“Don’t be stupid,” the bodyguard spat even as his eyes softened at the sight of his ward’s pained expression.
“Too late to turn back now.” Milo laughed and held onto the arms of his chair in a knuckle-popping grip. “Now, if you w-will excuse me, I need…oh, God…to manage a complex alchemical reaction while not dying.”
8
The Wound
Milo awoke with a start on his bed, clawing at his arm frantically. He stopped when he realized the vampiric eel, a resurrected casualty from a bygone alchemical project, was not in fact affixed to his arm as he’d just been dreaming.
“You’ll make a mess of your bandage,” Ambrose growled around the pipe between his teeth from the spot near the balcony where he slouched.
Milo had indeed made a mess of the bandages around his arm, so much so that he found his fingers entangled in the wrappings he’d wrenched free. As he tugged his fingers loose from the snaring fabric, he saw the puckered mouth of the puncture marking where the transfusion needle had been sunk into his arm.
“How long was I out?” he asked in a numb mutter as he decided to unravel the linen on his arm. The wound seemed sound and unlikely to reopen.
“For the past twelve hours.” The big man puffed with a gust of pipe smoke. “Brodden demanded you stop after giving what he guessed was three pints, and forcibly cut you off after nearly four. I gave you a double dose of the restorative and brought you here. They’ve moved her to a separate room that’s become a makeshift infirmary.”
Milo stared at the scabbed-over red wound as he recollected the events of the night and early morning at Ambrose’s prompting. It had been like holding onto a cliff’s edge by his fingernails the whole time, but as the blood flowed from his veins into Rihyani, he’d drawn strength from knowing that he was doing everything in his power to save her. When the needle had come out and he’d released the energies of the spell into the ether, it was an almost pleasurable feeling, followed by utter exhaustion.
Milo’s stomach rumbled grumpily at the debt he’d run up with all his heroics.
“Is she showing signs of recovery?” Milo asked, unwilling to hope that she was on the mend.
Ambrose frowned and then reached over the balcony to tap out his pipe. The stretching silence made Milo shudder, and he reflexively pulled the covers up, performing the necessary mental gymnastics to convince himself it was the blood loss that was making him act this way.
“She’s not dying.” Ambrose sighed as he pocketed his pipe. “But all the same, her wounds aren’t healing.”
“What does that mean?” Milo asked, willing his teeth not to chatter as he shivered.
Ambrose rose to his feet and shrugged.
“Exactly what I said; her wounds aren’t healing,” he said, not sounding angry so much as frustrated. “We’ve got the bleeding down to barely a trickle, through pressure and some clever needlework by Brodden. After twelve hours, her body should be showing some signs of clotting, but as far as we can tell, it isn’t.”
Milo started, trying not to let an overarching wave of despair spread over him.
“The truth is that she shouldn’t have lost as much blood as she did from those wounds.” Ambrose’s gaze slid to the floor, and he brushed the fingers of one hand over the knuckles of the other hand. “The cuts were thin and pretty shallow, and they don’t seem to have hit any major arteries. It doesn’t make sense.”
At those words, Milo felt a prickling along the skin of his arms and the back of his neck.
“Magic,” he breathed. “The Americans—that maniac Ezekiel. He must have had something or known some way.”
Ambrose froze, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Milo.
“You mean, you aren’t the only wizard?”
The question struck Milo harder and deeper than he would have imagined.
He knew that it was entirely possible, even probable that there would be others, but recognizing that he might have met another human who could perform magic shook him all the same. His unique and even privileged, though weighty, position suddenly felt precarious in a way he wasn’t prepared for. Milo had only been a wizard, the world’s first, for a short time, but it seemed that his short furlough had indelibly marked him to assume, at least subconsciously, that it would always be so.
What had Ezekiel Boucher learned that Milo hadn’t? What creature had shared its dark arts with the despicable man so that he could inflict wounds that denied healing both magical and mundane?
