“Yeah, why?”
“When Abigail and I first came to America, we discovered the northeast was wrought with witch covens looking to escape persecution in Europe. You’re calling from Morris Plains,” she snapped. There was never questions with her, only statements when she got into these moods. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”
“What is Julia doing?”
“Radu, not right now.” These vampires were really getting my nerves shot.
“Not far from your position is a village called New Providence. There you should find a witch coven.”
I didn’t even know how that would help us. “What can the witches do, besides try to kill us?”
“Ley lines,” Cassie said behind me.
“Is that the witch?”
“Yes Julia.’
Cassie pushed me out of the way and took the phone. “I can get us to Texas if you trust me enough to provide me the information I’ll need.”
I couldn’t hear what was being said from Julia’s side, but I could read expressions. From the looks of Cassie’s face, I assumed that Julia probably threatened her life if anything should happen to any of us. Or possibly just me. She wasn’t all that high on Radu, besides the normal family awe of the stories that centered around him. I knew he’d traveled with not only Max Brinza, but also Ivan and Denis.
Denis Brinza - he was just as legendary as the vampire standing next to me.
One of the few stories that was actually written down from my family was the one Max has written about his father and grandfather. I enjoyed the tales of Ivan, for sure, but it was always the stories about Denis that I could never get enough of. Abigail was sure they were exaggerations, yet she encouraged me to always know as much as I could. Every time she brought out the book Max had written in his native language; a small tear would trickle from her lame eyes. Those were the better days, the days before she finally turned against humanity and decided Vlad had the right idea all along.
“When you see him, he needs to tell you about a family member named Luka,” Cassie said into the telephone. That brought me out of my own memories.
“Don’t you dare tell her that!”
Too late, Cassie hung up the phone. “You and Julia apparently will have much to discuss when we get to El Paso. She gave me everything I need to get us there, assuming we can gain control of the ley line.”
“How do we do that?”
“She means kill enough witches to take hold of the coven.”
“That doesn’t sound easy, Radu.”
He saddled the sword onto his back. “We travel light and move fast. We will hit the coven hard and swift. Any questions?”
“How do I get back ta the war front, sir?”
Radu scowled, at himself, I think. “I apologize, Paddy. I did not even consider that.”
“Viajaré con él y lo mantendré a salvo.”
Everyone turned to me for the translation. “Francisco says he will travel with him and keep him safe.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
Neither Radu nor I were high on the idea, but Paddy reassured us that he was of sound mind and confident enough to travel with the shaman. “Havin’ the shaman at my back will make me feel a bit better, honestly. Where do ye want to rendezvous at, lieutenant?”
“Kreuzlingen.”
“Bless you,” I joked.
“We will see you there, Paddy,” Radu said, ignoring me. “Travel safe.”
It was weird seeing the Irishman and Francisco head off into the town further, leaving the three of us on the outskirts by the payphone. There was something about safety in numbers and five seemed a hell of a lot safer than three. At least Paddy had Francisco, a dark shaman with some terrible powers connected to Hell.
I didn’t like the way he used them, but I was learning the world was a lot more grey than black and white. It was a crash course that I think Julia was on the path to teaching me. If anything, going to find Radu brought about the kinds of changes in my thinking I needed.
The one thing I still had a problem with was Cassie. She was a murderer, a black mage who had no issues in causing death. Then I saw her past and realized she was a product of some terrible conditions.
Grey…
“I’m going to use the ladies’ room before we leave,” the witch announced before heading off into the small fuel station across the street.
“You’re still questioning your decision not to kill her.”
“That obvious?”
Radu looked up into the night’s sky, filled with stars and a very bright full moon. “I once was in love with a witch, much like Cassie. She showed her true colors a few times before I realized she was a monster. Our family is forever destined to be intrigued by the darkness, sometimes to our own detriment.”
“Hey I never said anything about -”
“You didn’t have to. Like I said, history is always bound to repeat itself.”
His words made me think more about it. Max married a vampire and had a vampire child. I was the product of a vampire and a human. Even some of the things that Max wrote about the travels of Denis and Ivan weren’t always in a good light.
Denis, in a fit of rage, slaughtered a gypsy caravan that was in league with Vlad Dracul. Man, woman, even child, none were spared. It was a black moment, one that Radu promised no one else but me knew about.
Cassie reappeared and walked briskly over to us. “Ready gentlemen?”
We both nodded and headed out of Morris Plains, heading southward as we followed the witch to New Providence.
Chapter Eleven
“T here is a strong magical signature emanating from that house.”
The house in question was an old mansion that sat by its lonesome in the patch of trees. Cassie was intune to the whole hocus pocus thing, being like our bloodhound to sniff out their hiding place. We were here and Radu seemed itching for a fight.
In his left hand was the Santae Crucius.
“Remember the plan and all will be fine,” he reminded us.
