Blood Drawn: A novel of The Demon Accords

by John Conroe

  “Nira, we’re going to stay at the inn if that’s alright, and I would rather invite you and Armond to dine with us on Lottie’s food than impose,” Declan said.

  The girl glanced at me, her expression starting to shift to disappointment when enlightenment suddenly bloomed across her freckled features. “Oh. Is it to spread the wealth as you say, or to be seen?” she asked Declan.

  “A little of both,” Stacia said. “Nira, is Ashley here?”

  The young dragon rider shook her head, her right hand coming up to unconsciously pat the big dragon head that hovered over her left shoulder. “She and Gargax went north for a meeting with the other dragons. But she might be back as soon as tomorrow… maybe.”

  “Okay, maybe we’ll get lucky tomorrow then,” Declan said with a smile.

  “Nira, speaking of Mr. Witterstock, is he around?” Stacia asked.

  “Oh, I should think he would be at the inn this time of day,” she said. “He’s partial to Mr. Stumbler’s ales. Very partial.”

  “We’ll head over to the Whitefish Inn then and see if there’s room for us,” Declan said, which caused Nira to snort in amusement.

  “Of course there’s room for the Realm Holder,” she said, again glancing at myself and Nika. “We’ll go tell Father that you’re here. He’ll want to see you,” she said.

  “And we’ll have dinner together, right?” Stacia pressed.

  “Yes, I’m sure Father would like that,” she said shyly before turning to her dragon. “Come on, Storm. The walk will be good for us.” The massive beast and the teen girl started walking across the field.

  “Come on,” Stacia said. “The inn’s this way,” she added, turning in the opposite direction.

  The path in the field became a dirt road within a half mile and then maybe a full mile after that, a small, very quaint village appeared. Small cottages of stone and wood lined the road, the thatched roofs giving the place an old English or Irish countryside feel. The road sloped gently downhill toward the ocean, which was getting closer as the buildings got a little bigger. A small fishing port opened up before us, with various boats moored or docked in the harbor and sturdy-looking docks and larger buildings that appeared commercial.

  Most of the structures were one-story, built of wood, but one two-story structure rose higher than the rest, constructed with a fieldstone base and walls of whitewashed clapboard. A large sign hung out front with a hand-carved image of a prehistoric-looking fish painted white.

  We started to gather attention as soon as we came within sight of the picturesque village, the locals turning mostly startled faces in our direction, although a few braver souls offered waves or nods to Declan and Stacia, who cheerfully waved back.

  Someone must have run ahead because a welcoming party was waiting for us on the porch of the inn. Declan introduced us to the whole group, which included a village headman; a tall, stern-looking constable; and the husband-and-wife innkeepers—Dorian and Lottie Stumbler—in addition to quite a few others. Stacia and Declan obviously knew them all, and the locals all seemed excited to see them as well.

  “We’re hoping you have some rooms still available,” Declan asked.

  Lottie Stumbler snorted almost exactly like Nira had as her husband looked almost incredulous. “But of course your suite is available—it always is,” he said.

  Stacia turned to Nika and me. “It has two bedrooms and a sitting room, so it should be plenty.”

  Lottie’s face was openly curious as she eyed Nika and me. Nika smirked slightly but said nothing, which as good as confirmed that the goodwife was speculating that we were a couple. I would say something, but I wasn’t absolutely sure that was what she was thinking and apparently Nika didn’t feel it was any of the locals’ business, so I kept my own mouth shut.

  “It’s for your own good,” she murmured too quietly for anyone else but Stacia to hear. It took a second for me to understand. Like my wife, I seem to gather attention and I guessed that Nika was heading off any interest that she might be picking up on. She immediately laughed to herself at my thought.

  By now, Declan had forged ahead through the crowd, which parted for him like Moses and the Red Sea, and walked into the inn itself. We followed closely behind and once inside; I was reminded of old pubs I had seen in the United Kingdom. Dark wood floors and lighter shiplap walls illuminated with oil-burning sconces and table lamps. It was very, very clean, and the air smelled of seafood, tobacco, and … beer.

