The Corvin Chance Chronicles Complete Box Set

by N. P. Martin

  "But how does he know about this house?"

  "I have few friends here in Ireland. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to work out where I was staying."

  I puffed my cheeks out as I stared out the window, half expecting to see a horde of vampires coming up the driveway as they marched upon the house. "How much time do we have?"

  "He’ll wait until dark," Adrina said. "A few hours at most."

  "Can’t we just go somewhere else?"

  Adrina stared at me. "No, this is where we make our stand. There’s no point in running."

  I thought for a moment and shook my head. "Do we even stand a chance?"

  "That depends on you."

  "And how do you figure that?"

  She came closer toward me. "Can you get a handle on your new powers?"

  "I’m sure I can. Did you bring blood?"

  "It’s in the car."

  The thirst in me rejoiced. "My magic seems different."

  "It will be. I can show you how to use it."

  "Like a crash course in vampire magic?"

  "Yes, you’re going to need it, believe me."

  "How many vamps will Darrick bring with him?"

  Adrina shook her head. "I don’t know exactly. Enough."

  "Do you have a plan at least?"

  She went to the table were she put her sunglasses and opened a drawer, taking out the silver Van Helsing stake and tossing it to me. "I should be able to handle whatever vamps that come," she said. "Giving you a chance to kill Darrick."

  "Me?" I shook my head. "I don’t understand why you can’t kill him yourself, Adrina. You’re much stronger than I am."

  Adrina sighed slightly. "Darrick is cunning, and he has a way of getting inside of your head, my head especially. He has a psychological edge over me, and he knows it. That’s why he’s always beaten me in the past."

  I stared at her in silence for a moment as I tried to accept the fact that I would soon be going up against Darrick, a psychopathic vampire if ever there was one. "You spoke earlier as if this has been on the cards long before I ever got here," I said, now seeking some sort of reassurance from her. "Are you saying I’m somehow fated to kill Darrick?"

  "That remains to be seen."

  When she went to walk toward the front door, I stopped her by grabbing her arm, for which she stared hard at me for. "Listen, a while ago I had these visions that were supposed to be glimpses of my future. I saw things…a man in robes leading an army, huge battles…lots of blood…and I was at the center of it all. Now you’re telling me I’m somehow destined to be here right now, with you…"

  "We all have a destiny of one kind or another," Adrina said. "I suggest you just go with it. I also suggest that you let go of my arm."

  "That’s all you’re going to say?" I said as I released my grip on her and she began to walk away. "If you know something that could be helpful…"

  She spun around quickly in the doorway and snatched the stake from my hand, holding it in front of my face. "This is what’s going to be helpful, when you plunge it into Darrick’s black heart." She stared at me a moment longer, her face making it plain that she wasn’t going to divulge whatever else she knew about my so-called destiny, and then she walked outside.

  Sighing, I knelt down and put the stake in the sheath still strapped to my leg. Then I walked outside to find Adrina standing by the trunk of the Jag. Even from the front steps, I could hear noises coming from inside the trunk. Breathing noises mostly. "Is someone in there?"

  Adrina gave me a look before she popped the trunk to reveal a barely conscious man inside. As I got closer, I could see the man looked homeless, sporting a long, straggly beard and dressed in filthy looking clothes. He also stank of alcohol. "Food," she said.

  Slightly uncomfortable, I shook my head, but also licked my lips involuntarily. "I thought vampires were only supposed to use manufactured blood these days?"

  "We are, but I wasn’t about to take the chance of someone recognizing me when I went to get it. Not that it matters now anyway."

  "Who is he?" I asked, a slightly dumb question, but I felt I had to ask.

  Adrina shook her head at me. "Does it matter? It’s just some homeless bum I picked up off the street in Belfast."

  "Does he have a name?"

  "You’re getting ridiculous now," she said as she hauled the homeless man out of the trunk like he was nothing more than a side of beef. For a vampire that supposedly still had a conscience, she didn’t seem too affected by what she was doing.

  "Excuse me if I’m a little uncomfortable with killing someone just so I can drink their blood."

