“Fuck you,” said Katie.
“Fuck you,” said Jack. “Besides, if Mira really is a vampire, you can’t expect me to let you face her alone.”
“That’s exactly what I expect!” snapped Katie. “I have no idea how you’ll react around your broodmother. It’s best if you just stay the fuck away.”
“My broodmother?” Jack raised an eyebrow at that.
“She’s the vampire that gave you the Embrace,” said Katie. “She used a sacrifice of her own blood essence to do it. She’s your broodmother, by definition.”
Jack shook his head, unsure of how he felt about that. He focused on the warehouse ahead. There weren’t any lights showing through the windows. It looked abandoned and on the verge of collapsing of its own volition.
“How do you know this is the right place?” he asked.
“I don’t.” Katie loaded a silver bolt into her crossbow, grimacing as she pulled it back into position. “But it is where Peter and I fought the last vampire who arrived in town. They tend to be a little predictable about where they set up shop.”
“My grandfather let you go with him to fight a vampire?”
“Of course he did,” said Katie. “I was his apprentice.”
She said it so confidently, even though the words felt like a slap in the face to him. He’d been sent away from the island, shipped off to relatives that barely knew him and could only pretend to care. While Katie stayed behind, learning and being entrusted with Jack’s grandfather’s deepest secrets.
It made no sense him in the slightest. Had it been to keep him safe? To protect him, the best way his grandfather knew how, in the wake of his parent’s deaths? If so, it had only worked for so long. And finding out just how much he’d missed out on only added insult to injury.
“Come on,” said Katie. “We don’t have time to waste. If she’s in there, try to distract her so I can get a clean shot off. Killing your broodmother is the only chance we have at returning you to normal.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Jack. “Just don’t shoot me by mistake.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Katie’s silence left him wondering. She started forward, holding the crossbow with just one arm, while keeping the flashlight propped in the direction she was aiming with the other.
The warehouse’s front door was missing a handle, and it swung open easily to allow them entry. The building had the damp, moldy scent common to locations prone to flooding. Katie swept her flashlight back and forth across the space, illuminating broken chairs, tables, and a shocking amount of discarded beer bottles. There was someone inside, but it wasn’t Mira.
A man stood near the center of the floor, facing away from them. He wore a ragged wool coat and only had a few tufts of hair left on his balding head. Katie seemed to relax a little as she settled her flashlight on him.
“Bert?” she called out. “What are you doing here?”
“Bert?” asked Jack.
“He’s one of the island’s homeless population,” said Katie. “Harmless enough, though he can get a little cranky when he’s been drinking.”
Bert didn’t reply or react in any meaningful way. Katie lowered her crossbow and walked over to him, setting one of her hands on his shoulder to turn him around. Jack saw the man flinch at the contact, and instantly knew that something was wrong.
Bert made a wet, gagging noise and swung his arm at Katie as he spun to face her. He caught her in the ribs and sent her flying through the air. She landed on one of the old tables, bisecting the rotting wood into two rough halves.
“Katie!” Jack started forward in her direction, but Bert rushed at him in a flash of movement. He was still gurgling and reached out to seize Jack by the neck.
Jack managed to get his hands up in time to turn it into more of a shoulder hold, but Bert was far stronger than he was, even as a vampire. He was close enough now to see the man’s face, if Bert could still be called that. Bert’s eyes were jet black and grotesquely swollen in their sockets. His jaw looked like it had been dislocated without ever being clicked back into place, extending downward far enough to triple the size of his bite.
And that’s exactly what Bert tried to do. Jack struggled to hold the monster back as he pushed forward, attempting to clamp his jaw down on any warm flesh in range. Jack slammed his knee upward into Bert’s ribs. It felt like picking a fight with a concrete wall, and his knee throbbed with pain at the impact.
The flashlight suddenly illuminated them again, and a second later, Bert tensed up and released his grip. Katie had taken her shot, and the tip of one of her silver crossbow bolts was protruding slightly from Bert’s shoulder. He roared in pain and swung one of his arms at Jack’s head.
