Faerie Empire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Vampire's Bane Book 2)

by Marian Maxwell

  One of the guardsmen unsheathed his sword and went to cross the drawbridge and join the fray. The captain with the long jaw grabbed him by the arm and shoved him back. “Take off your tabards,” he ordered, “and throw them in the fire.” The closest fire was too small to burn them all. Rather than risk smothering it of oxygen, the guardsmen went to two more, spreading out the tabards. Mona and Augustus watched the red and yellow Hyde colors turn to ash.

  Augustus had a word to say, as well, before sending them to fight. “If anyone asks, you rode for the camping ground,” he said. They all nodded. Now that they were through the city, they didn’t need to be known as Hyde family guardsmen. Not in protecting an illegal prison.

  Augustus turned to Mona. “Stay with me,” he said.

  She found no reason to disagree.

  Turndour was a short tower, three stories high, protected by an outer wall, then a deep ditch which the drawbridge was lowered over. There was enough room after that for the guardsmen to get off of their horses. Behind them rose a huge hedge, surrounding Turndour on all sides and hiding even the top of the outer wall from outside view. One of the guardsmen closed the metal gate, the only opening in the hedge and which looked like it had been made for a simple house. He jogged over the dirt to get back to the group.

  The drawbridge was down, thick chains extended all the way on either side. The moat was empty, and perhaps had always been that way. But it was still deep, and the smooth, stone walls at its bottom made it impossible to climb out of. Mona heard more than one shout coming up from below as the guardsmen lined up in formation and prepared to storm across the drawbridge, into the Turndour courtyard.

  Looking straight down the drawbridge, through the open portcullis, across the courtyard inside the walls and at the single, metal door at the front of the tower, it was clear that the enemy was winning.

  The Hyde family reinforcements had arrived just in time to help last defenders. But as they got onto the drawbridge, the chains creaked. The thick wooden planks underfoot began to move, carrying them upward. The rebel forces had taken control from inside the courtyard, and were closing the drawbridge.

  Like a tongue with food on it withdrawing back into a mouth, the drawbridge rose, slanted to a sheer angle and dumped all of the guardsmen into the courtyard. Mona and Augustus levitated at the last moment, avoiding the tumbling ball of bodies. Some of the guardsmen fell over the side of the drawbridge and into the ditch, shouting, until they hit the ground. Most of the twenty landed in a pile right inside the courtyard, much to the surprise of the two shifters who were operating the drawbridge’s magical controls.

  They were in a small room cut into the rock of Turndour’s outer wall. They held their hands over a pair of runes, using a bit of their meagre magic to keep the runes activated and make the drawbridge close. On seeing the pile of guardsmen, who were only beginning to sort themselves out and stand up again, they shifted into animal form and ran out of the room. They didn’t have to shout a warning; the courtyard was so small, about the size of two basketball courts, that everyone had seen the guardsmen from the very moment they entered. It would have been a slaughter if not for Turndour’s few, remaining defenders who kept the attackers distracted.

  Are the attackers all shifters? No, some carry blades as well. Who is this ragtag group?

  Mona levitated next to Augustus. She landed with him on the top of the wall directly above the drawbridge. The first thing she saw was a tiger shifter on the wall to her right, fighting against one of the last groups of defenders. The second thing she saw was a woman with long, wavy red hair casting death magic at the guardsmen below. A pulsing, red orb appeared in the air in front of her and slowly made its way towards the armored men.

  The emeralds in Mona’s clothing flashed as she surged with the behelit’s power.

  14

  Zyzz roared, straining against his bonds of ice.

  The ward had finished activating, leaving his legs encased in a thick layer of ice up to above his knee.

  It’s no use, he realized. The time for sticking to the shadows is over.

  He had hoped, for a few seconds after the ward had been triggered, to free himself, Laura and Clint fast enough that they could get away.

  That wasn’t happening.

  There was only one way out.

  Zyzz shifted first, then Clint and Laura. The magical force of the transformation shattered the ice, making a sharp crack that sounded above the shrieking hell spawn.

