by C L Walker
“Just leave,” Mark replied. He was putting on a brave face but I could tell he was scared. The vampire was a head taller than the bartender and had just easily thrown a woman through the air; he was an imposing figure to face in a darkened alley.
The vampire crossed his arms. “I think I’m going to kill you to teach her a lesson. Do you think she’ll mourn your death?”
“Stop wasting time and kill him,” I said as I got to my feet. I felt tired and sore, something I hadn’t felt in thousands of years. Still, I wasn’t going to let the vampire get away with treating me like that. “Better yet, stop yammering and face me.”
The vampire’s look was all smug amusement. He enjoyed toying with us. I wondered if I still had it in me to tear his limbs off.
“You’re a big guy,” he said, turning back to me and seeming to forget Mark existed. “Big and stupid. Do you know what I am?”
“A leech, and not an impressive one at that.”
The vampire came at me fast, a blur in the dark with fangs bared and clawed hands. I was as ready as I could be but I wasn’t the kind of fighter who had a list of moves prepared in advance, trained into muscle memory over years. I was a berserker, a barbarian, and I leaned into my strength.
I was moving forward when he reached me and I didn’t stop when I crashed into him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and kept running at the opposite wall. He squirmed, trying to escape, and pounding his fists against me in the hope that I would let go. But I had him now and my grip neutralized his speed.
I ran into the opposite wall with all my considerable strength, crushing the vampire between me and the suddenly crumbling bricks. He screeched and drove a pointed fingernail – now grown into a claw – into my face, trying to gouge out my eye. The pain was intense but the red rage of battle held it at bay.
I drove my forehead into his face, crushing bone and sending blood flying, before turning and throwing him against the far wall as he had thrown me. He hit ten feet in the air and was already righting himself as he fell to the ground, but I was barreling toward him. I hit him as his feet touched down, giving him no chance to prepare.
Even without the blood-tattoos powering me I was strong enough to drive him into the wall, pulverizing the bricks as I drove my shoulder into his chest and collapsed his ribcage.
I was out of breath but the vampire was down so I stepped away and let him fall to the ground. He remained still for a moment, as though to give me false hope, before rising to his feet in one smooth movement.
“You should stay down,” I said through the curtain of blood covering my face. His blood.
“I’m going to tear you—”
I drove my fist into the mush that was all that remained of his face, cutting off whatever threat he was planning. I felt his skull cave in under the force but it didn’t stop him from reacting.
He lashed out, his own punch doing far more damage than mine had. It landed just below my ribs and sent me back across the alley as it took my breath away. It was my turn to take a moment, folded over and desperate for air.
“You can’t beat me, human.” The vampire’s voice was slurred as he tried to make what I’d left of his mouth function. “You are an insect.”
I kept my head down, still trying to draw breath, but I could hear him moving toward me and healing as he did, a sick cracking and slurping sound as his flesh knit back together.
“I’m going to rip you to pieces.”
He stood over me and I still didn’t have any air in my lungs. I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for it to happen either.
I leapt up and sent my fist rocketing toward his chest but he was back on form, moving faster than I could hope to and simply plucking my hand from the air as though I’d held it out for him.
He crushed my hand and the pain drove me to my knees and sapped my strength. The only thing keeping me from complete collapse was the vampire holding me up.
“Pathetic,” he said as he drew back his free hand with its wicked claws.
I felt the blood-tattoos awaken as I watched his hand sail through the air in slow motion. Cold water seemed to wash over me and drain away the pain a moment before my skin erupted with bright red light.
His claws scraped along my skin but couldn’t break it. I rose and took my crushed hand back, holding it up for him to see as it healed.
“What the hell?”
They were the last words the creature spoke. I grabbed his neck with both hands and tore off his head.
I stood in the aftermath of the fight and let the familiar feeling of my body healing fill my consciousness. It was like seeing a loved one after a long absence and I lost myself in it. The glow from the tattoos was fading and along with it went the heat, but for the brief moment it was there I felt whole.
I cast my eye around the lane. Mark stood with his back pressed against the wall and a sick look on his face, while Rebecca remained where she’d been thrown. I could see her breathing and that was all I needed.
I took a moment to puzzle over what had happened. Why had the tattoos come to life when they did? Was it because I was in danger, or was it something else? The power had felt different, less all-consuming than usual, like a shadow of its usual self. It was like I was drawing from a different well, something less than the power of a dead elder god.
It was the vampire’s blood, I realized. I was covered in it and had somehow drawn the power from it when I needed to. That explained why the glow was fading so quickly, why I was starting to feel tired again. The blood tattoos hadn’t returned to their former glory; they’d simply acted out of desperation.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I would have to work out what was going on if I hoped to survive in this strange world, but I didn’t have to do it right away. I had time, now that the danger had been dealt with.
I didn’t hear Mark approach. I wasn’t aware of his attack until it had begun and he’d buried his blade in my right side.