  "Don’t pretend you don’t want it."

  "The thirst in me wants it."

  "Same thing." She began to drag the homeless man across the gravel and into the house, eliciting slight moans from the man as she dragged him up the steps before finally dumping him in the center of the entrance hall like freshly caught prey. Which I suppose he was really; no different than a weak, injured gazelle targeted by a lion on an African plane. It said much about my transformed psychology that I was even thinking in such terms. "You need to feed to get strong for the coming fight. Believe me, you’ll need all the strength you can get. Have you ever killed a vamp?"

  "Once," I said. "With a Druidic Dagger."

  "The lower vamps shouldn’t be too much trouble, but Darrick will have a few of his higher vampire Lieutenants with him. They can be hard to handle. You’ll need to use your magic against them."

  "My vampire magic, you mean? My own magic doesn’t seem as potent as it once was."

  "Of course not," she said, crouching next to the homeless man on the floor, who now had his eyes open and was staring at Adrina as if he thought he had just landed in Heaven and she was an angel. "Vampire magic is different. I’ll give you a crash course, after we feed."

  As I watched, the homeless man raised his head slightly and put a filthy hand on Adrina’s arm as he stared up into her face. "Am I dreaming this?" he asked her, sounding like his brain was addled from too much alcohol and by whatever Adrina had done to him when she took him off the street.

  "No," Adrina said almost soothingly. "But you soon will be. Forever."

  She then bared her fangs and struck at the man’s neck like a cobra, causing him to arch his back slightly before seeming to fall into a state of oblivion with his eyes still open. I could hear the sucking sounds Adrina made as she gulped down the man’s blood. My mouth started to salivate in response as I anticipated drinking from the man myself. I even began to wonder if his blood would taste like alcohol, perversely hoping that it would, just to see what it felt like. Can vampires even get drunk? I didn’t know.

  When Adrina raised her head again, her lips were covered in blood, and she used her long tongue to lick it off as she looked at me with slightly wild eyes. "Your turn."

  "Should I leave him alive?" I asked as I approached the man, who appeared dead already.

  "You’ll need every drop he has. Drain him dry."

  Any moral quandary I had soon vanished as I stared at the blood running from the two holes in the man’s neck. All I could think about now was getting me some.

  So I did, clamping my mouth around the man’s neck, sinking my fangs into the holes Adrina had already made, even tasting the saliva that she left behind. As I sucked the blood into my system, I fell into a semi-trance while I fed like a leech, my belly growing fatter with every pint I consumed. Eventually, the flow of blood began to stop as I had literally drained the man dry. A loud gasp left my mouth as I detached myself from the corpse. Already, I could feel a huge surge of power running through me, as if a switch had been turned on somewhere inside. When I finally stood up, I wasn’t surprised to find that I now had a raging hard-on.

  Adrina stared at me a second before glancing down at the bulge in my trousers. "A side effect of feeding," she said with something of a smile on her face. "If circumstances weren’t so pressing, I might’ve put your virility to good use."


  My heart raced at the thought. "Who says we don’t have time?"

  "That’s just the blood talking."

  Adrina then surprised me by punching me in the chest with a fist surrounded by a reddish magical energy. The blow took me clean off my feet and I landed hard somewhere near the wall. As much as the punch hurt, though, my body seemed capable of taking it, and I quickly got back to my feet. "What was that?" I asked her.

  "Your first lesson in vampire magic," she said.

  I shook my head. "I fail to see the lesson here."

  She came forward, the red magic still sparking around her fist. "The lesson is that you should always be ready for it."

  Without warning, she came at me again, but this time I managed to dodge her blow. "Like that?"

  Adrina turned quickly to face me, her eyes now glowing red and intensely focused. A split second later, I almost screamed as a hugely painful pressure erupted inside my skull, which felt like a bomb had just gone off in it. Clamping my hands to my head, I fell to my knees. "Stop…it…please…"

  When she did, I gasped and shook my head as if to clear it. "Goddamn, that fucking hurt."

