Hemorrhage

by SA Magnusson

  The vampire sent another surge into me. The barrier held, but I felt it thinning. There wasn’t much time remaining.

  Pushing my connection through the motionless form of Barden, I searched for some way to heal him. There had to be a way.

  I focused on the emptiness. If nothing else, that had to be the part of restoring him that I needed to focus the most on.

  The vampire clawed at my barrier.

  I struggled to hold on, but I wouldn’t be able to manage both the barrier and the healing.

  If I could manage to complete the healing quickly, maybe I could stay protected. I would have to be much quicker than I had been any other time I had attempted a healing. I might not even have that much speed available to me.

  Crawling up on the cot next to Barden, I positioned him so that he was between the vampire and me, then I dropped the barrier as I rolled us off and behind the cot, keeping the wall against my back.

  I ignored the sudden sense of the vampire flickering toward me, putting my effort into sending a surge of healing energy through Barden. I focused on that emptiness, wrapping it with my magic, trying to fill it.

  It wasn’t working.

  The vampire jumped up on the bed. He leered down at me, sneering. “You are quite troublesome.”

  I ignored him, focusing on Barden. This close to him, the spice of his cologne filled my nostrils, unpleasant and overwhelming. He probably thought it was desirable.

  Wrapping around the emptiness hadn’t worked, but could I push it away?

  Maybe that was the key.

  I pushed, taking my magic and trying to draw that emptiness away. It slipped, but I wrapped the magic like I did a barrier, pushing on the emptiness.

  It pried loose slowly and I contained it in a barrier, squeezing it down into nothing. Barden gasped.

  “I could really use your help right now,” I said.

  I didn’t know if he was even awake—or alive—enough to help.

  The vampire jumped off the bed, kicking it away.

  I sat up and focused on attempting a summons of my magical sword, but all of my connection to magic was overwhelmed. I wouldn’t be able to reach it.

  And worse, now that the bed had been moved away, I could see vampires and familiars streaming into the far side of the room.

  19

  I grabbed Barden, trying to sit him up while attempting to draw magic, but it didn’t fill me the way it needed to. Barden moaned. At least that was something, more than what I’d had before. I wasn’t going to have the strength necessary to fight the vampires. I didn’t even know if Barden would have the necessary strength. When Darvish had been down here with me, he had used his crackling red electricity, but even that might not be completely effective.

  There were too many.

  The vampire joined the others in a line near the rows of beds, hatred burning on his face. “You have stolen my prize for now, but it will not last.”

  “I’m pretty sure Barden wouldn’t want to be considered a prize,” I said. “Do you even know what you did?”

  “What I did? I did nothing other than claim what the council has given us.”

  “Then the council made a mistake.”

  “You would claim your council makes mistakes?”

  “Not my council. And yes. I would absolutely claim they make mistakes. The council believes that magic like his needed to be burned off. Or at least, that was what they claimed. How long have you been stealing from dark mages?”

  “Long enough that I no longer fear a mage like you.”

  Magic built.

  It took a moment for me to realize that it came from the vampire. And I suspected it didn’t really come from the vampire but whatever mage he had stolen from by using runes to borrow their magic.

  How many mages had he stolen from?

  I had thought I could stop him by saving Barden. I didn’t think that now. I was in serious trouble.

  It had taken a significant force of effort in order to heal Barden. Even if I would be able to save these other mages, I didn’t have the energy in me. It would take days—weeks—and there simply wasn’t the time with which to do it.

  Barden groaned and glanced over at me. “Dr. Michaels. What are you doing here?”

  “Only attempting to rescue you from vampires. Unfortunately, it seems as if I’ve managed to get myself captured.”

  “You should not have come,” he said.

  “A thank you would have been better.”

  “Thank you, but what have you done by coming here?”

  “I think I’ve managed to get myself caught. We now have an army of vampires and familiars, some or all of them powered by your dark mages, and no way out.”

  “How did you get yourself here?”

  “Yeah, that was a little different. I don’t have the magic to get myself back out.”

  “You used everything you had in order to come for me?”

  “Darvish asked me to.”

  “And you just came?”

  “Aron is gone. The vampires are responsible for what happened to him. I… I just wanted to know what happened. I wanted to understand.”

  “And now you have dove too deeply into the magical world, is that it?”

  “Something like that. I convinced the shifters to come, but they’re outside fighting, along with as many of your dark mages as Darvish was able to wrangle. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”

  Barden studied me for a moment before staggering to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, and then he pricked his finger. He murmured something under his breath and turned around slowly, squeezing the ends of his fingers together.

  “Come join me, Kate Michaels.”

  “Join you where?”

  “Within the circle,” he said.

  I glanced down and realized that he had formed a circle on the floor out of a trail of blood droplets. Circles had power, and while I doubted this one would be nearly as powerful as the circle in the basilica or even as powerful as the circle used to summon the demon king, a mage like Barden using his own blood would necessarily draw quite a bit of power.