  A fireball flew past Zyzz’s face, singing his wolf nose. From behind them, on the floor they had just left, stood a shadow demon holding a black staff. In place of a head was a cloud of smoke. Tattered robes covered a tall, thin body. Skeletal fingers grasped the staff in one hand, while the other was pointed, palm-forward, at the three shifters on the staircase.

  Zyzz followed his first instinct and ran straight at the shadow demon. His four legs took him over the ground frighteningly fast. He smashed into the demon before the next spell could go off, dragged it to the ground and began tearing at its chest with his claws.

  It had small effect. The demon either did not care, or could not feel pain. And it did not bleed. An undead shadow demon? Zyzz did not know that such a thing was possible. Necromancy was the domain of humans, and sometimes Faerie creatures. He had never heard an arch demon raising one its brood from the dead. Then again, he wasn’t a mage. There were many aspects of the magical world that were hidden from him.

  The pressing problem was how to kill the thing. Undead or not, it could be destroyed.

  I’ll just rip it to pieces.

  The demon bludgeoned Zyzz on the head with its staff. For being made up of bones and rotting muscle, the thing was strong. But Zyzz was a huge wolf, with a thick skull, and the experience of past battles. Clint hits harder than this.

  It was then that his best friend’s roar unleashed through the library. The force of it reverberated around them, stunning a group of ghouls that were halfway down the staircase and closing in for a flank. Saliva dripped from Clint’s open jaw. He curled back his lips, growling slow and steady, like a rumbling earthquake. Zyzz’s mouth was full with the absolutely disgusting flesh and bone of the shadow demon, so he could not join in the sound.

  But Laura did. Her bobcat roar was almost as strong as Clint’s. It sounded different, higher pitched, more of a yowl that set hairs straight and threatened to pierce eardrums.

  The combined sound sent the ghouls rocking once again. They hissed, and stumbled backwards. Totally set off balance by the force and volume of the sound, which was directed right at their faces.

  This was the planned effect. Shifter roars are used tactically, to both boost morale and stun enemies. There is magic in it that infuses friends with strength and drains energy from foes. Shifters immediately enter a state of bloodlust when they use their magical roar.

  Clint ripped through the ghouls as if they were made of butter. His claws sliced and diced, his fangs freed the ghouls of limbs. It was over in seconds, the ghouls too shocked and stunned to raise a defense.

  Laura moved lightning fast to Zyzz’s side, leaping six feet across the floor onto the back of a hell hound that Zyzz hadn’t noticed sneaking up on him.

  Laura crushed it against the floor, tore into it, then jumped off. She joined Zyzz, and together they finished pulling apart the shadow demon. They left it a scrap of rags and minced up body parts.

  Zyzz was still clean of blood. Not so for Laura and Clint. Laura’s claws and the fur around them were bloody from the hound, and Clint’s grey fur, all over his body, was stuck with the thick, green goo that amounted to hell spawn blood.

  There was no time to stand around and wait for the next attack. Zyzz went back to the staircase, up the steps with Clint and Laura right next to him. They passed the fourth floor, and sprung another ward. It was the same as the first, but the ice had no effect. They ran on, barely noticing the magic slide off their shifter fur.

  We can’t run forever. We need
to find a way out.

  The skylight on the third floor was no longer an option. The way back down was crawling with hell spawn. They weren’t as fast as Zyzz, Laura and Clint when they were in shifter form. Hoping to go out a window before they could be cornered, Zyzz took an exit from the staircase onto the library’s fifth floor. He was racing down the pathway, toward the far wall where the windows were, and planning to hurl himself through it, when he passed the elevators and caught the slightest scent of Mona. So weak that it was almost a figment of his imagination, but strong enough that he dug his claws into the carpet and came to a sudden halt. It was so abrupt that Clint and Laura ran a few steps past him.

  Laura joined Zyzz sniffing around the door of an elevator. Clint paced behind them, watching the staircase.

  Suddenly, Laura’s head snapped up. She looked at Zyzz, and he could see in her eyes that she had also caught the scent.

