kindred 08.6 - blood enchanted

by Nicola Claire

  But although I've had my fair share of courters, I have not been in love. And now I am twenty-five and time is up. I may not have wanted to join with Alain, but at least I knew he would treat me well. And a kindred joining didn't have to be all about love. I could still find The One, and be joined to Alain for eternity.

  I kept telling myself that, but it was getting a little old, truth be told.

  I looked up to find myself outside Reggie's Bar. A popular haunt for all supernaturals, but not all of them got to sit in the front, where the Norms frequented and paid through the nose for a beer. When the vampires came out of the shadows - forced I should say - the humans baulked. Fairies disclosed their existence at the same time, deciding it was better to get it out there on their terms rather than be cornered into it like the vamps. For them it worked. The Norms worshipped them. Who wouldn't be bowled over by the god-like glamoured appearance of a member of the Fey.

  But the vampires didn't fair so well. Humans hunted them, despised them and feared them most of all. There was no way to pleasantly spin fangs, blood and the inevitable connection of both. There were groupies, there always have been, even before vamps were openly walking the streets. But on the whole vampires were not even tolerated. And as such, Reggie's Bar restricted vampire attendance to the arena out back. Not anywhere near the front of the bar where Norm patrons would run screaming and he'd miss out on fleecing their wallets.

  Reggie wasn't exactly prejudiced, he made a lot of money off vampires in the arena, but he did nothing to bridge the gap that stood between humanity and the Nosferatu. I stood on that bridge, slap bang in the centre. Humans thought Nosferatins were on their side, and in a way we are. We kill those vampires who have gone rogue, hunting indiscriminately on the innocents. But we also live in the Nosferatu world. We have to join with them or die. Of course, that little gem has been well hidden from the press. It was bad enough to have the vampires being staked by humans, even they agreed the Nosferatins needed to be spared that injustice.

  I took a deep breath in and walked into the bar. It was still packed, so I wasn't too late. Loud thudding music pounded out of the speakers, the air smelled of sweat and cologne and beer. Not an altogether unpleasant smell. Humans stood shoulder to shoulder with fairies; laughing, talking, flirting. And in the case of the Dökkálfa, also feeding. I shuddered at the look of rapture on the faces of their prey, but who was I to judge? My father frequently fed off humans, when my mother was not around to see.

  I spotted Reggie over at the bar talking animatedly with a group of young and pretty humans. They didn't know he was a ghoul. Not that he'd eat them, well, not unless they pissed him off. But still it irked me that the ghouls refused to come out; we'd all been through it, even the shape shifters had laid down the first hints that they lived in our world. Humans aren't stupid, they see the signs. It's whether they are ready to accept them or not that matters, and they had accepted fairies like delicacies at a wedding. Devoured them. Savoured them. Delighted in them.

  Who was to say they wouldn't love ghouls too?

  Yeah.

  I walked straight up to the pain-in-my-butt ghoul as he regaled the girls that surrounded him of his latest flash purchase. Car, boat, holiday home. Who cared? Something meaningless and fake. Reggie may have had money, but he had zero style.

  "Reggie!" I pushed past a tall brunette and shouldered between a blonde and a redhead. All three dwarfed me. Reggie liked long legs. "What's this about a new vamp in town?"

  "Ah, Ellie!" he cried and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Sweet, sweet, Ellie. I've been expecting you." He leaned in and whispered angrily, "You've not been here for two weeks. Patronage is down. What the hell's with that?" Then turned a beguiling smile on the women at my back. "Ladies, this won't take long. Have a free drink on me."

  They tittered and giggled as he blew them all a kiss - individually - and then sashayed over to Reggie's guy at the bar. Then Reggie turned steel cold eyes on me.

  "We had an agreement. Once a week and I give you ten percent of the takings. That agreement is now void." He led the way through a door behind the bar and down a dark hallway to his office. It was a shoebox. He didn't normally entertain here. Only those people he didn't need to impress.

  I shoved a pile of crap off a chair and slumped into it, lifting my booted feet to his desk and crossing them at the ankles.

