Blood Hunt (Codex Blair Book 2)

by Izzy Shows

  I breathed in, counting to three, trying to think my way out of this situation.

  I should have had a plan.

  I felt the ragged nails biting into my shoulders seconds later, the hot breath against my neck—the vampire had finally attacked.

  “Sudis,” I said, turning my head just slightly so that they could hear the word, know who had caused the pain. I felt the tattoo raise my skin, swelling and turning to points along the dragon scales—it hurt. It hurt a lot, but it was worth it to hear the howl of pain from the vampire as it yanked its claws away from me, and the sound of his feet staggering back a few steps. I saw the blur as it re-joined the other two men, the two vampires turning to scowl at one another.

  The one who’d attacked me just then shoved at the thrall. “Take care of her,” he barked.

  “Done with me already? Poor you,” I said with a grin. OK, I was feeling a little cocky, but I also recognised that the vampires were clever enough to know that they needed to regroup and formulate another plan, and the distraction the thrall provided would enable them to do that.

  He charged me, firing several bullets as he advanced, and I jerked my shield up in the nick of time, snapping out the word “Aegis!” as I did so. Well, almost in the nick of time. One of the bullets clipped my shoulder, causing me to stumble backwards a few steps and bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to distract from the stinging pain. I couldn’t have the tattoo everywhere, which sucked, but that would be too much of an energy sink to keep up. I had to get better with the shield.

  He was on me in another moment, slinging a fist for my head.

  I danced to the side, keeping my body facing towards him so that he wouldn’t be able to sneak around me. He brought the gun up to fire another shot, but I had the kick prepared before him. “Vis!” I snapped, my foot connecting with his hand, and I heard the satisfactory sound of bone crunching as the gun flew across the floor.

  He howled, cradling his hand close to his chest, glancing over his shoulder at his masters as if they could save him.

  No one could save him from me.

  I marched towards him, taking my time, and slugged him. “Vis,” I said again, this time low and soft, as my left hand connected with his nose. Another bone crunching connection. I didn’t wait for him to react, slamming my wand back into its holster and reaching into the bag to yank out the large blade there. Flipping it around, I slammed it into his chest without hesitating.

  I may be hesitant to kill a mortal with magic, but I had long since lost the revulsion to killing someone that was coming at me with lethal intent. It was bloody self-defence, and I wasn’t going to beat myself up over it.

  For now. It was locked away to torture me later.

  His eyes lost their light slowly as he stared at me, his lips parted slightly for his dying gasp, and I knew that his eyes would haunt me when I went to sleep that night. There was nothing that would stop the nightmares that plagued me.

  I yanked the knife back out and turned to face the vampires, blood dripping off the blade to splatter on the ground.

  “Who’s next?” I asked with a haunting smile.

  Their faces were shocked, and they looked at one another and then back to me several times before one straightened his shoulders and maintained eye contact with me.

  “You cannot possibly think the death of a mortal man would intimidate us. Get back into your cell while we are still feeling gracious,” he said with all the formality one would expect from a vampire.

  I shook my head, wiping the flat of my blade on my pants leg to remove the blood, then stashed it in the bag again as I pulled out a stake. I transferred it to my left hand and drew my fire wand again.

  “No, see, that’s not going to happen. You had me in that cell for what, five minutes? OK, OK, let’s be serious. Maybe an hour. You can’t hold me. I’m not going down without a fight, and now that you’ve got a fair one, you should know that this is going to bloody hurt. So, come on, baby, I’m not feeling merciful. I’m not letting you run away. I’m going to fucking kill you,” I said. I didn’t shout it, didn’t put any special inflection in my tone. It was the simplest declaration possible, but it was a lethal promise.

  Fear flashed across their faces for a moment, and I knew that they understood just how serious I was.

  “Bran,” said the one on the left, looking to his partner. “Just kill her. Get it over with.”

  “Of course you want me to do it.”

  “Haven’t you been talking about how easy it would be to just dispatch of her now while we were upstairs? Here’s your opportunity. Get rid of her.”

  “Yeah, Bran. Get rid of me.” I grinned. “If you think you can.”

  I was taunting them, wanting one of them to charge me first. Never make the first move if you can help it.

  The one who had spoken moved back a few paces, giving us room for the fight. Bran paced to the left and right for a few moments, his eyes fixed on me while I stood there and waited. Part of me wanted to mirror his movements, but I knew that my stillness would unnerve him more.

  “Come and get me,” I mocked him.

  He charged at last, though he did not blur towards me like one of them had the first time—I could barely tell them apart now—running at a normal human speed. I twirled the wand once, then aimed it at him.

  “Incendium,” I said, envisioning the flames at the same time as they leapt from the tip of the wand. I kept their image in my mind’s eye, guiding them like trained missiles. It was the same trick I had watched Aidan use that first night in the warehouse, and it was one that had taken me an age to perfect; the man had made complex magic look so easy and I hated him for it. For leaving me to learn it on my own.

  The fire flowed across the floor like a river, chasing the vampire about the room for a long moment before it captured his feet, snaking up his legs. Bran howled, beating at it with his hands, which soon began to blister and crack.

