Hemorrhage

by SA Magnusson

  “Please, Ariel. This is the reason Aron died. They killed him because they were afraid he was reporting to the council.”

  “That’s not the reason. It cannot be,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to believe that was the reason, either, but it was. It is. I know you want to protect the Veil—I do too—but they weaken it more with what they’re doing.”

  Ariel growled. She tipped her head back and a sharp, piercing howl split the night.

  After a moment, the howl was repeated, but distantly. Another followed, and then another, each one softer, quieter, but carrying whatever request Ariel had put into her cry with it.

  “We need to end this as quickly as we can,” I said.

  “Give it a few minutes,” Ariel said.

  “Minutes?”

  She nodded.

  I turned to Darvish. “Are you going to be okay?”

  He squeezed his hands into fists, his jaw still clenched. “I don’t know.”

  “There is peace with the council and the Dark Council. That needs to be preserved.”

  “That will be up to Barden when we save him, but after this… I don’t know if it can be. Not anymore.”

  “Darvish, think of everything that you’ve gained.”

  “And think of how much we’ve already lost because of them.”

  “Not all of them are like that.”

  “No?”

  “Not all of them,” I said again. “My grandparents never would have agreed to anything like that.”

  I had to believe they wouldn’t, especially as they had been willing to hide me, and they had been willing to work with Derek, so they couldn’t have been willing to attack like this. This was something else, something horrible, and the members of the mage council who were responsible needed to be removed.

  “We need to bring your people under the umbrella of the mage council.”

  “In order for there to be anything meaningful, they would need to give up control. You and I both know that will never happen.”

  “It won’t ever happen if we don’t try.”

  The sound of wolves howling began to echo. At first it was distant, but then it became closer, louder, several different voices crying out, and then more, and then more.

  The Iron Range pack came.

  I watched Darvish, worried that he might react, uncertain what action he might take, knowing that whatever it was could disrupt everything that we had accomplished so far.

  The wolves suddenly appeared, gathering behind Ariel. There were dozens of them, but fewer than I had hoped. Had Ariel full control over her pack, it might not matter, but even I could tell this was fewer than what there should be.

  “Darvish?” I asked.

  He looked over at me. He continued to clench his jaw, but then he nodded. “I can be a part of this, but only if you acknowledge that this needs to happen quickly, and there can be no compromise.”

  By that, he meant that he fully intended to cut through the vampires. He intended to kill, not capture.

  I wasn’t certain how I felt about it. And I wasn’t sure how that would impact the Veil.

  But it wasn’t up to me.

  As I looked around at the shifters, at Ariel, and finally back to Darvish, they were better connected to the magical world than I could ever be. At least until I was more willing to be a greater part of it. They were the ones who would have to decide what actions we took. They would have to be the ones to choose how aggressive we were when it came to confronting the vampires. And if they all agreed that we needed to end them, then perhaps that was what needed to happen.

  Maybe in this case, compassion was a mistake.

  I hated thinking like that, and hated thinking that there was ever a time when compassion was a mistake, but perhaps it was true.

  Ariel glanced over at me.

  “Do what you need, but we will save the mages. They’re in the basement of the building.”

  “Is it possible that they could move them?” Ariel asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then go as quickly as you can. We will reach you.”

  I looked over at Darvish, but he had disappeared, heading back toward the building’s main entrance and rejoining the dark mages. Power exploded in the night.

  Shifters changed forms and loped off.

  I was alone.

  I had to act quickly. If I didn’t, the vampires might move the mages and we’d lose them. I had to ignore the fatigue within me.

  Focusing on and visualizing the basement, I pulled on my magic, using that to power me from one place to the next. There was a squeezing, but I resisted with my barrier, holding it in place, and emerged once more in the basement.

  Vampires moved around me.

  I grabbed the nearest, squeezing him in a barrier, crushing him, and he collapsed. Another appeared, and I attacked him the same way.

  The barrier required only a faint amount of energy. A trickle. Had it required more, I might not have the strength.

  Power crashed into me even though I had still been holding onto my barrier. Had I not, I would have been knocked back, but even this way, I was tossed to the side.

  Another vampire appeared. I wrapped that vampire in a barrier, squeezing, waiting until he collapsed and then releasing. I moved through the room, thankful that there were fewer vampires and fewer of the familiars than there had been before. Using this much power was still almost more than I could bear.

  I wasn’t about to give up. I needed to push through this, to power through until we finished, until the dark mages and the shifters appeared, until we got to Barden.

  Another vampire appeared. The elder vampire.

  “You made a mistake in returning.”

  “No. You made the mistake with everything you did here.” I pushed out my barrier, wrapping around him.

  He clawed at it, and the barrier dissipated.

  Uh oh.

  He was more powerful than the others.

  “As I said, you made a mistake in returning. The Vangalor family was too complacent and now that we have claimed their source of strength, the Siren family will assert control.”

