The Champion

by H. P. Mallory

  “But I do want to discuss something with you first, Sinjin.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let’s talk outside.”

  “You had better get clearance first from all these bossy women,” I said, and then motioned towards the bossy women in question.

  She laughed. “You’re right.” She faced the room. “Jolie, are we free to leave now?”

  “Certainly not!” Mercedes said as she approached Bryn with an evil smelling and smoking concoction in her hands.

  “You must allow me to inspect you first. And you need to drink this.”

  “What is it?”

  “The final part of the spell,” she insisted. “It must be imbibed in order for the new contract to remain in place.”

  Bryn took it from her and downed it in one go, making a face to reveal the hideous taste.

  “Disgusting,” she pronounced.

  “Yet quite effective,” Mercedes replied, a wry smile writ across her face.

  Jolie joined us, then. She, too, hugged her sister. This, I did not mind.

  “Mission accomplished,” she said.

  “Yep. Although …”

  “I know.”

  I could tell by the way they were looking at one another that they were communicating telepathically.

  “I say,” I said. “I think it is the height of bad manners to do that when there is someone else present! Particularly when that someone else is me. Honestly! It is worse than whispering!”

  Jolie laid a placating hand on my arm. I could only guess that it was an excuse to feel my muscles because they are quite robust. And her warlock husband had certainly neglected his physical exercise.

  “You’re absolutely right, Sinjin,” Jolie said, giving her sister a smile before facing me again. “Communicating with Bryn through our thoughts just comes so naturally, I forget sometimes. I’m sorry.”

  I sniffed and attempted to appear wounded, as I do enjoy playing the part of victim at times. But my queen well knew that I could not stay offended with her for long.

  “What Bryn and I were saying is that we both worry that lifting Dureau’s curse might have some sort of loophole attached to it.”

  “Hmm,” I started as I rubbed my chin.

  “And we were worried that Jolie could be the target this time,” Bryn finished.

  I nodded as I considered her words. It did make sense. Monsieur D had already trifled with the rest of us, and he was likely to be displeased with Jolie’s ultimatum. Yet, she was his queen, so to trifle with her would undoubtedly become the biggest mistake he would ever make.

  “I admit it is a real possibility, my queen,” I said with a clipped nod. “We shall just have to remain ever vigilant for signs of Monsieur D’s underhanded ways.”

  “Regardless, today is a day for celebration,” Jolie said as she faced the others. “We have our friend back in one piece, and we’ve won a significant moral victory. And I, for one, believe this to be an important step in our fight against Luce.”

  I was inclined to agree, although Chevalier was no friend of mine.

  “Sinjin.” I felt Bryn’s hot breath on my shoulder.

  “Yes, my sweet?”

  “That thing I wanted to talk to you about. It’s important.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Bryn

  I could feel Sinjin looking curiously at me.

  “What do we need to speak about, Princess?” he asked. “Should you not be resting after what you have just been through?”

  “I’ve only just woken up, remember?” I smiled at him.

  “Well, I would not exactly call that a good night’s sleep.”

  “Maybe not, but I do feel wide awake now.” It was true. I felt incredibly energized. Maybe that feeling of enthusiasm was owing to whatever was in that second drink Mercedes had just given me. Or maybe I was just so happy and relieved to have Dureau’s curse lifted. And to finally be able to move on to the next phase of our plan: to be one step closer to defeating Luce, at last.

  I led Sinjin further away from the room where we’d just made contact with Monsieur D. I didn’t want to be overheard. We walked outside of Kinloch Kirk, to the courtyard, where I settled on an old, moss-covered stone bench, situated just at the edge of the forest. Only the birds could hear us now.

  I studied Sinjin’s face, took in his furrowed brow. “Sit,” I said as I tapped the open space beside me. He did as requested and then faced me with a concerned expression.

  “You are beginning to worry me, Bryn.”

  I smiled and smoothed his furrowed brow with my thumb.

  “Sinjin, I need to know what Varick wanted that day I came across the two of you in the forest,” I started. “It was the same day I found you talking together, just before …”

  “Just before I drank from you and discovered you were with child… my child.”

  I gulped. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “We will get to that part later,” I said. “For now, I just need to know the specifics of what he said to you that day.”

  “He said he had information I might find useful,” he answered.

  I nodded as I breathed in deeply and then sighed. “The reason I asked is that Varick approached me too.”

  “What do you mean ‘approached’?” He spoke quickly, harshly. I could see the suspicion lurking in his eyes.

  “I mean he approached me, and he said the same thing to me that he did to you—that he had information.”

  “And what information was he offering you?”

  “Varick informed me that he knew how Luce had gained knowledge about Dureau’s curse.”

  “He said exactly the same thing to me.” I saw Sinjin’s expression change as he moved on to the next thought. “And what price did he seek to exact for this information?”

  “If I tell you, you have to promise me you’ll retain your composure and not go completely psychotic.”

  “What did Varick want?” he demanded.

  I could already see signs of fury in him.

  “Sinjin… composure. Remember?”

  “What did he want, my pet?” he asked, in a softer tone.

