by J. C. Diem
It would be easy for our leaders to spy on me. They would just need to order their skeleton work crews to keep track of where I was and what I was doing. My blood ran cold that Lord Kreaton might know that I’d followed Quilla to his house. I was glad the carriages had left before Chesi had flown us up to the balcony. He had no way of knowing we’d overheard the prophecy that had predicted his potential doom.
We took separate carriages and went in different directions. Marigold headed to Pirate Cove to the west so she could join her boyfriend. I was driven towards the Shifter District to the northeast. The area was quiet this time and I didn’t run into anyone who needed my help. It would make my job a lot easier if everyone could send up a red distress signal when they needed assistance, but only the magical folk could pull that off.
The carriage took me to the Fae District next. I listened hard for trouble as we rumbled through the cobbled streets. Fairies dressed in gossamer gowns and colorful tunics either walked, or flew to their destinations. Elves stuck to their woods for the most part, but a few of them were strolling around the streets. Sprites flitted here and there and other winged magical beings darted around as well. I noticed there weren’t many Night Cursed here these days. They’d migrated to the Fairytale Forest and Tournament Town where they were welcomed by their own kind.
Tournament town housed the knights, crusaders, templars, damsels, ladies, Merlins, King Arthurs and his cronies and all manner of other Night Cursed beings. Tournaments were held on a nightly basis in an arena. The few huge werehorses that were strong enough to carry a man or woman wearing a suit of heavy armor were pampered like royalty.
Superheroes and super villains weren’t fae, but they’d formed their own battlegrounds to the northwest of Nox. They spent most of their time fighting each other and rarely visited other Districts. I was glad they were just pale imitations of real heroes and villains. Their power was fairly weak, just like the cursed magic users.
Gladiators and other warriors had their own arena and battled each other nightly. Money wasn’t really necessary in Nox, but gold coins exchanged hands as bets were placed for or against the competitors. I was too busy patrolling the Districts each night to watch the battles, but I’d heard plenty about them from my friends. Lady Marigold and Quilla sometimes ventured to Tournament Town together. They each had their favorite contestants, as did the other gawkers who attended the shows. The only event that held more interest to the population of Nox was when I was sent out to hunt someone down by the Immortal Triumvirate.
Chapter Fourteen
IT WAS GAMES NIGHT the following evening. I needed to check on Quilla and see how she was doing after her ordeal, so I delayed going out on patrol. My friends were all gathered in the entertaining area on the first floor when I descended. Their expressions were grim, so I figured Quilla had just finished filling them all in on what had happened to her.
“How are you?” I asked and paused to bend down to give her a hug.
“I’m okay,” my bestie said, but her hand rose to rub her throat where it had been torn out. “I sometimes wish our memories were wiped clean each night like all the rest of the Night Cursed, though,” she added glumly.
“If they were, we would never have known about this mysterious artifact,” Jasper pointed out. The English pirate captain had curly black shoulder length hair and a short black beard. He wore a fitted dark blue coat over a white shirt that was open to reveal a gold chain and cross around his neck. He wore tight black pants, black knee high boots and a black captain’s hat. He was armed with a sword and an ancient pistol. Marigold sat on his lap in one of the armchairs. Steve had Quilla pressed up against his side on a couch. I sank down next to Travis on the other couch. He kissed me on the temple, then took my hand and soothingly rubbed the back of it with his thumb.
“Chesi was the one who made it possible for Marigold and me to listen in on Quilla’s reading,” I said.
The dragon lay on Jasper’s lap and was teasing Gip with her tail. The parrot knew she was there, but he couldn’t focus on her. The tip of her tail poked him in the side and he squawked in annoyance. “Quim!” he croaked and Marigold leaned forward to glower at him darkly. Chesi slapped the bird with her tail and Gip flew away to perch on the edge of the pool table, muttering beneath his breath. He crapped on the table as a sign of his displeasure. Magic cleaned the mess away before it could sink into the felt.
“She’s a clever little thing,” the captain said and tickled Chesi on her belly. She began purring like a cat, lapping up the attention.
“I don’t know how she made their conversation carry to us,” Lady Marigold said.
“She’s an air elemental,” Quilla said almost absently. “They have the ability to use magic to some extent, but only magic that relates to their element. Air elementals can use wind to carry voices across vast distances.”
We all looked at her in amazement. I sometimes forgot that she was a bit of an expert on all things supernatural. “It sure came in handy last night,” I said, wishing I’d known about this ability before now.
“We can’t let Lord Kreaton get away with what he did to Quilla,” Steve said. He was normally easygoing and affable, but his handsome face was uncharacteristically hard. He would have figured out that she’d been killed when she hadn’t returned home and he’d had to go to bed alone. Even knowing she would be beside him when he woke up wouldn’t have eased his mind. I felt guilty for not warning him, but dawn had been far too close when I’d finished patrolling last night. I’d barely had enough time to get to my bed before I’d conked out.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Travis said, being the voice of reason as always. “We can’t retaliate against the Immortal Triumvirate. Like it or not, the Night Cursed are their creatures. They have our loyalty and we can’t rebel against them.”