  "It was supposed to."

  "And let me guess, I should’ve been ready for it."

  "Yes. Rest assured Darrick and his Lieutenants will use such attacking magic."

  "Can I defend against it?"

  "Yes, if you’re quick enough."

  "How?"

  "That depends. Energy attacks can be blocked with a shield." She proceeded to conjure her energy, instantly forming a red shield around her left forearm. "I’m sure you’ve used a magical shield before."

  I nodded as I proceeded to create my own shield with my vampire magic. "What about mental attacks like the one you just did on me?"

  "Those are battles of wills," she said. "You have to try and force the attacking energy back."

  "So what if the other person is stronger?"

  "Then you’re screwed."

  I shook my head. "Super. So my head might explode then, Scanners style?"

  "Scanners?"

  "It’s a movie about people who can make people’s heads explode by thought alone."

  "I see. Sounds great."

  "It is. You don’t watch movies?"

  "Sometimes. I prefer to read."

  "Of course you do, you’re a Druid. Still, tell me you’ve at least seen Scarface."

  She shook her head. "Sorry."

  "Seriously? Al Pacino? Say hello to my little friend?"

  She seemed more confused than ever. "Never seen it."

  "Okay, if we get out this situation alive, I’m treating you to a movie night. Clearly you need educating."

  She smiled and laughed slightly as she stared at me. "I might actually take you up on that."

  "Awesome," I said. "We can eat popcorn and drink too much soda…or blood in your case, since hopefully I won’t be a vampire anymore by then."

  Adrina nodded, seeming somewhat disappointed by the fact that I would be fang-free if I managed to kill Darrick, and for the first time since I met her, I realized she was lonely. Desperately so. "Are you sure you want to be human again? I could turn you if you do kill Darrick."

  I gave her a tight smile as I shook my head. "I’m sure you can, but I don’t need to be a vampire for us to be friends, Adrina."

  "So we’re friends now, are we?"

  "Yeah, I guess we are, providing you don’t keep me in the dark for much longer."

  "I’m not doing it out of spite, you know."

  I nodded. "I know."

  "Everything in its own time, as they say."

  I looked out the window, slightly dismayed to see that the daylight had almost been swallowed by the encroaching darkness. "I guess we should get ready. It’s almost dark."

  Adrina disappeared into one of the rooms down the hallway, emerging a few moments later with a long sword in her hand, which she looked comfortable carrying. As she approached me, she swung the sword around a little with one hand as if testing its weight.

  "You think you’ll need that?" I asked her.

  "If there’s one thing experience has taught me, it’s that you can never have too many weapons."

  I thought about the stake strapped to my leg, and how small it seemed in comparison to Adrina’s sword. I wished now that I had brought my own recently acquired sword from back home.

  "Are you afraid?" she asked me as she went and sat on the bottom stair, the sword resting across her lap.

  "I’m trying not to think about it," I said as I went about dragging the body of the homeless man into one of the reception rooms and closing the door on it. IT was enough that I had fed off the man, I didn’t need to have his desiccated body in sight as well.

  Once that was done, I sat on the stairs next to Adrina, and like some sort of guard dog, I started watching the front door as I waited on the visitors to arrive.

  Chapter 17

  Adrina and I sat at the bottom of the staircase in tense silence for what seemed like a long time, both of us having our awareness turned up to the max. It was now pitch dark outside and there was still no sign of Darrick.

  "Maybe he had a change of heart," I said sarcastically.

  "Darrick’s heart doesn’t change for anything."

  I smiled, about to say something else when Adrina raised a hand to silence me.

  "What is it?" I whispered, nervousness causing my stomach to churn as I began to listen intently. After a moment, I heard what sounded like something climbing up the outside of the house and then onto the roof.

  "They’re here," Adrina said, getting to her feet as she listened closely to the scurrying noises on the roof.

  As I looked up toward the huge skylight, I was just in time to see a shadowy form scurry across the thick glass. Swallowing hard, I went to stand next to Adrina, the Van Helsing stake now gripped tightly in my right hand. Above us, there was more scurrying sounds on the roof as it seemed like more vamps made their way up there. "They couldn’t just come through the bloody front door," I said in a near whisper.