  I stepped across the trail of blood. Barden murmured something and cold raced along my spine as his magic surged.

  A wall worked up around us.

  “I don’t understand the point of this,” I said. “They have us outnumbered.”

  “It gives us a chance to buy time.”

  “Time for what? Do you have some way of burning off all the vampires in the room?”

  “Not without killing all the mages here as well,” he said.

  I had been kidding—at least, mostly kidding—but the fact that he had some way that he could have done it surprised me a little. It shouldn’t have. Barden was a powerful mage, and I shouldn’t be surprised that he had such destructive energy, especially considering the fact that he had been forced to confront the mage council all these years.

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “You said you brought help.”

  “I did, but they won’t be able to reach us.”

  “They just need to know where we are,” Barden said.

  “And your circle does that?”

  “It allows those who are attuned to it to know,” he said.

  A ring of the familiars approached. Several of them held the magic wands, shooting spells at us.

  “What, pray tell, are those?” Barden asked.

  “Those are their magic wands. From what I can tell, they have used runes placed on mages to power the wands. It allows those without magic to perform spells, however weakly.”

  “Clever.”

  “I would think you would be more upset about it than that.”

  “What is there to be upset about? If these mages were awake and willing to offer themselves willingly, such a gift would have value.”

  I frowned at him. “You’re thinking of your underworld.”

  “Should I not think of my business?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe thin
k about it when we manage to get out of here?”

  “Soon, Dr. Michaels.”

  “You are far more confident than I am.”

  “I know the potential my people possess.”

  “I understand the potential of your dark mages, just as I understand the power the shifters possess, but we’re still talking about vampires and their familiars, along with the fifty or so mages they’ve stolen from.”

  “Yes. Stolen from.”

  I heard howling, and for the first time since facing the old vampire, I allowed myself a moment to feel hope. Could I somehow get out of this alive?

  The familiars began to attack with more intensity. They pointed their wands, shooting at us, and Barden simply stood in place, power radiating from him, the cold along my spine intensifying.

  “How much more magic do you have left?”

  “I have enough for this,” he said. There was strain in his voice and I wondered if he really did have enough or if he was simply trying to sound strong on my behalf.

  The howling continued, and with it came other pulses of magic.

  The dark mages.

  Familiars near the door turned away, heading out. Vampires flickered, but they couldn’t go anywhere.

  “You realize that they will push them toward us,” I said.

  Barden smiled. “I hope so.”

  “Do you really have enough magic left in you to attack them?”

  “I don’t, but you do.”

  “I’m not so sure that I do,” I said. “I told you that I took everything that I could to get here. That and trying to stay alive.”

  “Only because you have failed to find your true connection.”

  “I tried to find that, too. The shifters don’t have my sword anymore.”

  Barden chuckled. Near the door, violence surged. Familiars were thrown back and every so often, I could make out a shifter or two attempting to surge into the doorway before they were pushed back. “You don’t need your sword to connect to your true power.”

  I trembled for a moment. Could Barden have discovered what I was? Could I have searched all this time and asked so many different places only to have it come from a dark mage had met long ago?

  “What am I?”

  Barden chuckled. “I’m afraid it won’t be quite that easy, Dr. Michaels. I don’t know what your other half is. Whatever it is stems from the other side of the Veil. That much I do know. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to have access to Solera’s power. And I saw how you were able to access the power on the other side of the Veil when we were at the basilica.”

  “Those are distinct examples.”

  “They are, but those examples show me that you have magic that is very different than what I do. Yours comes from a place beyond here.”

  “How does that help us?”

  Barden glanced down. “Summoning circles such as this can be used in many ways. It’s something the council would like to keep hidden, but they aren’t always successful. From what I understand, you experienced a summoning circle firsthand.”

  “The demon king.”

  Barden nodded. “The demon king is one example. The gorgon crossing over was another. Beings from the other side of the Veil can cross, but for those who understand the intricacies of creating such connections, they are also a way of reaching across the Veil.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I am creating a bridge for you, Dr. Michaels. You should be able to reach through in this space, and as you do, you can draw upon the power on the other side of the Veil.”

  “What does that do for you?”

  “Do you care about me?”

  “Barden—”

  He shook his head. “It will weaken me.”

  “For how long?”

  “Long enough that I won’t be of any value to you in a fight for a while. Which is why I need you to protect me when you reach that power.”

  I frowned at him. “You never needed the others to come, did you?”

  “They were needed to distract. It takes time to perform the summons. Even now, it’s nearly complete, which I imagine you can detect if I have learned anything of your power.”

  The biting cold in my back made sense. Barden had been summoning the entire time, and in doing so, he had been working on connecting this space to the other side of the Veil.