“I’m supposed to protect people from being murdered, but not even I can stop our rulers when they break the laws that they put in place,” I said morosely. Wrath was propped up on the couch behind me and pulsed in agreement.
“I hate them all,” Lady Marigold said, cheeks turning red from anger. The color only made her more beautiful. “I wish their enemies would rise up now so we can watch the Triumvirate being ousted from their positions.”
“Nox will die without them,” Quilla said as she received a vision. “The City of Night needs someone in charge. Someone who can rule the Night Cursed and who is strong enough to accept the burden of responsibility.”
“Who?” Steve asked. “Who could possibly be as strong as the Immortal Triumvirate?”
Quilla’s shoulders slumped as her vision came to an end. “I don’t know,” she said and patted his hand when he squeezed her tightly. “I can’t see that far into the future,” she added.
“We’ll just have to be content with the knowledge that someone will eventually stand up to them,” Travis surmised. “We need to remain vigilant and watch over our kind. The Night Cursed are vulnerable to the uncursed. There are a lot of sick individuals out there who exploit them for their own gains.”
“I met Sgt. Nick Malone,” I told him. “He and his officers are patrolling the Shifter District just like you asked.”
“I know,” he said with a grin. “Nick told me about how you stopped the werewolf from raping a nurse.” His grin faded away and his expression turned dark. “She works at my hospital. We knew something bad had happened to her when she didn’t turn up for her shift.”
The nurse would have woken the following night with no recollection that she’d died, but no one should have to suffer through that sort of torment.
Chesi sat up abruptly. I sensed someone approaching our door and sprang to my feet in alarm. A fist pounded on the door and I sensed an uncursed visitor on the other side.
“Who is it?” Marigold asked. Gip flew back to Jasper’s shoulder and Chesi made herself scarce. We never received unexpected visitors.
“It’s an uncursed vampire,” I whispered. “Pretend you’re in t
he middle of a game,” I said to the boys. They hurried over to the pool table while Lady Marigold took a seat next to Quilla.
The fist banged on the door again and I strode over to answer it. “Yes?” I asked in a neutral tone when I opened it. A vamp with the darkest skin I’d ever seen was standing on the other side. He was over six feet tall and had a muscular body. He had a white scar on his right cheek that stood out starkly against his skin. His hair was shorn close to his head and he wore a black t-shirt and black trousers.
“Your presence is required in the Vampire District,” he informed me. He scanned the room, then dismissed my friends with the usual contempt that the uncursed showed for our kind. His accent was strong and sounded African.
“I’ll just grab my staff,” I said. I held my hand out and Wrath appeared on cue. The vampire started back a step when the blades began to glow with holy light at his close proximity. Travis kept his back to our visitor. In his white lab coat and stethoscope, he was just another doctor among many. It was best for him to remain anonymous. Only his bevy of sexy nurses and our friends knew that we were a couple. I wasn’t sure why his nurses always remembered that we were an item. I had a fleeting image of saving them from some vampires once long ago, but it faded away before I could grasp hold of the memory.
I waved goodbye to my friends and stepped outside. It was raining hard and I instantly became drenched. Instead of heading to the curb to wait for a carriage, the bloodsucker had other plans. “It will be much faster if I run,” he said. Before I could protest, he tossed me over his shoulder and took off.
Chapter Fifteen
I’D ALREADY SENSED the vampire was well over five hundred years old. My senses proved to be correct when he didn’t slow down until we’d reached the Vampire District. Only the old and powerful leeches could expend that much energy without needing to stop to refill on blood.
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see Lord Kreaton waiting for us in the doorway of a small stone house. It was on the outskirts of the District and it was fairly remote. The river was a short distance away. I could hear the water elementals splashing around as they guarded their domain. The vampire lord gestured for me to enter the house and I obeyed him. “Leave us,” he commanded. His minion bowed, then sped away until he was out of sight.
I looked around, but there wasn’t much to see. The living room to the left was sparsely furnished. The kitchen to the right lacked the stainless steel appliances that mine possessed. Vampires didn’t need to eat or drink, so there was no point in having a fridge or a stove. The only sustenance they required was fresh blood.
“Follow me,” Lord Kreaton ordered, then headed down the hallway towards the back of the house.
The living room and dining room had the bare minimum of furniture. There were no paintings on the walls or rugs on the floor. I could sense a couple of people in the basement and knew they were uncursed. Magic emanated from one of them, but the other one felt different. All I could feel was a general sense of evil.
Lord Kreaton led me to a staircase that took us down to the basement. It was magically soundproofed, so I couldn’t hear anything coming from inside until the door opened. Black stains coated the bare concrete floor. The blood was gone, but there had been so much of it that it had left a permanent mark. It looked as if at least several vampires had been slaughtered here. The last thing I wanted to do was to step through the door into the bare room, but I couldn’t refuse the master vampire. He gestured for me to precede him and I reluctantly complied.
I’d already known a magic user was in the basement, so I wasn’t surprised to see a witch. She wore the typical black dress and pointy black hat that the Night Cursed tended to wear. Instead of looking ageless, she appeared to be in her forties or so. Her hair was long and dark brown and her eyes were shrewd. The black tattoo that marked our kind was on her right cheek. I knew it was a fake, but they didn’t know I knew that.
