Wicked Magic

by Margot de Klerk

  “If you think I’m planning on just sitting tight here whilst you threaten my friends, you have another thing coming.”

  “I don’t doubt that you’ll try, Nathan.” Longhorn had the temerity to look genuinely apologetic. “But I’m afraid I can’t have you running back to Oxford until the Sahir have finished up. It’s too risky. That’s why you’re going to have to go in with your uncle.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  NATHAN’S JAW PRACTICALLY HIT the floor in shock.

  “You want to put my son in a cell with a rabid vampire?” Dad demanded.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Longhorn said. “I didn’t want to involve you or him, but this is the way it has to be. It’s for the good of the organisation.”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Nathan said, but his voice wasn’t as steady as he’d have liked. “I trust Adrian.”

  “This is madness!” Dad snarled. “This isn’t how the hunters operate. Nathan’s just a boy—Adrian will kill him.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” Longhorn said. “After all, Nathan is a promising young hunter, if a little… misguided. I will, of course, allow him to go in armed, just in case.”

  This had to be some kind of joke. Nathan stared at Longhorn in disbelief, wondering if the guy could hear the words coming out of his own mouth.

  “You can’t do this!” Dad said.

  Nathan felt a momentary stab of pity for his father, the man who had always valued rules and discipline above all else. His father had always had absolute trust in the hunter ethos. Despite having been in the field for thirty years, Benjamin Delacroix was not prepared to handle being betrayed by his comrades.

  Adrian would have seen this coming.

  Nathan took a deep breath. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”

  “Nathan—no!” Dad said.

  “You’re not going to put up a fight?” Longhorn asked.

  “Is there any point?” Nathan replied. Turning to his father, he said, “It’s alright, Dad, I know what needs to be done.”

  His father frowned, and Nathan could practically see the gears turning in his mind.

  “I’ll watch from next door,” Dad said. “I won’t—I won’t leave you alone.”

  “It’s alright, Dad,” Nathan repeated. “I should just give you this—just in case.” He unstrapped the spirit knife from his hip and held it out to his father. “Wouldn’t want it to fall back into Adrian’s hands, right?”

  His father looked at the knife, and then back at Nathan. For a moment, Nathan just looked into his father’s eyes. Then his father nodded sharply and took the knife, sliding it into his jacket.

  “We had our differences,” he said, “but I never wanted this.”

  “I know,” Nathan said. He turned to Longhorn. “I’m ready.”

  “How noble,” Longhorn said. He had an odd look on his face, like he couldn’t decide whether he respected Nathan or pitied him. Nathan found he didn’t want either. He went to the vaulted door and Longhorn scanned his access card, tapping in the code. Then he pulled out a hefty-looking key and unlocked the door. He swung it open, gun out and trained on Adrian.

  Nathan entered the cell and the door shut behind him. The wards instantly came into force. Hundreds of anti-vampire and anti-magic wards pressed in on him.

  Adrian was huddled in the centre of the room, his shoulders hunched as though the wards were a physical pressure. He was shackled at the wrists, ankles, and neck, and his skin was charred where the silver touched it. His shirt was ripped and stained with blood. Nathan had never seen him looking more pitiful. Then he looked up.

  “Nathan?” Adrian said hoarsely. His eyes were hazy and red, and Nathan had a definitive realisation that he had never been in more danger from his uncle than he was at this very moment. Three days without blood weren’t enough time to starve a vampire… unless you injured them to the point where they exhausted their energy and needed to feed in order to heal. Or tortured them for three days straight.

  Or both.

  “Fuck,” Adrian croaked, “Nate, you cannot be here.”

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m right where I need to be,” Nathan said. Adrian shuddered.

  “I don’t… want to hurt you,” he mumbled, his words slurring around his fangs. Nathan avoided his eyes. Starving vampires weren’t in complete control of their faculties. He didn’t want Adrian to compel him. This needed to be Nathan’s decision.

  “If I gave you my blood,” he said, “would you be safe to go out in sunlight?”

