by Nazri Noor
I picked myself up, brushing off my jeans, bending my knees as I brandished my sword. I placed the scabbard gently on the ground. Damien struck Garm’s Fang against the asphalt, a warning clang. Then he gave me a shit-eating grin. “Ready for more?”
There’s a reason people remember the name Sterling. Maybe it’s the ghostly sheen of my skin, my quicksilver speed, or how given the right mood, I can charm the crown right off a king’s head. The arrogance works against me sometimes, sure. But if you ask me, people call me Sterling because I’m monstrously excellent at the things I do.
Like moving really fast. Like sucker punches.
I darted at Damien, a streak of silver in the dark. I struck the pavement with my heels, a short spring as I launched my knuckles directly at his chin. No quicker way to knock the grin off of someone’s face than by actually punching it off with your bare fist. Damien grunted as we connected, the crack of his jaw splitting the air in the parking lot.
He stumbled, clutching at his chin. Nice. I’d put money on me striking hard enough to draw blood.
Of course, we were talking about a mountain in the shape of a man here. That square jaw wasn’t fun to punch. I shook my hand out, clenching my teeth to hide just how painful jabbing him in the face had been.
Damien dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, glowering. He spat something dark onto the asphalt.
“Point to the bloodsucker,” Jackie announced, this time with a thick layer of irritation in her voice. Wow, bias much?
The crowd jeered and booed. Excellent. Indignant anger was infectious. It was only going to make Damien hotter under the collar, more prone to making mistakes. Sometimes you have to fight smart, not hard.
“That wasn’t very nice, vampire,” Damien said, his teeth stained red with his own blood.
I retrieved my scabbard, puckering my lips and blowing him a kiss as I went back into a fighting stance. “Eye for an eye, sweetheart.”
Damien roared, swinging his enormous blade in a vicious circle. My eyes went huge. The guy moved much too fast for his bulk, but that was werewolf reflexes for you. I ducked, then feinted left, then right, searching for an opening. But I was too impatient, once again. It shouldn’t have been possible – Garm’s Fang was too huge and too heavy – but Damien brought the sword swinging around in the opposite direction. He was just that strong.
And I wasn’t fast enough to dodge this time.
I cried out as Garm’s Fang bit into my belly. I staggered away, inspecting my wound through the slash in my shirt. I hissed as I felt the trickle of blood rolling down to my navel. Just a scratch, thankfully. No disembowelment. At least not yet.
“Point Damien,” Jackie called. “That’s two, one. Another point and the Blood of Garm wins.”
You should’ve heard the pack howling. They could probably hear us another town over.
Again, this could have been a good thing. Damien was bristling with power now, his head swimming in overconfidence, lifted even higher by the voices of his adoring pack. But we did only have one point left until I fucked this all up. My eyes fell on Asher’s face, then on Gil’s. Asher gave me a tight, encouraging smile. Gil looked like he was about ready to tear my throat out himself.
But I was more concerned with wanting to punch the smile right off of Damien’s face.
“You feeling all right there, little buddy?” He planted the tip of Garm’s Fang into the ground, placing both hands on its pommel, like he was taking a tiny breather. “Doesn’t look too bad from here.”
“I’m fine,” I said, frowning. “Let’s fucking do this.”
What the fuck did he care? I mean, clearly, he was being sarcastic, too, but – wait. Why was I feeling so woozy all of a sudden? My lashes fluttered as I struggled to focus on Damien, on the sword in his hands and the glimmers of pale green light weaving across the blade.
Necromantic energy. The world was fuzzy at the edges, like I’d just downed a couple of flutes of champagne and forgotten about it, or like I’d just sucked a pint of blood out of a stoner.
“No fair,” I murmured. “This is – no fair, you’re cheating.”
Damien laughed, his wolves echoing his mirth, like a pack of human hyenas. “I’ve got my magic sword, you’ve got yours.”
“Get – get fucked,” I said. I was getting sleepy, Garm’s Fang draining my life force with its awful enchantments. Worse, I was running out of clever things to say.