  "So, who's the new guy? What do you know?" I demanded.

  "Make yourself at home, why don't you," he muttered. "And you answer my question first. Where have you been?"

  "Busy," I replied, succinctly.

  "What about our agreement?"

  I shrugged. "I figured you didn't want to see me for a while after last time." Last time had been when Reggie tried to set me up, rigged a fight and had to do a major overhaul of the arena after I spat the proverbial dummy. "We both needed to cool off."

  "You cost me ten thousand dollars. Those cages don't come cheap."

  "You should have thought of that before you allowed a fairy magic in a sword fight." There were three ways you could fight in the arena. Magic. Hand to hand. And by the sword. None of them crossed over and I never, ever, used magic. To use magic would be to disclose how powerful I am. I didn't need that kind of a headache. I always fought either hand to hand or with a sword. Reggie knew this, he was goading me into a mistake, a show of my hand.

  There have been rumours of what I can do, but no evidence. I preferred to keep it that way.

  "That was an error, the master of ceremonies forgot to band him," he said with a shrug. A band would have contained the fairy's magic; I had been banded, but Reggie did not know I could've still called on magic with a band in place. As it was I almost did, that fairy just about killed me. "It wasn't intentional," he added.

  "Neither was my reaction to being set up."

  We stared at each other for several heartbeats and then he nodded. "OK, I won't take it out of your next pay-check." Generous bastard. "But I expect you to fight tonight, I need the regulars to know they can count on a Nosferatin in the ring every now and then, and it's been too long."

  "I'm not here to fight. I'm looking for Luc, have you seen him?"

  Reggie crossed his beefy arms over his chest. He was a big guy, all muscle, no fat. Short, spiky, white-blond hair, pale skin and a prominent chin. They all kind of ruined the muscle-man look for me. I liked my men with muscles, for sure, but I went more for the tanned, tall, dark and handsome look. The tan limits the number of vampires I'm attracted to, but hey, I can't help it. It's just the way I'm built.

  "Why would he come here?" he asked, a little too casually.

  "You know something."

  "And I'm a ghoul, sweetheart. Nothing is for free."

  Damn ghouls and their compulsion to exchange information. But I didn't have anything trade-worthy he wouldn't already know. Unlike the ghoul I’d roughed up earlier, Reggie was strong and intelligent. He was by no means at the bottom of the ghoul ladder. Hell, he probably knew more about me than I did and certainly a damn sight more than my father did, anyway.

  "I'll fight," I offered and watched a gleam enter into his deep blue eyes.

  "That's not how it works, El, and you know it."

  I shrugged. "Then I guess I'm done here." He stood when I stood, and offered a dramatic sigh.

  Gotcha!

  "I'm not giving you info." He shuddered as though that would be a crime against nature or something equally as unacceptable. "But I can give you something if you agree to fight."

  I raised an eyebrow at him as he led the way out of his office and down to the end of the hall. A steel door stood sentinel in the dark. Multiple deadbolts and chains down one side, hidden hinges down the other. He started the laborious task of undoing each one.

  I knew what stood on the other side of that door. The arena. This was Reggie's private access to the ring. It entered into his box. We could see but not be seen. I'd only been in Reggie's private viewing platform once before, but I knew what to expect
.

  I also knew exactly how many exits there would be, what potential hazards I could expect and how much space I would have to manoeuvre in if we were ambushed. My hand slipped to my hip holster and fingered a stake.

  He opened the door with a flourish expecting me to proceed him into the room. I shook my head, letting my eyes adjust to the brighter light through the door and stood my ground. He grumbled under his breath, something about being too cautious for my own good, and stomped into the empty space.

  As soon as I shut the door behind us the sounds from the arena met my ears. I felt my heartbeat quicken and adrenaline pump through my veins. I licked my lips and had to contain my enthusiasm as I approached the one-way glass and took in the scene below us. The room was packed. Ghouls, vampires, fairies, shifters and the odd opportunist Norm thrown into the mix. Bookies shouting the best and current odds-on favourites, money changing hands, sweat - predominantly male - invaded my nostrils, and the clang of the cage being lifted to the sounds of elation mixed with the more dire sounds of those who had just lost a bet.