  “Nate, no! I could... I’m not… I might not—control it…”

  “I trust you,” Nathan said. “Besides, you think I can’t stop you? I’ve kicked your arse before.”

  Adrian laughed, and immediately began coughing like mad. There was blood on his lips. Internal injuries. Shit.

  Nathan cautiously stepped closer. Adrian clenched his fists, rattling the chains.

  “Don’t… don’t, please…”

  “Adrian, you once said sorry that you had hung around me and blurred the lines,” Nathan said. “And I wanted to say for a while now… I’m not sorry.” He turned his head away and held out his arm. “You can drink my blood. Just… don’t do that thing where you make it feel good. I don’t want that.”

  “Fucking crazy kid,” Adrian said, and then his hands were on Nathan’s arm. He didn’t hesitate for a single second. Nathan stared at the wall, translating the runes for the wards in his head as Adrian sank his fangs into Nathan’s wrist. It didn’t hurt a lot, more like having blood drawn, but exaggerated. Vampires could inject a venom from their fangs, kind of like snakes, which encouraged the release of endorphins in their victims—in other words, making them feel really good about dying. Adrian, true to Nathan’s request, didn’t do that. Nothing masked the pain or the strange drawing feeling of having blood removed.

  All of the wards were the same. Nathan thought about science instead. The average man had about six litres of blood. You could pass out from blood loss if you lost forty percent of that, or two point four litres. The average human stomach could fit between two and four litres. Scientifically speaking, it was perfectly possible for a vampire to drain a human to the point of passing out, but unlikely that they would actually drain your body dry like on TV…

  Okay, that wasn’t helping either.

  He went back to counting the wards until he felt himself grow a bit dizzy. Then he mustered the firmest voice he could manage. “Adrian, enough.”

  Adrian ignored him.

  Nathan turned his head towards Adrian. Yanking his wrist away was a bad idea. He grabbed a handful of Adrian’s hair and tugged his head back. “Off, or we start playing with knives.”

  Adrian retracted his fangs and backed off. Nathan let him. For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other. Adrian had blood smeared over his mouth. His eyes glowed red, then the glow faded, and he was staring at Nathan through the same brown eyes Nathan saw in the mirror every day. He hung his head.

  “Fuck, Nate,” he said.

  “We can worry about your ethical quandary later,” Nathan said. “Time to get out of here.” He pressed his wrist against his leg to stem the bleeding. It wasn’t too bad, considering.

  “Tell me you have a plan for these?” Adrian asked, deliberately rattling his chains. “And the door. And the facility full of trained hunters.”

  “It’s a work in progress.” Nathan looked around, trying to locate the concealed cameras.

  “Okay, well you should know, I reckon Longhorn’s the traitor. So don’t count on too much support out there.”

  “I had figured that out, thanks,” Nathan said. “Given that he just put me in a cell with a rabid vampire.”

  “Oi, less of the rabid.”

  Nathan had to grin. Bantering with Adrian was familiar ground. Was it weird that he found it reassuring? Of course, Adrian would probably crack a joke on his deathbed, but it still lessened the tension a bit.

  “I think Longhorn’s working with the Wit
ch Council,” he confessed. “And the Sahir have Cynthia.”

  “Brilliant.” Adrian snorted. “I vanish for a few days and everything goes to hell.”

  “Tell me about it,” Nathan said. “What would they do without the Delacroix dream team?” He looked into one of the cameras. “This is just a diversion to get us out of town.”

  “At least they know who their real enemies are.”

  “Yep,” Nathan agreed. “But lucky for us there’s a few things that Longhorn doesn’t know.” He fixed his eyes on the camera and hoped his father was watching from the next room.

  Nathan focused on the spirit knife and imagined it forming into the key he’d seen in Longhorn’s hands a few minutes earlier. In front of the cameras, he mimed reaching into his pocket, and hoped that his father got the message.

  It seemed to take forever before finally the cell door swung open. His father was holding the knife-turned-key.