But you know what? Damien was right. He had his magic sword. I had mine. I looked down at the katana. God, was I going to hate myself in the morning. I lifted the blade up to my arm.
Damien stammered. “What – what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I touched the flat of the katana against my skin. People screamed. Divine lightning went shooting through my veins, frying me from the inside out. I cried out, shuddering. The pain – excruciating. The blade stuck to me like a magnet, the current grasping my skin like talons made out of a million pricking needles. With a final, desperate effort, I ripped the katana away, killing the circuit.
Something sizzled. I thought I could smell smoke wafting off the tips of my hair.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Damien said, his face wrought with disgust, but also, admiration. Little bit.
I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. “Maybe. But that woke me right the fuck up.”
Damien barely had time to blink and open his mouth for some pithy response. I rushed to close the little space between us, slashing out with the katana, aiming for his thigh. He screamed as the blade bit into his flesh, arcs of lightning running across his skin.
“Feels great, doesn’t it?” I said. “Really jolts you awake. Like being tased in an open wound.”
Damien grimaced, pressing both hands against his thigh. Garm’s Fang clanged as it fell onto the ground. “Fuck you and every last tainted vampire on this planet.” Blood ran down his fingers, spilling from the gash in his leg. Excellent.
“Point vampire. Two all.”
Jackie was looking a little nervous now. So were the other wolves, and most importantly, so was Damien. Just another drop of blood spilled and this would all be over.
Damien retrieved his claymore. I stood with my legs astride, sword and scabbard in each hand. Wordlessly, we continued the fight. I leaned in, hungry for another cut. Sparks trailed with the breeze as I rushed for Damien’s blood.
But he knew my tricks now. As sturdy as the katana’s steel might be, it was still very possible to deflect with the right shield, the right armor, or the right angle of an opposing weapon. Damien swatted his claymore towards me, his brute strength pushing my katana right out of my grip.
The katana went clattering across the asphalt, sparks and arcs of electricity fizzling out as it lost contact with my skin. Fuck. I was defenseless. The shadow of Garm’s Fang fell over me like a shroud. The blade was going to follow soon. I glared at it, angry, defiant. I wasn’t supposed to lose. Not like this.
But my defining trait was being stubborn as shit. I might act like I don’t care about things, but I’ve always hated the idea of losing. I refused to lose. I refused to back down.
I refused to die.
Reflexes took over, along with my very being’s determination to continue existing. I sidestepped Garm’s Fang at the last moment, its passage so close to my body that it could have shaved off the fine hairs on my arms. The claymore smashed into the ground. No wonder this parking lot had so many fucking potholes. But Damien’s confidence and anger had gotten the best of him. He’d put everything into that attack, burying the blade into the pavement. I didn’t have my sword anymore, but I did still have my scabbard.
I grabbed the scabbard with both hands, wielding it like a bat, or a club. In a single smooth motion, I twisted, driving power into my blow with my legs, my arms, my hips. The target: Damien’s hairy, stupid face.
Bone cracked as the scabbard met its mark. Damien’s head twisted at an uncomfortable angle, the impact forcing the air out of his
cheeks, along with a fair amount of saliva and blood. He stumbled, relinquishing his hold on Garm’s Fang, leaving it stuck in the pavement, the sword in the stone. He spat into his hand, a single, sharp white tooth, sitting in a puddle of spit and blood.
Point three.
“Eye for an eye,” I said, smiling. “And a tooth for a tooth, baby.”
I thought Damien would be angrier, but his face was oddly expressionless. He nodded once. “You win, vampire.”
“Call it, Jackie,” I said, resting the scabbard on my shoulder.
She did. She didn’t like it, but she did.
“The bloodsucker wins.”
You could feel the outrage coming off the wolves in heated waves. Their boos should’ve rattled me, but all the noise was starting to blur together. It sounded a hell of a lot like applause to me. I caught Asher pumping his fist, then Gil shaking his head in disapproval.
What? I won, didn’t I?