  The body of a shifter was carried from the blood soaked floor and disappeared from sight down a tunnel to the side. He'd be healed, Reggie liked his fighters to come back for more, even the drop-dead useless ones. A lone vampire stood in the centre of the ring, dark haired head thrown back, arms outstretched as though he was praying - or absorbing the ecstasy of the crowd. The winner taking a moment to let it all sink in. Show off.

  His head came down and his eyes sprang open. Staring directly at me. He couldn't see me, we were hidden behind mirrored glass, but I knew without a doubt that he saw me. Silver and ice-blue flashed in his eyes, a small smile played on his full red lips. The garish lights above the arena did nothing for his skin, but I would guess he was darkish, maybe Mediterranean or eastern European, something with a hint of mocha beneath. Under different circumstances I was certain his skin tone alone would be just my kind of thing, not to mention his tall physique and muscular frame, but the look in his unusually coloured eyes warned me off going down that track. I'm not stupid, I know a hungry vampire when I see one.

  I hadn't realised I'd taken my stake out of its holster and was spinning it in my hand. A nervous gesture that helped to soothe. Reggie was watching me with a knowing smile on his face.

  "Hakan Bahar," he said, whisper quiet. "The vampire you're looking for, and the one who is telling everyone he'll beat you in the arena or die trying."

  I licked my lips and lifted my gaze to Reggie's. "Do you believe him?"

  He shrugged and turned back to look at the vampire who was now bowing to the crowd, which was still cheering and hooting and generally encouraging this pathetic display of humility.

  "He's impressive. He's left a trail of maimed bodies across town. Tonight alone he's bettered four of my more competent regulars. Four guys you've only ever taken on, on a good night." He nodded, reluctantly. "He could do it, Ellie. He could be your match. The bookies think so."

  I bit my bottom lip and flipped my stake. I'd been hunting for the perfect match for years. When the vamps came out and the humans got all pitchforked up and vigilante-like, the arenas appeared. A place where you could get behind the side you favoured without taking any heat. But for those of us with something to prove it was paradise.

  I did have something to prove. I was the daughter of the Champion. I'd had to carry that weight since I was born. And not only that, my father is extremely protective. If it hadn't have been for my mother secretly taking me on hunts since I was fifteen, I'd never have known one end of a stake from the other. But then I found the arenas. I found a place my father purposely ignored. He couldn't be seen to condemn them or condone them. It wasn't politically the correct path for the leader of the Nosferatu to take. So he ignored them. He pretended they didn't exist.

  Just like he pretended I didn't go hunting with my mother when I turned fifteen.

  But as much as I had been searching for that perfect opponent, one who would push me to my limits and not hold back, I also wasn't suicidal. I knew nothing about this Hakan Bahar and what I did know amounted to a big black mark. Luc belonged to him. If he wanted a fight, the prize needed to befit the challenge.

  I wanted my brother back, I'd settle for nothing less.

  I flicked my gaze back to the ghoul beside me, shoved my stake in my holster and turned to leave.

  "Set it up," I said over my shoulder, then opened the door back towards the bar and slipped into the waiting dark, with a delicious shiver of anticipation running down my spine and chasing me out of the room.

  2

  This Was Worse By Far

  The world I grew up in was not the same as the world my parents did. My father is over five hundred years old, but appears to be about thirty-two. My mother looks twenty-five, but she's closer to half a century now. Vampires stop ageing when they are turned. Nosferatins freeze at the age of twenty-five, as long as they join with a kindred. Should they miss that boat, they simply die.

  But neither of my parents could have foreseen the dark years. Those first few years after the vampires were exposed. They really deserved capital letters. Dark Years. And an ominous soundtrack as well. Rebellions broke out. Riots that destroyed human property as well as those owned by the Nosferatu. They lasted thirteen months, then petered off into smaller skirmishes; more gang related than humanity shocked.