Jack got his guard up in time to block it, but the monster still managed to put enough strength into the attack to knock him off his feet. He fell into a pile of beer bottles, which, blessedly, didn’t shatter from the force of his landing.
Katie unloaded another bolt into Bert, but he barely even seemed to notice. He let out another gurgling roar and surged toward her. Jack was still pulling himself to his feet and could only watch in horror as the monster closed on Katie, swinging an uncoordinated fist at her face.
She ducked under it with a perfect timing and followed the movement up by slipping one of her legs behind Bert. Grabbing one of his shoulders, she twisted, flinging him into a neatly executed trip. Bert hit the ground hard, and Katie lifted her crossbow, firing a bolt into his chest at point blank range.
It still wasn’t enough. The monster scrambled back to his feet and slammed his hands into Katie’s chest. She let out a surprised gasp as she flew backward, smashing into an old bookshelf, which fell along with her, pinning her to the floor.
“No!” Jack charged, desperate to distract the monster before it could finish her off. He leapt onto Bert’s back, carefully positioning himself to avoid the bolts stuck into the monster like pins through a cushion. Bert roared and spun, and both of them hit the ground together.
Jack tried to wrestle the monster for an advantage, but he just wasn’t strong enough. Bert twisted him to the ground and pulled his hand back for a strike. Jack managed to dodge it, but the monster had him trapped. It was only a matter of time before the fight was over, and it wasn’t looking like it would end well for him.
Katie’s flashlight had fallen to the floor, and it illuminated the section of the warehouse directly to Jack’s right. One of the discarded silver crossbow bolts was almost within his reach. He tried to stretch his arm out to grab it. Bert had him held where he was, and the bolt was a foot or two beyond his grasp.
It felt like he was watching events unfold in slow motion as Bert pulled his jaw completely open, preparing to take a bite out of his pinned opponent. A bite out of him. Jack grimaced and frantically scratched his fingers against the floor. He stretched his arm out as far as it would go, and felt an odd, tingling flutter. He could reach it. Not with his hand, but with… what was it that he could feel there?
A tendril of dark crimson energy extended outward from Jack’s palm. It pinched like the arm of an octopus and had a consistency somewhere in between shadow and smoke. It was the color of blood soaking into concrete, and gave off a similarly cold, ominous presence. It shot toward the silver bolt, wrapped around it, and drew it back into Jack’s hand just as Bert slammed his mouth downward.
Jack brought the silver bolt into position, but it was Bert who did most of the work. The bolt pierced through the monster’s eye, and the momentum of Bert’s biting attack drove it deep into his brain. A splatter of disgusting fluid oozed out onto Jack’s shirt, but Bert went completely limp, and he was able to roll himself free.
He a felt a sudden intoxicating rush of emotions. His heart pounded in his chest with the same exuberant cadence of a sprinter’s feet. His fingers tingled, and he was acutely aware of each deep, vital breath. He’d won. He was still alive. And it felt better than good.
CHAPTER 8
Katie was still st
ruggling under the bookshelf. Jack hurried over to her and lifted it up with one hand, still feeling an afterglow of the rush the fight had given him. Katie shook her arms and legs out as she stood up, making sure nothing was broken.
“You okay?” asked Jack.
“I’ll manage,” she said. She winced and rolled out one of her shoulders as she walked over to Bert, flipping him onto his back with her foot. “He wasn’t a bad man. I’m going to make that stupid bitch pay for doing this to him.”
“If you don’t mind explaining, what exactly did she do to him?” asked Jack.
Katie pulled one of the crossbow bolts out of Bert’s shoulder and wiped the blood off it on a rag from her pouch.
“She turned him into a ghoul,” she said. “Vampires can use their own blood to make other vampires if they use it on someone alive, like your broodmother did to you. Or, they can use it on a corpse to make a ghoul, which is what happened to poor Bert.”
