by Annie Bellet
“It’s dead,” I said as the ghoul’s head bounced away across the grass.
Tiger-Alek snarled at me, his tail twitching as he turned away and stalked in a circle.
“More of them?” I asked.
Tiger-Alek couldn’t answer, of course. He moved in a widening circle around me as I forced myself to my feet.
A glint caught my eye. The Alpha and Omega was about ten feet to my left. The jar was glowing about fifteen feet in front of me.
Sword first, then jar, I decided. Holding my broken arm to my side, I staggered toward the sword. That thing was way too dangerous to leave in the grass. Nausea washed over me as I felt bone chips and edges sliding back into place, pulled by my natural healing magic. It had been a while since I’d broken a bone. Now I remembered why I hated it so much.
I reached the sword and picked it up carefully by the grip.
Tiger-Alek growled and kept growling as circled back toward me, his eyes on the jar.
I started toward the jar and stopped. A humanoid shape detached itself from the shadows. I couldn’t make out many features, but it wasn’t elongated or proportioned like the ghouls had been. Its eyes weren’t glowing, either.
A voice whispered across the distance as it moved with a cautious gate. For a heartbeat I wasn’t sure it was even human speech, but then the word made sense.
Japanese. Someone saying “please” over and over until the words ran together into nonsense.
Tiger-Alek crouched, ready to spring.
The shape came into the light, mere feet now from the jar. It had been a man once, of that I was certain. It still wore pants, old fashioned trousers with a line of buttons down the fly. There were dull boots on its feet. Its skin was darker grey than the ghouls had been. There was a gaping wound in its chest where its heart should have been. Raw white edges of rib bone stood out against the ripped flesh, but the creature did not bleed.
The nauseating rotten scent of the necromantic magic swirled around the creature in an almost tangible cloud. I gripped the sword.
Then its eyes met mine as it stopped its litany. Dark eyes. Human eyes. Full of a grief and hunger that punched me right in my own heart.
“Wait,” I said to Alek.
He snarled but stayed crouched at my side.
The power of that grief, that desperation, held me back as the creature reached for the jar. Instinct was at war with emotion in my head. I couldn’t let it have the jar I’d fought so hard for, but yet…
In that jar was a heart.
This creature was missing its heart.
So I stood, frozen, and watched as the creature turned the dial and the bands on the sides of the jar sprang open like a vise coming undone. The creature dumped the phosphorescent liquid out. It smoked like acid as it hit the ground, some splashing the creature’s boots and sending up puffs of glowing green smoke. Uncaring, the creature took the beating heart and pressed it into its chest.
Bones cracked into place and flesh flowed over the wound like a cloth rippling and settling on a table. Color radiated over the creature’s skin from its chest, warm golden brown returning to the grey pallor. The creature raised its head, its face no longer as gaunt and its eyes fully human. The eye-watering stench of necromantic magic dissipated as though blown away by a fresh breeze even though the night air hardly moved.
He bowed from the waist and then smiled as he straightened up, revealing even, white teeth with long, sharp incisors.
“Thank you,” the vampire said in English. “Where is my sword?”
I kept the Alpha and Omega up in front of me as the vampire walked closer. It took my pain-addled brain a second to realize what sword he meant. Japanese vampire, katana. Made sense in a culturally consistent sort of way.
“Who are you?” I said as tiger-Alek snarled.
The vampire stopped moving toward us, taking the hint from the twelve-foot tiger crouched at my side.
“I suppose you are owed as much for freeing me,” the vampire said with a slight incline of his head. He was better with facial expression than Noah. His smile looked almost natural.
“You were trapped?” I asked, noticing he hadn’t answered my first question. We’d get back to that, I decided.
“Enslaved,” he said, his lips peeling back from his teeth.
“By the necromancer?” I was half-guessing that part, trying to fill in gaps, wondering just how far down the Archivist’s lies went.
