by M C Ashley
“Don’t even try to get out of here,” Cole said, smiling. “The moment you do, my men will rip you to shreds.”
I turned around, seeing four armored vampires standing at the front of the bar.
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice me signaling to my men to follow me earlier when I gave them the boy. Perhaps you’re just weak.” He smiled. “You see, I know all about you, Mr. Lupin. I’ve read about you. My favorite part was when you tried to abandon your family to go gallivanting across Britain with Harry Potter. You see, I happen to be from that age. Making literary references to hide your name will do you no good here.”
The color must’ve drained from my face, because he seemed to be soaking in my fear, allowing me to know which guild he was from.
“A Fear Lord,” I said. “Posing as a cop. Pathetic. They’ll just let any schmuck get into law enforcement these days. I need to speak with my congressman.”
“Your false bravado will do you no service.”
“It’s better than giving up and screaming like a little girl.”
“But that is exactly what you will do, because my leader will have much use for another living Sentinel. Although I must admit that I find you puzzling. We wiped out your kind so long ago, yet now here you come out of the woodworks. Who trained you? What is your name?”
“Sue Donym.”
“Cute.”
“I know; it’s my boyish charms.”
I felt someone else in the room. The patrons of the bar were mostly leaving, but a cowled figure sat drinking from their glass. I couldn’t see them, but the feeling was one I was familiar with. They weren’t hostile, at least for now.
“Distracted?” Cole asked, laughing.
“Yes,” I said, smirking. “You see, I’m quite bored now. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, and that means you’re useless to me. I came here to stop this atrocity, but it looks like I’ll have to reschedule on that. Oh, and if you’re worried that your hospitality was lacking it is. Bye now.”
Cole was able to move to his right in time to avoid my fist, which missed him and hit nothing but the air. Rolling to my left, I avoided a lunging vampire and moved up, as I turned to my right, dodging another vampire as I reached into my right-side inner coat pocket. I pulled out my gun, firing two rounds into the vampire’s chest. He sunk to the floor in agony, the silver-covered bullets providing me with a large enough distraction.
The gun was a Jericho 941 pistol of Israeli-make, given to me by my father years ago for situations just like these. I didn’t normally use a gun; I preferred using my bow, but with vampires you could never be too careful. Getting shot wouldn’t kill them even with the silver I’d laced the bullets with, but it would help slow them down. Besides, bullets traveled faster than arrows, mystical or not.
However, one of the vampires I hadn’t attacked yet charged me. I dropped the gun when he smacked it out of my hand, and it clattered over to one of the booths. I looked over there and found the cowled figure from earlier, who picked the gun up but then did nothing else.
Figuring I had better things to worry about I shouted “Ageg!”
The bow appeared in my right hand, and I immediately fired a shot at one of the vampires near the door, hitting him square in the chest and knocking him back. The holy invocation surrounding the arrow activated and the vampire cringed in terror at the pain. I felt a sense of danger and ducked, avoiding Cole’s embrace, as he collided with the wall. I threw an upper cut at him and connected this time, sending him back to our table. One of the vampires managed to get past my second arrow and lunged at me, forcing me back into the wall. Grunting, I tried to push him away, but he was far stronger than I’d thought and he smacked my head back into the wall. He grabbed my neck and choked me, as I gasped for breath.
I could feel the fear in my heart and knew I had little chance of getting out of there alive. I prepared myself for a pyrrhic victory. All invokers are able to release a vast surge of energy in their last moments of life, provided they have enough time to enact it. We call it the final release, used only when we know that there’s no way we can make it back home. The energy contained in ourselves is powerful to the extent that we can level an entire city block if we’re killed. I wanted to localize it, but since I had the ability to redirect it, I decided to make sure my assailants and Zoë Slinden would be the only ones caught in the blast. Because I knew her name and part of Cole’s name, I would be able to send it their way. It wasn’t a decisive victory and I might’ve changed nothing, but it was better than coming up fully empty-handed.
It’s not an easy thing, to accept the fact that you’re about to die, but humans have a resiliency in them, something the undead fear. Even when everything within you wants to never admit that you could be killed, you still want to pay back the people who are hurting you, which the final release allows for. Gathering up the energy and focusing on Zoë and Cole, I prepared for the inevitable, or would have, if someone hadn’t managed to intervene on my behalf.
“Get away from him,” a woman’s voice said, as a spatha sliced off the head of the vampire pinning me down.
Chapter 4
I extinguished my control of the final release and the energy that had once been swirling around me dissipated. My newfound ally tossed me my pistol, which I used to drill a silver-coated bullet into the closest vampire’s face, knocking him backwards and into the street.
To my left I saw the cowled person struggling to deal with Cole, who shouted out something unintelligible to produce an ethereal blade that blocked my savior’s spatha.
Another vampire was about to get the drop on the spatha-wielding woman, so I pushed myself up and shouted out, “Tenebris regni!”