“Bringing a corpse back to life?” asked Jack. “Sort of like a zombie?”
“Sort of,” said Katie. “Ghouls work differently. Zombies are weaker, and they originated from a singular magical curse. Ghouls don’t spread their curse through biting others.”
Jack nodded, though discovering that zombies were also real and something he might need to be concerned about made the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight. One of Katie’s bolts had fallen near his foot. He started to lean over to pick it up, and then had a thought.
He tried focusing the same power he’d used before when Bert had been on top of him. It felt strange, almost like flexing a hidden muscle, or trying to wiggle his ears. He could sense a store of warm energy inside of him as it welled up and then extended outward, forming into the dark tendril and encircling the silver bolt.
“Spectral Hand,” said Katie. “That’s blood magic. I guess I wasn’t seeing things.”
“Spectral Hand?” asked Jack. He pulled the bolt back, closing his fingers around it and cutting off the strange power.
“It’s a basic blood magic spell,” said Katie. “A way of focusing blood essence into a magical tendril. You can pick things up or move them. Other spectral spells work in a similar manner, letting you attack opponents if you focus the magic into a spike or blade, or shield yourself, even.”
“Sounds pretty useful,” said Jack.
“It would be, if it didn’t require you to drink blood constantly to use it,” said Katie. “Don’t do it again. Though I am glad that you managed it once. It proves that Mira is an Aquinian vampire, like your grandfather and I suspected.”
“Uh…” Jack furrowed his brow as he passed her the crossbow bolt he’d picked up.
“It’s a basic classification,” said Katie. “Most ‘normal’ vampires are descended from the line of Emperor Valerian of the Roman Empire. Hence, we call them Valerian vampires. Aquinian vampires are descended from Thomas Aquinas, who was originally a Valerian vampire who made the discovery that he could steal the Potential by draining mages. All of the vampires he turned, and all of the ones they turned, and so on, and so forth, have inherited a seed for the Potential.”
“Wow,” said Jack. “You managed to confuse me more with your explanation than I was already.”
Katie scowled at him.
“The Potential is the term given to the ability to direct magical essence into spells,” she said. “Every living human has a reservoir of magic, but the vast majority don’t have the means to do anything with it. A tiny fraction of people are born with the Potential, and those that figure out how to use it go on to be the mages, wizards, and sorcerers of the world.”
“That’s unbelievable,” said Jack. “I mean… that’s literally unbelievable. How is it that more people aren’t talking about this? If magic is real, shouldn’t it be more widespread and open?”
“Blame society and historical precedent,” said Katie. “People with magical talent have been common targets of violence and persecution for thousands of years. Magic just isn’t something that normally happens in the open. And when it does…”
“And when it does?” asked Jack.
“Let’s just say that there are people out there with an interest in maintaining the fucking status quo,” said Katie, with a touch of bitterness in her voice. “There are spells that can affect people’s memories of events. Or edit photographs and videos, not that it’s really necessary in this day and age.”
Jack took a breath and exhaled slowly. It was hard to believe, and a rather large part of him was still expecting to wake up at any second. He looked down at the palm of his paler than usual hand and flexed his fingers.
“All right,” said Jack. “So when Mira bit me, she somehow gave me the Potential, or whatever?”
“She turned you into a fucking blood mage,” said Katie. “As though it wasn’t enough to turn you into a regular vampire, she had to go and turn you into one of the most dangerous varieties.”
Katie grimaced and shook her head. She found her flashlight and scanned the warehouse one last time for missing crossbow bolts, and then gestured to the door.
“Come on,” she said. “We should head back to the mansion. I don’t think we’re going to find her tonight.”
“We’re just going to leave Bert’s body here?” asked Jack.
“He’s a ghoul,” said Katie. “His remains will disintegrate faster than an ordinary human’s. But it doesn’t matter even if someone does find him.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“I’m on good terms with the Order of Chaldea,” said Katie. “I could always call in a Dream Weaver to edit memories if it was really necessary.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” said Jack.