  It didn’t lead anywhere. Only lingered…

  He pressed the elevator button. It dinged open immediately. Mona’s scent washed out around them.

  Clint was the last to get inside the elevator. Zyzz pressed the button for the top floor. She could have been anywhere, but his gut told him the top was most likely. It would be the furthest from hell spawn she could get, if had been coming after her from the main floor.

  “What do we do when we find her?” Laura asked, while they waited.

  “If we find her,” said Clint. He sounded unconvinced. “These hell spawn aren’t the type to keep hostages.”

  “Unless they have orders,” said Zyzz.

  Laura understood immediately. “They won’t kill her if they know she’s bound to the seed.”

  “Right. Their master would want to see her first.”

  “So she could be safe,” said Clint. “Unless they get the seed, too.”

  Laura growled. “Then we’re all fucked.”

  The door opened into the lobby of the forbidden archive. Hell hounds prowled the area outside the door leading to the books. In place of a receptionist was a hell spawn monstrosity, the result of an arch demon’s deranged breeding program.

  There was no comparing it to an earthly animal. It stood fifteen feet tall, head ringed with long horns brushing against the ceiling. More horns stuck out from its body, seemingly at random. Two from its forearms, one from its shoulder, and many more on its back. Its shoulders covered in the hard, horn material, like football shoulder pads, but jutting out at the end with sharp spikes. It was hairless, skin pink and wrinkled like a mouse tail. Instead of feet, it had hooves. Instead of hands, enormous pincers that looked sharp enough to scissor one of the hell hounds in half with a single cut.

  The turned its head at the elevator’s ding. The hell hounds were already moving, leaping into the elevator with their maws open wide.

  Zyzz roared.

  The elevator shook.

  All of the hell hounds who had just packed themselves inside shuttered and went limp. Knees buckling, legs wobbling and going out from under them from the sheer, stunning force of the roar. Every one of them collapsed onto their bellies, making small, mewling noises. Some of them emptied their bladders, as they knew, deep down, that they had run into an alpha predator. They were the prey. That primal realization would never be rid of, not even by an arch demon’s foul magic.

  The hell hounds were quickly disposed of, and left behind as the elevator door closed shut. The five that were left in the lobby, unable to reach the elevator in time, remained flat on the ground.

  Zyzz’s roar was only now dispersing. The hounds were shaking it off, waking up from the profound effects.

  They did not want to get up.

  Zyzz stalked past them, growling, glaring challenges at them with his bloodshot eyes. With the roar, he had activated his own bloodlust. Temporarily turning himself into more animal than man.

  Clint and Laura had seen Zyzz like this many times. They knew to stay back and let him lead the way forward. Not to get between him and his prey.

  Zyzz did not kill the hell hounds. They were insignificant, not even a threat to his animal mind. He knew from their slinking body language and mewling cries that they had accepted themselves as weak creatures.

  Not so with the monstrosity. It hadn’t been shaken by Zyzz’s roar at all. The receptionist counter was smashed to pieces from where the creature had simply walked through it, tearing it apart by moving its legs forward and letting its muscles and protruding horns to the rest.

  It slowly walked out, into the open lobby.

  Zyzz was on it in an instant, slashing and biting. A flurry of muscle, tooth and claw. He was not small next to the twisted hell spawn, but he was not big, either. It was the only time that Clint and Laura had seen their alpha outsized by an opponent, excepting one time when an old shifter bear from Alaska had paid the Academy a visit.

  The hell spawn grabbed one of Zyzz’s arms in a pincer and squeezed.

  The crack of breaking bone. Zyzz’s roaring in pain. Then he was flung aside, like a doll, to the ground. The monstrosity raised a leg covered in horns, setting it up like a piston to bear down all of its weight to the sharp edge of its hoof.

  Laura didn’t let it happen.

  She pounced, flew through the air with a yowl and landed on its face. The thing didn’t have any eyes, but she scratched at where they would be anyways. Tore at its neck with the claws on her back feet, then leapt away, leaving behind a patchwork of long, bloody lines.

