Annie rolled the victim to his back and checked his pulse. Finding it weak and uneven, she summoned a rag and held it to his neck.
It’s too late!
The blood saturated the rag.
The man, whoever he was and however he ran across the princess, was dying here now, almost alone in the woods. He reached for Annie with what little strength he could muster. His cloudy blue eyes closed and opened and closed again.
Annie shuttered, removed the rag, and let the blood drain. She was unable to prevent his life from ending. She cast a spell, one that would be illegal under any other circumstance, to let the pain leave his body and let him rest in peace as the latest victim of Amelie’s cruelty.
“We need someone to come and pick him up.” Annie closed his eyes, using magic so as to not touch him directly.
“She did this with the Van Altons. Sucked most of their blood, left the rest to drain slowly,” Roland said. His voice and hands quivered. The French wizard guards stood paralyzed by Amelie’s brutality.
“Call for help. We need to go,” Annie ordered and yet they made no attempt to call someone for help. “Don’t you have a Vampire Attack group? A group that cleans up these messes, deals with the body, the family?”
They looked at her blankly.
Annie exchanged worried glances with Spencer, who made a call. When he was finished, he unfurled a blanket and laid it on top of the man.
“Graham will be here in minutes. Let’s go,” he said.
“We’re not big enough. We do it all ourselves. I’m so sorry,” Roland volunteered.
“It doesn’t matter. We need to move.” Annie reiterated. “Each direction. No more than twenty feet. Yell if you find blood.”
Separating in different directions, they searched for any signs of Amelie. Somehow, the weakened vampire had escaped them again.
Annie returned to their starting point and scried for the vampire. Each pairing returned shaking their heads, having found nothing.
The scrying crystal twirled gently as Annie maneuvered the necklace across the map. Finally it dropped, just west of where they were searching.
“I found her,” Annie called out through the trees. “Do you know this?” she asked Marielle, who rested against a tree, sweat dripping from her brow and plastering her brown hair against her forehead.
“Yes. I know that location,” she said through rapid breaths.
Annie glanced at Marielle’s flushed face, aware that the wizard guard most likely spent her life teleporting. If a wizard relied on that magical option too much, it would render them out of shape, almost weak. Annie ran three times a week and lifted weights to counteract that result of too much magic.
I doubt Marielle does.
Jory stood behind Annie and viewed the location on the map. “We need to go this way,” he said and pointed to Annie’s left.
“You okay?” Annie asked Marielle, whose breath rattled in her lungs.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine! Let’s move,” Marielle said, following the team.
“She’s disoriented,” Annie said as she examined the map and the twisted path they had taken to get to where they were. “I’m not so sure if that’s a good thing.”
She glanced at Spencer. His voice carried through the trees as he spoke on the phone with Cham, updating him on the search.
Annie scried for Amelie again. For a second time, she was in the same location. “I think she’s too weak to move on,” Annie commented.
“I suggest you try again in five minutes. We should be able to get to her then,” Jory suggested.
Spencer rejoined the group. “Cham’s updated, and Graham has the body at the French Wizard Hall. He and the team are standing by in case they need to clean up anything else. Where are we on the vampire?”
Annie handed him a bottle of water as they rested for a minute. “She’s stop-and-go. I think we should stop for a while, let her think she’s safe, and then stake out the location. I worry she’s going to create a massacre soon if we’re not careful.”
“You should have taken care of this earlier when she died,” Marielle jeered. Annie took another sip of water. “I checked for vampire tracks, I checked for magic, so drop it. If you don’t like this work, go home.”
“You think you and your team are so good. Look at this mess you made.”
Annie stood in front of Marielle. Though she was several inches shorter than the other wizard guard, she glared at her French counterpart. “Go home,” Annie said.
“I’m doing the job you should have done eight months ago.”