“Yes.” The vampire stood, arms at his side, watching me with an inscrutable dark gaze.
“Even after he died?” Another guess, based on what I’d been told.
The vampire tipped his head to the side. It was a gesture I’d seen Noah make as well. I wondered if they’d learned human in the same 101 class.
“Who told you the necromancer was dead?”
“I’m asking the questions here,” I said, sounding more peevish than in control even to myself.
“Very well. The necromancer is not dead. He is hiding in his lair, to anticipate your next question.”
“And you are?” I tried again.
“Ishimaru.” The vampire bowed again, though not as deeply as he had the first time.
The name rang a bell in my head and I saw the stamp on the katana in my memory.
“Your sword,” I murmured, putting it together. “I thought the maker put their mark on the sword, not the owner?”
I had a dead Japanese assassin’s memories living in my head, but he was locked away behind the silver circle in my brain that helped keep me from going nuts with too many ghosts. I had been inside Haruki’s memories multiple times, but he hadn’t had any particular knowledge of swords that I’d mined for information at least. I had eaten his heart and appropriated some of his magical knowledge, but I wasn’t comfortable with reliving someone else’s life if I didn’t have to.
“I made the sword,” Ishimaru said. “Suishinshi Masahide taught me himself.” It was clear from his tone that he had great pride in this.
Made me wish I knew more about swords in Japan, and I filed away the name to look up. Standing in a park in the middle of the night with a broken arm was not the time for a trip down vampire memory lane.
“How did the necromancer enslave you?” Back to important things.
“Magic,” Ishimaru said. “He has great power over the dead, though you have killed many of his creations. I imagine he panics now.” The vampire’s lips stretched in a grin. Envisioning the suffering of his former master clearly made Ishimaru happy.
“Will he come after me?” I asked.
I was sick of undead. I prayed my shop hadn’t taken too much damage. I had sunk a lot of money into that place already. Plus if Lara saw it a mess and I had to explain ghouls to her, she might think twice about working there, no matter how she’d kept her cool.
“I do not know,” Ishimaru said. “I want my sword. Then this is not my trouble any longer.”
“I give you the sword, you’ll leave here without hurting anyone and never come back?”
He nodded. “I will leave. Answer me this, please. Who told you the necromancer was dead?”
My head hurt, my arm was a mess of twitches and aches, and my right hand was getting tired of holding onto the sword. I willed it down to a dagger and slipped it into its sheath, the action buying me a few precious moments to think about my answer.
My answer was that I was too damn tired to play vampire word games.
“The Archivist,” I said, hoping he would know who that was. I had no clue how long he’d been heartless and enslaved.
Ishimaru jerked upright, the muscles in his bare chest and arms flexing. It was the first involuntary gesture I’d ever seen from a vampire.
“He lied,” he said in a way that could have won Understatement of the Century if such an award had existed. Then his eyes narrowed and he shook his head slowly. “He sent you for the vessel?”
“Yes,” I said. “I kind of didn’t give it to him. You’re welcome, I’m guessing?”
“We are very territorial,” Ishimaru acknowledged. “He would have freed me through true death.”
I sighed. I would deal with Noah later if I had to. Hopefully he was gone from here and would stay that way.
“My sword?” Ishimaru said.
“I don’t have a phone on me,” I said. I was torn. I wasn’t particularly keen on standing in the park all night. My feet were growing cold in the grass and post-battle adrenaline dump plus injury was starting to take its toll.
Alek shifted and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t take his eyes off the vampire.
“Ezee,” I said.
Alek called our friend. “Bring the sword to the park by the church,” he said after I heard the murmur of Ezee’s voice in the phone.
Ezee must have asked what was going on, though I couldn’t make out the words.
“The owner would like it back,” Alek answered. “No. Yes. Good.” He hung up. “Twenty minutes,” he added before shifting back to a tiger.
“I’m going to go sit at that picnic table,” I said, not entirely sure if I was talking to Alek or Ishimaru or both.
