by Chris Lowry
Seriously I didn't have any hang ups about my parents. My childhood was mostly idyllic or at least as sane as a kid raised in a private boarding school monastery could be.
I had new roommates each year, and one or two close friends and was always under the watchful eye of the Father. I was instructed in the rosary and confession, was denied communion until my confirmation and that wasn't allowed until after I hit puberty. That's when they expected any latent magic to appear.
The first signs came when I was ten.
By the time I was twelve I knew I was different and hid it, like most boys who hide their secret longings in their heart or behind bathroom doors.
My body was changing, and whenever the Father tried to question me about it, I just assumed he was referring to the hair in new places.
For my twelfth birthday, Father tried to kill me.
It didn't take.
I spent the next four years on the run, living on the streets of city to city, traveling the rails like a hobo. I met a bunch of people, some kind, others not. The kind ones got a little luck on their behalf in the form of magic, just whatever favor I could send their way. A farmer fed me more eggs than I could eat, then boiled two dozen for me to carry with me. I put a blessing on his cows and chickens so they produced more milk and eggs that never spoiled and never went bad.
A grandmother made me cookies once and I put a ward on her home so that bad weather and bad things just avoided it.
Two boys were travelling on horseback to New York and shared their meager meal with me one night and I gave them eternal safety, a personal ward that stayed with them for almost eight decades.
I won't share the details of the bad men.
They were mostly men and they are mostly dead. Men who prey on children deserve horrible deaths, and I gave it to them, and watched while it happened.
The first time I felt guilty.
Good old fashioned catholic guilt for taking the life of another. I didn't like it, I didn't like how it made me feel. Except that I knew that with these types of people gone the world would be a better place.
I sometimes think about that in the dark of the night. When I can't sleep and I wonder about the dark side and the light side. The two wolves that fight inside us and the stronger one is the wolf we feed, if you believe in Cherokee legend.
I could have been a really great Dark Wizard. Maybe not a great wizard, but just great at being bad.
Dark magic is usually used against innocent normal people and done so the magician gains advantage.
When those bad men tried to do worse things to me, I tapped into dark magic to cause them grievous harm. I did unto their person horrors that dwarfed the acts they planned for me.
And when they died I moved on.
Maybe it was the Father's influence that kept me from becoming an evil man.
At sixteen, I joined the War.
It was in the war I learned that the world was a whole hell of a lot bigger than anyone knew, and that we were under constant attack from creatures of legend.
They wanted our world, and they wanted us in it, subjugated to their will and moving to their amusement. The Sidhe.
Creature of fairie and fae, legend lost to modern man and slowly being forgotten much like the magic everyone once believed in. How they hated us, hated that they relied on us to believe in them and that their paths to our world were being severed as we destroyed the wilderness in the name of progress.
The Sidhe kept coming at us and though forbidden by an edict older than even their memory against direct interference they still used their influence to try to usurp control of man.
They wanted us to remember them, and fear them. Fear their magic which we no longer believed in.
They were bad.
It was one of the reasons I said yes when the Judge told me I was a Marshal.
Justice against the bad things.
And I never once considered that I might be one of them.
“They’re late,” I said staring at the clock on the wall. “Send them after me when they get here.”
I slid into my coat, checked to make sure the badge was on my belt, then took off to an address a vampire gave me in the dark.
“I sometimes wonder if I’m a special kind of stupid,” I muttered to Elvis.
“I don’t wonder at all,” he answered floating behind me.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
The dark streets of New Orleans do not go to sleep around the French Quarter. The denizens of daylight go into their homes, shut the doors and pull the curtains to do the things that people do inside walls after dark.
Dinner. Television. Some light reading. Some love making.
The denizens of the night come out at sunset and create a world all of their own unlike any other.
Vampires roamed the city, nibbling necks of visiting tourists who flashed their boobs for the privilege. Witches plied their trade, sharing the streets with pickpockets, drunks, muggers and even priests who vied against all to save the souls of the party crowd.
The Vampire Conclave was held at a manor home that dated back to the war of 1812. There was no sign on the door, nor a banner on the fence to announce the gathering.
Just silent shadow figures moving with an unworldly grace toward the entrance.
I stared at the address and tried to find the angle.
Going in the front door would be suicide.
I’m good, but I’m not stupid. I’d counted to a hundred figures first, then gave up as even more kept showing up.
Claude had directed me to smaller home next door. It was a classic Cajun structure, newer than the manor by several decades, the bottom floor covered storage and the living space on the second and third floors. A set of wide stairs led up from the cobblestone path to a wraparound porch that circled the entire structure, ceiling fans whirring in the humid night air.
The sound of drunken laughter cut across the open space between the buildings as whatever merriment went on at vampire parties carried out of doors.
