Magaestra: Loyalties: An urban fantasy series

by Katherine Kim

  A shout from a guard who finally noticed them sliding in past several large tents, and the pair of vampires who had been heading toward the hound’s pen broke into a run. The hounds were snarling and agitated, clustered around the gate and eager to be let loose to tear into whoever they were set against.

  Ori and his team of sentries angled to cut the vampires off. They would deal with the damned beasts later, but hopefully it would be after the defeat of the Goldfangs.

  Aldric and Faith led five sentries toward the second building. Thus far they had met little resistance, most of the fighting still happening on the north side of the camp. The alarm had been raised, but Marc’s teams were doing a fine job of keeping the Goldfangs busy, and Ori's team had successfully stopped the release of the blighthounds.

  They swept through two small groups of shifters and subdued them easily enough. Aldric didn’t enjoy the deaths that today would inevitably bring, but many of Molin’s wolves were too far down the path of blind obedience to their greedy alpha that death was the only thing that would stop them.

  Many others, however, he was glad to see. Several of the wolf shifters that they encountered reminded him of Matthias: cowed and resigned to a poor life of abuse and degradation. Those ones would be offered a chance to surrender, to be restrained and escorted back to the group led by Detective Lincoln who would detain and question them before Marc, Aldric, and the rest of the leadership figured out what to do with them.

  The Frostwalkers were already better off for having several Goldfang defectors already swearing allegiance to Marc as their chief, to their very clear relief to be out of Molin’s reach.

  They reached the second building, which was about the size of a small single-story house, and were confronted by a surprisingly modern door with an electronic lock. Considering the run-down state of the building itself, the door seemed the most secure thing in the whole structure. Crumbling brick facade over the cheaply built government building surrounded the smooth steel door.

  “Go through the door or the wall?” Faith asked, eyeing the odd juxtaposition.

  “The door. We don’t know what’s in there and there may be something leaning against the wall on the other side.”

  She grimaced briefly, then stood nodded. “Well, how’re we getting in then?”

  Aldric grinned, showing his fangs. “Like this.”

  He flexed his claws once, then drove them into the keypad. A shower of sparks and a high beeping whine died as he pulled the whole lock mechanism off the door, trailing wires and bleeding computer chips.

  There was a whirring, like a motor trying to start and failing to really engage, then a click, then another whir that died a slow, whining death, and the door popped open a crack.

  “Well. That is certainly one way to open a door,” Faith said. “Also, you just punched through a metal door. Remind me not to piss you off!”

  Aldric grinned wider. In truth, he had punched through the thin seam where the lock was attached to the door, but he supposed it was close enough.

  They pulled the door open and stepped inside, taking a moment to look around. The inside was musty from years of standing empty, but all along the back there were crates and boxes that very clearly held weapons of several kinds.

  Aldric popped the lid off one of the crates and growled at the guns inside.

  “Okay, let’s get these out. Carefully!” He added as the sentries all grabbed boxes and started back to where they had left the vehicles. Detective Lincoln could babysit this stuff as well. It took them all three trips to secure all of it. Guns and explosives, just as predicted. There was even one crate that held what he guessed were rocket launchers, though he had no particular knowledge of the things.

  “Is that all of it?” Faith asked. “It sounds like Marc and the others might be wrapping up.”

  The sounds of battle that had been background noise for their task was indeed fading.

  “We are. You three take the last of these crates and we will do one last sweep of the building to make certain we did not miss anything, then we will follow.” He nodded at the sentries that were left, who grinned and followed instructions.

  Faith looked at Aldric and grimaced. “Do you think Kenya got to the prisoner okay? Do you think it was Crissy?”

  Faith’s voice wavered. She had argued briefly to be included on the team that went for the prisoner, but Aldric had pointed out that if it was, indeed, her sister being held, then it was very likely they would expect Faith to try to rescue her and be prepared to capture another mage. It had not taken a great deal of arguing after that, though she did not like that she agreed.

