unconscious man’s form. This couldn’t be happening. No way were they murdering him for that fucking vampire. ‘There’s a name for this, and it’s called homicide, and it’s illegal under normal law, not to mention flat fucking wrong.’
There were too many of them if it came to a fight. And worse, Millie Mouthpiece with the blinding spell did not fairly represent the talent in the room. Natalia had to make them see sense.
‘You’re going to side with a vampire? Over a person?’
The Mother had the cheek to look annoyed. ‘You have to understand, that boy cannot leave here alive.’
Natalia’s jaw worked, stunned for a moment. ‘And you have to understand that I’m not letting you kill him.’ The Mother got to her feet and radiated power. Oh boy, did she radiate. It was quite an impressive display for a woman doing nothing. Her perfect dress was unmarked and looked fresh off the rack, but her eyes looked tired.
Andrew hissed. ‘Mother, you will honour the terms, or good luck getting more vampires for your crusade.’
Sick leverage from a sick creature. Vampires were the worst sort of bad.
The Mother stepped toward her, palms open. ‘Natalia, please, think about the big picture. Think about what we can achieve if we work together. Please!’
Natalia knew that, for all her words, the Mother was poised to annihilate her. The wytches had gathered around the base of the platform; their power pricked the air.
Mixcoatl be damned, it was an unbelievable opportunity. They really could heal the world. And without Natalia’s protection, the wytches would fall to the ruin of the Anvil. She shuddered. But right was right. She couldn’t move on that.
‘We could keep him here. That way he can’t alert anyone to what we’re doing, and we don’t have to murder people to keep this secret.’ If they agreed, she was in this, good or bad. If they didn’t? She couldn’t think about that.
A sliver of hope bloomed as the possibilities occurred to her. What if …
‘Could this be used on a siphon, do you think?’ Cole. Could she save him too?
The Mother smiled at her. ‘I don’t know, child. It may be possible.’
She liked smiling when she got her way, that one.
Andrew stamped his foot, the terrible rasp of air drawn into his throat to work his vocal cords setting her teeth on edge.
‘We had a deal. My fledgling must die. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have a fledgling who is toothless?’ Weird dental issue. The Mother seemed to straighten.
‘No, Andrew. Natalia is right. We cannot kill human beings, no matter our goals. We will keep him here, and you need never worry about him again.’
Andrew’s mouth made an ugly line. ‘This is not our deal.’
The Mother started looking at Natalia. Men had scrutinised her that way before, weighing and measuring, like she was a commodity to be owned. ‘Natalia can sense the Anvil, you know.’
Andrew ceased his muttering tirade immediately. His lean face cocked to one side.
‘Can she now? How fascinating. Perhaps I could take her with me instead?’
No fucking way.
The Mother raised her finger. ‘You could ask her questions, if she is agreeable? In exchange, the boy lives.’
Oh great, thanks a bunch.
Andrew came toward her and the prone man. ‘Then I will keep him. Insurance, yes?’
What a shit day. Who trusted a vampire to keep his word? ‘If you hurt him at all …’
Andrew approximated a smile at her. ‘As long as you are valuable to me, the boy lives.’
The Mother came between them. ‘I cannot allow him to leave this place – he will remember everything. If he gets away from you or is found, it will be the end of all we have fought for.’
Andrew gestured at the man’s form. ‘May I?’ He moved around Natalia, watchful, coiled. ‘You may stay close to protect your precious human.’ He stooped, placing a hand on the man’s forehead. A wash of greasy power fountained from below. For her to feel it, it must have been a huge amount of black magic.
‘His mind is wiped. I have destroyed Henry’s memories.’
Poor boy! This was unacceptable. And now she was an accomplice.
‘Mind scouring is illegal.’
Andrew picked up the man’s limp form and slung him over one shoulder as though he weighed no more than a bag.
‘Better than dying, no? I will want my payment as soon as possible, wytch.’ The vampire looked at Natalia like dinner. If the Mother felt distaste at their sordid dealings, she hid it well.
Andrew left, navigating the narrow bridge. Natalia rounded on the Mother. ‘You trust that thing?’ How stupid could she be.
‘Not at all, no. He is slippery. We have struggled to locate his refuge, but we will in time. And once we discover who is helping him capture the vampires he delivers to us, he will be unbound also.’ Unbound. So that’s what they called what they were doing. Natalia looked around.
‘You have more vampires? Where are they? How are you keeping them contained?’ The Mother indicated the rough-hewn walls around them.
‘This place has rooms, and a way with keeping a hold of its guests.’ Natalia took in the pinkish stone of the chamber, suddenly shaped like the inside of a vast abyssal heart, and shuddered.
‘Will it be safe to keep the vampires we save here?’
The Mother nodded. ‘Quite safe. We can hold them in the lower chambers.’