“We are exposed here,” Ishimaru said, looking around the quiet park.
“Think more of those ghouls are on the way?” I said as I decided fuck standing around and walked over to the nearest picnic table. If the vampire wanted to surprise attack me, he was welcome to try. I doubted I’d misread the situation that badly, however.
Tiger-Alek followed me, keeping his body between myself and the vampire. Which blocked my view of the vampire, but Ishimaru walked over to the other side of the table and hung back about three feet, choosing not to sit.
“Ghouls? I suppose that is not an incorrect name,” he said. “There were four of them that I know of. Where is the fourth?”
Tiger-Alek snapped his jaws on air and gave his body a shake as he circled us.
“I think the fourth met a tiger,” I said.
It certainly explained what had taken Alek so long to get over here. He must have gone after the one in the shop or caught it on its way out. I was relieved he wasn’t hurt.
“Humans?” the vampire asked, glancing around again.
“All the bars are that way,” I said, starting to gesture with my left arm. I regretted that immediately as pain lanced up my shoulder and made my head spin. “We’re probably fine. I know the cops, anyway.” Minor lie since I only knew the Sheriff, but even on a Saturday night, this part of town wouldn’t see much traffic.
Tiger-Alek turned half away from us, facing toward the street but keeping the vampire in his peripheral vision.
“Nothing is getting by him, anyway,” I said. Alek would hear any cars coming, and likely any undead too. I pictured all of us trying to duck behind trees or hiding under a picnic table and swallowed a giggle. I was definitely too tired for this shit.
“Tell me about the necromancer,” I said.
“I cannot,” Ishimaru said. He held up a hand to stop any response. “I have only vague memories of my time. It is all clouded with hunger and hatred.”
“Whatever you remember, then?” I said. I wasn’t sure why I was asking, though if I were honest with myself, I knew I was asking because I had a strong feeling this problem wasn’t going to solve itself.
“He raises the dead. I remember books, many books, but he did not like me near him.” Ishimaru bared his fangs again as he said that. “He was angry I could not make him one of us.”
“He wants to be a vampire?” I said. “Is he human or like me? How old is he? What does he look like? Do you know his name?”
“Human and old for one of them. He is a white man. His blood is corrupted with magic now. But not like you. I imagine not many are like you.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I left it alone. “How long were you enslaved?”
“What is the year?”
I told him and he shook his head.
“Three years.”
Not as long as I’d thought given the old-fashioned appearance of his boots and trousers. Maybe the necromancer had liked to play dress-up. I buried that disturbing thought quickly.
“You said he was in his lair, but I was there. We never saw him. Or you.”
“We were not there. The master,” Ishimaru stopped and snarled. “The necromancer,” he corrected himself. “He was away. I was sleeping, hidden away, for it was daylight.”
I wondered what would have happened if we’d taken the left-hand path. More zombies, I guessed. Would we have found this lair?
“I messed up the place pretty good,” I said aloud. “I doubt he’d stay there anymore.”
“His special room is there, he will not leave it. Books, I remember all the books.” Ishimaru shook his head again as though trying to clear it or shake loose a memory. Then he was still again and his dark gaze met mine. “He knows many things.”
I got the impression he wasn’t going to tell me more even if he were able. I supposed that if I’d been enslaved for a few years, I wouldn’t be that thrilled to tell a random person all about it, either. The question was, what did I do about the necromancer? He was hours away from Wylde. I no longer had his jar of vampire heart, so it was possible he’d keep to himself.
Keep to himself and keep on raising zombies and making ghouls or whatever he was doing. I got why the Archivist was unhappy now. Also why he had needed me to do his dirty work. I could only imagine what would happen if someone enslaved Noah Grey. I also knew why Noah wanted me far away from the necromancer himself.