“Go home. Blaming me isn’t helping us find Amelie. Your whining proves you have no aptitude for this job. Either do it or leave. Your Wizard Guard department has done little to help. So go.” Annie was in Marielle’s face, so close that Marielle shrunk backward, wary of Annie’s glare. Her hand instinctively went up as if to strike with a magical spell. Annie’s hand whipped forward as Marielle shimmered away.
“The two of you can leave if you’d like,” Annie said to Roland and Jory after Marielle had fully disappeared. She shoved her equipment back in her field pack and blinked quickly as if something had floated to her eyes. Once clear, she shined her light in the direction Jory had advised her to go.
“No, we’re good. Marielle, she wants you to see how tough she is. She’ll be back after Fabien gets to her. All bark, no bite, I should say.” Roland told them. “Shall we?”
Those still searching continued toward Amelie. The trail of blood picked up quickly, becoming thicker, heavier. Jory stopped and highlighted a large cluster of blood droplets.
“Can she bleed out?” Jory asked.
“If she doesn’t remove the stake, it should take a while. But yeah, if it’s not taken care of, it could happen,” Annie said.
Amelie must be bleeding far worse than they thought. There was blood everywhere. At the edge of the trees, small town lights emanated from each room. Annie pointed, and she and Spencer slunk around the edge toward the house.
Looking through the downstairs window, Annie saw nothing of consequence. Donning gloves, she pushed the open the back door and entered. She was immediately hit by the stench of iron. “Smell that?” she asked Spencer.
“Yeah.” Spencer pointed up the narrow staircase.
They teleported to the top of the stairs, where a middle-aged man lay in the middle of the hallway. Vampire tracks were filled with blood where it pooled and dripped from his neck.
“She’s wild and reckless.” Spencer stepped over the lifeless body toward following the strong iron scent.
Annie removed her holy water and sprinkled it on the man’s upper arm. The potion did nothing more than roll from his skin and drip to the floor.
“Oh, damn!” Spencer said from inside the first bedroom.
Knowing the victim hadn’t been turned, Annie left his body and joined Spencer. Beyond the door, two victims lay hovering near death, their eyes wide with fear. But the pool of blood beneath them told Annie there was nothing more any of them could do. “I can’t kill another one,” she whispered.
“I’ll call Graham.”
Annie knelt beside the first victim, a young man in his twenties. He shook and sputtered. She reached his hand and held it firmly.
“Think of the ocean as it rolls up your leg and the sun beating on your skin.” The man looked through her, not cognizant of what Annie was saying.
Boots pounded against the wooden floors and up the stairs. Graham arrived with his team, Sky and Allen, closely followed by Jory and Roland. Marielle brought up the rear, just like Jory and Roland had said she would. But Annie was certain Marielle had been ordered to be here, her scowl was less than friendly.
Graham knelt beside the victim Annie had been with and felt for a pulse. He unstopped a vial and pulled out a thin dropper, sucked in some clear potion, and placed a drop on the man’s lips.
It was over for him in an instant. His hand slipped from Annie’s grip, and his eyes rolled inside his head.
> “Use this next time. One drop will kill them instantly. There’s nothing you could have done here. They were already dead,” Graham whispered and handed her the vial. The second victim was being attended to by Sky. She closed the victim’s eyes with a flick of her wrist and watched as her breathing slowed and stopped.
“Thanks.” Annie held up the vial. “For this.” She shoved the poison in her pocket. “I couldn’t kill another one. It’s too…”
“Yeah. It is,” Graham said. “Listen we’ll handle the cleanup here. You go find the vampire.”
“She’s desperately wild. And leading us back to Paris.” Annie said. She watched Allen and Sky as they placed the first victim in a body bag. “By the way, we were wondering how long she can go on with the loss of blood? What will happen when it completely drains?”
Sky, Allen, and Graham exchanged glances. “Roam around in a zombie state. They still require blood feedings but they’re nothing more than zombies,” Graham said.