11
“Another one?” Damien said, offering me a salt shaker and a wedge of lime.
I shrugged. “Yeah, you know what? Fuck it. Hit me.”
The tang of lime and salt was the best part. The burning that went down my throat, not so much. Tequila was the worst. Not really, but after a bloody fight, it’s not the best thing to pour down your gullet. However, as much trouble as my mouth could get me into, I still had an understanding of social subtleties.
For example, when the alpha invites you to his back room for a post-fist-and-sword-fight round of tequila shots, you say yes. You say yes, because you still need information about dead bodies that had their faces chewed off. The back room smelled of our mingled sweat and blood, and tequila, of course. Kind of hot, not gonna lie. Guys like Damien, this was their language. It was how they communicated: cocktails, blood, karate chops.
“Shit’s smooth, isn’t it?” Damien lowered his eyes at me, waiting for my approval.
“Yeah,” I said, ignoring the way the salt, lime, and alcohol were burning at the split in my lip. “Good stuff.”
He turned to Gil, who sat in a corner, fuming with his arms folded. “Shot?”
Gil shook his head, somehow both a grumpy teenager and a disapproving parent all at once. “For the last time, no. We’re just here with questions, Damien, and now that the blood trial’s over – ”
“I got it, I got it. I told you what I knew, and I told you what my people knew. They said so themselves. There’s no talk of this being a wolf problem. You should know better, Gil. We don’t eat people. We don’t eat faces.”
Gil shot me a glare that said “I fucking told you.” I shrugged apologetically, staring at the bottom of my shot glass, wishing he’d stop burning a hole in my forehead.
Damien had let us speak to a few of his wolves on the way back into the Dead Dog. The atmosphere had changed just a hair. There was a grudging respect from the others, not necessarily any sort of friendliness, just a bar full of people who were very politely honoring the code of the blood trial. The fight had taken a lot of the fizz out of my system as well. I didn’t feel like being as much of a jerk anymore. Is that what you call growth? You’d think I’d learn a few things after too many decades of unlife.
“My bad,” I said, speaking to Damien, but looking to Gil hopefully. “We wanted to investigate every angle, and it’s silly thinking back now, but we were stumped, you know? And clearly, we still are. What creature goes around eating faces, and only faces? It doesn’t make sense.”
Damien shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me. These are dark times, man. If you ask me, I’d chalk this up to some magic. The evil kind.”
“What make you say that exactly?” Gil said, narrowing his eyes.
Damien chuckled. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just buzzed. Maybe the adrenaline’s still in my system. Is it supposed to hang around that long?” He slapped me on the back, nearly knocking my teeth out. “You got me all riled up, bloodsucker. Put up a good fight back there.”
I rubbed at the sore spot on my shoulder where his hand had struck me. “We really needed your input, so I had to make good. Um. Sorry I was such a huge dick about it.”
Damien laughed again. “It was entertaining, if nothing else. Garm’s Fang hasn’t been fed in a long time, either, so that was nice.”
The sword hadn’t been returned to its home, which was apparently the underside of the back room’s coffee table. It was propped up in a corner, pulsing menacingly with green light, flecks of my blood still running along its edge. I ran my fingers along the tear in my shirt, relieved to find that the wound was already closing up. Speedy physical regeneration was probably one of the best vampiric perks. It was the least the curse could do for inflicting us with an unquenchable thirst for blood. Speaking of which –
“You know, about feeding,” I said, scratching the side of my jaw. “I’m wondering if you know of any types in town who, you know, would be willing to donate.”
Damien held a finger up as he chugged his beer. My fingers dug into the leather of the couch as I watched the lump in his throat bob, sliding under sweaty skin. I tore my gaze away, licking my lips. Gil coughed pointedly. Damien slammed his empty beer bottle on the table, belching in satisfaction.
“I’m shocked you’re asking. Don’t your types just take blood when you need it? You know, ambush someone in a dark alley, drop out of a tree?”