The Anvil’s shaft of energy continued to burn faintly, scything down into the floor. ‘What’s under here?’ Better to know than to wonder.
‘The Pit, we think.’
‘You think?’
‘That was the first unbinding we have performed. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe; nothing gets out of the Pit.’
Chapter 3
What was that god-awful screaming noise outside? Natalia’s skin shrank as she looked out o
f her room’s only window. There were shapes out there in the swirling, purple fog that hung above this place. It turned out the wytches had a fortress. This whole place was creepy as hell, from the rotten smell of the wind that coursed along the arched corridors to the bone-coloured struts holding the roof up, and the splashes of pink-red stone stretching across the ceilings like muscle in an open throat.
To make matters worse, the portal she had stepped through to get there – the portal that wasn’t a normal portal – had apparently taken them to a place inside the Ways. She hadn’t known there was an inside of the Ways. She was pretty sure the Council didn’t either. Nessie would have mentioned it. He was always teaching; he couldn’t help himself. Compromise had brought her here. She had pretended for the last twenty-four hours that she was only skirting close to breaking the laws of the Armistice. But if the Greatshadow – the leader of all the monsters in the city – found out what the wytches were doing here? War. Plain and simple. Chaos on the streets. The end of the ceasefire that had held for centuries. Outside, a shrieking, howling choir of voices sounded from somewhere far off.
The rap on her door made her stomach lurch. Foolish; she was perfectly secure. The mist was outside, she was in here. In Creepville. Footsteps shuffled, hesitating in the doorframe, as the door swung open. She turned. ‘Yes?’
Mouthpiece Millie, in a plain wool shift entered the room, her drooped shoulders and wringing hands an apology. She looked like she’d been sent to see the headmistress. Natalia sat on one of the room’s comfortable chairs. ‘What? I won’t bite, pal.’
Millie straightened somewhat. ‘I’m sorry, sister, the Mother commands me.’
Indeed. The Mother seemed fond of commanding. But it wasn’t Millie’s fault.
‘You bring me something to break the monotony, pal?’ The good fight had turned out to be chronically lacking in action. She wasn’t physically required for the back-to-back unbinding rituals the wytches had dived into carrying out. She’d fallen asleep at some point in the chair in the corner of the room, and spent some time wandering the corridors of this awful place. The wytches hadn’t stopped. It was remarkable – they must be completely exhausted with spell fugue by now. She regarded Millie. ‘And by the way, you don’t have to call me sister.’
Millie’s confusion would crease the forehead of a saint. ‘I am a novice; I’m not permitted to call you by anything other than your status.’
Why did dogma always come so easily? Was it really necessary to strip these women of their former lives before they became wytches? The plain robes she’d seen some of them wear in her brief foray around this awful place, coupled with the enforced honorifics, smelled of control. It wasn’t a practice conducive to producing powerful magic users. Quite the opposite, in fact.
If she pushed Millie, what would come out? ‘I’m not a sister. I’m Natalia, and I’ll remain Natalia, thank you very much.’
Mouthpiece Millie stood in her plain, unadorned robes and suddenly straightened with a certainty usually reserved for fools or the faithful. So which was Millie then? ‘Well, sister, I will not address you by anything other than your honorific. You deserve that basic respect. The Mother told us all about you. Your power is amazing. You will change the world with it.’
And just how the Mother had come by that piece of information still required discussion. The Mother had ducked her when she’d asked, claiming she was too busy for questions right then, but they could converse once the first batch of vampires was unbound. Natalia met Millie’s fervent stare with silence. It was both thrilling and loathsome to see Millie’s look. The way the wytches had nodded respectfully to her during her brief tour, she could see they believed in her, which was good and right. She was far from ordinary. But put on this pedestal? It was uncomfortable. Millie looked at her in no way she deserved. And worse, Millie was blindly accepting her own implied inferiority by raising Natalia up. Natalia kept her face stony.
Millie sighed, shoulders finally collapsing under the weight of silence. ‘Please, I took a vow.’
Bloody ridiculous. ‘Fine. Call me your highness then, if you must. Why does the Mother make you speak for her all the time anyway? What did her last slave die of? Overwork?’ Millie’s eyes widened, her alarm amusing enough to make Natalia laugh. Even Millie raised a smile. ‘Come on, what’s she sent you here for? Out with it. No shooting messengers today – you’re just following orders, blah blah.’
Millie nodded, finally getting some steel in her spine. Shame it was when she was doing what she was told.
‘The Mother kindly requests that you meet with Andrew Ancroft, as per the bargain for his fledgling’s life, your highness.’
What was this disrespect? And what could the vampire possibly be so keen to know? ‘She wants me to speak to a two-faced vampire – who looked at me like food, by the way – and the Mother thought it unimportant enough to send her lackey?’ Oops, not the way to build this woman up – we name thee, Lackey.