  Now it was the monstrosity that roared, and while it did not have shifter magic, it was loud enough to make Laura wince and crouch low to the ground.

  While this was happening, Clint gently grabbed Zyzz’s good arm with his jaws and dragged him away, to the far wall.

  Laura dodged a lumbering swing of the creature’s pincers. She jumped from the counter to the other end of the room, drawing the thing away from Zyzz. It lumbered after her, each plodding step cracking the tiles beneath it.

  “Don’t die on me,” said Clint.

  Zyzz coughed in reply.

  Clint left Zyzz, ran on all fours and slammed into the back of the monstrosity’s legs. It didn’t fall. Its hooves, dug into the tiles, and legs bulging with abnormal muscles kept it rooted like a mountain.

  It was Clint who was hurt. He had hit one of the horns, and was bleeding from his side. He backed off, growling, drawing the thing’s attention. Giving Laura the angle she needed to jump on the thing’s back and start gouging into its flesh.

  They were both distracted when the shadow demon reached the top of the staircase. It saw Zyzz leaning against the wall and hissed the command, “kill,” to its ghouls.

  Zyzz’s bloodlust had not ended. Seeing them closing in, he surged to his feet. Grabbed the first ghoul the neck and threw it into the others. It bowled over two other, and Zyzz charged into the thick of them, one arm hanging useless at his side.

  It didn’t matter. This shadow demon had not been resurrected. It could still bleed. Zyzz snatched one of its legs in his jaws and stood tall, arching his back and flipping the demon upside down. A slash of his claws and it was dead.

  By then the ghouls were back on their feet. One of them held a long scimitar.

  The library rocked as a great blast hit it from outside.

  The Masters. Even in the midst of battle, Zyzz remembered what Lydia has said about them coming to purge the remaining hell spawn.

  We’re out of time.

  They were trapped inside, on the top floor, with four ghouls, an injured alpha, and an arch demon’s pet monster.

  “Run!” Zyzz shouted, as the building shook a second time.

  The Masters weren’t going to bother clearing the place out floor by floor. They were going to bring the whole library crashing down.

  15

  It took three days to carry the dead from Club Noir and arrange the funeral

  Every ungifted coffin maker in San Francisco suddenly found themselves with new contracts. Questions were asked, the police called as they wondered wh
ere all the bodies had come from. Surely they would have heard about a disaster in the news? With that many dead, it would be the worst terrorist attack in over ten years.

  It was Amber who dealt with all of the ungifted inquiries, weaving spells into her words to placate them. Assure them that everything was okay, and to please hurry up with the coffins because they are needed as soon as possible. The policemen ended up telling their chief that the coffins were for a Hollywood production, telling them they had seen the contract and it all checked out. The coffin makers worked day and night, their passion as crafts men and women reborn after listening to Amber’s heartfelt plea. And all the while, Maggie and the other gifted, the survivors and those lucky enough to have not entered the Club that day, were able to mourn in peace.

  The cathedral cemetery was packed with gifted, for the first time Maggie’s life. Whether a side effect of the magic in their blood or simply a trend of the times, most gifted are atheists. In the aftermath of the necromancer’s attempted black magic ritual, the gifted of San Francisco found they had more belief than they had previously thought.

  Maggie stood on the steps at the back of the cathedral and led the candlelight vigil. The bodies were in their coffins inside the cathedral’s main hall, enchanted to hold off decay. Gifted filled the cathedral’s backyard, that doubled as a cemetery. A crowd of hundreds of glowing candles, standing over the refilled graves that the necromancer had dug up.

  The gifted went along with Maggie’s prayers. They sang hymns. They bowed their heads and cried in sorrow, hugged each other, and took to heart Maggie’s homily: that they must be strong and protect the city. That they cannot give in to despair.

  Logan watched it all from off to the side, standing in the shadow a tree at the far edge of the cathedral property. One of his arms wore a white, plaster brace, and was held across his chest with a sling. His free hand held onto a lit cigarette, bringing it to his lips again and again, then fumbling one-handed for his pack and lighter when it finished to light another. He’d become a chain smoker these past few days.