Blood Law

by Karin Tabke

  EMBEDDED IN THE broken glass of the refrigerator door, with the shelves inside holding her upright, just like in cartoons, Falon heard birdies chirping as they circled around her head. But unlike a cartoon character, Falon recovered quickly. Shoving the metal shelves and broken glass off her, she jumped to her feet and prepared to fight. She might not like facing unpleasantness, but she wasn’t a shrinking violet either. Her heretical life sucked, but she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.

  “Oh, holy hell!” she gulped, catching sight of the massive hulk that materialized before her.

  The skinny dude had nothing on this guy. This dude looked like a Conan the Barbarian.

  Thick brown hair hung straight around a sharp, angular face, a face embedded with the deep lines of experience and age-old hatred. Black, penetrating eyes locked onto her with such fervor she shivered. A thick leather strap crossed his worn leather jerkin that was open at the throat. Brown suede pants were tucked into doeskin moccasin-type knee-high boots. Huge gnarled hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Despite the power exuding in waves from the man, if she wasn’t so terrified, she’d laugh. He looked ridiculous in that getup.

  Falon tilted her chin up defiantly. He could smash her with a flick of his wrist, but only if she gave him the chance.

  “I might be half your size, mister,” Falon challenged, “but I’m quick, and I know kung fu.” She postured in what she hoped looked like a credible karate chop position. The scuzzy blond man behind the counter walked silently up behind his big friend and stopped. Not, she was sure, because he took her threats to heart but because something had fundamentally changed between them. Instead of a leer, his long face had turned solemn. Like she had passed some sort of sniff test, and she was now due his respect.

  Conan scowled and quietly contemplated her. Every instinct told her to turn and run as fast and as far as she could, but she didn’t.

  Mr. D was trussed up somewhere, probably needing medical attention. She wasn’t going to thank him for looking the other way when she ripped him off by turning yellow.

  She took a threatening step forward and raised her karate-chop-ready hands higher. “Go now, and I won’t call the cops.”

  “Cops cannot help you, Slayer,” Conan said in a thick accent she could not place. He extended his ham-sized hand, his thick, callused fingers distended toward her. A large gold and ruby ring glittered on his third finger. The stone, depicting the eye of a howling wolf, glowed. “Your place is with your people.”

  Pain jabbed her temples. She blinked several times. She’d seen that ring before. A long time ago . . .

  “Come with me, now,” he softly commanded.

  Stunned, Falon could not react. Her brain fogged. Her joints froze as if clogged with Play-Doh. Somewhere in the midst of her fear, however, she felt the bubbling of astonishment.

  If this guy thought she was going to trot out of here with him and his blond sidekick, he was too stupid to live.

  “My people?” she choked out. “I have no people. You have me mixed up with someone else.”

  He stepped toward her, and somehow, despite her terror, she was able to hold her stance. “I have not made a mistake, Falon Corbet. I have searched for you for nearly a decade. You are the one I seek.”

  Her jaw dropped. No one knew her real name. No one except her long-gone foster parents and the poor excuse of a caseworker who had turned his back on her when she needed help all those years ago. She’d been on her own since she was fourteen, and since then had always used an alias. Better to keep the cops at bay when she skipped town and her financial obligations and to keep her name out of the system that had turned on her.

  Despite wanting to show this guy some game, Falon took several steps back. “Who are you?” she whispered. “How do you know my name?”

  “I am Viktor Salene.” He gave her a short, curt bow. “Jager, master Slayer of Lycans.”

  She narrowed her eyes. The guy was definitely smoking something. “What’s a Lycan, and how do you know who I am?”

  The man scowled, his eyes darkening until he looked demonic. “Lycans are an abomination of nature. The scourge of the earth! They are the creatures a great king charged our ancestors to destroy over seven hundred years ago. The creatures I have spent my life hunting.”

  Falon took another step back. The guy was crazy. She looked past him to Blondie, who was nodding reverently.

  Right.

  Okay.

  She almost made a crack about Halloween being months away, but didn’t. These guys were serious. Crazy, but serious. And that just made them all the more dangerous.