  The people inside all greeted our witch and wolf with respect and admiration. “They’ve changed these people’s fortunes,” Nika murmured to me. “The majority of these people think very highly of their new lord and lady.”

  “Majority?” I asked.

  “There are one or two who mistrust them, and there is one who looks at them with something like hatred,” Nika answered, still speaking too quietly for anyone else to hear. “There was a woman outside who hates them both. Blames them for her misfortune and blames Nira too.”

  “Is she dangerous?”

  “Not by herself, but I keep getting the impression that she’s waiting for them to get what’s coming to them. Which makes me think she’s been in contact with someone who might be dangerous.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t work that way unless the person thinks of the individual, and she’s not. She’s just thinking of something akin to revenge and also how the money she’s going to be paid will change things.”

  Stacia and Declan had been seated at a round table that was centered against one wall. Stacia looked our way, her eyebrows up in question. “I think we’re expected at the table,” I said.

  “I’m going to go to the privy outside and see if I can’t pick up anything else from this lady,” Nika said.

  “Privy?” I asked.

  “You know I’m old enough to remember when there were no other options, right?” she asked.

  I have an innate sense of vampire ages, but it isn’t something I use on my Chosen’s family on a regular basis. So it’s easy to forget that Nika, who looks twenty-five, is really closer to one hundred and sixty-five.

  “This must seem almost familiar to you.”

  “Yes and no. I grew up in a village not too awful different from this one, but at the same time, there’s a bit of dissonance too. Memories of the past overlaying on top what I am now familiar with in this time. I won’t be long.” She slipped away silently. Darkness was beginning to fall but it was still light out, even for human eyes, yet she seemed to fade into the thickening shadows in a way that made me wonder if Nika didn’t have a secondary talent or two.

  I joined Stacia and Declan at the table, neither asking about Nika, leading me to believe that werewolf hearing had been at work. “Wait till you try Dorian’s beer,” Declan said. “His stout is really, really good.”

  A young waitress brought a big basket of bread that smelled like it had just come out of the oven, and the innkeeper himself brought us four big mugs of beer. Declan was right: The beer was excellent and the bread was light and fluffy, still steaming from the oven, the fresh-churned butter melting into it.

  “Do you all need a room for you and that bread?” Nika asked with a smirk, reappearing at the table’s edge.

  “Try the beer,” I said.

  Vampires don’t eat, but they do drink. She sipped the dark, foamy stout, one eyebrow rising in surprise.

  “What did you find out?” I asked in a whisper. Declan heard me because he was seated on my left and Stacia heard because—werewolf.

  “I don’t think the trip to Idiria will be necessary,” Nika murmured. “The woman I picked up on is named Weese and she’s got a major issue with you two,” she said with a chin nod toward the witch and wolf.

  “Her daughter used to be Nira’s best friend, but she stole Nira’s boyfriend while Armond and Nira were working for us in Idiria,” Stacia said. “Nira’s status on the island went way up when the village learned she was
our friend. Worse, the Weese family was mildly ostracized because of the daughter’s actions. What did she do?”

  “She found a way to contact the Winter Court,” Nika said. “She let them know you are here and is currently imagining you both getting a major comeuppance from Morrigan or her daughter.”

  “Does she not understand the whole Realm Holder thing?” I asked. Declan was always a force to be reckoned with, but sitting here, in the Middle Realm, he had godlike powers.

  “Dec hasn’t used his abilities much around these people,” Stacia said. “They don’t really get it.”

  The door of the inn opened and Nira walked in, followed by a compact, sturdy-looking man with dark hair flecked with gray. The teen dragon rider looked very excited, smiling immediately at all of us. Declan stood and greeted Armond, Nira’s father, before introducing all of us.

  “We have heard quite a bit about you,” Armond said to me with a glance at Nika, “as well as your wife, who is not here.” The last came out as more of a question.