“Thanks. I think we might need Sturtagaard’s help. Amelie’s just unpredictable,” Annie said.
“She’s still deadly, Annie. Even in her weakened state. You need to be careful. Sturtagaard will know where they hide. He’s been here a while,” Graham said as the Vampire Attack Unit began to care for the victims.
*
“Hey,” Annie said breathlessly into the phone. “What’s up?” She leaned against the wall of the conference room, currently the only privacy she could muster. She couldn’t resist taking the call before heading back out to get the princess.
“I have news,” Cham said.
“Really? Good news?”
“I think so.”
“Well?” she asked anxiously and sat in the chair.
“I’ve been promoted. Assistant manager,” Cham exclaimed proudly.
Annie knew something was coming. With Milo sick, with the Black Market collapsing. Change was inevitable. She smiled proudly.
“Congrats! I’m so proud of you and so happy. This is amazing!” She was genuinely happy. “I wish I were there to celebrate.”
“I’m actually heading out to help. But you don’t know this yet.”
It was news even greater to Annie than his promotion. She wouldn’t be alone to deal with her mistake. She would have more bodies, more trained wizard guards who could handle the complexities of this case. It was as if half of the weight she bore was released.
“Tell me when, and we’ll be ready,” she said.
Chapter 24
Fabien watched Annie as she entered the prison wing. She felt his distrust. After asking to see Sturtagaard alone, she hadn’t helped his impression of her.
She couldn’t hide her surprise when she looked in on the exhausted vampire.
He shouldn’t be tired.
But then again, the vampire had been standing for over twenty-four hours, unable to move more than a few feet in either direction. She waved a hand across the bars and waited until the door slid into the stone wall. He sneered, but Annie ignored him.
“You need a new look,” she quipped as she lay her hand against the stone wall. A white-hot light raced around the perimeter, enveloping them in a muffle spell. Sturtagaard raised his eyebrows.
Annie tossed him a warmed receptacle of blood. He smiled broadly for a moment and replaced it with his usual deep jeer before ripping through the plastic and slurping the blood. She looked away. Watching a vampire feed always made her queasy.
“Kill the vampire yet?” He tossed the bag on the ground.
“It’s very funny how she is able to cross the country arriving at a new site before we do. It’s also curious how easily she escapes us, don’t you think?” Annie asked.
Annie nimbly ran her hand across the collar around his neck. The metal squeaked as the lock popped open. She yanked the metal collar from the vampire’s neck. He grimaced as the rough edges scratched his skin. Free of the choke collar, Sturtagaard gleefully stretched his neck, bending it in opposite directions; his joints popped and cracked.
“A vampire isn’t that fast,” he finally commented.
Annie tossed the collar on the sink against the wall. “No they’re not,” she agreed.
Sturtagaard backed away from her, taking advantage of the little freedom she had given him. He leaned against the wall. “Who do you think is helping her?”
Annie twisted her wrist, aiming a spell at his feet to pop the locks that shackled his ankles. The heavy irons slipped from his legs and clattered on the floor. Sturtagaard kicked them away.
“That’s a good question. We think that Stonewell set her free. His body was found in Amelie’s coffin, so that rules him out of helping her now.” She leaned against the wall in the far corner of the cell.
“So?” he asked.
“Without money, food, or a place to stay, she’s had to rely on someone she trusted to keep her secret. Louis is the perfect patsy: weak, scared, easily manipulated. He’s French, knows French, and has access to many family locations.”
“But he’s not magical, and she’s had a lot of help getting around,” Sturtagaard said.
“Yeah. There’s that.” Annie walked to the cell door, turned, and looked at Sturtagaard, ensuring her back was facing the camera aimed in the cell.
“So you think someone in the French Wizard Guard is assisting her,” Sturtagaard replied.
She smiled and placed a finger to her lips. “Amelie fell on my stake and was pierced right through her abdomen. She’s leaking blood and feeding uncontrollably. Where would she hide?”