  "They’re trying to scare us." Despite what she said, Adrina didn’t seem scared at all. Certainly, she was much more relaxed than me. Clearly this wasn’t the first time a pack of vamps had come to try and kill her.

  "They’re doing a good job."

  "Stay calm, and remember that you are destined for this."

  I shook my head as if she was talking nonsense. "Yeah, you might think that, but since nobody will tell me anything, I—"

  The sound of breaking glass cut me off, and I looked up just in time to see a dark figure come crashing through the skylight, followed by another and then another. Adrina and I moved back at the same time to avoid the falling glass and the three vamps that landed on the floor in front of us, two males and one female, all with their eyes blazing red and their fangs bared, looking for all the world like three wild animals who had just come in from the woods outside in search of food. All three were dressed in dark clothes that looked like they had seen better days.

  "Nice entrance," Adrina sneered. "For all the good it will do you."

  The male vamp hissed loudly and leaped into the air toward her, but before the vamp got even halfway near her, Adrina rushed forward in a blur of motion with her sword, and the vamp landed on the floor in two pieces, its innards spilling over the marble tiles before the whole lot turned to ash and the vamp was nothing but dust. The other two vamps seemed shocked for a second, but they weren’t put off from their attack. One of them jumped onto the banister of the staircase and used it as a launch pad to direct itself at Adrina, who caught the creature in mid-air with one hand before slamming it down to the floor and stabbing it through the chest with her sword.

  By this time, the remaining vamp had put all of its focus on me, perhaps sensing that I was an easier target than Adrina. As it ran and then leaped at me, I tried to stab it with my stake, but the vamp seemed to twist and turn itself in mid-air as it avoided my counter-attack, raking its claws acro
ss my face as it sped by like a bullet.

  "Bastard!" I hissed, less out of pain and more out of frustration that my counter-attack had missed. As the vamp landed behind me, I spun around and decided to try a different tact, thrusting my hand out to focus my magic and directing it at the vamp before it could attack again. As I was going mostly by instinct, I wasn’t too sure what effect the magic would have on the vamp until it grabbed its own head and screamed, a scream which was soon cut off when the vamps head exploded like a melon that had been shot with an exploding bullet. "Holy shit…"

  I didn’t have long to marvel at the strength and effectiveness of my vampire magic, however, for mere seconds later, there was the sound of glass breaking again, this time from both sides of the entrance hall as more vamps jumped through the windows. At the same time, the front door was knocked off its hinges as yet more vamps streamed in like rats.

  It wasn’t long before we were completely surrounded, the vamps wasting no time in attacking us. Before I could even get a handle on what was happening, I found myself getting attacked by three vamps at once, one of which clung to my back and started biting at my neck, the other two taking turns to rake their claws across my body. Soon, I was forced down to a crouching position by the weight of the vamp clinging to my back, while the vamp in front tried to dig its claws into my chest, perhaps intending to rip my heart out. The third vamp had its claws buried into my side as if it wanted to pull out my intestines. There was no room to swing the stake that I still clutched in my hand, so out of sheer desperation I tapped my magic again, having no idea what I was doing, hoping instinct alone would take over to direct the magic how I needed it. And indeed, this is what happened. With a shout of effort, I managed to release a blast of magical energy that exploded out of me like a bomb blast, sending the three vamps flying back several feet away from me, slamming the against the walls and nearby furniture.

  When I stood up, I couldn’t help feeling invincible as a kind of rage took over me and a red mist colored my vision. Then, as I held the stake, something expected happened—it began to extend on both sides by several feet, until I was left holding essentially a double-ended spear. I didn’t have time to work out why the stake had suddenly transformed itself, and neither did I care. The only thing I cared about was using the now extended weapon to kill every vamp in the vicinity, of which there were now many. Behind me, I could hear Adrina grunting as she continued to dispatch vamp after vamp, killing them like vermin.