  “Longhorn’s gone back upstairs,” he said, holding the key out to Nathan. “I really hope you know what you’re doing, Nathan.”

  “Not a clue.” Grinning, Nathan took the key and allowed it to shift shape in his fingers. It took a few tries, but in short order, he had managed to unlock the Adrian’s shackles.

  “Thank fuck.” Adrian rubbed at his wrists. Nathan’s blood was clearly doing the trick; before his eyes, the blackened flesh of Adrian’s wrists began to heal. “Thank you.”

  “Thank me later,” Nathan said. “If Longhorn wanted you and me out of town, that means the real target isn’t Cynthia.”

  “Damien,” Adrian said certainly. “It’s always Damien.”

  Nathan remembered the numerous times people had complained about Damien’s sudden rise in power. “Yeah, you’re probably right. They’re worried Damien is going to try for a position on the Council.”

  Adrian snorted. “They don’t know Damien very well. He despises politics.”

  “I know that, you know that,” Nathan said. “Does anyone listen to us? Of course not.”

  “Let’s go,” Adrian said decisively. “I can call him from the road. You got a spare knife?”

  Nathan passed one over. Adrian gripped it and grinned. “I’ll try not to savage too many hunters on the way out.”

  They both headed for the hallway. Nathan’s father blocked the door, stopping them.

  “Nathan, are you sure about this?”

  “I’m sure,” Nathan replied.

  “You’re siding with him—” He jerked his head towards Adrian. “—Over our people.”

  “Our people are working with black mages to wipe out political targets,” Nathan said. “That violates the hunter code. If that’s what it means to be a hunter, Dad, then I’ll never be a hunter. That’s one thing we can agree on.” He stared his father in the eyes. “I need to get back to Oxford. Now. People are in danger.”

  Dad was silent for a long moment, before finally he nodded. “There might be an easier way out,” he said. “There’s a back way, and Longhorn won’t expect us to use it.”

  Something about the way he said that told Nathan there was a good reason why they might not want to use it. His father’s tone was just… too grim.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Dad led them down to the third subterranean level. His hunter ID got them through the door, and then the wards were pressing in on them even worse than before. Adrian made a pained noise.

  “Who designed the wards here?”

  “They’re even worse than the Vampire Council,” Nathan agreed. He was pretty sure they were affecting him worse than in the past.

  “I think it was the du Tilleul family,” Dad said. “They specialise in wardcrafting. Nathan, I’m surprised you feel the wards so strongly.”

  “Me too.” Nathan tried his best to push away the sensation of fingernails digging into his skin and voices clamouring for his attention. He needed to be alert in case they passed anyone.

  The main hallway was deserted. Their footsteps echoed off the stone walls.

  “How long has this place been here?” Nathan asked his father.

  “Centuries. The Wedleys were a were-hunting family. After the Purge, they abandoned Britain to pursue their prey, and conferred the manor into the hands of the Hunter Council. It was repurposed to hold vampires instead.”

  The Purge was something the hunters took credit for, but everyone knew they’d only been one of the reasons it happened. Many weres had left Britain for the USA in the mid-1600s; partly because the hunters were a real threat in Britain, but partly because what animal wouldn’t be attracted by the promise of unlimited forests and open land to roam on?

  Adrian looked as disgusted as Nathan felt. “This place is practically one giant torture chamber.”

  “I hardly think the vampires have the moral high ground in this case,” Dad pointed out.

  “All three Councils are as bad as each other,” Nathan said. “And humans are just as capable of being monsters—fuck!” Adrian staggered into his side, and they both crashed into the wall. Nathan’s ears were ringing. He righted them both and slung an arm around Adrian’s shoulders. Dad had covered a specific ward on the wall, which was what was making Nathan’s ears ring.

  “We triggered the security system. We should hurry.”

  “Adrian?” Nathan asked.