Plan? I could hardly call what he’d put together on the few miles walk over here a plan. Radu was to take the lead and immediately kill the coven’s headmistress. With her out of the way, Cassie and I would jump into the fray taking down as many witches as we could until they surrendered. At that time, whatever Cassie and Julia had discussed could be initiated.
All Cassie had reminded us that we couldn’t kill them all.
There was nothing left to wait for, we were coming in hot. Radu charged onto the wrap-around porch and kicked the door down. With his fangs bared and the sword held high, he stormed into the foyer. By the time we joined him, we could see he was no longer in attack mode. “There is not a soul here!”
The house, well it looked like it hadn’t been used it years. “Cassie, you sure you brought us to the right place?”
“The magical signatures are off the charts. Witches are here, somewhere,” she said, unsure at this point.
Radu shrugged his shoulders and the three of us began to search around for any signs as to where the witches could’ve gone. I was with Radu, there wasn’t anyone here and either Cassie set us up or had been fooled by something else. I kept my hand close to my pistol just in case anything bad was about to go down.
At the back of the foyer, looked to be a coat closet. I gently placed my hand on the knob; nothing attacked me back. Slowly, I turned it to the right until it stopped. I pulled the door back towards me and revealed evidence that someone had been here.
I uncovered a war chest of weaponry.
“Sweet mother of mercy, this is a lot of steel.”
Cassie and Radu joined me. “It seems you were right, witch. We have stumbled into a lair, but I don’t believe witches would have use for all of this.”
“Witches wouldn’t, but an army of daemons summoned from Hell would.”
They were talking, but one of the weapons caught my eye. I didn’t know why, but I was really tempted to reach out and grab it. Agains
t my better judgement, I did. It was a long mace with a unique shaped head with spikes sticking out. The long handle felt well balanced in my hand.
Radu chuckled. “Why am I not surprised you chose that particular weapon?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He placed his hand in front of me. I put the mace in it and he backed away. With some room, he whipped his hand forward and the head of the mace rushed off, connected to the handle by a chain. As soon as it reached its apex, it shot back towards Radu like a boomerang.
“Max favored flail weaponry over swords, too. As I explained before, history is always doomed to repeat itself.”
My eyes drifted over to Cassie, knowing full well he was talking about the witch and not the chained mace he just demonstrated. Fortunately, she didn’t pick up on the slight innuendo Radu dropped.
I took the weapon back. “I just figured it’d be smart not to have something that relied on a steady supply of bullets.”
“Smart,” Cassie said distracted.
Something was up with her. She was running her hands over the wood beside the closet with all the weapons. As we watched, she closed her eyes and began to mumble something that had to have been in her native language. I was fortunate enough to know a few, but whatever she was saying didn’t register. Her voice began to pick up volume the more she went on. I took this as a sign she may have discovered where the witches went. When her hands started glowing, my excitement levels picked up even more. Instinct told me we were about to be dropped right into the fire.
One of us anyway.
A daemonic opening appeared under me. I had no time to react; as soon as there was no floor to hold me, I went tumbling downward. The journey only stopped when I ended up in some sort of basement in the middle of a bunch of witches.
“Good evening, everyone,” I greeted them, tipping my head forward.
“A man?” one of them cackled. “Can we play with it before we kill it?”
No one answered her from the circle of hooded figures. I couldn’t see any faces or even make out how many of them there were. Nope, they all just parted and one of the cloaked figures swooped in towards me. I’m not sure what happened next other than maybe I’d always had these skills. I grabbed the mace and the head shot forward. I snapped my wrist the moment I closed in on the witch’s head, wrapping the chain around it. As it retracted, it brought my target with it until I let go at the last moment. The witch fell and never saw the finishing blow happen as I drove the spiked head into her skull.
Not a word was spoken as her death cries marked the end of her life.
“Anyone else want to come say hi?”
The hiss of magic filled the air as the remainder of the coven began to buzz like angry bees. Find your center and let go.
Luka was instructing me again. He hadn’t let me down last time; advice was advice.
My left hand went down for my gun and that’s when time began to stand still. As I pumped the trigger, I could actually see the mini explosions from the barrel of the gun as four bullets left the cylinder in rapid-fire succession. As that hand dropped the gun, my right was already twirling the mace outward, the chain catching each of the bullets and spinning them around me. As I completed the move, time went back to normal and the bullets scattered, hitting random witches on their super powered journey through the room.
One, two, three, five witches went down as the scalding hot lead pierced their heads, separating their life from their body. Cloaks nearby were stained red and gasps of horror replaced the buzzing, all within seconds.
The rush of energy I’d picked up was still there, but slowly draining away. What the hell just happened?
“Stop!”
One of the hoods went backwards, revealing a middle-aged blonde lady. Her yellow eyes reminded me of a cat, with narrow slits for pupils. They also looked at me like I should’ve been prey, but I was dangerous prey. The remaining hooded witches parted a path for to walk towards me.
“A Dracul, yes and no, a Dracul that’s human,” she said in a very stern voice.
