Children of Blood (Kat Drummond Book 13)

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  “We’re always at war, Treth! And that means it’s just the right time for a wedding. Not just for you two, and to finally get Guy to stop doubting himself, but also for the Crusaders. We need some joy.”

  “What about the Children?” Cindy countered.

  “They are coming whether we like it or not. And after them, the Mentor said the real war begins. We aren’t fighting right now. This is the best time we’ve got. And I want to go to a wedding. Your wedding. I’m sick of funerals.”

  Cindy didn’t reply immediately. Treth looked antsy. He thought it was reckless. He would rather we bar all the doors and erect a stone wall around our little fiefdom.

  But, if we couldn’t enjoy life, just a bit, what were we even protecting?

  Cindy smiled, weakly. “I’ll talk to Guy about it.”

  I beamed. That was all I needed to hear.

  Chapter 5. Engagement

  ***GUY***

  Brett’s Corps buddy, Krieg as he called himself, had a strange way of kicking back with the guys. Brett had suggested a bar in Old Town. Krieg asked to go hunting vamps. Insisted. We took him to one of the dives we knew in the border-slums. Full of deadbeat blood drinkers. Nobody paid us. And no vamp was alive to tell the tale.

  Not that I’m complaining. More dead vamps were always a plus. But still, it was a little odd.

  After some time in Hope City, Brett and I had accepted that hunting vampires wasn’t good for us. They changed us. And I could see they changed Brett. We hated them. And I am one of the first to tell you that they needed to die. But not at the expense of, well, me.

  Brett was different with Krieg. He still laughed and joked. But there was something darker in his expression. Something morbid. It was subtle. Nothing to be able to comment on explicitly. Just…odd.

  “Good hunting, man!” Krieg called out as I exited Brett’s van. I nodded and grunted in response. Krieg laughed.

  “Cheers, mate. See you tomorrow!” Brett called, smiling more than he had been for the past while. The cheerful, jokey Brett that was my friend. Probably even the closest thing I now had to a brother.

  Perhaps, I was just imagining things. Everything was fine. Well, with him. With the Izingane Zegazi coming for me…us…things were far from fine.

  I waved them both farewell and turned to face Cindy’s…our home.

  It was still odd to call this place home. Living in a house at all was strange. The last time I’d lived in a free-standing house and not an apartment or ditch was when I was a kid, living with my mom.

  I remember, just as I was getting used to working for Drakenbane, coming to Cindy’s house after a hunt to get some healing done. It had been smaller then, before it was rebuilt. And it had been clean. Spotless.

  I’d walked in some drake blood and she’d tackled me to the floor, scrubbing at me while shouting about stains.

  I couldn’t help but smile now. I couldn’t believe how things had changed. No, really. I could almost not believe it. I had told a long-gone friend a long time ago that I didn’t feel like I was alive. Like this was all a dream. That I’d died long ago.

  But, if this was a dream, it was a good one for moments like this. I stopped to stare at the house. I sniffed, letting the scent of freshly cut grass waft into my nostrils.

  It was good to be home. Good to have a home.

  Even so, it was also weird. I had spent so long on the road by myself, sleeping under the stars. And even now, I struggled to settle down.

  Because, no matter what the reasonable side of me said, and how much I knew I loved Cindy, a darker voice inside my head told me I didn’t deserve this. That I had left things undone. That I could not find love when I wasn’t a man.

  I banished the darker thoughts away, and made my way to the door, where I inserted my key. The door budged but didn’t open.

  I sighed, frustrated. Pixies playing tricks again! Ugh, most fae couldn’t touch metal. And for good reason! These pixies could and they used their ability to be eternal mischiefs.

  It made it even worse that I couldn’t help but like the little bastards.

  I knocked, expecting the sing-song lilt of a pixie to respond. Mockingly.

  Instead, I saw the flicker of motion on the other side of the peephole and saw shadows underneath the crack of the door.

  “Themba,” I called to my cousin. “It’s me, cos!”

  I heard mumbling on the other side of the door. But no motion to remove the bolt.