  “I don’t think so.” I darted toward him, summoning my sword, and swung it at him.

  He danced back, flickering and appearing off to the side.

  “The council will know what you’ve done.”

  “That was your mistake. The council has always known what we have done.”

  “Not to this extent. Not the point where you have started to attack mages of the council.”

  He grinned. “What made you come to that conclusion?”

  “There are too many. You got greedy.”

  “The treaty between the mage council and the Dark Council made things a little more difficult than what we preferred, but we can still use the natural distrust. All it takes is for word to begin to spread that the Dark Council has begun to attack the mage council. Once that word begins to get out, the mage council will resume their attacks and we can continue to draw on that magic. The blame will fall on the Vangalor family, and you will be nothing more than a memory.”

  “It’s not going to work. We know what you’re doing now.”

  “You do, but you will never walk out of here, mage.”

  He flickered, throwing himself into my barrier.

  It happened faster than I could react, and if I hadn’t been holding onto the barrier, he would’ve pushed through it. As it was, he slammed me backward, and I went flying into the wall.

  He darted toward me again and I brought the sword around, but he swatted at it with his arm. I expected the magical blade to slice through him, but it didn’t.

  How could he do that?

  Vampires didn’t have magic, not that I’d heard.

  Somehow, he still managed to bat it away.

  A marking on his arm caught my attention. A rune.

  He was borrowing from the captured mages himself.

  I brought the sword back around, sweeping towar
d the vampire. Once again, he managed to catch the blade with his arm.

  I had to deal with that rune before I could do anything about him.

  Darting back, holding my barrier around me, I angled toward him, keeping the tip of the sword pointed outward, ready for an attack, though not sure if it would be enough.

  The mage simply watched me.

  “You are an interesting opponent,” he said.

  “Interesting? That’s all I get?”

  “You will make excellent fuel for us. Perhaps I will even keep your power myself.”

  Shuddering, I glared at him. I wasn’t about to be trapped on some bed, tied to a vampire, forced to be fuel for him. But how was I going to be able to stop him if my magical sword couldn’t cut through him?

  The feeding of him had to do with the rune, but could I remove it from him?

  It would be easier if I could figure out which of these mages he borrowed from.

  And it could be that he borrowed from more than one.

  Looking around the room, I searched for the reason we had come in the first place. There had to be some evidence of Barden, but so far, I had found none.

  If anyone would have some way of finding him, it would’ve been Darvish, but he hadn’t had enough time. Could I find Barden?

  Where were the others? Where was my help?

  The vampire darted toward me, slamming into my shielding. It sent me staggering back into the wall.

  I didn’t fall, but I was dazed, and I shook off the effect of the blast by getting back to my feet and sending a surge of power through the sword at the vampire.

  It wasn’t fast enough.

  The vampire moved quickly—far more quickly than I could—and he simply shot off to the side. I needed a different approach.

  If he was too fast to target, and his rune made it so that he didn’t have to worry about me holding him, there had to be some other way, but what?

  I didn’t need magic to fight. I still had my martial arts training.

  I dashed forward, kicking out with my heel, and he simply flickered out of the way. I spun around, and when he appeared, I pressed with an open palm, driving it toward him. It missed, but it gave me the opportunity to spin one more time, and as I did, I managed to catch him, barely, but I did catch his shoulder. He spun around and slammed into my barrier.

  I went spinning and staggered off to the side.

  Jumping to my feet, I lashed out again, spinning around and kicking.

  It missed, but I continued the movements, following through as Master David had taught me, sending my fist toward where he had been.

  I connected with air.

  Another spin, and another miss.

  I wasn’t hitting him, but at least I was distracting him. And he wasn’t getting to attack me.

  Maybe that was the key.

  If I wasn’t able to strike him, would I be able to buy time so that I could figure out which mage he used for his rune?

  Not runes. He had one that I saw, which suggested it was a powerful one. A powerful mage would allow him the opportunity to attack me like this, to dismiss the power of my spell, to simply ignore my attack.

  Barden.

  There might have been other mages used before, but who else would have this kind of power? Maybe plenty of other mages.

  I had to find Barden.

  Then I had to figure out how to separate the rune from the vampire. If it involved using magic, what would it take to remove what he had done? Did I have enough magic in order to stop him?

  Distract. That was what I needed to do.

  If I could distract him long enough, I could figure out where he had trapped Barden.

  Once again, he slammed into me.

  Rather than attacking, I danced back, spinning and surveying the inside of the ward. It was like an old-time hospital, and all of the patients here were sick. It was almost like a military hospital.

  Where would they be keeping a mage like Barden? He would have to be secured; they would want to ensure that he was safe, especially if he was valuable to them, but where?

  Not out in the open, not like this.

  Would he even be here?

  He would have to be. The vampire was here, and he wouldn’t necessarily be here unless he were trying to protect something.

