by Alix Adale
A ghost of a smile flicked across her lips. “Like trash.”
The memory of that night together, before—all this. “And the color orange.”
Cherise and Burke sauntered up, spoiling the moment with stupid questions. With a sigh, he gathered the group up and commandeered one of the backstage benches. The show must go on.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Moog’s voice boomed out over the roar of the crowd. For the last two hours, various champions of the Lycan Nations had entered the ring and battled it out with one another or against Brickhouse. Even Kit had changed into a form-fitting ninja outfit. She entered several fights, scoring some jaw-dropping victories against other lycan martial artists and kickboxers.
Not him. He stayed on the sidelines, in the shadows, prepping for the main event. Moog had blown him off, too busy to talk to him. A few hours earlier, he had cornered the ringmaster in the betting booth. “Moog!”
“Not now, Dreck,” said the lycan, wearing his human form. Stacks of dollars along with gold and silver coins filled his cashbox. “Busy night.”
Dreck slammed the drawer of the cash register shut. “Who am I fighting?”
The lycan sat back, returning a cold-eyed stare. “It’s a surprise.”
“What about the info you promised? Who killed my sire?”
“After the show, I’ll tell you what I know. It’s not much.”
“What if I don’t make it?”
“Then it won’t matter, will it?”
Wrong answer! Dreck slammed his fist on the counter. “Why’s it such a secret? What do you care?”
“I got my reasons.”
The two were alone in the betting booth. His fists tensed. “I could beat it out of you.”
Moog gestured at the milling crowds beyond the barred window. Queues of lycans lined up for the restroom, more beer, and hot cooked meat. “Go for it.”
“Too many of you. I get it.”
“There are always more lycans than bats. The vampire kingdoms are doomed.”
This shit again. Dreck scowled. “We rule the cities, have since Babylon. Our elders are stronger than yours. You guys never win.”
“We got the numbers. We’re born and we’re bitten. We take mates, have pups.”
“You’d give it all up to live forever.”
Moog’s cocky grin evaporated and he looked away. “I would.”
Miserable bastard. After that fruitless exchange, Dreck wandered the circus, looking for clues. He peered behind partitions, check nearby outbuildings, and investigated trailers for any sign of his mysterious opponent. Nothing. Giving up, he rejoined the others in the backstage bleachers, settling between Jordan and Cherise, waiting for his cue. A vendor sold him some fresh blood and raw meat, but he skipped the beer. Tonight he wanted his head clear. Whatever was about to happen would get ugly. A sense of impending doom followed him around like his shadow. He chomped a fresh cigar, stoking the inner fires. His flame had bailed him out of many fights. Few expected a vampire to hurl hellfire in their faces.
Cherise tried to draw him out as they watched the show. “Haven’t seen you since that night in Bend. Missed me?”
“No.” He didn’t want Cherise babbling about that tryst. “You got your boy-toy now, so forget about what happened in Bend. How the hell did you find me in a lycan Demi-World?”
“Magic.”
“You’re not that good.”
“The Queen taught me a few things. By the way, I’m not the only new sire. You’ve been gone too long. Dez has a spawn now too. Even Colin has a girlfriend.”
Food shot out of his mouth, hitting the sawdust with a thwack. “What? Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah!” The other grinned with malevolent joy, knowing something he didn’t.
“Dez? Must be that fireman.”
“That’s the one! They sit in the tree swing every morning, cuddling and giggling. It’s sickening.”
Okay, he could almost see that. “Dez is good people.” His gaze fell on Jordan, who sipped a soda pop and listened without comment. Of all the Bradens for Jordan to meet, it should have been Desiree. A simple college student, Dez got in a car wreck and ended up in a coma, dying. Armando had turned her to save her life. Things had gone downhill for Dez from there. “Good for her. I’d given her up as a lost cause.”
“She is a lost cause. She’s so stupid, she—”
“Don’t badmouth clan mates. Loyalty, remember? Now what about Colin?” There’s no way Colin took a mate, not after a hundred years of solitude.
“He met this spineless nitwit named Rowan, took her to Paris, and boned her.”