  “I’ll tell you what, boys. Tell me where Mr. D is. Let me make sure he’s okay, then we’ll take our conversation outside.”

  “If it is the shopkeeper you speak of, he cannot be helped,” Conan the jager said.

  As his words trailed off, Falon felt it. The bitter coldness of death followed by a profound sense of loss. And guilt. Mr. D was dead because he had befriended her. “You killed him?” she demanded incredulously, knowing, yet still not wanting to believe what she instinctively knew to be true. Falon cringed, squeezing her eyes shut. She also knew poor Mr. D did not die easily or quickly. Her eyes flashed open. Heat radiated from her face, and the rage erupted. This time she didn’t fight it.

  The barbarian nodded.

  Her vision clouded then cleared as fury ripped through every part of her, pumping more adrenaline into her system. The kick of it gave her a sudden urge to retch, but she swallowed the bile back. “You bastard! He was a kind old man! You had no right to kill him!”

  She grabbed a box cutter from where it lay on top of a partially unpacked box of produce and swung it wide. It caught Conan’s face, slicing open his right cheek. He didn’t flinch. The only clue to his fury was the narrowing of his shiny black eyes and the intense wave of pain that flashed over her. The bastard! He’d attacked her with—what? Some kind of invisible force? Whatever it was, it hit her like a wall, but one she held her own against. Her fury and despair over Mr. Delico’s fate reigned supreme, causing something unbelievable to happen.

  Conan’s massive body jolted as if he had been slammed by a wall. Instinctively, Falon knew she had done it, but she had no idea how. She didn’t question it. She’d never know, so she’d just go with it. A snide smile twisted her lips.

  His eyes narrowed to black slits. “Do not challenge me, Slayer!” he roared. “I am jager! I will cut you down where you stand for your insolence!”

  Visions of poor, sweet Mr. D begging for his life as these two thugs ripped him to shreds nearly brought her to her knees in anguish. The anguish, however, made her stronger. It fueled the rage in her. It gave her the will to see if that small jolt of power had been real and if she could do it again. She leaned forward, as if pressing against a great wind, when in truth it was the force of Conan’s will she battled. Concentrating, she pulled the furious energy swirling around her inward, until it was pulsing inside her chest like a fireball. In one Herculean surge, Falon flung her hands forward with her last ounce of strength, expelling the buildup. And it was enough to nudge Conan the jager aside.

  She bolted for the front door.

  Conan cursed, and his mad aura took the form of a steel blade that speared her from behind. Searing jabs of heat pierced her skin. This time, however, the pain was more than mental.

  Her skin split open.

  Blood erupted from the wound. She felt the warm rivulets drip down her back.

  He followed with another sharp slice of heat, this time cutting through the black leather of her left boot and across her ankle. Falon howled in agony. Stumbling, she zigzagged awkwardly through the store. The front door was only a few feet away. If she could . . . just . . . get . . . to it—

  Another searing shot of heat cut across the back of her ankle, severing her Achilles tendon. She screamed again and fell face-first, sprawling onto the hard linoleum floor. Blood, warm and slippery, pooled around her, preventing her from ge
tting the traction she needed to crawl to the doors.

  Hard footsteps thudded behind her. She focused, pushing the agony from her mind, and concentrated solely on escape.

  Deep laughter infiltrated her focus. Large hands grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up. “You cannot outrun your destiny, Slayer.”

  Falon closed her eyes. With every cell in her tattered body, she channeled her rage and mentally forced a harsh shot of pain into her captor.

  He yelped, his hands loosening. She watched his dark eyes widen, then narrow. His face morphed into something so disturbing she thought she’d lose control of her bodily functions. When he opened his mouth, long sharp teeth glinted under the fluorescent lights. “You will learn, Slayer, I am jager, and as such, I own you.”

  He lowered his face to her chest but kept his gaze on hers. “Now,” he hissed, “we will become a part of the other. The next time you lash out to inflict injury on me, you will also inflict it on yourself!”

  “No,” she screamed, thrashing against him.

  “Don’t fight me—” he growled just as the front doors of the small grocery slammed open. A harsh, hot wind chaotically swirled inside, swooshing across Falon’s face, lifting her hair in a spiraling torrent before sending items from the surrounding shelves flying across the aisles and crashing to the floor.