I imagined it involved blood.
But none of it innocent.
That would be a violation of the Vampire agreements. They were only allowed to partake of the willing, an agreement they created and enforced of their own volition before the Judge sent in a Marshal to do it for them.
I hadn’t had a call to fight the vamps yet.
Besides, the Normanii were doing a good job of culling the herd of predators.
And Claude seemed nice. I would hate to have to kill him.
I counted eighteen steps to the second floor and opened an unlocked door.
It was one huge open space that ran the length of the home, all the windows blacked out with mirror tint that hid the light inside. A fireplace dominated one wall, but there was little in the way of furniture.
All cleared out to make room for six dozen vampires.
This was the real conclave, I gulped.
There was power in this room, thrumming like electrical energy and I fought back a shiver.
Like walking into the lion’s den.
I didn’t have a tin man with me.
“Every breath you take,” Elvis crooned at a whisper. “I’ll be watching you.”
He was referring to the eyes of the predators locked on me as I stepped through the door and closed it behind me.
I could feel two dozen take my measure, heard them sniff as they caught wind of the warm blood coursing through my veins, and shift closer for inspection.
I slid the jacket aside so anyone could see the badge and took some satisfaction in the change in mood.
No one was very interested in me anymore.
They even parted as I moved toward the other end of the building where the action seemed centered.
I came in for a closer look until the vampires stood shoulder to shoulder like a granite wall, transfixed on what was happening on the other side.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
"Venerated Elder, the voice said in a used car
salesman rasp. "Your time has long passed. Welcome to the revolution."
"Who the hell is that guy?" Elvis asked.
"Why don't you float up and see?"
He blew out his lips like the idea had never occurred to him and lifted off the ground. He was back in a moment and looked bemused.
"Some clown with a bad dye job showboating," he said.
Not one to miss a good showboat, I parted the vamps like the Red Sea and got a clear view to the guy talking. They did not like being moved by magic, and I heard mutterings, but no one retaliated.
They were transfixed on the orator strutting around in front of Claude. He was ripped muscles and boiling energy, a peroxide blond with spiky hair and rainbow sunglasses.
He was also standing over a woman. She was spread out on a table like a buffet, tied down so I knew this was no thrall making an offer.
"Hey, dye job," I called out. "Who the hell are you?"
That got a few eyes turned my way. All of them. Except the girl. She had hers screwed shut like she was blocking out a nightmare.
The show boating vamp half turned away from Claude and glared at me with red rimmed eyes.
"You called the Marshal on me?" He sneered. "Weak old man, you can't fight your battles on your own."
Claude glared at everyone, and even I could tell he was still in fighting form. No vamp lived as long as he did without collecting a few fangs.
But showboating requires a certain finesse and the young blonde nosferatu looked skilled at it.
"Tyler," he sneered and bowed as he introduced himself.
"Ty," I said. "I hate to break up the party at the conclave but your guest looks like she would rather be elsewhere."
"Tyler," he growled a correction.
"Isn't that what I said?"
"No," he seethed.
"Pretty sure it is, Ty," I looked around to the other undead for support but they were busy looking anywhere but at me.
Except Claude who was smiling. Like he knew a secret.
And then I noticed they were all watching Tyler.
Waiting.
"I will give you one chance to leave before I destroy you and feast on your bones."
"Whoa, that's pretty specific Ty. Not to mention gross. Would it change your mind if you knew I kicked a Troll’s ass yesterday?"
"Day before," Elvis corrected.
"Day before," I adjusted.
I watched him.
Personally, I think if a man is worth threatening, then he is worth killing first. Tyler was making a show for the audience of young vampires gathered.
It would have been smarter for him to attack without warning. As it was he flashed across the room like a vampire bat out of hell ready to rain down some blood sucking vengeance on my person.
Magic at the speed of thought, I took a fistful of force and smacked him like a baseball through the wall.
I was a little disappointed he didn't leave a hole the shape of a person in the opening.
"Homerun!" I called out. "And the crowd goes wild!"
They didn't.
"Marshal," Claude tried to warn me.
Too late.
Ty burst up out of the floor like a stripper out of a cake at a bachelor party. He grabbed my ankle as he passed, flipped me up and banged my noggin off the tile.
Remember that scene in the superhero movie where the big Green giant grabs Loki and smacks him around a little bit.
Like a doll?
It was like that.
And in this scene, the part of the Norse God of mischief was played by me.
Except I couldn't even whimper when he stopped.
Everything hurt.
It was like my brain was rebooting and each system it brought on line shut down as the pain receptors kicked in.
Ty crawled on top of me and licked the blood from my nose.
I tried not to gag cause it hurt too much.
"You really are going to taste special," he hummed and bared his fangs for another slick lick.