  We've never fully recovered since. Humans or supernaturals. Not one major centre throughout the world missed out on the wars. Those cities with a Master Vampire in charge were hit the hardest. London, Paris, Denver, New York, Singapore and so on. The fact that the vamps managed to keep Auckland's unique importance hidden from the public was a miracle. Or clever PR. The Iunctio dedicated a lot of manpower to making it happen. They needed to. It's their seat of power.

  I purposely headed away from Vampire Central. That part of the city inundated with vampires; feeding, hunting, guarding the Iunctio itself. Even as dawn threatened to kiss the horizon there would be Iunctio guards prowling the streets around my father's hotel on Mayoral Drive. Ready to put out a flash fire in an instant, sweep the streets clean, hide any evidence of the Nosferatu.

  That particular battle they were winning. But the writing was on the wall. Aucklanders knew vampires lived amongst them. Sooner or later they'd cotton on to the fact that the City Of Sails housed their government too. How would that go?

  Not good.

  Humans can be as brutal as a ghoul, as blood-thirsty as a vampire, and as cunning as the Fey. I was sure my father was preparing for that day. Luc would know for certain, he had our father's ear. Me? I just avoided politics as much as possible. It didn't pay well and I had money to earn.

  I cut through a derelict building near Quay Street, still too close the the VC than I would have liked, but not too many vampires tended to go near the wharves. They'd become off limits to all but rogues and arena fighters. No official - as far as official goes in this profession - fights were held here, but the hardest and most untrustworthy of my peers could be found sharpening their skills in amongst the rubble and debris of the neglected wharves and warehouses.

  Water dripped constantly from a burst main, smoke filled the air from drums of fires. The constant cough of a homeless person filtered through the shattered window on a single standing brick wall. Rubbish blew carelessly from one resting place to the next. My boots kicked up crumbled rocks and bits of mortar as I walked with purpose, dust coating my leathers and dulling the shine on my shoes. Just how I liked 'em.

  I ducked under a leaning long-dead light pole, and slipped between two well placed sheets of plasterboard, coming out into an open space. Stars doggedly twinkled overhead, dimming as the sky turned from deep indigo to a brightening violet and blue. The sun would be up soon and vampires would retreat to their lairs leaving the world a slightly safer place.

  Or so the humans thought.

  I stilled, just this side of the large divide, letting my eyes search the shadows for movement. My ears
strained, my hearing better than most, but unable to pick up any danger. I could have skirted the rubbish strewn and pock marked concrete, used the darker edges as cover. But to do so would be a signal of weakness. If you came here, you could not show fear.

  I straightened my shoulders and walked out into open space. I made it half a dozen paces, approximately a third of the way across, when I heard it. I heard it before I saw it. My sword was in my hand before it reached my side. I didn't turn to face the danger, I swung my blade up beside my head, severing the arrow in two. The sound of the broken shaft hitting the concrete echoed in the still pre-dawn air. My eyes darted down to the offending article, not recognising the markings along its sides.

  I spun slowly, sword raised, head cocked to the side, listening.

  A second arrow from my left. Either a very fast opponent or two from differing places around the courtyard. My sword swung from reflex, my hair flying as I put my entire body into the manoeuvre. They wanted a show, they'd get one. But they'd see what I wanted them to see.

  The two parts of the arrow hit the ground, only to be followed by a third and fourth in quick succession from two further locations. Four opponents?

  My movements were unhurried and sure, a dance of weaponry taught to me by the best. To wield a Svante Sword you needed to make it an extension of your body; be one with the sword, my mother had teased. She took training seriously, she just couldn't be bothered curbing her sense of humour.

  I was eight years old when I picked her sword up, marvelling at the colourful dancing dragon hilt, the thirty odd inches of honed metal, tapering from two inches at the guard to an extremely sharp point. She watched on silently as I fought an imaginary foe in our lounge room, the blade tip hanging low, my arms aching holding the weight aloft.

  I stabbed the sofa. The stuffing spewed out of the armrest and I dropped the sword. My punishment was to tell my father what had happened when he came home, and then start my lessons with the sword the very next day. I loved the lessons. I hated coming clean to Papa.