  “I believe that Kenya’s team was on their way out, yes. As to whether it was your sister, I do not know.” Aldric turned to reach for her when a noise from outside had him turning to glance back the way they came. He saw nothing in the faint light of the door, but his gut told him that someone was there.

  “I know we came here instead of going for the prisoner so I wouldn’t do anything stupid. I know that. I still wish we had done this the other way, I need to know.” Faith kicked at some debris on the floor in her frustration and immediately hissed in surprise. “There’s a trap door here. Did Leo mention anything about these buildings having basements?”

  “No,” Aldric said. He took a step toward her when another screech from the doorway snapped his attention back up, spinning to put himself between the newcomer and Faith.

  “They got the weapons!” The figure in the door screeched in rage.

  Someone behind him shouted, “Well, hit the damn button and let’s go! Those fucking Frostwalkers can see how they like that. They’re coming!”

  Another furious shriek and the vampire in the door spun and dashed out again, slamming his hand on an electrical panel on his way out. A beep, a hiss, and a rumble were all the warning they had before the building became a wall of light and noise and everything went dark.

  17

  “Faith.”

  A voice floated through her awareness. It was familiar and comforting but sounded rough and raspy. The ringing in her ears and the throbbing in her head made her want to shy away from it despite the warmth it offered. Everything hurt for some reason, and she wanted to go back to the numb darkness, but the voice calling her was pulling her back into the vague, grey awareness of the pain.

  “Faith, you need to open your eyes. Please.” The voice cracked in the last word, and whoever spoke coughed wetly.

  “Go away. Hurts,” she mumbled. Whether she actually said it out loud or not, she wasn’t sure and didn’t much care. Whatever she was lying on was hard and sharp with a cold that seemed to penetrate to her bones. Everything, she concluded, was genuinely awful.

  “I know, but you need to wake up. You need to get out of here to safety.”

  Safety? Safety from what, other than the pounding headache? Faith took a breath in to try to tell the voice to shut up again, but dust filled her lungs and the coughing fit that resulted brought her to full wakefulness and almost shattered her skull from the inside. She pushed herself up on her hands and knees, trying to find some clear space for her body to expel the foul air into.

  “Oh my god,” she gasped at last, once the coughing had run its course. “Oh god, everything hurts.”

  Memory rushed back. The man in the doorway slamming his hand onto the hidden switch and blowing the small warehouse to smithereens.

  “Aldric!” She sat up too fast and her head swam, threatening to send her back to unconsciousness, but she pressed her head with both hands and waited for the dizziness to pass.

  “I’m here,” Aldric said. His voice sounded wrong. Raspy and hoarse. Even when he was tired or healing from his injuries these past couple of weeks, he sounded powerful somehow. Now his voice was… thin. It scared her more than the total darkness that surrounded them.

  “Where? Are you okay?” Faith sat back on her feet, kneeling on the cold, uneven floor and patting herself. She winced when she touched her side and probe
d it gently. Pain flared and she decided not to do that again.

  “I’m…here. Wherever here is. And no, I’m not in the best of conditions. Are you injured? I can hear your breathing and I smell blood,” Aldric answered.

  “Nope. I'm not great either. I’ve got at least something wrong with my ribs. I don’t think they’re broken, but…” She reached up and ran her hands over her head. A huge lump on the right side explained the headache, and her fingers came away sticky. “And I have a nasty goose egg on my head which explains the blood. I’ve got some other bangs and scrapes, too, I bet.”

  Faith didn’t want to think about how badly she was actually injured. They had bigger things to worry about right now. Like what the hell just happened? Damn it was dark here, wherever they ended up.

  “Hang on a second.” Faith frowned and held her hand up in front of her face and concentrated. Her head throbbed, but she felt her magic flowing easily enough and a second later there was a small flame flickering in her palm, just as Ken had showed her.