“It doesn’t warrant explaining right now,” said Katie. “And even if it did, I’m not sure yet whether it would even be a safe move to trust you with that information. Anyway, Bert’s body, and whatever happens to it from here isn’t something we need to worry about. Most likely.”
"What about the police?” asked Jack.
“The sheriff, you mean,” said Katie. “Not a problem. Trust me.”
“And why is that?”
Katie stared at him. “My fiancé is the sheriff’s deputy. I would hear about it first if they started an investigation.”
“Oh.” Jack winced, feeling a stab of an unpleasant, unidentifiable emotion at the mention of her fiancé. “Right.”
He took a deep breath. He felt a little overwhelmed, and part of him still expected to wake up at any second. Katie walked by him, and Jack followed her after taking a moment to compose himself.
He climbed into the passenger seat of Katie’s car, and she turned around in the warehouse parking lot and pulled onto the road. Neither of them said anything on the drive back to the mansion. The tension was on the verge of being unbearable. Katie parked the car in the garage, and they both got out.
“Fuck,” said Katie.
“You swear a lot more than I remember,” said Jack.
“I was ten the last time you saw me, dumbass,” said Katie. “And this situation certainly warrants it.”
She reached into the backseat of the car, pulled out the crossbow, and aimed it at Jack’s face.
“Whoa!” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Jack,” said Katie. “You’re a vampire. And I know that it’s probably hard for you to understand what that means, given how abruptly you were thrown into the supernatural deep end, but I need you to understand how dangerous you are. To me, and to the world.”
“I’m not the one pointing crossbows at people,” said Jack.
“That’s not… I mean...” Katie swore under her breath, and then out loud. “Fuck! Damn it, Peter. Why did it have to be him, of all people?”
Jack got the sense that anything he said would only make the situation worse, so he opted to say nothing. Katie kept the crossbow leveled at him, one finger twitching against the trigger.
“The worst part of all of this is I have no idea what he wo
uld do,” said Katie.
“My grandfather, I’m assuming?”
“Yeah,” said Katie. “He had a code that he lived by. He might have held to it and killed you, even though you’re his beloved grandson. Or…”
“I like that 'or,’” said Jack. “I think we should go down whatever path the ‘or’ leads to.”
“Shut up,” said Katie. “Come on. Get inside. No sudden movements.”
“You’re acting like I’m going to attack you at any second,” said Jack.
“You used your blood magic,” said Katie. “And it’s been a few hours since you’ve been turned. You literally could attack me at any second. You’re going to start feeling your thirst soon, and it isn’t going to be fun for you.”
Her words were almost like a trigger. Jack noticed that scratchy feeling in his throat again, and his awareness of Katie’s wonderful smell returned with a vengeance. He felt a shiver run through him as he made his way over to the garage door and reached for his key to open it.
“Hey!” snapped Katie.
“I’m just taking out my key,” he said.
“Do it slowly,” said Katie.
“Jesus Christ, you’re like the twitchy new guy in a police movie,” said Jack. He slowly pulled out his key and opened the door.
A headache hit him as he entered the mansion’s foyer, and it was intense enough to make him stagger mid-step. Katie slowly walked around so that she was in front of him again. Her face was scrunched up in annoyance, which made her freckles even more prominent.
“What are you going to do?” Jack asked. “Katie… I get it. I mean, I understand either way. But if you do have to kill me, just get it over with.”
The words felt true as he spoke them, and they made Jack aware of how little he had to miss in the event of his own death. His aunt and uncle’s lives would go on without much interruption. His grandfather was already dead. He didn’t have a girlfriend, or even many close platonic friends. If he had to choose between dying and being a monster, being something like Bert, but more intelligent and sinister, it was no choice at all.
Blood Mage (Dark Impulse Book 1) Page 4