  I watched with a smug smile as the flames engulfed him briefly, letting myself enjoy the moment before I leapt forward. His chest had been left visible by the fire, intentional on my part, and I guided the stake in my left hand for his right breast. “Vis!” I shouted as I slammed the stake into his heart. I jumped away again as I directed the fire around the stake, had it pour into the edges of the hole it had created, flowing towards his heart.

  I panted, feeling the effects the effort had taken out of me.

  “You were saying?” I asked, turning to look at the vampire that remained. Bran was burning to a crisp, his death screams long since over now.

  He flinched and a Cheshire Cat smile stretched across my lips.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid now?” I taunted him. “I thought nothing could scare the big bad vampire.”

  The vampire didn’t answer, but instead blurred towards me. I reached into the bag and withdrew the blade instead of a stake, pricking myself on the dreaded edge but ignoring the pain that it brought to life.

  I dodged to the right before the vampire stopped, anticipating the tackle it’d prepared, and it toppled to the ground in a heap, it’s momentum getting the better of it. So, he was the one who had attacked me first, it was stupid of him to use the same move twice.

  I took the two steps required to get back to the vampire, pulling my leg back and snapping it into its head. It wouldn’t do much to hurt it—vampires are far more resilient than the average human, but that didn’t stop the action from satisfying me. I was angry, angry at everything it had done and dared to threaten.

  The vampire twisted onto his back, hissing at me, and moved as if he was going to pull me down to meet him, but I brought the blade down before he could, severing head from neck.

  “Thought you might like that move,” I muttered at the decapitated head. I then proceeded to kick it away like a football, watching as it rolled, spraying drops of blood like a catherine wheel at a firework display. “Good riddance.”

  I turned and made my way to the stairs, face set in a gri
m expression.

  I wasn’t going to let anyone out of here alive.

  38

  The stairs opened into an empty corridor. No one was in it, and I didn’t hear the stampede of boots rushing to kill me like I thought it would. I glanced from side to side, cautious, expecting something to jump out at me at any moment. Nothing did, though, and I continued to make my way down the corridor towards the only door that stood at the far end. Perhaps they had thought the quiet had come from the vampires succeeding in killing me and were waiting for their comrades to come back up, victorious.

  I would have thought someone would be here to greet them just in case I managed to get through, but maybe they were just that arrogant. That appeared to be the case, anyway.

  Trying the doorknob, I found that it was unlocked—seriously? Where was their security?—and threw it open. On the other side was an extravagant kitchen, larger than my living room, and there were five people standing in it. Three men lounged about an island, one woman was at the sink, and another in front of a large stove. They all jerked their heads about to look at me, and I instantly identified them as more thralls. Their necks all bore the marks of frequent feeding, their eyes all bore the same dark circles and were sunk deep into their sockets.

  Did they realise how close to death they were, I wondered? What was it that kept thralls coming back to their masters?

  No time for that now. I holstered my wand and withdrew the blade from my bag. I wasn’t going to use magic on them, I had already decided that downstairs, but there was a high likelihood I was going to have to kill them. Maybe without their masters present they would be willing to listen to reason, but I doubted that.

  “As of this moment, you’ve done nothing wrong. You can leave without me having to kill you, but I am not going to stop, I am not going to back down, and you cannot triumph over me,” I said, pressing my lips into a firm line afterwards. I didn’t want to have to kill them, I wanted them to listen to me and to leave. Once this was all over, I could speak to Fred about the process for detoxing someone from whatever addiction it was that kept them coming back.

  “Did you kill Bran and Jason?” The woman at the stove gasped.

  “I did,” I said without aplomb. “They tried to kill me, that’s usually how it goes when someone comes at you with their fangs aimed at your throat.”

  “You should have submitted,” she cried, shaking her head. “It would have been so much better for everyone if you had just submitted.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you were here of your own free will. Is that not the case?”

  “Of course she is,” one of the men chimed in then. “But you’ve committed a crime against our masters, it stands to reason my sister would be upset.” He was defiant, his eyes more alight than his sister’s had been, and I suspected that he was here of his own free will, but that she was not. Had he dragged her there with him at the behest of his master?

  It made my blood boil just to think of it.

  “Stand down,” I said, watching as he shifted his weight as if to move towards me. “No one wants to die today, I’m sure. You can leave this place and be free. If I die, you get to come back and have a great happy day with your masters. If I don’t, well, then we can talk after.”

  I saw a flicker that looked suspiciously like hope in the woman’s eyes and a vice squeezed around my heart. This situation had just become a lot more complicated. If there was one person here that wanted to get out with their life, I didn’t want to take it from them, didn’t want to risk taking it from them. But how was I going to get her out of here alive if her brother was set on fighting me?

  I’d seen people defend abusive family members for a lot worse.

  The group looked at one another, searching for one of them to make the decision for them. I knew it wouldn’t be the woman who did it, and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that it would be the man.

  I took a step forward, and he stepped back automatically. I tipped my head to the kitchen door. “Anyone who wants to can leave now. Anyone who feels like dying today can stick around with me.” I decided to speak first instead of giving him the opportunity to burst the tension in the room and carry the momentum.