A dark wave of energy erupted from my fingers, enclosing the vampire, causing it nothing but pain. I cursed inwardly, knowing that my attempted use of the final release had weakened my invocation. A Sentinel using their final release was using every last bit of energy in their body. Breaking it off meant that all of the collected energy was going to scatter indiscriminately, returning very little to its source.
Cole knocked my savior back and I caught their cowl, pulling it backward and revealing a red-haired woman with a ferocious look on her face. I placed her instantly as the woman who’d spied on me. She had darker skin probably denoting Iranian descent, but her face showed off her European ancestors, most likely Dutch or Belgian.
Before I could ask her any questions, she grunted and forced herself up to fight Cole. I had no time to assist her, because the remaining vampires had decided to team up against me.
“Ageg!” I shouted, as the bow appeared instantly.
Firing off a shot, I managed to pin one of them to the wall of the bar, as the other one came in closer to take me down. Knowing what had happened the last time, I ordered the bow away and caught him by his shoulders when he attacked me. I leaned back and launched him over my body with my left leg. He crashed into the wall, and was unable to recover in time before I sliced his head off with my knife.
My hard-earned victory was annulled a moment later when five more uniformed people appeared at the doorway, obviously attracted by the violence. I scanned them with my mind and discovered to my horror that three of them were human beings.
Great, I thought. Vichy Corpus Christi.
“Hey, idiot,” the woman said from behind me, as I turned to see her. “Close your eyes.”
I closed my eyes, and heard her shout out, “Fiery Flash Bomb!”
Although I couldn’t see, I could still feel the intenseness of the energy needed to power up an invocation like that. If anyone focused on where the summoning occurred they’d be blinded now. Before I opened my eyes, a woman’s hand grab me by the wrist and pulled me away to run.
I opened my eyes to see her guiding me away from the bar, where everyone there was now lying on the floor in agony. Smirking despite our situation, I followed her to wherever she was headed, and turned my head to make sure we weren’t being fo
llowed.
“Idiot,” she said, guiding me down an alleyway with no discernable exit.
“Actually, it’s Blake,” I said, scanning the area for vampires.
“Don’t bother. Follow me.”
She moved over to the side and found a group of boxes that she forced to the side, revealing a manhole. With a flick of her wrist and two words I didn’t understand, the manhole moved upward by an inch and then deposited itself to the side.
“Get in,” she said.
“Well as long as I have your permission,” I said, offering a disarming smile that was met with pure animosity.
Looking down the hole, I found the ladder and slid down it. I landed on the right side of the sewer walkway. I held a hand up to my nose to try and deflect the smell. The city’s sewer system wasn’t pretty a hundred years ago, and years of obvious neglect had failed to improve its appeal to olfactory connoisseurs. It was also the only discreet way to enter our headquarters.
My friend dropped down and invoked the manhole to cover itself up, making it perfectly dark in the sewer.
“Incendo,” I invoked, as a small flicker of flame appeared over my index finger.
I’m not that big on fire summoning, so collecting it in small amounts like this made it easy for me to control it before it spreads too fast. My tiny fire managed to light up enough of the area for me to see the tunnel in front of us that seemed to stretch on endlessly.
I turned to my ally and checked her out. Her spatha was sheathed on her left side. She had scarlet hair that was tied back in a ponytail, piercing cobalt blue eyes, and was about three inches shorter than me.
“You use Latin?” my companion asked. “I prefer English myself.”
“Ah, but at least I’ll never accidentally charge up a pyrotechnics show every time I say the word ‘flame,’” I said.
“True. That’s why I make sure to use words that wouldn’t naturally end up in casual conversation.”
“Clever.”
“Thank you.”
“You have a name, clever girl? Because if not I’m just going to call you Ginger.”
I saw her face tense up, but it softened soon after. “You know I can’t give that to you.”
“It doesn’t have to be a full name. Just something to call you. Besides, I already told you mine.”
“You did.” She paused. “Zea.”
“Well hello, Zea. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hush. We need to move. Turn off your flame.”
“Why? How are we going to see?”
“I can see in the dark.”
“And I was voted Most Likely to Be Tricked by a Redhead in Sentinel Camp.”
“Share your senses with me.”
She grabbed my hand and I responded in kind. My jokes aside, Sentinel Camp was a real thing, where applicants hoping to get into the Gray Forum trained so they could be taught by a master Sentinel. I had nepotism on my side, so my chances of being picked were a sure thing, but tradition stated that I should attend. One of the many things we’d learned there had been to meld with other Sentinel and Psionic minds to share sensory output in case one of us needed the extra advantage in a fight, or if we were wounded and needed help.
Going through with this needed both parties to have absolute faith in each other for it to work. Doubt is our greatest enemy. Not having faith in one’s summoning could cause a simple water invocation to explode and flood the entire area, perhaps even drowning its summoner. Zea offering this to me implied that she trusted me enough to give me night vision.
“Well at least the redhead’s prettier this time,” I said, allowing her to enter my mind, as I entered hers.
The moment our sensory outputs collided it overwhelmed me. I saw everything so clearly, from the rat scurrying into a broken pipe forty yards ahead, to the shards of glass lying to our right that had once been a part of a light bulb.