  Conan’s head jerked up, eyes narrowing as if catching sight of an enemy. “Take care of him, Barrak,” he growled furiously to his flunky. Blondie stepped forward. Before he took another step, he screamed and went flying across the top of three aisles before crashing onto the floor.

  “Still picking on little girls are you, Viktor?” a deep masculine voice sneered.

  Falon tried to raise her head to see who was speaking, but Conan’s gaze snapped back to hers at the same time he shoved her down. His eyes glinted with a preternatural shine, warning her off. Despite his superior strength, she felt a shift in his body and energy at the other’s presence. Falon forced her head up to get a look at what caused the satanic bastard such anxiety.

  For the brief span of several heartbeats, she could not breathe. She could not have uttered a single syllable had her life and the fate of the free world depended on it. Fierce gold flashes of energy snapped and popped around the blond, black-leather-clad man. He was, in very plain speak, magnificent. And lurking beneath his glory was a deadly supernatural energy. The commanding presence of the man standing at the threshold of the store could not be denied. Nor could the contempt twisting his lips. She swallowed hard and wondered which man was more of a threat.

  “Vulkasin, you cur. How dare you show yourself!” Conan spit.

  Vulkasin strode into the store, his chin raised, his nostrils flaring. “The stench of death follows you, Slayer. Do you never grow weary of the kill?”

  Conan raised Falon up and held her out toward the intruder. “The quickening has begun, Lycan. Prepare yourself.” Falon tore her gaze from the intruder, who had not even glanced at her, and turned to the lunatic who held her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. He turned rabid black eyes on her.

  “No,” she croaked, knowing he was going to bite her. She shoved at him, madly trying to gather her thoughts and blast him one last time. His grip tightened. He ripped the front of her sweatshirt open with his teeth, revealing her naked breasts. His eyes glinted hungrily. Not, she realized, with lust but with possession. As if he had won the lottery and he was mentally counting all the terrible ways he could spend the money.

  “We are destined to be one,” he breathed.

  A dark shadow fell over them. Falon screamed, not sure if it was because of the bite Conan was about to take out of her or because she’d locked gazes with the one he called Vulkasin—the one that looked as if he’d just escaped the bowels of hell with every intention of bringing them right back with him.

  Three

  CONAN DROPPED FALON to the floor, then swept her behind him with a booted foot to her chest. She slid several feet on her own blood before slamming into a wall hard enough to force the air from her lungs.

  Even as Falon gasped for breath, she was very aware of the two furies before her, and of her need to get the hell out of there. Fast.

  But even as she tried to flee, her bloody hands offered no traction on the slippery floor. Her right foot throbbed with pain as she tried to backpedal away from the two whatever-the-hell-they-weres.

  The sharp shaving sound of steel against steel echoed in the small grocery. Aside from her gasps for air, it was the only sound. As the two beasts circled one another to the left of her and away from the door, Falon rolled, trying to inch closer to escape. She turned over and looked up, paralyzed by awe.

  The fantastic sight before her was breathtakingly terrifying. Vulkasin stood battle-ready with two gleaming broadswords, one in each fist, the fluorescent lights glittering off the sharp edges in a weird play of colors.

  Conan held only one sword, but it was larger, with a hook at the end of it. He slashed it down on the dark one’s right sword and yanked. Vulkasin yanked harder, pulling Conan toward him. Mere inches from Conan’s nose, Vulkasin sneered. “Do you really think, Viktor, you can best me at swords?”

  The barbarian spun around, shoving the hooked end of his sword down to the pommel of Vulkasin’s. Vulkasin laughed and kicked Conan in the chest. “Is that all you have? And in front of the girl? How do expect to win her with such a pathetic show of strength?”

  “You overrate yourself, Vulkasin. My powers are equal to yours, but my mind is not befuddled with your archaic sense of honor.” Conan flew backward in the air, but even as he did, he twisted in a Matrix move, landing squarely on his feet. Fear turned Falon’s blood to ice. She told herself to run, to flee while they were distracted, but her body disobeyed her. Stunned, she could not look away.