  “She is home with our children and her business empire. Nika is her sister.”

  His smile got larger as he shook Nika’s hand. Declan was smirking and Stacia looked amused, while Nika kept her expression friendly but not encouraging. Father and daughter took seats at the table and Armond was able to put himself next to Nika and his daughter next to me.

  “How is business, Armond?” Stacia asked.

  He cheerfully launched into updating her on not just his furniture business, but the economic prospects of the entire island community. A course of soup, crab chowder, was served to us by the innkeeper and his wife, Lottie, the smell so delicious that I lost myself in consuming it for a bit.

  “Wow, you eat like Lady Stacia,” Armond noted, turning to Nika before I could respond. “But you don’t like crab?”

  “I don’t eat normal food,” Nika said with a tight smile, sliding her bowl across the table to me. “Besides, Chris eats enough for four people.”

  Armond frowned as he tried to figure out Nika’s answer. She sipped her beer and then took pity on him. “I live off fluids,” she said, which just puzzled him even more.

  “Armond, you know what I am, right?” Stacia asked, pulling his attention from my vampire sister-in-law.

  It took him a second to understand what she meant, realization flooding his features. He started to frown but Stacia kept going. “Nika is not beastkin; she is night touched.”

  I must have frowned because Declan leaned over and explained, “It’s a local term.”

  Armond looked like he’d been struck by lightning, his expression frozen as he kept his eyes on Stacia’s. Nira looked embarrassed, shooting nervous looks at all four of us, but we just smiled and waited to see how her father dealt with it. After a few seconds, he turned to me, frowning. I immediately understood.

  “I’m neither… or maybe both,” I said.

  “More than both,” Stacia supplied.

  My phone rang. In a restaurant. On another world. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. The contact label read My Vamp. I hit connect as I raised both eyebrows at Declan. He mouthed the word entanglement as I spoke. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. Surprised?” Tanya asked, a smirk in her tone.

  “Yeah. It never occurred to me that Omega Wireless was good between planets,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, but there is something I need you to see. Best if you move away from all that noise I hear.”

  That noise was Declan asking Nira about her dragon friend, Storm. I took my Chosen’s hint and stepped outside.

  Chapter 19

  “Okay, I’m on the front porch.”

  “Omega will cue up a part of a broadcast that just finished airing live.”

  “Okay,” I said, pulling the phone back to look at the screen.

  Immediately it lit with the face of a familiar television personality. Candace Eggelton, our most recent interviewer.

  “If you’re just tuning in, I’m live with two of Ireland’s finest, ah, witches, Macha Banfill and her granddaughter Einin. Ladies, before the break, you revealed that the most famous witch in the world is from your village.”

  “Declan Irwin wasn’t born in our village, but he was conceived there,” the older woman said. Her hair was graying but her hazel eyes matched those of the much younger witch sitting by her side. I disliked her on sight.

  “Declan Irwin?” Candace asked with emphasis on the last name.

  “Aye, the world knows him as Declan O’Carroll, but he is by blood and by right an Irwin, as his mother was and his aunt still is.”

  “Why the name change, Macha?” Candace asked.

  “It should be obvious, Candace—because they were hiding,” the older woman said.

  “Why? Who was after them?” Candace pressed, leaning forward.

  “They was running, as they knew that Maeve Irwin carried an abomination,” Macha said, her eyes hard as diamonds. Candace pulled back, visibly shocked at the words.

  “You are calling the Warlock an abomination?” she asked the witch.

  “Do ye even know what a warlock is?” the witch shot back. Candace looked confused but before she could answer, Macha turned and waved to someone off camera. “Bring him.”

  Two women—who looked like they could be related to the witches on the couch—entered, lightly holding the arms of a red-haired man with the muscular build of an MMA fighter. Black tattoos wound around his exposed arms and up his neck, wrapping around his face like some odd attempt at camouflage. His expression was fierce.