Chapter 6
I stepped away, trying to turn and face my surprise attacker. But he moved with me, quick and agile, twisting the blade until all I knew was pain.
I’d been healed a moment before but now I felt my mortality again. The tattoos were dormant and I wasn’t ready for this.
I changed tack and stopped trying to turn and face him, instead jumping away before he could grab me and finish the job. The knife was stuck in my side but my action dragged it out of his hand and gave me the moment I needed to turn.
Where before I’d seen a scared, brave young man, now Mark was something else. His expression was neutral and he moved smoothly into an attack position, his movements beautiful and practiced. He was dancing, a professional who’d dropped the pretense of being a normal man.
He drove his fist into my side, the force dislodging his knife. He caught it from the air as he continued his attack. Punches slammed into me seemingly from everywhere, a deluge I couldn’t focus on hard enough to follow.
I roared and lurched forward, throwing my bulk in his direction. I didn’t have the finesse of my attacker and I could barely follow what he was doing, but I knew where he was and I knew I was much bigger than him. It would have to be enough.
He spun away, evading me with ease, but I’d been expecting it. He wasn’t the first master fighter I’d battled in my long life, and there were only so many things they could do in a fight with someone my size.
I flailed my arms as I advanced and caught him with in a wild punch. He fell back for half a second before recovering and returning to the fray. But I wasn’t trying to take the fight to him; I was trying to get to the body of the vampire.
Mark was on me, driving the blade into my shoulder. It ground against my collarbone and an agony that was almost exquisite wracked my body. My legs crumpled beneath me and I fell where I’d been aiming, onto the headless vampire and into the pool of blood surrounding his corpse.
Mark kept stabbing as I squirmed on the floor, working his way around my neck. He would have kil
led me if he’d had a few more seconds.
The blood-tattoos around the wounds lit up as the familiar fire spread across my skin. The vampire blood was weaker now that he was dead but there was a lot of it. I was healed in a moment and on my feet in two.
“That’s a neat trick,” Mark said as I threw him off my back. There was no emotion in his voice and when I stomped toward him he showed no fear. He held his ground, the knife gripped in his hand and ready.
I no longer found his movements too difficult to follow, no longer felt the fear that he might be better than me. When he feinted left and stabbed right I watched him do it and countered with ease, snatching his hand from the air as the vampire had done to me. His bones broke as easily as mine had.
He slipped from my grasp and made a run for it. The tattoos on my leg began to glow as I ran to catch him. I moved faster than he could ever hope and I had my hand wrapped around his throat before he had a chance to react. I lifted him off the ground and squeezed.
A bullet bounced off the back of my head. It was powerful enough to rock me forward but not enough to break the skin. I turned to see who it was and another round hit me in the chest.
I was running out of power. I could feel the tattoos already fading, their stolen power spent. I didn’t have time to deal with a new attacker. I could see the van they were firing from at the far end of the lane. They’d opened the door and were shooting from the darkness within. I had no chance of getting to them before I ran out of power.
Mark managed to pull away from me and start to run again but I kicked him in the back and he went sprawling. Another round grazed my arm as I did.
I was out of time. I ran back to Rebecca’s still unconscious body and grabbed her, tossing her over my shoulder and running as fast as I could away from the van. The person with the big gun didn’t fire again and I knew I’d hurt Mark enough that he wouldn’t risk facing me. All I had to do was keep my head down and protect my new master.
I exited the lane onto a street I didn’t know and kept going. The night was suddenly silent but for the pounding of my boots on the road and the rush of blood in my ears.
I cursed the gods as I ran, using it as a mantra to help me keep moving. If the bastards were listening they wouldn’t care, but it made me feel better.
With my master unconscious I escaped into the night, lost and confused, but alive.
Chapter 7
When Rebecca woke up she wasn’t happy. I expected this. What I didn’t expect was how loud she would be about it.
“Help,” she screamed in a voice pitched perfectly to give me a headache. “Anyone. Help.”
“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” I said in my least intimidating voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Help.”
Her fear was enough to get the tattoos squirming, though I don’t know what they expected me to do about it. I could leave but then I’d be abandoning her without protection.
“Your father sent me,” I tried. By the look on her face I knew I’d said the wrong thing before she yelled again.
“Help. I’ve been kidnapped.”
We were in the back room of a furniture store and I was pretty sure nobody could hear her. I’d pulled the back door off its hinges and waited for someone to arrive in case there was an alarm. It was the third place I’d tried.
“Your father is dead.”
The words silenced her like a slap to the face. She was still backed into the corner and glaring at me, but at least she’d stopped screaming.
“You killed him?” she said.
I stopped myself from grinning at her lowered volume. I didn’t think she’d appreciate it.
“No, and I don’t know who did. He summoned me moments before he died.”
All things considered I thought she was taking her father’s death well. She hadn’t started crying yet and though I didn’t know the customs of the world I’d been dumped in I had expected more wailing. Instead she just glared at me, her teeth clenched and her hands curled into tight fists.