  I nodded. “He wanted to feed from me.”

  “He what!?” He shot up into a standing position. I stood up next to him and gripped his arms.

  “Sinjin! Calm down! Nothing happened! I refused him, and he accepted it and went quietly on his way,” I answered, which wasn’t exactly the truth, but the last thing I wanted to do was set Sinjin off to the point that he couldn’t pay attention to the rest of this discussion.

  He looked down at me, his eyes dangerously white. “Varick accepted your refusal? Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Now sit down, please.”

  With some difficulty, I managed to pull him back down to the mossy bench. I watched the signs of anger move through his body and gradually, very gradually, dissolve. It was only when his eyes had returned to their normal color and I felt his muscles relax that I released my grip on his arms.

  It became very clear to me that I could never tell Sinjin the truth about what had happened with Varick—that Varick had tried to force himself on me. Sinjin would kill him with his bare hands. I could see that now.

  “Varick hinted to the fact that he desired something from me also, in exchange for this information,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “But he would not say what that something was.”

  “Hmm. That’s odd.”

  “Yes. That was the conclusion I reached, as well.”

  “So, what on earth could he be up to?”

  Sinjin cupped his chin in his hand and adopted a thinker’s pose. I feasted on his good looks as I wondered if our baby would look like him. If it was a boy …

  “We must find out,” he said abruptly, knocking me out of my fantasy.

  “Okay. How do we do that?”

  He looked at me and frowned. “Bryn, are you quite sure you do not require rest? You appear quite… distracted.”r />
  Concentrate, Bryn. “Well, did you notice how terrible Varick looked?”

  “He always looks terrible.”

  “No, I mean… he looks sick.”

  “Yes, I did notice as much, as it happens.”

  “Well, do you think his health might have something to do with the reason he wanted my blood?” I asked. “Maybe he’s dying or something?”

  “A vampire cannot die other than by violent means.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  We both grew quiet. Sinjin was the first to speak. “Well, it appears to me that neither of us has any clue as to what Varick is up to, thus our best option is to watch him very closely.”

  “Okay, like spy on him, you mean?”

  “That is another way to put it, yes.”

  I worried my lower lip as I considered it. It wasn’t a bad idea, and since neither of us knew what in the hell was going on with Varick, I didn’t really see any alternative.

  Varick was not the easiest to spy on. Not only was he as wily as an old fox, but he also possessed super-duper vampire senses. Which basically meant that he could out-see, out-hear and out-smell me. How was I to track someone like that? Especially when he tended to only come out at night, when I was either sleepy or flat out unconscious. Luckily, Sinjin was able to make up for my shortcomings.

  I had every faith in Sinjin’s abilities. And I was sure Sinjin would be able to outsmart Varick. Especially now, with Varick appearing to have lost his edge. There was definitely something off about that vampire. The more I thought about his behavior that day in the forest, the more it struck me just how reckless his actions were. To attack me like that! True, most of the trainees had gone home by then, but there were still a few stragglers floating around. And he knew about the Flame. Logic should have told him that he couldn’t defeat me, yet he went ahead and assaulted me anyway. It was the act of a desperate man. Or a mad man.

  I felt my anger rise up again. Whatever was driving Varick, he needed to be stopped. The only reason I was able to defeat him was because I had the Flame at my disposal. Which meant that practically every other woman would be defenseless against him. And that was a thought that really didn’t sit well with me.

  Hmm, maybe I should go ahead and tell Sinjin that Varick had tried to force himself on me, I thought. Let Sinjin kill him!

  But Varick was still on the queen’s council. Jolie had relied on him many times in the past, and she valued his experience and wisdom. Was that reason enough to allow him to freely roam after he attacked me? No, of course it wasn’t. But if something did happen to Varick at Sinjin’s hands, that would remove the chance that we would ever find out exactly what Varick knew about Dureau and how.

  Furthermore, did we really need a major in-house fight now of all times? A house divided wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand an attack by Luce.

  Not to mention that if Sinjin knew the truth and went after Varick, maybe Varick could hurt him. Yes, it was farfetched because Sinjin was so much stronger than Varick, but the chance was still there, and the last thing I wanted was for Sinjin to get hurt.

  So I would stay quiet about it. For now, at least.

  I decided to go and visit Jolie for a bit of a break from all this spying, which was getting me exactly nowhere.

  It was four minutes later that I opened the doors to Kinloch Kirk and took the stairs two at a time until I knocked on the door to the nursery, where Jolie usually spent her time when she wasn’t busy playing the part of Queen of the Underworld. My sister swung open the door with baby Emma in her arms.

  “Bryn! Come in, how are you feeling?”

  “Good, thanks.”

  I settled into her enormous, comfy sofa and allowed myself to relax. This room, designed for maximum comfort, coupled with my sister’s calming presence, felt like a refuge from the storm that was my life. I was grateful for it.

  “Jolie. Can I ask you something?”

  “Ask away.”

  “Breastfeeding. Would you recommend it?”

  “Yes, I think anyone and everyone would. Why do you ask?”

  She lifted her daughter around to face her, and the baby squealed in what seemed like agreement.