  The sister stared at her brother for several tense moments before she fled out the door, the other woman and one of the men following after her.

  The brother and another man remained, glaring at me as if I were somehow the bad guy here. Did they not get that they were in bed with literal monsters? Had it not been implied that one of them had forced his sister to be here?

  How the hell was I the bad guy?

  “I will avenge Jason and Bran, and you will regret what you have done this day,” the brother said.

  “Yeah, yeah, and the world’s going to be taken over and I’m going to watch all my friends, die, I get it. Everyone’s going to wreck me. Bring it, big boy,” I said, waving the blade around as I spoke.

  I bent my knees, lifting the blade up in front of my face. I jerked my head to the side, an invitation for battle.

  They picked up a weapon each, one taking an iron poker and the other lifting a butcher’s cleaver.

  Oh, boy. This was going to be a fun fight. I did not like pointy things, it was so much more intimidating than magic or vampires or the undead.

  The tension mounted as we waited for someone to make the first move, the seconds stretching out as a clock somewhere nearby ticked them away. I felt the back of my neck start to itch, the side of my nose, a muscle started to pulse in my arm and I knew that I had to do something.

  I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I raced forward, bringing up my left hand and shaking out the wind chain. I wasn’t going to kill them with magic, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to fight fair. “Ventus!” I shouted, channelling the wind out of my open hand and throwing them against the far wall. I intentionally didn’t too much force into it, not wanting to snap anyone’s neck.

  It took effort to end the spell before it could do any real damage, but I managed it after a moment or two. I gripped the chain with my fingers and threaded it back around them so that its power was contained.

  They had landed in a heap together, and I winced when I saw the outcome of my decision. The butcher’s cleaver was buried in one of their thighs; they wouldn’t be standing up any time soon. Talk about not giving them a fair fight.

  I warned them. I told myself, swallowing the guilt that was threatening to rush over me. There was no good in thinking about what could have been if they had just been smart enough to leave when they could have.

  I could only be thankful that the sister had left when given the opportunity, along with the others. They had good enough sense to know when a fight wasn’t necessary at least.

  It was the one that had taken the poker that stood up, wiping blood off his face and glaring at me from beneath shaggy brown hair. “You’re fucked, bitch,” he snarled.

  I shrugged. “People keep telling me that.”

  He ran at me, swinging the poker over his head and aiming for my own. I brought my blade up in time to block the blow, but the tip of the poker touched my skin and I launched myself several feet backwards, hissing in pain. It must have been hot from the stove it had been leaning against, because that had fucking burned.

  He was grinning in his momentary triumph, and I resisted the urge to grab one of my wands and wipe that smug smirk off his face.

  No magic, Blair. You should take care of them the old-fashioned way, I thought.

  I marched forward, scowling at him, and just when I was a few feet away I pulled my leg back and rammed a kick into his ribs.

  Now, see, I’m strong. I’ve spent the last year and a half eating my vegetables and working my arse off so that I could hold my own in a fight, so that I wouldn’t get taken by surprise ever again. I wasn’t the scrawny chick that had been caught up in a whirlwind attack at Tyburn Tree. I had muscles of my own and I didn’t need a spell for strength to do some serious damage to a fel
low human.

  He toppled over, letting go of the poker and clutching at his side. I watched as he opened and closed his mouth, trying to drag air into the lung I’d just slammed shut.

  I reached him and gripped him by his hair, yanking his head up so that he could look at me. “Who’s going to regret what now?” I asked. But instead of killing him as I had promised, I brought the handle of the blade down on the back of his head. He hit the ground with a thump and I waited for a moment or two to make sure he was going to stay down.

  I pulled in a breath and let it back out slowly. There was a difference between killing a man in the heat of battle and decapitating a helpless human being after they’ve been beaten. I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t that kind of person.

  It was then that I felt the burning at my left wrist, and I stared down at it in horror. Had that…had that been the brand driving me just now? In that moment when I had almost killed that man, had it been the brand affecting me? I needed to talk to Mal as soon as I was done with this, I needed this situation explained properly.

  I didn’t have time for it right now, though.

  I crossed the kitchen to where the other man lay. He had started to sit up, but I shook my head and he froze. His face had drained of blood and his eyes were so wide I thought they might pop out of his head. So, he finally understood that I could kill him if I wanted to.

  Good. The boy needed a good dose of fear to keep him in line.

  I squatted in front of him, the tip of my blade scratching at the marble floor. “Listen. I’m not going to kill you. You can’t stand up and you can’t walk, and there’s nowhere for you to go right now anyway. You need medical attention. So, you’re going to sit tight until I come back for you, capisce?”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything. Good enough for me. I just wanted him to stay down here and not get into any trouble, I didn’t want him to get caught in a crossfire, no matter what shit he had might have pulled before. I was sick of people dying around me, even if they weren’t my people.

  I stood and walked out of the kitchen, glad to have that moment behind me. I hoped for vampires in the next room, I didn’t think I could handle another group of thralls.