  Adrian drew himself up and took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  The security system was silent, which was almost more eerie than if an alarm had gone off. Doors began opening up and down the hall. They sprinted down the hallway and Dad jammed his card against a keypad, stabbing the keys. The door slid open.

  “Halt!” someone shouted behind them. Adrian spun around, too fast for Nathan to see, and then two hunters were collapsed against the wall. A third lunged at Nathan, who jabbed his fist into the taller man’s solar plexus, then took him down by kneeing him in the nuts.

  Nathan dived through the door. Adrian appeared beside him, licking blood from his fingernails. Dad hauled the door shut again and slammed a lever down.

  “Security override,” he said. “They might put the building into lockdown, we need to be out before then.”

  They ran down another hallway, through a door, and emerged without warning into the gymnasium-sized hall containing at least half a dozen feral vampires. High above, Nathan could see scientists observing through a window.

  “Fuck!” Adrian ground to a halt. The ferals turned to face them as one.

  “That door,” Dad said, pointing. Then he pulled out a gun and shot two of the ferals straight in the hearts.

  Ferals didn’t die cleanly like vampires would. It was something to do with the decay process. Instead of turning to dust, they exploded.

  Blood and rotten flesh went everywhere, and the other ferals went from insane to rabid in an instant. A few of them lunged towards Nathan’s group, whilst another began tearing at itself. Nathan’s dad shot that one, too.

  Nathan felt a brief flash of panic, but ruthlessly pushed it away. Freaking out would have to wait until later. He summoned the spirit knife and slashed an approaching feral across the chest. The knife made a wet squelching noise. The feral kept coming, and then Adrian was there, and it had no head. Nathan drove the knife into the feral’s chest, a single thought turning it from metal to wood.

  That finished the job. He felt the pulse of whatever magic held a vampire’s body together after death. There was a moment, the moment when their hearts were pierced with wood, where that magic gave out. It exploded outwards, and then Nathan was covered in stinking rotten flesh.

  No time to think about that. Dad had dispatched another feral, but another was right behind him. Nathan took two steps and drove his knife into that one’s heart, too.

  Adrian beheaded two more, which Dad finished off. You had to stab ferals in the heart to be sure. Tearing the heads off was the method with the lowest guarantee of success—sometimes the bodies kept coming, like zombies.

  The whole thing lasted maybe five m
inutes, and then the three of them were surrounded by a mess of blood and guts.

  “This way!” Dad shouted. He already had the door open on the far side of the hall. They hurtled down another corridor, and the part of Nathan’s brain that wasn’t dedicated to trying not vomit recognised that they had to be heading away from the building. Several other corridors branched off from this one.

  “What is this?”

  “This is the way we bring prisoners in!” Dad called. “Mind the wards!”

  A moment later, they ran into another magical null area. Adrian staggered. Nathan grabbed his arm and dragged him onwards, and then they were racing up a narrow staircase, up, up, up, and they came out in another magic null room. It was completely windowless, but somehow Nathan knew they were above ground again.

  Dad scanned his card, but it beeped uselessly.

  “Never mind that.” Adrian punched the door.

  “It’s reinforced—” Dad started, but Adrian ignored him and punched it again. The metal began to buckle. Two swift kicks and the door had bent completely out of shape. Adrian pushed it back, the metal grinding loudly, and then there was enough space for the three of them to squeeze through.

  “We need to update our security,” Dad remarked as they piled out into a large wooden building. One of the manor’s outhouses, Nathan guessed. Huge double doors were closed in front of them, but Dad ignored them and ran over to the other side of the building, where a few prison transport vans were parked.

  “Not a particularly comfortable ride, but they’ll do.”

  Nathan climbed in and Dad turned on the ignition. Adrian threw the barn doors open and dived for the passenger side, pulling the van door shut at the same time as hunters came flying into the barn. Dad floored the accelerator and drove straight for the doors, forcing the hunters to jump out the way. Then they were out in the sunlight and heading for the gates.

  Nathan took several deep breaths to calm himself.

  “Ugh, I thought being covered in blood was bad, but this is worse.”