The necromancer wasn’t a sorcerer, so he could be killed, though I imagined it wouldn’t be easy since he sounded like a very powerful magic user with a lot of knowledge at his disposal. However, as a sorceress, I could eat his heart. Then all that knowledge would be mine, with sorcery behind it. My kind had no need of rituals if we had enough innate power, if we had knowledge and willpower to make things happen.
I had my magic comfort zone, my “A Box” as Alek called it. I liked fire or lightning or just throwing around magic force as its own thing. That was my go-to. My “B Box” had a lot more in it. I could fly or breathe under water or see in the dark. I’d cast huge-scale spells and slowed time. I’d even changed the course of time itself once, though I was never ever going to do that again.
There was no doubt in my mind that given the knowledge and desire, I could figure out necromancy. The real question was, why the fuck would I want to? Having my own personal zombie horde didn’t sound exciting. Plus, if the feel and stench of the necromancer’s magic was any indication, Ishimaru’s descriptor of “corrupted with magic” was dead on target. I knew I wasn’t that power-hungry. If I had been, I’d have just swallowed Samir’s heart, the human world be damned.
Noah Grey, however, might believe that given the chance, I could choose to take the necromantic knowledge for myself. If a human necromancer could enslave a vampire, I shuddered to think what a sorcerer could do.
“You see it, then,” Ishimaru said softly, breaking the rapid flow of my thoughts.
Tiger-Alek growled before I could form a response and I stood up from the bench as a car came up the hill. We all stood tensely watching as the car stopped in the church parking lot. Alek relaxed and turned to stare at the vampire the way a cat stares at a bug. The cat might not kill the bug, but it sure looks like it wants to.
Ishimaru ignored him.
“Jade?” Ezee said as he approached us. He had the katana in his hand, but looked more ready to draw it than hand it over as his nostrils flared.
I walked toward him, aware my back was to the vampire. I trusted that Alek would warn me if Ishimaru made a move. I held out my hand to Ezee.
“It’s fine,” I said. “We give him his sword, he leaves town. One less problem to worry about.” I hoped.
Ezee raised an eyebrow. It was criminal that he looked so put together at two in the morning. I was in ripped and bloody sweats and a teeshirt with a belt hanging around my waist. He was wearing a pair of dark
jeans, a racing jacket, and had not a hair out of place. I was glad he’d come without too much arguing.
Clearly exhaustion was making me maudlin. I took the sword and walked over to Ishimaru.
“Here,” I said, offering it to him. “Our deal?”
“I will leave. You will go after the necromancer?” Ishimaru asked as he took the sword from my hand with both of his.
“Noah said he would handle it,” I said, the best non-answer I could give.
Ishimaru nodded. “May I offer advice?”
“Can I stop you?” I muttered. I really wanted him to go so I could get back to bed. Well, shower, then bed. I also still had to do something about the ripped up ghoul corpse and my shop’s broken window. Damnit. I wasn’t getting back to bed anytime soon.
Ishimaru unsheathed the blade and ran me through before I could blink or anyone could react. His breath was cool on my ear as he whispered, “Never trust a vampire, Jade Crow.”
I used the wave of pain to pull my magic into a wall of force, thrusting the vampire away from me. Red spots danced in my vision as he flew backward. He caught himself on his feet, bloody sword still in hand. Shadows reached for him and in another beat of my racing heart, he was gone in the darkness as though he’d never been.
Alek caught me as I fell and Ezee’s face swam into view above us.
“Just a flesh wound,” I gasped out. Another ruined teeshirt, more blood lost. Awesomesauce.
“Shh, love,” Alek said. “I have you.”
“He was too fast,” Ezee said, his voice full of the frustration I could see on Alek’s unhappy face.
“He wasn’t trying to kill me, just driving home a point,” I said. Damn, chuckling at my own pun hurt.
“Seriously?” Ezee said.
I closed my eyes since looking up at them hurt too much and the world kept spinning. “I failed my will save,” I muttered.
Alek lifted me up. “Taking you home,” he said.