He can’t tell you, now can he? Milo thought, welcoming the memory of the madman’s final moments. Milo told himself it was his well-honed survival instincts that could gauge the utter depravity of a man like Ezekiel. However, he imagined even a half-witted rube could have spent one minute with the American and understood him to be reprobate of the lowest order.
“Maybe I wasn’t the only one,” Milo said with a meaningful glance at Ambrose’s boots. “Before he met you, that is.”
Ambrose looked down, and a sudden grim smile spread across his face.
“I don’t often take pleasure in killing a man,” Ambrose said, his voice lower and thicker, “but I’m not going to pretend that ending that monster wasn’t satisfying.”
Milo nodded, agreeing that if anyone had deserved such an end, it was the scalp-hunting American. The sight of him gleefully hoisting the trophy carved from the fallen Beli was something that would not leave the dark and bitter corners of his mind any time soon. The way the wounds had seemed fouled and corroded on the dead titan had seemed like a greater insult than the injuries.
Milo straightened, his mind struggling to accelerate despite his hunger and fatigue.
“Where are Beli's and Meinir’s bodies?” he asked, throwing off the covers and climbing hastily if unsteadily to his feet. “If I can examine their wounds, maybe take samples, I might be able to figure out what is wrong with Rihyani.”
Reverse-engineering magic, especially magic he was unfamiliar with, was doubtful, but not impossible. He wasn’t sure about the burial customs of fey, but he was sure that both of the contessa’s companions would have been glad to not have their deaths be in vain.
Ambrose blinked at Milo as the magus retrieved his coat from the foot of the bed, straightening as he slid it on.
“Where are the bodies?” Milo asked again, testing his repaired leg, thankful for only a hint of stiffness.
“They weren’t there when Lokkemand and crew got there.” Ambrose sighed. “The fey bodies and the Americans. Seems like the Georgians scooped up everything before getting out of there. Lokkemand said they didn’t make contact with the enemy after two wide sweeps of the area.”
Milo ground his teeth in frustration. Nothing could be easy, could it?
“Damn! Where is Lokkemand?”
“In his office,” Ambrose answered, his frown deepening. “Wait, why couldn’t you take samples from Rihyani?”
“I could,” Milo acknowledged, moving toward the door. “But since we think it is actively malignant magic, it could react badly to my magic.”
“Your blood-changing bit didn’t seem to bother it,” the big man pointed out as he followed Milo into the corridor. The fortress at Shatili was a venerable military structure, designed so that even when enemies breached the exterior walls, defenders could mount a strong opposition. The hallways were tight passages where only one man could pass easily, so Ambrose was forced to follow as the magus stalked toward Lokkemand’s office at the center of the complex.
“The magic had already happened by the time the blood reached her,” Milo explained. “Whatever is doing this to her wouldn’t have sensed the magic I was using because it was done, inert, finished.”
Ambrose’s brows knit as they hustled into the heart of the complex.
“When will she need more blood?” Milo asked.
“Not sure. Maybe a day or two,” Ambrose confessed as they rounded a corner and came within sight of the small antechamber that led to the captain’s room. A soldier stood gua
rd in the room, which was furnished with a small rug and a wooden chair, as though Lokkemand expected that his appointments might need a place to sit while they waited for him.
“I should be able to give again,” Milo muttered mostly to himself.
“Not sure that’s how it—” Ambrose began as they moved into the antechamber before Milo cut him off.
“Magic,” Milo interjected before turning to the straightening soldier in front of the door. “I need to see Captain Lokkemand. Is he in?”
The soldier, who would have been classically handsome with his strong chin and dark, lively eyes if not for a crooked nose and a goat-toothed mouth, eyed Milo. What was possibly habitual defiance seemed ready to creep into his stance until he met Milo’s pale eyes. Whatever he saw gave him pause.
“Yes,” he replied with the slightest nod.