It was the sort of reaction I approved of. It showed she was strong.
“He gave me to you.” I held out the locket but she kept her distance. “You want to take this.”
I’d handed myself over to new masters a few times, but it was rare. I’d never done it with a master as young as her, though, and I wasn’t sure how the conversation was going to go. She knew about magic and vampires, so I hoped it wouldn’t be too shocking to learn about me. I didn’t have to worry.
“You’re him?” she said. She slowly moved away from the wall and reached out for the locket, snatching it from my hand as though I might take it away again.
“Do you know who I am?”
“I think so.” Her eyes shifted from the locket to me and then back again. I didn’t like the hungry look on her face when she did it.
“What is my name?”
“Agmundr.”
She said it flawlessly, as though she’d practiced it. Some masters summoned me having only read my name in some tome or carved into a wall and they got it wrong, which pissed me off. I wasn’t sure I was any more pleased that she got it right; it occurred to me that I had been given to someone too young to know restraint but old enough to want things a strong arm and some violence could provide.
“How long has Mark been working at the bar?” I said, stepping back to give her some space. There wasn’t a lot of room for me to back away into, but I tried.
“Just tonight.” She turned the locket over in her hands, treating it with the reverence it deserved. “My regular manager got a stomach bug and Frank got hit by a car, so I took what I could get.”
“Can you think of any reason someone would send an assassin to kill you?”
“You’re Agmundr.” She was getting excited, looking at me with wide eyes that told me the future was going to be interesting. “You’re him. Dad’s violence genie. Agmundr.” She stopped babbling and took a breath. “Assassin?”
“Mark was trained, and I believe he arranged for your employees to be away tonight so you would need to bring him in. Someone wants you dead badly enough that they hired him, and I doubt he comes cheap.”
“I’m nobody.”
The room we were in was a combination office and storeroom; a small desk with a computer took up one corner while filing cabinets and boxes were arranged along the walls. Calendars and posters with cats on them adorned the walls. Rebecca dragged the chair away from the desk and sat.
“Rebecca, I think you’ve annoyed someone powerful. I think it got your father killed.” I decided it would be a waste of time tiptoeing around the situation and I was pleased to see that she took my words well.
“Bec. Not Rebecca. That’s what my dad calls me.”
“Bec, then. I need to know who has the money and the motivation to send an assassin after you.”
“Nobody.” She saw the look on my face and held up her hand. “No, seriously, I’m nothing. I sell magical trinkets to weirdos. I hang out with a couple of vampires and serve drinks in a shitty little bar. There’s nothing about my life that screams intrigue.”
“Then you’re dead.”
“What?”
“I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s coming. I can’t stop them if I don’t know who they are. Normally I’d happily level the city for you but I’m not up to it right now, so I’m going to need to work it out.”
“What do you mean, not up to it?”
“Something’s wrong with me. I’m not my normal self.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think we have time to cover my wellbeing right now.”
She held up her hand again to silence me. “I’m the boss, right?”
I nodded.
“Then I order you to tell me what’s going on with you.”
I didn’t want to but I wasn’t sure why. It could have been pride making me want to hide my weakness from my master. It could have been more strategic, in that keeping it from s
omeone who might use that knowledge against me was smart. It might have been a lot of things, but what I really thought motivated me to hide my situation was fear. I didn’t want to think about it more than I had to.
“I’m a big man and I’m strong, and I can protect you from almost anything that comes your way. But the etchings on my skin are what make me what I am.”
“The blood of an elder god.” She said it with the right amount of awe in her voice.
“Yes, and they aren’t working anymore and I don’t know why. I’m mortal, like you.”
I decided not to tell her about the vampire blood powering me briefly; there was nothing in her orders that compelled me to be that specific and it was a secret worth keeping if she was as interested in power as I thought she was.
“Has this happened before?”
“No. It shouldn’t be possible. I am bound forever, and the only thing that will change that is the end of days, when the elder god Ohm returns to destroy the world. Until then I will have her blood on my skin and a small fraction of her power when I need it.”
“I know some people we can talk to about it,” she said. She was looking at the locket again, turning it over and letting the meager light shine on it. “But they’re not that well-read. They’re good for charms and locator spells, but I don’t think they’ve ever heard of you.”
“For now it doesn’t matter,” I replied. “For now we just need to keep you safe. We can deal with my situation later.”
“I disagree.” She put the locket around her neck and dropped it into her shirt to hide it. “The best protection I can have is you at full strength, right? So let’s get you back to full strength. Tell me the best way to make that happen.”
My mind raced to follow her unintentional order. I knew very little about the world beside the knowledge from Fletcher, and he had kept me a secret his whole life. He’d purposefully kept away from anyone who might know enough about me to help. If Rebecca – Bec – didn’t have anyone she could take us to then I only knew of one option.
“There is a man named Roman who I met when I was summoned last. He was a hedge-mage who advised my master at the time. He knew about me, well enough to know he wanted nothing to do with me. He might be able to help.”