  The space that she and Aldric were in seemed to be at least part cave. Her gaze followed the rock walls up to the ceiling which was good twenty feet above them. There was a hole full of debris with what looked like part of the trap door hanging from one ragged edge. She glanced down and sure enough there was the twisted remains of a ladder on the ground.

  Near the ladder was a large rock— probably big enough to be called a boulder, her brain helpfully added— and a slide of smaller rocks and debris. And under all that was Aldric, squinting back at her.

  “Oh shit!” She hurried over to where his torso stuck out from the rubble and without thinking reached up and set the flame down on the boulder so she could use both hands to run over as much of Aldric as she could reach.

  “You are bleeding. Your head and your arm. You should try to bandage yourself. There should be a small first aid kit in one of your pockets, we always carry them.” Aldric reached his one free arm out to tap a pocket on her cargo pants.

  Faith blinked at him. “Are you… no. Whatever else you are, okay is not one of them.” She started trying to dig him out, tossing small rocks and gravel behind herself as more slid down to replace what she moved.

  “Faith.” Aldric reached his hand out and took her wrist to stop her frantic movements. When she looked up at him, he just shook his head.

  “Even if you cleared the rest of this, you can’t move that.” He nodded at the boulder that her magic-fueled fire now rested on. “That thing is pinning my leg, and I can feel the blood oozing too fast to be reassuring. I am not going anywhere.”

  “Well, I’m sure as hell not just going to sit here and watch you die, Aldric. Don’t even try suggesting it.” Faith glared at him. She bit the inside of her cheek till she got the urge to cry back under control. “Oh! Maybe…”

  She sat back and took a deep breath, pulling strength from the earth they were surrounded by, again like she had discussed with Ken. Magic welled up in her and she pushed it out at the boulder. Carefully, since she didn’t want to hurt Aldric any more than he already was, she built a shield between Aldric's body and the rock and pushed, trying to move it.

  She almost cheered when it started to lift, just a fraction of an inch, but it was something. She pushed a little harder, and the whole thing fell apart, her magic losing its grip on the stone and the boulder settled back down on top of Aldric, who grunted softly.

  She wasn’t ashamed of the tears that welled up in her eyes this time.

  “It’s okay, Faith.” Aldric reached out to take her hand this time, his thumb stroking over her wrist. “It actually doesn’t hurt too much if you don’t move it.” He coughed again and the sound was terrifying.

  “I’m not giving up,” she sniffled.

  He smiled and didn’t respond. Instead he looked around, scanning as much of the cave as he could see.

  “At least now we know what that trap door was for, and it is certainly not a basement. Is there a way out?”

  Faith stood and peered at around the cave herself. It wasn’t a huge space, maybe just a bit smaller than the building above, but one side had what looked like a heavy steel door mostly hidden behind another slide of rubble. Above her, the hole where the trap door had once been remained tantalizingly out of reach.

  “Nothing easy or good, no. I hope that the guys are trying to dig through whatever is left of that storage building. If they do, they’ll find that hole for certain. It's much bigger now than it was with the hatch in it.”

  Aldric sighed. They sat in silence for a while, listening for sounds of people working to dig through the rubble above them. The echoing silence of the dim cave was the only noise besides their own breathing. Soon, the chill of the earth started to seep into Faith’s skin and she shivered.

  “You should get up and move around some,” Aldric said. His voice was quiet and a little forced.

  She looked down at him and noticed that his eyes were half-closed and his skin was pale— paler than usual even— and he seemed to be greying. The skin under her fingers felt softer and thinner than it had even ten minutes ago.

  “Aldric!” She gasped. With a flick of her hand she slid her magical fire down and fed it more magic, making it bigger and warmer.

  He just flicked a sad smile at her and closed his eyes.