The quiet Burke spoke up. “That bitch is my ex-wife. Can you believe we ended up in the same Blooded clan together? That’s like, ironic, dude.”
“No one asked you!” snapped Cherise.
“Sorry,” Burke said, cringing.
It was like dealing with children. The worst part was the terrible impression they must be giving Jordan. His voice stayed harsh, like sandpaper. “Both of you knock if off. Watch the show and learn how lycans fight. I’ll point some stuff out.”
And that’s what he did for the next two hours, describing lycan combat styles: street brawling, dirty infighting, and wolfpack tactics. Even Jordan listened, taking in the new information. Soon enough, his turn came.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Moog thundered. “This is it—the moment you’ve been waiting for. Our final match of the night pits the undefeated champion of the Circus of Blood against a mystery opponent. Who can it be? Who is this masked fighter?”
Good question. Yet try as he might, he couldn’t come up with any possibilities other than some massive lycan werebear from the backwoods of Montana or something. A vision of a seven-foot hillbilly grizzly trying to rip his head off sounded possible, but that wasn’t much different from fighting Brickhouse. A showman like Moog would have something more spectacular up his sleeve.
“Uh oh,” said Jordan all a sudden. “Spiders on the back of my neck.”
He exhaled a stream of blue smoke toward the ceiling. “What?”
“That’s what it feels like when danger’s near. It could just be you guys. But I don’t think so. Something big and dangerous is walking this way.”
Should he trust a vampire hunter’s intuition? Abso-fucking-lutely. “Where?”
“I don’t know.” Her head darted around, scanning the crowd. “Close.”
“What is it? Who? How many?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell.”
“That’s all right.” He rose to his feet, breathing in his cigar, stoking the fires. The soundboard was blasting some god-awful country metal version of ‘Ring of Fire.’ That was his cue. Moog shouted on about the bats and the Kingdom of Dagon, drawing boos and catcalls of derision from the excitable crowd. Again, the lack of any fence or cage between him and hundreds of angry, adult lycans was worrying.
Kit joined them backstage, accompanied by Mustard as she took his vacated seat. “Good luck!”
“Thanks.” They traded smiles but his eyes went to Jordan’s. “Wish me luck?”
She did, but the way she did it surprised him. Rising to her feet, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, her new necklace clutched in her fingers. “Watch yourself, Dreck.”
Dreck stood in the center of the circus ring, puffing his cigar and feeling the sawdust beneath his boots. Not too deep but slippery. Not good footing.
One spotlight stayed on him, but the others shifted toward the front entrance. Two lycans working security held open the flaps. A whole series of dark, hulking shapes entered, wrapped in shadowy cloaks.
Oh, that chill Jordan had been talking about? Spiders up and down the spine? Yeah, he felt that now too. Oh boy. Here we go.
The crowd roared with fury as Moog broke the secret. “This heel of Dagon, this blood-drinking bat!” the showman shouted, “gets to fight more bats! Let’s hear it for Lord Malmardane and his minions of the night!”
Unbelievable! It was his sire! Ex
cept he went by the name Malmardane for some reason. Dreck faced the cloaked, masked figure. “Ferdinand! I came to find your killer. Instead, I find you alive. What gives?”
The towering figure whipped off his mask and cloak, revealing the old, familiar features of Ferdinand Braden—changed somehow. Gone was the old, cold wisdom of the sire he’d known for two hundred years. An alien intelligence occupied that body now, one that did not know or care for him or any other Braden. The Ferdinand-appearing creature loosed a mighty roar. “I am not the creature that spawned you.”
That was a hard truth. That tiny hope that his sire still lived flickered and died. Ferdinand was dead, and some entity had destroyed him and taken over his body. A demonic power, maybe. A sorcerer. Some trickery with a spirit-bottle. He didn’t know, magic was not his forte. It took all his strength not to attack this foul spirit at once, but he waited for Moog’s signal. “If you killed my sire, you’re dead!”
“Silence!” roared the other. Its minions filed in behind it. There were six in all, which was a disaster if these vampires possessed strength anywhere close to his own. But Jordan had claimed to have wiped out Malmardane’s nest. And these cloaked figures walked like zombies, like puppets on a string. They must be newborns under the creature’s control. Nothing else made sense.