“Yes, sir,” Milo snapped. He still wasn’t sure of his position, but he’d been given the black coat of an officer, so not acting like he was an officer confused the men.
“Yes, sir,” the guard replied with only a little sullenness in his voice. “But he said he was drafting a report or something. He instructed me to not let him be interrupted, sir.”
“I’m afraid this can’t wait for paperwork,” Milo said, straightening a little to leverage his greater height. “Open the door, or get out of my way so I can.”
The soldier stared at Milo for a second, his eyes searching the wizard’s, then, uncomfortable with what he saw, they dropped to Milo’s shoulders and the black coat covering them. That seemed to seal the deal, and with a muttered apology, he opened the door, stepping aside to let Milo pass as he began his speaking.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Cap—”
“But certain things can’t wait,” Milo interrupted, sweeping past the soldier. Ambrose ambled after in his wake.
Lokkemand sat at the far end of what might have been the castellan’s war room, a square apartment where rustic tables were pushed together in a large rectangle. Lokkemand’s files, maps, and various other forms of paperwork were spread across the tables, obviously possessing some order that was unclear to anyone except the captain. Lokkemand was standing over the maps, arms crossed with his chin in one hand. He did not appear surprised or put out by Milo’s sudden arrival.
“Thank you, Dieter,” he said with a nod. ‘You can go.”
With a relieved sigh, Dieter retreated, closing the door behind him.
“Magus,” Lokkemand said, turning his gaze back to his maps. “What can I do for you?”
“Captain, Ambrose told me you didn’t recover any of the bodies from the battle site,” Milo began. “Did you find anything else there? Anything in the copse of trees or around there?”
Lokkemand bobbed his head and without a word, he walked over to his desk at the head of the assembled tables.
“We found these,” he said as he drew out a thick envelope and shook out its contents. “When the men found them, I wasn’t sure if they had anything to do with those who attacked the contessa, but it seemed remiss not to bring them in.”
The captain flipped open the unsealed top of the envelope and dumped its contents onto the desk. The first thing to emerge was a twist of hair attached to some shriveled leather that fluttered feather-like down onto the desk. Milo’s mind flashed back to Ezekiel holding up the sawn-off section of Beli’s scalp and Ambrose’s boot descending on that grinning face.
Almost as though to make the point, the second item fell out, thunking point-first into Lokkemand’s desk. Its pitted surface still crusted with blood and flecks of hair, Ezekiel’s knife stood defiantly upright before them.
“Didn’t feel the need to mention that?” Ambrose asked tartly.
“You asked about bodies,” Lokkemand replied coolly. “And the second you heard there were none, you were off. I wasn’t going to chase you down. I figured once your ward was up and about, someone would come looking.”
The two men exchanged glares before Lokkemand, as was almost customary now, looked away as though suddenly very bored.
“Fair enough,” Ambrose grumbled as he nodded, turning to Milo. “That might do the trick, eh?”
“Yeah.” Milo swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “That might work.”
He was having a hard time not staring at the weapon, something inside him twisting at the thought of touching the horn handle. Milo tried to tell himself he was being foolish, that it was a simple piece of metal and bone fastened together, but he remembered Jorge and Imrah’s shade talking about the one who could be using men to do his dirty work. If he was dealing with a Guardian and therefore magic, it was possible the knife was far more dangerous than a simple piece of metal.
Was this his handiwork, the Guardian who’d recruited Imrah? Was Ezekiel Boucher one of those fanatical followers? The man had seemed insane enough for such things.
The more Milo thought about it, the more he was certain that was what they were dealing with.
“I’m judging from your reaction that these are significant,” Lokkemand said with a sweeping gesture toward his desk. “Will they help you identify the ambusher or assist the recovery of the contessa?
“Both,” Milo said, dragging his eyes from the knife to meet the captain’s face. “Thank you, sir.”