“I suggested at one point the student hostels or drug dens. Those would offer a steady stream of easy food and low cost, though if she’s being assist—”
Annie placed a finger against her lips one more time and waved her hand across the last of Sturtagaard’s restraints. “I don’t trust you, but if you want back in the States, you would be wise to keep this conversation to yourself.”
*
Sturtagaard stepped into the sun. As his blood warmed, his stomach roiled and his head grew light and airy. The scent of iron in neat little human packages wafted to him; he pinched his lips together to hide his fangs that extended on their own. He wiped the saliva dribbling from his lips.
Passersby skirted around him, either feeling the chill from his skin or shrinking in fear of his menacing stare. Annie pinched him as they strolled through the crowd, a gentle reminder to mind his vampire manners, if that was at all a possibility.
Not far behind, Spencer and Jory discussed the weather, their project at work, and other topics of little importance. No one bothered to notice them.
Roland and Marielle strolled at a slow pace that implied a deep desire to not find the princess. Roland had to coerce Marielle to follow; she had been acting like a petulant child, which greatly angered her partner. While she dawdled against a large, flat window of an antique shop, he stretched his neck and watched where the team was heading.
Sturtagaard, being himself, took a long sniff of Amelie’s coffin lining before they entered Paris. It was intoxicating and made him dizzy with desire. Much like a bloodhound, he was able to follow the scent through the city. Once he established her trail, the blood droplets became easy to see and smell.
They bypassed the hostels, hotels, and abandoned buildings and turned down a dark, dank street. The smell of urine and rotted food overwhelmed their nostrils.
“You sure about this?” Annie asked as they passed an elderly homeless woman lying in the street.
“She’s too weak and too bloody to be seen anywhere else. She needs a place to hide. I’m sure she’s down here,” Sturtagaard said.
It was Annie’s least favorite aspect of her job, the constant necessity to be in this part of town where society’s forgotten people roamed aimlessly, their worldly possessions carried behind them in a stolen store cart or strapped to their backs. Some begged for food or drugs and oftentimes offered sex for either.
Annie wished she could help—give them food, clothing, a better
shelter—but today, there was nothing that she could do.
I need to find Amelie!
Sturtagaard sidestepped human waste and grimaced as though the people who lived here were not good enough for him to eat. She would have laughed at the ridiculousness of his snobbery if it wasn’t so sad.
Dark and dingy, reeking of urine and blood—it was what Annie expected of the house Sturtagaard said Amelie was hiding in. Bodies lay on dirty mattresses, old worn furniture, a pile of newspapers. Whoever it was that was sleeping on the floor did so with a large wet stain at his crotch.
How does he not know?
Annie couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother her. It greatly did. With magic, you could conjure, summon, or make bigger, but you couldn’t create food, clothing, or shelter out of nothing. Some things you needed good old money for.
Sturtagaard sniffed and grunted and shook his head. Amelie wasn’t in this room, but she was here. While they crossed the room to the stairs, Spencer and Jory stayed at the bottom, guarding the exit. Marielle and Roland remained outside on the street, just on the off-chance both teams lost their hold of the princess.
The stairs creaked under their weight. The handrail had long been missing, so Annie’s fingers grazed the dirty wall as she felt her way upstairs, her flashlight cutting through the smoke haze. Blank, drugged-up faces barely registered that they were there.
A perfect place for Amelie.
Sturtagaard led Annie down the hallway. His grip on her arm was tight. She shivered at his icy chill.
“A little overprotective much?” Annie whispered as she tugged her arm from his grasp.
He held tighter. “If you die, I get staked,” he muttered.
They entered the first room, empty of both the living and the undead, though the scent of human odors hung over the room. It permeated the drapes and the carpeting. The latter was so sodden with something, their shoes stuck when they walked.
“I thought you could smell her,” Annie said as he pulled her out of the first room and into the second.
Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set Page 89