  Unless it was nothing more than a distraction.

  That still didn’t make sense. If he was trying to distract me, why would he be down here, risking himself, when it would be far more sensible for him to be covering whatever he wanted to protect.

  That suggested that what he wanted to protect was here.

  Now I just had to find him.

  I continued to search around me, looking for wherever he might have hidden Barden. He would be here, and the moment that I found him, I could do whatever it took to figure out how to stop the vampire. If I couldn’t figure it out, maybe I could awaken Barden and ask his help.

  The vampire started toward me and I ducked.

  This time, he jumped over me, clearing me, and I stayed low, intentionally trying to avoid the attack. There was another way that I could approach this. I could put the beds in between the vampire and myself, and use them for deflection.

  The only problem with this technique was that I wouldn’t be able to search nearly as easily. I could poke my head up, and when I did, I could shield myself, but it might not be safe.

  Rather than shielding myself, could I wrap a shield around the entirety of one of the beds? That way, if the vampire slammed into me—and the bed—there was a little more of a substantial weight behind what he would have to hit.

  As I pushed out with the shield, I could feel it thinning. I had used a lot of power over the last few hours, and each time I did, it diminished how much I’d be able to counter. I needed to hang on to some magic, especially if I were to find Barden and have any hope of saving him.

  Power struck the shielding, but it hit toward the top, a glancing sort of blow that forced me down.

  I popped my head up again, looking around, and came across the vampire.

  I ignored him, taking a moment to survey the beds, looking for Barden—or anyone else who might suggest a powerful mage was nearby.

  Where was he?

  Magic crashed into my barrier again and I went flying back into another of the cots. I held onto the shielding, wrapping around myself and the cot. Another survey, looking up a few rows down, and I realized something.

  What I had thought were neat and orderly rows of beds wasn’t that at all. It was that way nearby, close to the entrance, but farther from here, the order changed. A space in the beds opened up, and there was a solitary one in the far corner.

  That had to be where whoever this vampire used for power would be found.

  At least now I had a target, but if I was wrong, if that wasn’t Barden, and if it wasn’t the mage the vampire used for his runes, I would end up trapped.

  It was a dangerous gamble, but it was one I had to take.

  The vampire jumped and I dropped down, rolling, barely avoiding him again.

  A thought occurred to me. He had been trying to force me toward the doorway, away from that corner bed. Now I was even more certain that it was what I was looking for.

  I pressed out with a surge of power, rolling forward.

  When I jumped up, the vampire caught me from the side and I staggered.

  I wouldn’t be able to take too many more attacks like this.

  Crawling to my feet, I lunged forward again.

  The vampire attacked, striking me from the side.

  He was trying to force me against the far wall, away from the corner where I saw the mage. How would I be able to get past him?

  Every time I tried making my way, I was struck, and it forced me back, farther and farther from my objective.

  There had to be a different way. Could I transport myself?

  It required significant magic, and it might be more than I had in me at this point, but if I didn’t try, I don’t know
that I would make it to the other side of the room.

  I focused, holding onto the barrier to prevent myself from being squeezed too much, but I didn’t have enough strength. The barrier collapsed.

  Somehow, with a pop, I transported.

  A ring of beds created a barrier.

  There was movement and instinctively I sent magic forth, summoning my sword. There were two familiars nearby, both of them masked.

  Rather than trying to fight with them, I sent a surge of power out the end of the sword. It allowed me to have some aim, and the nearest went flying. I did the same to the other, and he rolled off, disappearing.

  Releasing my hold over the sword, I turned toward the cot. I wrapped it in a barrier, pulling myself into it.

  Barden.

  Much like the others I’d encountered, he stared blankly up at the ceiling.

  “Barden,” I hissed. “I need you to come around.”

  He said nothing.

  “Barden!”

  Something slammed into me from behind.

  The vampire anxiously clawed at the barrier. It might not be able to hold for long.

  I pulled back the blanket and saw three runes branded on Barden. One was branded on each side of his chest, and a third was over the entirety of his stomach.

  At least one of those had to be what the vampire used.

  In order to defeat the vampire, I would have to remove the rune.

  Or kill Barden.

  No.

  I would find compassion. That was what I had promised Darvish when we came looking. I focused on Barden, focusing on the runes, and pushed a sweep of magic through him.

  There was nothing physically wrong with him. I hadn’t really expected there to be, especially if they were using mage magic. They wouldn’t want the mages to be injured.

  There was still an emptiness, similar to what I’d detected when trying to save Aron.

  I hadn’t been able to save Aron, but could I save Barden?

  While I focused on Barden, the vampire was tearing through my barrier, ripping through the shielding. In another moment, maybe not much more than that, it would collapse and fail and I would be exposed.

  I needed to take this moment to heal Barden. I would use all of my magic, mix with it my connection to medicine, and I would save him. I had to.