I stared at him in puzzlement. How did he guess? Dropping out of trees was my move. “I’m trying this thing where I don’t take blood by force anymore, unless it’s appropriate. You know, some guy tries to stake me through the heart, so I subdue him and drink his blood a little, that kind of thing.”
“He does thralls now,” Gil said. “Willing donors. Vamps are evolving, Damien. Sterling’s a colossal pain in my ass, but he tries. It’s why I give him a chance. It’s why I give vampires a chance, infuriating as they can be.”
I ventured a smile, but Gil just rolled his eyes away from me.
“Truth is, I don’t really subscribe to this whole rivalry,” Damien said, slinging his arm across the back of the couch. “I mainly keep up appearances because it’s what my people expect of me. Kind of sad, I know. But you won’t find any willing donors here, Sterling, not in my bar at least. Not in my pack. Humans around Silveropolis? Maybe. But I don’t know how you’d even broach the subject.”
Gil grunted. “Same way he always does. Act a fool and start a fistfight.”
I clenched my fingers, studiously ignoring Gil’s snipes. “I’ll have to work something out, then, and soon. I can’t keep up my strength without feeding.”
Damien shrugged. “At least you’ve got your sword. Damn thing knocked a tooth out, and that was just the sheath.”
“The katana’s super strong, a gift from a god. Divine steel. I guess the scabbard must be divine wood. Sorry about the tooth. Your sword, though, that’s something, too. Are magical artifacts even that common around here?”
He glanced over at Garm’s Fang, beaming with all the pride of a parent. “I had that forged to order, but not here. You’d be hard pressed to find a local enchanter. Which isn’t to say that magic doesn’t live in Silveropolis. We’ve got our own legends, couple of myths.” He snapped the top off another beer, chuckling. “Who knows what you’ll find in these parts, eh?”
I reached for a lime wedge when I caught myself staring at his throat again, anything to distract myself from the thirst. “I’ve heard about something called the Filigreed Masque. Ever heard of it?”
Damien tapped the side of his beer bottle with his fingernail, clinking as he examined his thoughts. “You know, I think I have. Really old thing, right? This used to be a mining town, and someone got their hands on some silver wire and made this magical mask.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Gil said.
“Vilmas,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.” Gil shot me another glare that gently suggested we were going to add yet another bullet point to the presumably extensive list of things he was going to ye
ll at me about.
“Yeah,” Damien said, snapping his fingers, jogging his memories. He waved one huge hand across his face. “You wear it, right? And it gives you magic. Changes how you look.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “That’s not what I heard.”
“Like I said, we’ve got our own legends. Not all of them are accurate. Not all of them are going to be the same.” He leaned forward, close enough that I could smell the sweetness of beer on his breath. “I can tell you one thing, though. All the stories, they point to the same man. They say he was the one who owned it.”
“Who?” I asked. I held my breath, anticipating the answer.
“Uriah Everett.”
12
We collected Asher outside the Dead Dog soon after, peeling him away from Jackie. More accurately, though, we had to peel Jackie off of him. She’d taken quite a shine to the kid, which wasn’t too surprising. Asher could be charming as hell, on purpose or otherwise. He followed after us with a dazed smile, oblivious to the miniature storm brewing in the air between me and Gil.
“That was a travesty,” Gil said, as soon as we’d piled into the car.
I grumbled under my breath. “Your face is a travesty.”
He snarled, glaring at me, the heat pouring off his skin. “What did you just say to me?”
I turned the key in the ignition, ruffling my hair in frustration. “I don’t know, I’m tired, okay? And hungry. And kind of banged up from the fight.”
“The fight that you started unprompted,” Gil said. “We could have just talked things out. There was no need for a blood trial. I already told you that my kind had nothing to do with the killings. What was the point of that?”
I shrugged, starting to get annoyed all over again. “I don’t know. Some light exercise, I guess.” I could feel the sarcasm working its way back into my system. The tequila, that was long gone. Vampire metabolism and some water can do wonders. “Live a little. Carpe noctem. Seize the night.”