“Where is the woman?” Malmardane thundered. “She too must die!”
At this, the spotlight dodged among the crowd, picking out the employee bleachers on the periphery and shining the beam on Jordan. She was already standing up, her katana drawn, on the knife’s edge of jumping into battle.
Good. He needed allies.
“I’m here, Malmardane! And I’ll kill you again!” With a leap over the rail, Jordan strode into the ring. A moment later, Kit joined her along with Mustard, followed by Cherise and Burke. His allies formed a tight ring, back-to-back.
The crowd of lycans leaped to its feet with a roar, eager to watch vampires fight and kill each other. Beer bottles and chewed bones flew from the stands, hitting both knots of combatants as they circled and faced off. “Kill the bats!” they howled. “Kill the bats!”
This was bad but still manageable. He shot a look over one shoulder. “Cher, Kit, Joker. You hold off the spawns. Jordan, you’re with me. We take down Malmardane.”
“You got it,” she said, waving her katana. “His head is mine.”
Yeah. That wasn’t his sire. This thing wearing Ferdinand’s shape had to die. “I will burn him. Circle around and hit him from the side.”
“Got it,” she said.
“Kit! Get out of the ring!” Moog commanded. The emcee’s amplified voice cut through the crowd noise, but he appeared to have lost control of the situation. “You’re not part of this.”
“No!” shouted the kitsune. “These are my friends! I stand with them!”
“Fool!” Moog shouted. The crowd booed the young lycan who stood with the ancient enemy.
Don’t write any obituaries yet, ugly. Dreck braced for the confrontation to come.
The Malmardane-Ferdinand thing writhed and pivoted. Its lips moved, but it wasn’t saying anything. The six minions around it swayed and wobbled in identical rhythms, like puppets on supernatural strings.
“It’s casting a spell!” Cherise shouted.
She was right. His gut twisted. What kind of spell a creature like this might know, he didn’t want to find out. “Attack!”
The crowd cheered as the two sides rushed together. Kit and the fledglings spread out and engaged the newborns. Jordan charged their strongest enemy, looping around the side and distracting the behemoth.
Now! Do it! Dreck clapped his hands together and unleashed his inner flame. “I am the god of hellfire!”
As his palms met, the inner fury unleashed. A stream of orange blasted forth and bathed the writhing creature in flame. For a moment, a raging inferno engulfed the beast from head to toe, burning off its heavy garments and mantle of shadows.
When the smoke cleared, Malmardane—or Ferdinand Braden—or whatever it was—stood revealed, seven feet of pit-reddened creature unmasked before all. Long, black pterodactyl wings extended outward. Infernal light glowed in its eyes as it laughed. Was that a demon in the flesh? A creature from beyond the stars? What the hell was it?
The thing started babbling. “Fire cannot hurt one such as I, you pitiful human. We are the—”
Its words cut off as Jordan’s katana lashed out fast as lightning. The creature’s outstretched hand flew into the sawdust, neatly severed. Dripping acidic blood, the hand did not lie still but began to skitter about the floor like a crab.
But Malmardane roared in agony. “No!” It vanished in a thunderclap of black smoke and was gone. And with its disappearance, the six newborns fell to the floor and lay still. Weird.
Silence filled the circus tent. His allies looked at one another, baffled. Jordan turned toward him. “That’s it? We won?”
“I think so. Nice swing.”
“Thanks. Got lucky.”
Their words echoed across the tent as the paying crowd took in the quick end of their spectacle. Discontent grew into a murmur of disapproval and grumbling. But one thing he hadn’t counted on:
Moog.
“Lycans!” Moog shouted. “These bats stole your money, kidnapped that bitch, and broke the peace of Firewater Dam! What do we do?”
“Uh oh,” Jordan said.
The crowd roared with anger and the trash started raining down on the ring. A chant began. “Kill the bats!”
Jordan’s assessment sounded right. He grabbed her hand. “Everyone, get ready.”