The second person wore black as well, but it was a cassock. A white collar ringed his neck, but he wasn’t wearing any holy symbols. He gave me a benign smile that did nothing to alleviate my growing sense of unease. He was somewhere in his fifties, with graying hair. His smile did nothing to dampen the malevolence that he couldn’t quite hide. He also had a fake Night Cursed mark on him, but his was on his throat just above his collar. He was pretending to be a priest, but there was nothing holy about this man. If he worshiped any being, it was probably the devil.
“Why have I been summoned here, Lord Kreaton?” I asked when he closed the door. The witch mumbled a spell and waved her wand to lock the door so no one could get in or out.
“I’ve heard rumors that someone is plotting against me, Ms. Evora,” the master vampire said. He came to a stop a few feet away and folded his arms across his chest. “It occurred to me that you could hunt these miscreants down and bring them to justice.”
“Unless they’ve killed an uncursed citizen, I can’t end their lives,” I reminded him.
He glanced at the unholy priest and the man nodded that I was telling the truth. “It is against the Immortal Triumvirate’s laws for anyone to plot against us,” Lord Kreaton said in an ominous tone that warned me not to trifle with him.
“Unless they actually attack you with the intent to kill you, my hands are tied,” I replied. Again, the priest nodded that I was being truthful.
Lord Kreaton’s face tightened in anger, then he looked at the witch. “Cast your spell on her,” he ordered.
“What spell?” I asked warily as she pointed her wand at me. Magic hit me when she chanted, but it just washed over me rather than sinking in like she expected it to.
“Did it work?” the lord asked when her wand dropped to her side.
“I’m not sure, my lord,” the witch replied.
“The witch lies,” the priest said with a contemptuous glance at her.
“I thought you said your compulsion spell was strong enough to work on any type of being!” Lord Kreaton said in a menacing tone.
The witch’s eyes flicked from left to right in desperation as she replied. “It should have worked. It’s always worked before!”
“She speaks the truth,” the unholy priest said reluctantly.
“Why didn’t the spell work on you, Ms. Evora?” Lord Kreaton asked as he rounded on me.
“I have an immunity to magic,” I replied. There was no point in lying to him with the evil priest standing right there to call me out on it.
“That is the truth,” the priest said with a hint of surprise.
“How?” the witch asked me, eyeing the master vampire warily as he stalked towards me like a predator closing in on his prey.
“I’m not sure,” I hedged. The priest’s eyebrows drew down as he sensed that I wasn’t being completely honest.
“Is it because of your link to my allies and to myself?” Lord Kreaton asked, coming to a stop in front of me.
“Probably,” I said and the priest nodded to the overlord in confirmation that I wasn’t lying.
“One wonders what else you’re immune to,” Lord Kreaton said, then bent to peer into my eyes. He stared at me for a minute or so, then made an annoyed sound. “You’re impervious to being mesmerized by my kind,” he said.
“The Night Cursed are too stupid to become bamboozled, my lord,” the witch said. “The spell that transformed them into the costumes they were wearing during Halloween a decade ago rendered them almost witless.”
Pain lanced through my head as the truth of her words hit me. I blanched, but managed to control my reaction for the most part. Jardine had said something similar, but she hadn’t spelled it out quite so clearly on the night that we’d first met. Poppy had also said something along those lines.
“If they’re immune to mind control, then how does Azazel keep managing to possess them?” the master vampire asked in a near snarl.
“It is a mystery, my lord,” the priest said and lowered his eyes submissively. They flashed towards me and I sensed he was lying. The sl
y look he gave me spoke volumes. He knew I was different from the rest of my kin. He also knew there were others like me. For reasons I wasn’t sure of, he was hiding his knowledge from our rulers.
“Get out,” Lord Kreaton ordered. “Not you, Ms. Evora,” he added when I turned to follow his lackeys. “I wish to speak to you in private.” The witch gave me a pitying look before dispelling the enchantment that was keeping the door shut. She filed upstairs with the priest hot on her heels. Lord Kreaton strode over to close the door, then turned to me. “We’re alone at last, my dear,” he said.
I had an unwelcome flashback to the private meeting I’d had with Lord Dallinar on the night that he’d attempted to bamboozle me. He’d wanted to make me his private assassin and now Lord Kreaton had the same intention. Wrath pulsed in my hand warningly as the master vampire circled around me. “Is there something else you wanted from me, Lord Kreaton?” I asked. My entire body was tense with the expectation that something bad was about to happen.
“Oh, yes, Ms. Evora,” the bloodsucker said, then his fingers closed over my shoulders from behind. “There is indeed something I want from you.” Before I could react, he grabbed my ponytail and yanked my head to the side, then his fangs sank into my neck.
Chapter Sixteen
WRATH’S HOLY LIGHT blazed brightly, but Lord Kreaton knocked the staff out of my hand. He was far stronger than I was and he easily held me pinned against his body. Gross sucking noises sounded as he siphoned my blood from my veins. Only an ancient master could drain a person to the point of death within a couple of minutes. This monster was more than old enough to accomplish it.