  “You flaunt your arrogance, Viktor. How do you think I found you so easily?” Vulkasin leapt high over Conan, tiptoed across the ceiling, then—with arms extended wide—somersaulted in beautiful symmetry. Body and blades formed a perfect iron cross. As he came down, the jager leapt up in the air to meet him. The two furies clashed in a spellbinding kaleidoscope of furious blade sparks. Red, black, and orange rained down upon her, the heat prickling her skin. The sensation jolted her, ripping her body from its paralysis. Falon rolled over again, concentrating on her path toward the door.

  They could kill each other for all she cared. She prayed for exactly that even as she continued to roll. As the furious clash of steel continued, Falon made it to the closed doors. She pushed with her hands and opened them just a crack. On her elbows, she dragged herself forward, ignoring the harsh scrape of her skin against concrete as she made it outside. It occurred to her that the sidewalk was eerily quiet even as she collapsed on the dirty concrete. In slow, thick flows, her strength drained from her body.

  No food in more than a day, coupled with what was going on behind her and the continued blood loss had taken its toll. If she didn’t find a trash can to crawl into soon, she’d die on the street.

  At least in a trash can she’d have some privacy. The shattering of glass and the subsequent pelting of needle-sharp shards into her skin forced Falon to roll into a fetal position with her hands over her head. She prayed once more that the two demonic warriors would just go the hell away. Didn’t happen. One of them—she didn’t dare uncurl her body to see which one—slammed to the ground beside her with a hard thud. A harsh whoosh of air expelled from the body’s lungs, and she heard the crunch of broken glass beneath the feet of the other. “Please, please, just leave me alone,” she begged.

  A large, powerful hand grabbed her, its thick uncompromising fingers wrapped around her biceps. Falon gasped, opened her eyes, and froze. Deep turquoise-colored eyes blazed down at her. Her skin chilled, then heated before he yanked her up as if she didn’t weigh more than a small sack of potatoes.

  “Get your damn hands off me!” she shrieked, kicking at Vulkasin.

  Instead of obeying her, he shook his head as if she
were naught but an annoying child begging for a piece of candy. He had sheathed one sword but held the other high in his right hand. With his left hand, he pulled her up to him and held her firmly against his chest. He turned easily and pointed his sword at Conan, who glared from where he lay broken and bloodied on the sidewalk. Malevolent heat radiated off his body. Falon cringed into the hardness of the man holding her. He laughed and pressed the tip of his sword into Conan’s jugular. “I’d planned on killing you, Viktor. Do you think I’m here by accident? I’ve been tracking you for days.” Vulkasin sighed as if bored. “Your death will be my pleasure.” As he pushed the tip into Viktor’s skin, a small fountain of blood sprayed onto the blade. “But I may spare you, for a few minutes.”

  Conan sneered and spit at Vulkasin’s sword. Vulkasin jabbed the sword deeper into Conan’s throat. More blood spurted. Falon cringed at the gory sight.

  “Tell me where Balor has gone and why, and I will give you a ten-minute head start.”

  Conan’s black eyes snapped in fury. “I do not know. I broke with my clan years ago, as you know.”

  Vulkasin tsked tsked and shook his head. His blade sliced deeper into Conan’s throat. Blood squirted in short thick pumps from the artery. Falon was going to be sick.

  “Back East! The clans converge for the rising!” Conan screamed, pushing as far back into the asphalt as he could.

  “The rising you will never see,” Vulkasin sneered, but retracted his blade. “You just bought yourself ten minutes.”

  With her still clutched to his chest, Vulkasin whipped around and strode toward a shiny, sleek motorcycle surrounded by more choppers. Behind the sleek cycles stood dark, hooded figures, all the more menacing for their silence. “You will not see the rising of the Blood Moon, Vulkasin!” Conan shouted.

  Falon trembled with her desire to flee, but she didn’t dare move a muscle. She was too afraid that if she struggled, the demon who held her so tightly against him that she could scarcely breathe would drop her and leave her for Conan. Unfortunately, she was just as terrified of where she would end up if this whatever-the-hell-he-was took her away. The thought had her suddenly finding her voice as well as her courage.