  “Themba, is that you?” I called in Xhosa.

  Cold dread started to infuse my veins. What if the Children had arrived? What if one was waiting inside for me? And what had they done to my cousin?!

  “How can I be so sure?” Themba finally spoke up. He slurred, half sobbing and half ready to yell.

  “We grew up together. You know me.”

  “I knew them, I thought I knew them. But the Blood tricked us. How do I know you’re my cousin?”

  I wanted to frown, but I kept my impassive expression. Needed to be calm. Collected. But my cousin hadn’t been this bad before. I heard him cry himself to sleep. He woke us up in the early hours screaming. And he had shakes like he was about to freeze to death. But not this level of paranoia.

  But he was still my cousin. I leant up close against the door, sensing his head on the other side.

  “Mom used to put cinnamon in her pap,” I whispered. I could sense him listening. Intently. “She knew it was expensive. But it reminded her of dad. One time, she couldn’t afford any. So, we went into the impi garrison and stole a bunch. Dlamini caught us and gave us a spanking with a sjambok. But he let us keep the cinnamon.”

  I went silent. Waiting. Only Themba and I knew that story. Even Dlamini hadn’t known why we wanted the cinnamon. Only Themba and I had lived with her. At least, we were the only ones alive who had.

  I expected to hear the sliding of the bolt and the opening of the door. Instead, I could only hear a faint sob. Drawing further away.

  The bolt slid open and I opened the door. Duer, the pixie, hovered just by the door. His girlfriend, (or was it wife?) Brivvy, fluttered nearby, looking down a bottle-strewn hall where Themba had retreated.

  “Aye, Guy,” Duer said, shaking his head. “He’s been makin’ a right racket all night.”

  “He’s in pain, Duer,” Brivvy argued.

  “Let him wallow somewhere else then!” Duer retorted, angrily, but I saw by the wavering of his golden glowing aura that he didn’t mean it. Cindy said that pixies were heavily empathetic. The seemingly obtuse ones like Duer were obstinate by choice.

  I closed the door and locked it, leaving the bolt unlatched. Cindy still needed to come home.

  Duer flew off to go do the ever important “pixie business”. Brivvy loitered behind.

  “Ye kin is in darkness,” she said.

  “I know,” I replied, sounding cold, professional. Matter of fact. I wanted to sob.

  “Go to him,” she replied, simply, and flew off to join her mate.

  This was not my forte. I was a hunter. I killed things. I wasn’t a therapist. How could I be when I couldn’t even deal with my own shit?

  But, he was my cousin. The only blood family I had left. I had to at least try and help him. It was the least I could do for all he had done for me.

  I followed my cousin, nudging discarded beer bottles out of the way. It reminded me of a certain tokoloshe’s abode back in my homeland. Cindy was going to have a fit!

  Themba sat alone in darkness, only illuminated by the bits of light spilling in from the hallway. He slumped, like a man who had lost everything. I understood that look. I had wanted to collapse into a heap like his, a beer in hand. So many times. But I hadn’t.

  I silently took a seat opposite him. He didn’t attack me. Didn’t even look up.

  “It’s me, cos,” I said, as gently as I could. “Why didn’t you let me in?”

  “You could’ve been a vampire,” he answered, simply and quietly.

  “But I’m not. No vamp
ire could have known that story. Only us. We’re family.”

  “How am I supposed to know that? I’m not some arcane Blood Hunter forged in secrecy and sacrifice. I was meant to be a fucking freedom fighter. All I can tell is vampires can do anything. Kill anything! They will kill me one day. And you…”

  Themba had said that all in a calm, defeated tone. It stunned me to silence. Finally, I managed to reply.

  “None of that is certain. We can win. You saw what we did at the Battle. What we’re capable of now. We can relax. At least for a bit.”

  And that should mean a lot coming from me.

  “Relaxing is how I lost them, Guy!” he yelled, suddenly. “It’s how they all died. If we’d been alert, if we’d not let our guard down for that one moment, they might still be here.”

  He slumped back down, covering his face. No tears came, but his breathing was heavy.