"Stop hitting on me," I groaned. "You're making me blush."
He bent in, and I shot a thin needle of force through his heart in a loud pop that echoed through the room.
One of the vampires gathered shrieked like a wounded animal and the rest joined the keening.
Maybe it was me screaming too as I shoved the disintegrating showboat off before he got ick all over my jacket and took out the rest of the group.
Except Claude.
Who stood by the door, his hand on the handle.
"Thank you Marshal, I am in your debt again."
He opened the door with a flourish and sped past the Normanii crawling on the ceiling to escape into the night.
Eric, Rollo and the other one raced down the stairs, swords drawn and stopped short as the bodies of the deceased vampires turned to ash and started drifting.
"You did all this alone?" Eric asked.
I made it to my elbows and knees, and then up on one foot.
"Don't everyone rush to help," I snapped.
A beautiful naked woman morphed from the Hund by his side and rushed to lend a hand.
I leaned a little harder than I needed and looked a little longer than I should have, if you could judge by the Viking’s glare.
I didn't care.
I just won their fight and part of their argument for them.
He could cut me some slack or kiss my-
"We went to find you at the watcher’s house," he grunted. "Someone has busted the wards and taken her."
I smacked my head and winced.
I'm an ass.
The wards would weaken with the old Marshal’s death and I didn't do a damn thing to shore them up.
My fault.
"You should have-" Elvis started.
"I know, I know," I waved him off.
"If you knew, you should have stopped it," the Viking chided.
He was right, even if I didn't correct him.
I should have known.
“Let's go,” I said and hobbled out.
Not before one last look at his Hund just before she shifted to her wolf form. Eric growled but I could swear she was smiling.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
"War is starting Marshal."
"It's been going on forever," I reminded him.
"Aye," he agreed, then glanced over at the blond woman who was his Hund. I liked the tender look in his eye, the protective way he stared at her.
Maybe he was appreciating the curve of her pert bottom in the yoga pants.
I know I was.
"It's a different kind of war," he swiped his eyes over to catch me staring and was kind enough not to say anything about it. "I checked with the Jarl's and they've adjusted the threat level."
"Threat Level Midnight?"
He smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes.
"Threat Level Annihilate. The blood suckers have been around too long. We don't know who they have aligned themselves with this go round," he sighed. "But it's worse."
Which meant it was going to get a lot worse.
More innocent people were going to die.
And I was off on a witch hunt.
Literally.
"I wish I could join you," I told him.
"And I wish we had your magic by our side," Eric offered, a wistful tone in his voice. "We'll find more."
"Or make some."
He nodded and held out his hand.
"Good hunting," said the Normanii.
We used a traditional forearm grip and I felt the tingle of magic inside him. He was possessed, but the spirit wasn't evil. I gripped harder, and the took it as a challenge, tiny smirk turning up one corner of his mouth.
I sent out some feelers and got an impression.
He had a Viking warrior in his soul, an original Berserker cursed by an Indian Shaman up by Newfoundland almost a thousand years ago.
I sensed pain.
And hunger.
For vengeance. For justice. For freedom.
> The Normanii nodded at me. He knew what I was feeling, what I was reading.
He would be hungry forever, or until the Vampires were eliminated, which was just as long as forever. They had been here since the beginning of time, feeding on the edge of humanity.
No reason to think a Shield wall would stop them permanently.
"But we'll protect them," he said as if reading my mind.
Guess I needed to work on my poker face.
"The sheep need protecting."
"And we're the wolves to do it."
"Wolves eat sheep."
"It's the idea behind the principle," he said.
That earned a smile from me.
"Luck be with you," I wished.
"It's better with you," he said. "I've got the strength of my blade, and just vampires to kill. You'll have to stop what the witchy women are doing."
He gave me another nod and I watched him walk over to join his werewolf. They linked fingers and trailed off toward the French Quarter and whatever undead needed killing on the streets there.
I stared at the cemetery in the direction of the River.
There was some bad mojo brewing up there. I could feel it swirling, like a vortex over the city, pulling in bad vibes, bad thoughts, bad feelings.
"He seemed like a nice guy," Elvis whispered near my ear.
I almost jumped in the water.
“You need to be scared,” he continued, a serious look on his ghost face. “Another Watcher has been taken on your watch.”
He didn’t need to be a ghost to make me shiver at that.
The Vikings had a job to protect people from the predators that hunted for their blood at night. I had a job to protect the world.
And I was failing.
I messed up with my Watcher.
I wasn’t about to let it happen with another.
“We better hurry,” I told him and took off jogging to catch a Trolley car to the Cemetery.
He didn’t have a choice to keep up.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
The second St. Louis Cemetery was smaller than the first, surrounded by the same white walls, populated with the same style of tombstone and mausoleums.