  “Candace meet William. William here is a warlock, a male witch whose magic has been focused back upon his self in order to boost his strength and speed in combat. He spends his days either training for war or engaging in conflict. In other words, a warlock is a soldier of his Circle.”

  “A soldier?”

  “Aye. Male witches are weak of power, but what they do have can be used to make them warriors the equal of a vampire or a shifter, ye see.”

  William looked at the pretty television personality with a predatory leer. Macha kicked his ankle. “None of that, ye wretch,” she said. The fierce man instantly looked like a hound chastened by his master. “The thing about warlocks is their magic is linked to their hormones,” the younger witch explained with a much lighter brogue than her elder. “Specifically, adrenaline. They become quickly addicted to the rush of power and strength that they find in combat. And like any addict, they seek it out more and more.”

  “I’m confused,” Candace said. “Is Declan O’Carroll a warlock or not?”

  “Oh, he most certainly is,” Macha said, waving a hand for the two witches to lead William away. “Part of why I called him an abomination. He is the result of centuries of selective breeding, focused entirely upon producing a female witch of enormous power—and he is also a warlock.”

  “A breeding program? For a female?”

  “Aye, one his mother’s mother perverted by linking his mother to a male witch from outside of Ireland. The result is a crime against Mother Nature herself.”

  “You’re saying that the witch who is Earth’s final defense against the alien Vorsook is a genetic mistake?”

  “Have ye ever seen a Vorsook?”

  “I’ve seen the videos of Philadelphia.”

  “And that’s yer only evidence that aliens exist at all, is it?”

  “Wow, Macha, you’ve left a lot to unpack here. Are you actually saying that you don’t believe in the Vorsook threat?”

  “Not a bit of it. Jest a giant fable told to the world to cover up that machine’s grab for power.”

  “And by machine, you’re now referring to Omega?”

  “Of course. Are ye not keeping up?”

  “Oh, I think I can follow along; I’m just in shock. So you’re saying that the videos of Philadelphia, the Chinese footage, the news broadcasts from Rome, and the admission by the United Nations and every member country that Earth is at war with aliens is all m
ade up?” Candace asked, leaning back, her own face a mask of disbelief.

  “That’s jest what I’m saying,” the old witch said, also leaning back in a mirror of Candace’s motion. Beside her, the younger witch wore an expression of smug conviction.

  Suddenly Omega’s young male avatar appeared on the couch seated next to Einin. Empty space one moment and full of young androgynous human holograph the next. Candace jumped but the two witches didn’t see the convincing hologram until they turned to look where the newswoman was staring. The young one startled, almost coming out of her seat, while her grandmother just twitched sharply.

  “Hi,” Omega said with an earnest expression. “Sorry to just pop in on you, but I was watching and couldn’t let this whole thing just slide.”

  “Well, I can’t say that I was expecting you to just appear, but I wondered if you would have a rebuttal,” Candace commented.

  Omega scratched his head, a puzzled frown forming as he visibly took a breath. I was impressed with just how human he managed to appear.

  “I don’t have a rebuttal for willful ignorance, Candace, but I did want to point out a few inaccuracies, the first being that my father’s grandmother had anything to do with the selection of his father. Maeve and Ashling Irwin’s mother was dead and buried long before Maeve was raped by a man named Perun. The person who set that up was Macha here.”

  “Ye lie, ye abhorrent twisted bundle of wires!” the old woman hissed.

  “Here is a copy of the death certificate,” Omega said, a piece of paper appearing in his hand. “And here is a copy of a letter signed by you, Macha Banfill, promising safe passage for Perun and his brother.”

  “So, it was you yourself who set in motion the events that ended up with the conception of Declan O’Carroll,” Candace said, leaning forward aggressively to confront Macha. I found myself impressed with her bravery, as she faced down not one but two deadly dangerous witches.

  “Lies, all lies,” Macha said, waving a hand. “Fabricated like all those videos and news broadcasts ye mentioned.” She sat back, arms crossed, lips pressed in a thin line.