  “I’m not letting you die like this!” She growled. Glaring at the boulder she contemplated trying again, but the exhaustion she had felt after the first try was still weighing her down and her injuries throbbed. She could move bigger things with her magic than she could with her arms, but this rock was too much. Maybe, if she was completely rested and uninjured she could have rolled it, but as things were now? Not a chance.

  “I am trying to make peace with this, Faith,” Aldric said. She could see the resignation on his face when he opened his eyes again and looked at her. He shook his head. “I confess that I am not ready to die yet. I had hoped..." Aldric swallowed and his breath rattled. "But I am glad at least that I am not alone at my end. And I know that you will be rescued and safe with our friends. Marc will protect you.”

  Faith growled again, feeling helpless, watching her vampire die before her eyes as his body started showing signs of its true age. Because that's what he was. She had only known him for days-- not even two full weeks-- but Aldric was her vampire, dammit.

  Wait…

  “That's it! Drink.” Faith shoved her dust and blood covered arm at his face.

  “What” Aldric blinked up at her, confused, and pushed her arm away.

  “I’m already bleeding all over the damn place. You need to keep your strength up. It will help. Drink.” She shoved her arm at him again.

  Aldric grimaced and turned his head. “Faith. You know full well that I do not drink from people. I swore an oath to Marc's father when he was chief, and I will not die with my last act being breaking that promise.”

  “Aldric,” Faith snarled back at him. She felt her voice rising with each word but couldn’t stop it. “You know damned good and well that promise was made to make sure you wouldn't harm anyone. Every one of the Frostwalkers knows that you would never, ever hurt someone who wasn't threatening those under your care. You refuse to hunt or hurt people, that’s the spirit of your oath, and you won’t be breaking it. For one thing, I’m already bleeding. For another thing I am demanding that you feed from me so you don’t die, goddamnit!”

  She shrieked the last word. Hysteria wasn't pretty, but son of a bitch she was so far past caring about civilized behavior that she barely remembered what it felt like.

  “Faith…”

  “Aldric.” She narrowed her eyes and glared at his rapidly greying skin. “We don’t have time for this fight. I can’t sit here, alone in the cold, with your dead body, Aldric. I can’t do it. Please don’t make me.”

  Aldric frowned and sighed, but he turned his head back to her.

  “Faith. I…” he swallowed, and she could see how difficult it was for him.

  “Please
.” She pressed her filthy, blood covered arm to his lips and almost cried when she felt his tongue brush softly across her skin. She reached down to where the gash was still seeping and scratched her nails across it to start it bleeding faster again.

  Aldric gently cupped his fingers over her arm to hold it still as he lapped at the wound. Goosebumps raced over her skin and her hair stood on end, making the lump on her head ache.

  The grey pallor slowly faded, and his skin took on a still-pale but healthier tone. His eyes grew a bit brighter and his raspy breathing smoothed out slightly. His face took on the vampiric features she had become actually fond of, and seeing his dark, predator’s eyes looking back at her made a sense of relief flood through her system so profound that she thought he might even be able to taste it in her blood.

  “You can bite if you need to. I trust you,” she said. Her voice was almost a whisper but in the silence of the cave it sounded like a shout to her ears.

  Aldric met her eyes, his own glinting in the flickering firelight, and she realized that what she had thought of as black this whole time, his vampire’s eyes were actually red. A red so dark it was nearly black, but in this light, it was obvious to her. She could see how they would be terrifying— a demon’s cold, void-like eyes— but to her they were warm and comforting.

  Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she was overstressed because of the situation.

  Maybe it was simply because it was Aldric.

  He kissed her arm where he had been lapping at her wound. “Are you certain? Truly sure?”

  “I might actually get angry with you if you don’t,” she answered.

  Aldric simply nodded and bit down, accepting her gift.

  18

  Hot blood flowed over Aldric’s tongue and down his throat and it seemed to sizzle as it went. It was a lover's smile and a perfect patch of sunshine in the spring and a child’s laughter. Faith’s blood was a revelation.