  “Well, what if the baby has fangs?” The words came tumbling out.

  Jolie clasped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened.

  “I never thought of that!” Then she started to giggle.

  “Don’t laugh!”

  “Sorry. It’s just that … a baby with fangs …”

  She seemed to find the idea hilarious, and I couldn’t help laughing along with her, but still, I was worried. There were just so many things with this pregnancy that were probably going to be undocumented.

  “Well,” Jolie started. “If the baby does have fangs, it would be understandable if you didn’t want to breastfeed. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “I guess.”

  Wait and see was all I ever seemed to do.

  Sinjin

  Lady Bryn was a woman of many talents, but tracking ancient master vampires was not one of them. I was secretly pleased. Not only did it give me a chance to display my own superior skills, but it served to keep her out of harm’s way. Her and the baby.

  As regards Varick, he was a slippery customer, to be sure. I knew he was up to something because of his long, unexplained absences from Kinloch Kirk. Judging by his lack of sartorial elegance, he was certainly not indulging in shopping trips. Nor was he going to fancy restaurants in order to feed upon the guests—his increasingly emaciated appearance proved that.

  So, just what was he doing? I had to find out, and soon. Complicating matters was his tendency to dematerialize at the drop of a hat. It was, of course, something that all vampires could do. I was no slouch myself in that department.

  But Varick had been a vampire for so long now, he had centuries of practice under his belt. This made dematerialization second nature to him. He was inordinately quick and, as I knew from learning from him in the past, exceedingly accurate in his relocating. No arriving several miles away from his intended destination for that vampire.

  I had to be at the top of my game to catch this one. I could allow nothing to distract me, least of all my impending fatherhood. And that was a subject that crept into my thoughts much too often. I was beyond eager to have a sprog of my own, it was true. But my own excitement regarding this subject was most certainly getting in the way of my reconnaissance mission.

  I waited patiently for hours outside Varick’s lair. He did not believe in creature comforts, and his living quarters were austere in the extreme. He lived as far away from the main house and the adjoining lodges as was possible. The shack Varick had chosen to call home had once been a shed. It appeared almost as derelict as Varick’s own body. Jolie had offered, on several occasions, to give the place a lick of paint and to rebuild anything requiring it, but Varick had steadfastly refused.

  I could well imagine the inside of Varick’s shed was as bare as a monk’s cell. It was almost as if the vampire disdained pleasure and comfort in all its forms. It would not have surprised me if Varick had chosen to slumber in a coffin, old school style. But he slept on a simple, single bed, with a hard mattress and threadbare sheets.

  The nights were drawing in, as the locals were wont to say, and it was fully dark by nine o’clock. We vampires relished the long, dark winter months and looked forward to them in the same way that humans anticipated their summer holidays. More time to hunt. More time to play. Varick was no exception to this rule. He exited his front door at a quarter past nine, and this time, I was ready for him. I watched from behind a massive beech tree as he locked his front door and looked about himself in a furtive manner. Most definitely the behavior of a man with something to hide. I braced myself as he made his first dematerialization.

  And I was on him, almost as if I were riding on the wind currents he left behind. Yes! I had managed to keep up. His first materialization brought us to a rocky outcrop. I mater
ialized at roughly the same distance from him as I had been in Kinloch Kirk. There was less shelter at this location, and I deftly ducked behind a rock. But I need not have worried. Varick did not suspect he was being followed and did not so much as trouble to turn his head.

  Sometimes the natural arrogance of a vampire can be used against him. Instead, he leaped on, and again, I was on him like a “duck on a junebug”, as Klaasje would say. This time, we landed beside an enormous lake. At least, he landed beside it. I landed in it, almost up to my knees in murky water.

  Bloody hell.

  I had just about managed to silence my curses and again, we were off, to an ancient fortress dominated by a ring of large, grey stones. Then swiftly on to a tiny, silent fishing village. At each re-location I feared losing the bloody bastard, as I had on all my previous attempts, but this time was different. This time, I was on my game. I had been studying him and I knew how to keep up.

  Another re-location. Instinct told me this would prove to be his final destination. On this particular occasion, he did look around, but not to see if he had been apprehended. It was immediately clear to me that he was here to meet someone.

  We stood at the peak of a snow-capped mountain. I knew it at once to be the mighty Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom. The wind cut right through me, and I was greatly relieved that I could not feel the cold.

  Who on earth could he be meeting up here? It must indeed be an excessively big secret. I had no time to enjoy the captivating views, for Varick was immediately joined by another figure, who materialized right beside him, a mere minute after his own arrival. I recognized the stranger immediately and was seized with a sense of dread.

  Because Varick was meeting none other than our archenemy, Luce.

  It was true that I no longer held my former teacher in any great esteem, but I would not have taken him for a traitor. In an effort to give the bastard the benefit of the doubt, I thought there was a chance I was jumping to the wrong conclusion. Perhaps it was Luce that Varick was double-crossing, in service to his own? I moved closer in order to listen in on their conversation.

  “How much have you got for me?” Luce spoke, his tone demanding.