  “Themba,” I replied, softly. Calmly. “I need to know what happened.”

  He had never told us. After years of not seeing him, he had arrived on our doorstep covered in blood. And had never said a word of it since. But it was time that changed.

  He shook his head, like a child refusing to go to bed, but then stopped. His resistance weakened. He did not relax, exactly, but he no longer resisted. He didn’t look at me while he spoke.

  “After we got to Hope City,” he started. “We started reaching out to the diaspora. To get more men to fight for a Free Transkei. I know, I know. I said I wouldn’t. I said I’d given up on it. But how could I, Guy? How could I give up on not just my dreams but my entire people? I couldn’t. I reached out to some shady figures in the government here. They promised to give us aid if we provided the manpower. And, by the Rifts, we did. Got a hundred men and women, good Xhosa folk, to answer the call. And our contact came through. Armed us, gave us a way through the Three Point Line. Told us to go kill some impi. And we did.”

  Themba looked up at me, his eyes glistening with moisture, sadness and a past determination.

  “We did well, Guy. It was like the good old days. We managed to get even more patriots to rise up in the homeland. Destroyed an impi base even. It was amazing! I could taste our freedom with every dead impi. We even started leaving our flag in the settlements we liberated.”

  His expression darkened.

  “But we went too far.”

  It sounded like he had already. Themba and I had escaped the Empire because we knew we had no future there anymore. But he had gone back. And it seemed, had paid the price…

  “We had cleared out all the impi around Makanda. But the Izingane Zegazi sent in a vamp to set up a stronghold to stop us. We didn’t think much of it. You killed Nkosi Kuzalwa Igazi! We could kill a damn fledgeling. And we did. Was easy. We stormed his stronghold. No casualties even. There were a few dozen of us. Enough firepower to take him down before he could move. We then took his head and staked it on a hill till the sun ashed him for good.”

  I was dumbfounded. I wanted to shout at my cousin. To scream, “What have you done?!”

  But I knew he had realised his mistake. And his comrades had paid the price for it.

  For when a vampire died, all its relatives received its final moments as a telepathic sensation. They knew the scent, the taste, the appearance…everything…of those who had done it.

  It was why Blood Hunters fought the Blood expecting to die. To destroy a vampire, one must be prepared to sacrifice everything. And they had stormed in there to kill a fledgeling like they were taking out the trash…

  “The Blood tracked us down. Sometimes, one by one. Other times, a dozen at a time. I fled. Tried to get back to Hope City. I felt like a coward fleeing my men, but I knew I couldn’t save them. I took those I could and went to Plett, by the Three Point Line. We thought we were safe in a CDF safehouse. We relaxed.”

  He looked away, into the dark corner of the room. “They came during the day. One of the young guys opened the door for them, expecting pizza. We got delivered the head of our Council contact, and then they attacked. I didn’t try to fight. I fled. And almost didn’t make it. They cut me up good, just as I got on my bike and rushed to you…”

  He trailed off. I knew the rest. He had arrived close to death. Cindy had saved him, as she always did. He warned us that the Blood was coming. For him, for me, and now for all of us.

  I reached out and touched my cousin’s knee. He didn’t move.

  “Themba…cos…you cannot let the past rule you. Mistakes we make, failures, and horrors, are all in the past. We cannot change them. But we can act on what we have learnt…”

  And know that we must move on, even if we cannot.

  “We deserve a better future.”

  Even if I am not really a man.

  Themba looked up at me. A few tears trailed down from his eyes.

  Themba had protected me. He had been my older brother. Perhaps, even my father. He was a dreamer. A thinker. A freedom fighter. A hero.

  And the Blood had broken him.

  No! Not broken.

  I clenched my fists.

  “We can fix what we have broken,” I said, sitting up straight. “Even if it is ourselves.”

  “But what if it is too late?” he whimpered.

  I held his gaze. I didn’t smile. That wasn’t what I did. But I showed my cousin what I felt, deep down in my gut. We could win this. We could get over this. Because I believed in a future.