“Destroy the ancient enemies!” Moog shouted. “Feast on their bones!” The crowd as one rose to their feet. The first row was already piling over the railing and onto the sawdust ring. Brickhouse and a cadre of werewolves charged forward.
He shouted at his allies: “Run!” They ran.
Chapter 13: Blood of Nations
Jordan
Run.
One foot dropped after the other. Sneakers slapped through the sawdust. Dodging this way, that, past outstretched limbs and outraged faces. Sprinting to keep up with Dreck, a fast-moving blur moving ahead. Talons tore at her jacket, trying to restrain her. A crack of the flat of her sword across the offending snout won her free. She burst through tent flaps, reaching cold night air.
Dreck already sat inside a stolen Jeep Cherokee. Nearby, an elderly lycan sat on the ground, rubbing his forehead. The vampire shouted, face twisted with worry: “Come on, let’s go!”
No need to say it twice. She ran around to the passenger side, leaped inside. One of the back doors opened and Kit tumbled in, Mustard still on her heels. A half-step behind her, Cherise piled in, giggling with excitement, a gash on her forehead.
“Where’s that guy?” Dreck barked at the other vampire.
“I dunno. What are you waiting for? Get us out of here!”
Dreck’s head whipped around. “He’s your goddamn spawn, Cherise. Go get him!”
“I don’t want to die!” Cherise shouted.
Well no duh. A few hundred angry lycans were about to pour out the tent flaps. Jordan slapped her hand on the dashboard. “Dreck! We gotta go! Drive!”
Angry, Dreck reached back and grabbed the female vampire by her hair and twisted her forward. “A sire protects their spawn. A clan protects its own. It’s your goddamned duty.”
What difference did it make if lycans killed some vampire? Okay, maybe that green-haired punk was only a mixed-up kid involved with the wrong people. Jordan grabbed the steering wheel. “Dreck, you go get him. I’ll drive!”
“Got it.” Dreck flung open the door, charging back toward the circus.
She slid over into the driver’s seat and turned the key, putting the car into motion, slow for now but ready to put the pedal to the metal.
The rearview mirror showed the action. Dreck waded into a knot of lycans, grabbed the battered green-haired vampire, and dragged the fledgling back to the SUV. He pummeled
the few lycans in his way with fiery fists. Then the two men piled inside. Jordan slammed down on the gas, roaring up the darkened track toward the highway.
“How bad is he hurt?” someone asked.
“I can’t see.”
“Is everyone all right?”
The welter of voices added to her confusion. In the rearview mirror, lycans chased on foot. Others leaped atop motorcycles or started up trucks and SUVs. “Umm, Dreck. I don’t know how to do that highway trick to get us out of this Demi-World.”
“I got it. Switch places again.”
They did, managing it in a moving vehicle, in the dark, clambering over each other. In the rear seat, the others tended to Burke’s wounds.
“This is wild, man,” the wounded vampire said. “Pain has so many colors.”
“The fuck drugs is that kid on?” Dreck demanded, but nobody answered.
Ahead, the dirt track climbed a steep hill. Their stolen Jeep negotiated the climb with ease and after a short drive, they made the highway. That odd tingling returned along with the alteration of the ambient atmosphere. It suggested a shift back to the material world. Dreck drove the Jeep down the highway until he reached the red convertible. Tires screeched to a halt.
“Get out,” Dreck said to everyone. “They won’t be looking for that car. I’ll stay in this one, lead them on a chase.”
“Where do we go?” Cherise demanded.
“Port Selkie.”
“See you there.” Cherise and Kit piled out, helping Burke into the back of the convertible. Mustard joined them, still glued to Kit’s side.
Jordan stayed silent and immobile during the transfer. If Dreck thought she was going to run off with the others, he thought wrong. Part of her wanted to go with Kit, to make sure her old friend was safe. But Kit would be safer in that other car, away from the pursuing mob.
“You too,” Dreck said, giving her a hard stare.
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope? Get out of here, Jordan. Five hundred angry lycans are out for blood. It’s not safe.”
She shuddered at the recollection. “We got unfinished business with this Malmardane. He ain’t dead yet, whatever he or it is. Are we partners or not?”