Lokkemand’s eyes darted between Milo and the knife before he stooped to sweep the scalp and slide the blade into the envelope.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, holding out the envelope for Milo to take. “We need to resolve this business as soon as possible. Our operation is about to become active, and I need you focused on the task at hand.”
“Our operation, sir?” Milo asked as he stepped forward and took the envelope. He tried to tell himself the uncomfortable and beguiling tingle he felt upon taking it was a function of his fatigue and hunger.
Lokkemand narrowed his eyes at Milo, then looked at Ambrose.
“Did he suffer a blow to the head or something?”
“More tired and hungry than anything else, I expect.” Ambrose grunted noncommittally. “He sorts himself out just fine, though.”
Milo found himself looking between the two men as he stood there gingerly holding the envelope.
“What are you two talking about?”
“The operation, Magus,” Ambrose prompted, which Milo was certain he thought was helpful. “The bit about taking out the bad men heading this way from Russia.”
“Oh, that,” Milo said, almost relieved that he wasn’t the one falling behind. “We’re already there, aren’t we? I mean, a guerrilla force waylays the fey, and we find one of them in possession of magical paraphernalia. Seems pretty clear to me.”
Ambrose opened his mouth and then fell silent, digesting the words, while Lokkemand shook his head and pointed at the maps and reports on the tables.
“I’m almost certain those actors were a third party,” the captain said firmly. “That or perhaps they are operating as a vanguard for a much larger force, which is what you need to be preparing for right now. Didn’t you say they were Americans?”
Milo felt a familiar tension in the back of his mind and across his skin as he responded to Lokkemand, unable to keep the heat from his voice.
“They could have been posing as Americans, or maybe the mind-twisting Guardian picked up a few American operatives.” Milo shrugged as though it was settled so simply. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. I need to figure out how to help Rihyani first, sir.”
Lokkemand bristled a little and gave a fractional snarl of irritation.
“I think you need to spend less time concerned about the fey and more time concerned with the mission Jorge gave you.”
“I’m not a scout or a jaeger, sir,” Milo shot back. “The most dangerous of the two Americans is dead and the other could be also, but either way, they are in retreat. If you are so worried about them, you should start patrolling the countryside to finish off stragglers or find a new target and leave me to look after Rihyani, sir. When you have something re
al for me to worry about, maybe I’ll give it my due attention.”
Ambrose’s hand settled on Milo’s shoulder and he led him toward the door.
“I think the magus needs a little more rest and a lot more food,” the bodyguard stated as Lokkemand bristled.
“Quite,” the captain replied curtly. “See him put in good order and soon because we’ll need him fighting fit when the time comes.”
Milo turned to argue but Ambrose didn’t give him an option, driving him onward like a small boat before a massive wave.
“What’s that, Magus?” the big man called in a booming voice as he raised a free hand to his ear. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of your growling stomach.”
* * *
“Just what the hell was that?” Milo asked, forcing down another mouthful of seasoned lamb before taking an embarrassingly large bite from a slice of black bread.
It wasn’t the fatted calf, but it seemed Ambrose had somehow encouraged the quartermaster to provide a veritable feast for the recovering magus.
Ambrose had quickly ushered Milo down to the mess hall on the ground floor and placed him at the waiting table where a large lump of goat cheese and a whole loaf of black bread sat. After he needlessly instructed Milo to eat, Ambrose had vanished for a moment, before returning with enough lamb to put even the magus’ ravenous appetite to bed.
His hunger roused to an unbearable intensity by the sudden profusion of edibles, he’d stuffed himself for several minutes before he had the presence of mind to remember he was angry at both his bodyguard and the captain.
In fact, the bewildering idea that both seemed dead-set against his sound advice had been so bemusing, he’d needed a few more minutes and several more mouthfuls to compose his thoughts.
“Since when do you take up with Lokkemand?”
Ambrose, standing on the opposite side of the table with a jug of water and a cup he was filling, looked almost offended.
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