  I heard the front door open, and my fiancée greet the pixies who were no doubt pestering her for booze. Themba inclined his head. He’d heard her too.

  A silhouette blocked what little light was pooling into the room. Themba stood up, slowly.

  “I should head to bed,” he said, sidling past Cindy, avoiding eye contact.

  She turned on the light as my cousin passed her. I saw in her close-lipped frown that she wanted to complain about the bottles. I knew her past. I understood why cleanliness was so important to her. But she didn’t comment.

  She came up to me, wordlessly, and kissed me on the forehead. I pulled her closer, down to my lips, as we embraced.

  We sat together in silence. I gave her time to figure out what had been going on. And I needed time to process what my cousin had told me.

  I idly stroked Cindy’s bare arms. They were scarred, from wrist to shoulder. Intricate spell-words and runes. Only living human skin could be used to hold spell-words without them burning up upon use. Cindy had used her body as a living canvass to fight evil. It took a toll on her. I could see it. But she lived with it all the same. That’s partly why I loved her.

  But something was off. I had expected at least one snarky mention about the litter. Or some gossip about Krieg. I could see that she had been bottling it up all day. She’d want the scoop from our evening.

  But she was silent, all the while she fidgeted with my lapel.

  Finally, I broke the silence. Quite unusual for me, but a man’s gotta do what’s right.

  “There’s something on your mind, love?”

  She nodded. “Was talking to Kat earlier. She brought something up. A good point.”

  “Was it about putting more silver on the window bars? That is a good point.”

  “I don’t think there’s enough silver in all of Hope City to coat them to your satisfaction, darling. But it’s something else…”

  She hesitated. It must have been something drastic. Something that could make Cindy nervous was something dire indeed.

  But it could be anything. Kat was a great leader. An even greater hunter. But, I still half suspected that she was insane. No one else was as reckless as she was. And, a good thing too, as we’d needed that recklessness to save the city. Multiple times.

  “What is it?” I prompted Cindy again. If Kat had a new crazy plan or, Rifts forbid, a new quest, I needed to know. It had been hell dealing with everything without her when she’d dragged Brett and her friends off to New Zealand. I wanted warning if she was planning on pulling a stunt like that again. Especially now
!

  “Kat was talking about…our wedding.”

  I simultaneously felt relief that it wasn’t something to do with the job, and panic.

  “Why?” I asked dubiously.

  “She…mentioned that she thinks we should have it soon. Not just soon. Next week.”

  “Why?” I managed to murmur again, stunned.

  Why, by the demons of the In Between?! We were fighting a war. We could barely take time off to sleep, much less a wedding!

  “She had a good point,” Cindy continued, calmer now. Reasonable. That paragon of cool heads once again. “The Children aren’t here yet. And, once we’re done with them, the Conclave will be moving in. This might be our last chance to have the wedding. Kat and I aren’t sure when will be the next best time.”

  “So…you support this?”

  Cindy nodded. “I do. I love you and want to get married to you. Simple. Delays…they just give time for more bad stuff to happen. I want to be with you now. Before…”

  She left the rest unsaid.

  My heart was beating fast. Like drums. How could I face down a snarling vamp, but this could knock me right out?

  “Guy? What do you think?”

  It just felt…

  “It doesn’t seem real, Cins. The engagement, the wedding…us. It’s like a dream. A good dream I don’t want to wake up from. But still just a dream.”

  Because I wasn’t really alive. Even now.

  “I don’t deserve you…”

  “Really, Guy Mgebe? You really don’t think so, after all this time? You are a man! My man.”

  “It’s not that…”

  It really wasn’t. Not anymore. Even if I had thought so. But, as I thought about it now, my initiation that never was didn’t matter to me much any longer.

  But something else did. The smell of burning tyres. The heat on my face as I watched the one I loved most in this world burn.

  “I have left so much undone,” I whispered, feeling moisture behind my eyes. I held it back. It wasn’t time to weep. Not yet. Not ever. “It’s not about tradition. It’s about earning the right to be loved by you. And I don’t deserve it while I live as a half-man, consumed by vengeance uncompleted.”