  “I feel it,” I said.

  “Good. Now, when I tell you, you will need to reach across the Veil and draw whatever power you need, but it will only be available to you within the circle. Do you understand?”

  “You’re saying I can’t step outside of the border here.”

  “You can, but if you need to energize or draw more power, then you will have to return.”

  “Why don’t I simply stand here and blast them?”

  Barden shrugged. “If you think that you can. First let me finish the summons.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, there came another surge of power from him, and then there came a surge of power within me.

  It was strange, but I had felt it before. It was the same power I had felt when I drew from Solera, and the same power I had felt when standing within the circle in the basilica.

  As he said, I was connected to the other side of the Veil. That power coursed through me. It replenished my strength. The first thing I did was draw forth the magical sword.

  Barden smiled at it. “An excellent weapon.”

  I held the sword up and pushed power out through it. As I did, all of the hidden familiars were unmasked. Vampires were revealed and light exploded around the room.

  “How do you create that lightning?” I asked Barden.

  “What lightning?”

  “The lightning that Darvish used when we came to try to rescue you. The same lightning that Aron used when facing demons and the Great One.”

  “It’s a spell, but I’m not certain it’s a spell you can do.”

  “My magic works by focusing on what I want to happen,” I said.

  “Then focus on what you want to happen,” he said.

  I looked around the room. There were dozens and dozens of vampires and familiars, far too many for me to overpower, even drawing on magic like this. I could step outside of the circle and I would be replenished for now, but how long would that linger? I had already discovered that my magic had limits when it came to facing the vampires, and with the magic wands and the familiars drawing on the power of the fallen mages, they didn’t have the same limitation.

  “Would you have me destroy all of them?”

  “If you feel that’s the best way of ending this,” Barden said. I could see it in his face that he was growing weaker. He sagged, strength trailing from him, and I needed to act quickly.

  The moment that the circle failed would be the moment that I lost my connection to the other side of the Veil. What I would do needed to happen soon.

  Was there a way that I could end this? Could I use my magic, even drawing across the Veil in order to finish this without destroying everyone?

  Could I be the physician and the mage?

  Did I even want to be?

  Vampires were the reason that Aron was gone, and didn’t he deserve more than that? Didn’t he deserve for me to get vengeance for what happened to him?

  Yet, destroying the vampires risked the integrity of the Veil.

  That wouldn’t be what he wanted.

  Aron had been open-minded. He had been one of the first to acknowledge that there might be something different about the dark mages. And he had not reported me to the council, even when he probably should have.

  Aron wouldn’t have wanted this for me.

  Trying to be the healer would be harder, but then, doing what was right was never easy.

  I focused the power through the sword. Holding on to it in that way seemed to hone my connection to the magic, and I turned the energy I was drawing and poured it out of the end of the sword, letting it streak from me so that it could connect with each of th
e mages lying on the beds.

  “What are you doing?” Barden asked casually.

  I ignored him as I continued to draw magic, letting it flow out from me. I had saved Barden, and doing the same to all of these mages would be difficult, but I understood the key now.

  It was the emptiness.

  I didn’t have to fill it. I’m not sure that I could, even powered as I was by the energy from the other side of the Veil. Filling that emptiness would never be enough.

  Removing it was key.

  Dozens of different sensations of emptiness filled me, and I wrapped that power, scooping around that emptiness, and pulled.

  Only because of the connection from the other side of the Veil was I able to do it.

  It came free. The power bulged against my magic and I squeezed, suffocating the emptiness, bringing it down into nothingness.

  The old vampire turned his attention to me and lunged toward us.

  I took that balled-up spell, that emptiness, and dumped it onto him.

  When it struck him, he froze. He attempted to flicker—somehow I was aware of it—but failed.

  A strange sensation tingled through me.

  “Kate Michaels…”

  I glanced over as Barden collapsed. His magic faded and the circle failed.

  When it did, I lunged out of the circle, looking around the room, half-expecting to need to fight, still holding onto the sword of power.

  The familiars attempted to attack, but as they pointed their magic wands at us, they did so impotently. Nothing came from it. Vampires flickered, and I could see the panic within their eyes as they failed.

  Shifters and dark mages surged into the room, no longer opposed.

  Two of them caught my eye.

  Ariel and Darvish prowled across the floor, reaching us.

  Darvish hurried over to Barden. “What happened?”

  “It appears that he opened a portal,” Ariel said, glancing from Barden to me.

  I nodded. “He did. He thought it was the only way.”

  “The only way to do what?” Darvish asked.

  “To save them,” Barden whispered.

  I dropped to my knees, letting the magic sword disappear, and looked over at Barden. “Did you know?”

  “You aren’t a killer, Dr. Michaels. You’re a healer. And though I didn’t know what you might choose, especially when you told me what they did to the archer, I hoped.”