“I might be part Dracul, but I’m a Brinza even before that. Castor Brinza, the latest hunter honoring the path of my ancestors from Moldovia.”
The blonde lady was taken aback by my announcement. She involuntarily took a step away from me as I heard someone in the crowd whisper, “He looks just like Denis!”
Hearing the name of what may have been the greatest hunter of us all unnerved me momentarily, too. In fact, all of us in the daemonic basement seemed to be off our game as the truth began to unravel. Blondie, regaining herself, motioned for her coven to be quiet again and let me address her one on one.
“You came here to slay, did you not?”
“I came here to get home,” I answered honestly.
She cocked her head a little bit to the side. “Our deaths were not your objective?”
Jeez, how many times was I going to have to answer this question? “For the ley line to work properly, I need a few of you, don’t I?”
Haha, just as I was making a potential inroad with the witches, the hole I must’ve dropped from opened again and Radu, with Cassie on his tail, dropped down. The appearance of the vampire sent the witches back into a frenzy.
Damnit, their timing was awful.
Radu, with the Santae Crucius brandished for everyone to see, growled ominously at everyone. “Prepare to die, witches.”
“Ummm, Radu?”
My casual approach didn’t even shake him. “Get behind me, Castor.”
“You’re kinda getting in the way of my negotiations to get us home,” I told him.
That’s when he noticed the dead witches and the fact everyone seemed to be a bit far away from my position, except Blondie.”Oh, well, continue,” he muttered, embarrassed.
“Behind me is Cassie, she’s an Irish witch with directions on where we need to go,” I told Blondie like Radu’s whole spiel never even happened. “You help us, you’ll never have to worry about me again.”
“Something tells me I will.”
Cassie approached cautiously. If you show me where the ley line is, I can help you get rid of these two from this part of the country.”
“A reasonable request. You’ll have to tell me why a witch like yourself is traveling with these two along the way,” Blondie said, leading Cassie away.
Before they got too far, a witch along the perimeter called out. “Holy men! Holy men are coming!”
“Your darkness didn’t set off our enchantments,” Blondie told us. “It seems we have more visitors, ones that may be chasing you,” she surmised.
I didn’t even need to see who was out there. “His name is Jean Pollard. The Vatican has tasked him to hunt the Brinza/Dracul line.”
Blondie pointed at two of the witches in the group. “Provide them support. I am all for killing holy men when the chances arise.”
KIlling, damnit, that’s what we’d have to do to survive. Pollard wouldn’t give us any other choice. “The world is at war, Castor,” Radu told me. “Extremes from all sides are forcing people to do what they normally would not. They have made their choice and we have made ours.”
He was trying to make me feel better, I think.
He went on when I didn’t respond. “This has spilled over into the shadow world, one the remains a remnant because of what my brother did. His legend lives on in the fears of the church and they have waged war against our family.”
“If you’re trying to justify…”
“A Dracul nor a Brinza needs to justify his existence, do you understand?”
The way he barked at me caused everyone to stop what they were doing. “Just because I appreciate -”
“No.”
This time, it was more than firm. This was a vampire influenced command. “Okay, okay.”
“Good, because it seems that the holy men were able to break the charm.” I looked up and sure enough a few feet were hanging down, getting ready to descend. “Fight for your life. Fig
ht for your family’s name.”
“I’m a Brinza,” I agreed.
“And a Dracul.”
Chapter Twelve
T he first holy man that landed was met with a blade to the gut. His death came before he even knew he’d been attacked, falling over with a half-smirk etched on his face. As Radu removed the blade, the next wave was more than just one. Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten, maybe fifteen holy men came through the magical barrier.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
The witches that were assigned to our support details began slinging spells with wild abandon. Our newest friends were prepared, however.
“They are protected by anti-magical charms, Castor!” Radu snapped.
That didn’t stop the witches from trying to kill them. And all that did was make it harder for Radu and I to move around the area, freely. Either way, we had a job to do. To my left, my vampire uncle used an errant spell as cover, rolling under it. When he came back to his feet, he was in the right position to slit one of the intruders’ throats. Blood spilled everywhere as the lifeless body hit the wood and moved no more.
I, on the other hand, was working crowd control. Swinging Maria around with speed and control, I was able to keep the holy men at bay.
Who is Maria you might ask?
Growing up, Maria was the only girl in our area who didn't believe the rumors that I grew up in a dark and cursed family. As we know, the rumors were true, but she didn’t listen. Abigail warned me multiple times about fraternizing with normal humans but Maria was special. She was worth getting to know and keeping close.
Until getting close got her killed.
That’s a story for another day. In the present, it just seemed right to honor the memory of two teenagers who might’ve been in love and thought they had their whole lives in front of them. It only felt right to name this weapon that felt so right in my hands after the girl who felt so right talking to and sharing my secrets with.
As the chain twirled overhead, one of the warriors felt confident that he’d be able to get close. That was his first and only mistake. As he neared the range, he tried to take a quick two-step towards me with his sword pointed out.
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