“Impressive,” I said. “I’ve heard of vampires and other creatures seeing in the dark, but never one of us.”
I felt her frustration in my mind. “I’m not one of them if that’s what you’re trying to imply,” she snapped. “It’s a natural ability. You have my Word.”
I nodded. I had her Word. That’s all I needed.
“You know, I’ve never seen a Psionic use a sword before,” I said. “That’s usually our department.”
“And I’ve never seen a Sentinel before,” Zea said.
I flinched.
“Fair enough, Zee,” I said. “Shall we—?”
“What did you call me?” Zea asked.
“Zee.”
“My name is Zea. Zee-uh.”
“I know, but Zee is only one syllable. Much faster to say.”
She shook her head and I chuckled.
“Look, Blake,” she said. “None of this is important. We need to get out of here alive. They might find this entrance. I’ve managed to stay undetected for a while now, but that may no longer be the case.”
I nodded.
“I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry for making you come out of hiding.”
“That’s not what I’m mad about,” she said, moving forward.
As we needed to maintain a hold on each other so I could see, I followed after her. The sewers were the same, despite the hundred-year gap. As a kid I’d traveled them extensively with the other apprentices. We needed to know their layout in case of an emergency. Although the Silver Fortress was mostly above ground we had several entrances located in the sewer system, so that we could enter it discreetly.
I reflected for a moment, recalling the number of how many had died during the assault on our headquarters. Six hundred and three people dead. That was half the Gray Forum. What in God’s Name had possessed us to gather in one place so our enemy could wipe us all out in one blow?
“You’re one of them?” Zea asked.
I paused and chastised myself. I should’ve known better. I could sense her thoughts, but they were more garbled and indecipherable. I, on the other hand, was broadcasting my life story without a care in the world.
“Sorry for overloading you,” I said. “It’s been a while since I’ve melded with someone else.”
“A hundred years,” she noted. “Or at least that’s what you think.”
“Oh, am I wrong?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I’m taking you to someone who could.”
“How sweet of you. Nice to know someone cares.”
“I don’t,” she stated flatly. “I just want to know if I can trust you.”
“I see.”
“You’re bleeding.”
We stopped and she motioned down with her free hand to the back of my left leg. I looked down and saw a steady stream of blood moving down my leg.
“Huh,” I said. “How’d I not notice that?”
“Heat of battle,” Zea said. “Focusing on other things helps dull pain. Let go of me. I can treat it.”
I wanted to see if someone was following us, so I widened my senses. I could feel her displeasure immediately and stopped when I realized I could give away our location. I would’ve kicked myself if one of my legs wasn’t bleeding. I rested, knowing there was water around us. Water worked as a negator to invocation for reasons we didn’t know. Our best guess said that it was similar to grounding electrical wires. The charge is still there, but it gets redirected from where it wants to go.
Weirder still, water seemed able to charge invocations if someone left an invocation circle in it for long enough. The energy in the water would react with the circle, empowering it, allowing for some very interesting aquatic traps if someone was smart enough. Whatever the science behind it, it was always a bad idea to invoke near running water, as it could make the invocation weak or unstable. Anyone tracking us would have given up, as the water would give them mixed signals.
“You’re too hotheaded to think straight about anything,” Zea said, as I let go of her hand, plunging myself into darkness.
“It’s hereditary,�
�� I said. “The Azarel clan wasn’t known for their patient nature.”
“Idiot. You just told me two names. Be more careful.”
“Well there are two more where that came from.”
She grunted in disappointment, but said nothing else as I felt her hand touch the back of my leg. Normally I’d be impressed by the old Azarel charm, but not this time.
“Erase Ignorance!” Zea yelled, as a light appeared from behind me.
I checked it out and saw her kneeling. She had her hands folded over one another above my wound. Light emanated from her fingertips and weaved into my wound, sealing it up and overloading my senses with a soothing, numbing feeling.
“Feel all right?” Zea asked, as the light disappeared.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Hold out your hand.”
I did as instructed and we returned to the meld, ready to move again.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Home,” Zea said. “Mine anyways.”
“Cool. Everyone in your family a fan of dark and depressing or is that just a personal kink?”
Zea stopped for a moment. “Do you ever shut up?”
“Not even when I sleep. Mom always told me I was talking in the womb.”
“I pity her,” she said, continuing onward.
“Oh, lighten up, Zee.”
“Zea.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She grunted.
We continued in silence for about ten minutes, going through different corridors of the broken sewer system. I had a sense of déjà vu overwhelm me. Certainly, it looked similar, but then again, don’t all sewers? This wasn’t like my fuzzier memories of my past seven years. I knew this place; we were on the way to my home. What was Zea doing there? Was she part of the Gray Forum? Had someone managed to make it out alive?
“We’re here,” Zea said.
I could barely contain my giddiness as a seal lit up in front of us. I knew this seal, just like I knew the door. It only activated in the presence of a Psionic or Sentinel, so mundanes or our enemies would never locate it.