Millie eyed the floor as though willing it to swallow her. Natalia beckoned her to sit in the opposite chair. She looked so bloody hapless – it was like kicking a puppy. Natalia sighed.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just, come on. Is the Mother too busy to come down here and explain why the hell that vampire wants to speak to me? Why it’s my job to give him the time of day?’ Would Millie stop shuffling around? How did she manage to fidget so much sitting down? The girl said nothing.
‘This is crap. He’ll want to do weird experiments on me or something. I’m not being probed by anyone; you can tell them both.’ The purple dullness outside promised loneliness and unheard cries. ‘He gives me the bloody creeps. I’ve not been looked at like that since I made the mistake of trying a night out on the town.’
Millie raised her eyebrows, the gesture saying I don’t know what you mean.
‘And you need to get out. Would do you some good. You’re a young woman. Better than being stuck in this place, with this cult.’ Millie looked like she might cry. ‘I’m sorry, again.’ Natalia reached out. Millie’s sleeve was rough to touch; what an uncomfortable robe. ‘I don’t mean to call the Order a cult. I know how much good could be done here. It’s just this place. Did they have to pick the creepiest location in the world for this work?’
Millie’s laugh was musical, breaking the hard tension knotting up Natalia’s shoulders.
‘And you, Millie. Keep your bloody name; it’s part of who you are.’
Millie wiped a tear that had been gathering in her eye. Her shy smile blossomed over her face as she spoke. ‘They tell us all the time, accept without question – have faith – and I do.’ Millie’s tone was hushed.
Accept without question? What piss-poor magic teaching was this? The second word was off. The first word was any number of colourful four-letter bombshells. Nessie would have a fit.
‘How can you expect to become chosen, Millie, being meek and doing what you’re told?’
Millie shook her head. ‘Because – I will be chosen by keeping faith in the Mother.’
Faith? In the Mother? What was this? ‘Millie, the reason we don’t worship the old gods and powers anymore isn’t because they’re not powerful. It’s because in order to invoke them truly, we must approach them as equals. You’ve been told that, right?’
Millie’s furtive eye contact and blank look said no, she hadn’t. No wonder her magic had been so weak. Millie could be brilliant.
‘Go and dye your hair pink or something. Have a beer.’ Millie’s shoulders shook with laughter ‘I’m serious. I don’t know what they’re teaching you here, but this humble servant crap is holding you back. Get your hands on a real book. Not all the mages here are keeping faith in the Mother for their power, I can tell you that.’
Millie looked up. ‘They’d punish me.’
Not while Natalia was there. Not on her watch.
‘That’s it – I’m going to speak to the Mother. This is ridiculous and it’s wrong.’
Millie recoiled, genuine panic in
her eyes. ‘No, please! We can’t talk to outsiders – its forbidden.’
This was unhealthy. The Wytches of the Order of the Light and the Mother had always stood for the best of what humankind could offer. It was a reputation forged over centuries. Something big had changed, and for the worst.
In Natalia’s mind the fortress yawned around her, suddenly vast. She would have to go about this carefully; she was a long way from home. She soothed Millie. ‘It’s okay Millie, I won’t get you in any trouble.’ Gods what would they do to her? ‘Go get the vampire, okay? Just you bring him here, that’s fine.’ The messenger had been well and truly shot. If only Millie’s attempts to stop sobbing were more irritating and didn’t spark such damn guilt. ‘But come back. You and I are going to see if we can make things better, okay?’ Millie nodded slowly. If dread could emanate from a person, it emanated from Mouthpiece Millie right then.
She’d had few dealings in the city with this Andrew Ancroft. He was some sort of vampire nobility, but she tended to keep out of their way, and for good reason. The wait for him stretched out in slow minutes. The closed door knocked again, and again she jumped, even though she’d been waiting for it.
‘Come in.’
Back straight, look the vampire in his dead eyes. No fear, Natalia Torres. She was the daughter of two who had dared to challenge death itself. This was death’s lackey. The vampire moved into the room on the balls of his feet. It was years since she’d seen a vampire through the lens of their glamour: her position as watcher meant she was gifted with true sight, so glamours had no effect on her, save to show up as a sheen around the caster. But there had only been a handful of times she’d seen a vampire not even try to channel a glamour. They were jealous, prideful, vain creatures. And yet here was this Andrew before her, his sickness hanging out for all to see.
His shoulders were hunched around his ears as though he tip-toed. His lean face was assiduously made up to hide the grey flesh underneath. But no amount of artfully applied powder would ever convince an onlooker that the creature they saw was anything but a predator. His hunched limbs coiled and unwound in snakelike movements as he entered, and she knew he could strike with unnatural speed and strength.
The Cost of Magic (The Ethan Cole Series Book 1) Page 4
