Chaos Queen--Fear the Stars (Chaos Queen 4)

by Christopher Husberg

  Not just any vampires, but some of the oldest, most dangerous vampires in the world.

  “What if the nightsbane doesn’t work?” Cinzia asked.

  Code crouched back down and pulled a wooden stake out of his bag.

  “That’s what these are for,” he said.

  Cinzia stared at the stake, one eyebrow raised.

  “Wood weakens a vampire when it pierces their skin,” Code explained. “‘Pierce’ being the important word—it has no effect unless it has actually penetrated them. The closer the spike is to their heart, the better. And if you manage to puncture the heart itself, that is the first step toward killing one of them.”

  “The first step?” Cinzia asked. She glanced at Knot, who had remained quiet throughout Code’s tutorial. She wondered if all of this—hearing the different ways Astrid could be hurt, or even killed—was difficult for him.

  He’s also hearing how he can kill the people who’ve captured her, Luceraf whispered. If it were me, I’d be soaking it all up, absorbing every drop. Looks like that’s exactly what he’s doing.

  “There is some debate on what can actually kill a vampire,” Code said, “other than prolonged exposure to sunlight. That seems to work without fail, but it is, unfortunately, a resource we cannot rely on given the cloud cover, and the fact that we’ll probably be underground the whole time.”

  “So, other than sunlight?” Cinzia asked.

  “A wooden stake through the heart has been rumored to be enough to kill some vampires,” Code said, “but not all sources agree. Some insist you must decapitate the vampire after staking it. Others suggest you go further, and burn the staked body and severed head in separate fires.”

  They all stopped talking as Trave’s low, rasping laugh reached them.

  “You’ve never killed a vampire,” Trave said, more amused than anything.

  Code took a long, deep breath before answering. “I’ve killed my share of the undead,” he said. “Enough for more than one lifetime. But no, I’ve never killed a vampire.”

  Cinzia was about to inquire what Code meant by killing the undead, but his hollow, expressionless face stopped her. She realized this was the dispassionate Nazaniin agent she had expected.

  Trave nodded, and an unseen understanding seemed to pass between the two. Whatever animosity existed between them was gone. “Then let me be clear,” Trave said. “Toss me a stake. Carefully.”

  Code did so, the wooden spike arcing between the two. Trave caught it, and held the point to his chest.

  “Always go for the heart,” he said. “If you hit them there, or close enough, it should immobilize them completely. Decapitation works as well, but I doubt we’ll have time to go around staking, decapitating, and then burning every vampire we come across. We should rely on nightsbane and staking as much as we can.”

  Cinzia glanced at Knot. He rested a hand on the strange sword he carried, a daemon etched in stone on the handle. Code, too, had a similar sword at his hip.

  “What about me?” Cinzia asked. “I’ll need a weapon for that, should it become… absolutely necessary.”

  Code cocked his head to one side. “You… want a sword?”

  Cinzia huffed. “You do not want to give me one because I am a woman?”

  “I know many women who are better with a sword than I am,” Code said. “I don’t want to give you a sword because you don’t strike me as someone who has had much training in that area. Am I wrong?”

  Cinzia frowned. “You are not wrong.”

  “But she needs a weapon,” Knot said.

  Code sighed, then offered his own sword to Cinzia. “Take this.”

  Cinzia reached out a hand hesitantly. “What will you use?”

  “I’ve got an axe in the bag, that’ll do the trick well enough.”

  “Can I use the axe?” Cinzia blurted.

  Good choice, Luceraf whispered.

  Code looked at her quizzically. “An axe requires a lot more strength than a sword, so—”

  “I want the axe.”

  “She wants the axe,” Knot said.

  Code shrugged. “Fine. I prefer my own sword anyway.” He reclaimed his blade, and then reached into the bottom of his bag to pull out a long wooden handle, a long metal spike at one end, and a large single axe-blade on the other, with a hooked spike balancing it out.

  Yes, Luceraf whispered, that will do just fine.

  Code offered the weapon to Cinzia. “It’s a bit heavy, but—”

  Cinzia snatched the weapon, and hefted it. She took a few practice swings. She was no expert with an axe, that much was certain, but after hours of chopping wood at Harmoth, and thanks to Luceraf’s enhanced strength, it felt right in her hands.

  “…but I think you’ll be able to make it work,” Code finished, eyes wide.

  Trave chuckled wryly, but she ignored him.

  Code divided the wooden stakes, giving Cinzia, Knot, and Trave belts that held almost a dozen stakes each. As they strapped the belts around their waists, Code withdrew a small crossbow from his bag, and checked the winding mechanism. He slung a quiver of crossbow bolts around his shoulder. Cinzia eyed the bolts as Code inspected them. Each was a wooden shaft with feathered fletching, and a sharp steel barb at the point.

  “Will that still work?” Cinzia asked. “With a steel tip like that?”

  “It’ll work well enough,” Trave said, answering for him. He nodded at the spike at the base of Cinzia’s axe. “Speaking of which, that might come in handy as a stake, too. Keep it in mind.”

  Cinzia inspected the long steel spike. What in Oblivion was she doing, carrying an axe and a belt of wooden stakes?

  You are about to wreak havoc. Pleasure bubbled in Luceraf’s voice.

  “We need to move,” Knot said. He looked at Code. “Anything else?”

  Code shook his head.

  “Good.”

  The dull patter of the rain increased to a roar as Trave led the way into the dilapidated building.

  * * *

  Code waited for Knot and Cinzia to climb down the ladder, then dropped down quickly after them. His boots splashed in a shallow puddle as he landed.

  The three of them huddled together to light torches, and then Knot and Cinzia began to walk down the tunnel, Code following behind.

  “Trave said there would not be a guard,” Knot said over his shoulder, “but that ain’t an assumption I’m ready to make. Keep your eyes open.” The vampire had already scouted ahead of them, out of sight, but had relayed instructions to Knot.

  Code resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course he was on the lookout; Goddess, that was just like something Lathe would say. There was little need to post a guard down here; the entrance had not exactly been easy to find. Even with this Trave fellow’s directions, it had taken the three of them the better part of an hour to locate the switch that opened the secret door that led to the secret room, and then find another switch which led to the trap door they had just come through. And, Code suspected anyone who actually did find their way down here would very soon find themselves the main course of a meal for a host of deadly vampires.

  Code shivered despite himself. Not his preferred way to go, certainly.

  After a few minutes of walking, Knot held up a hand. They had reached a fork in the tunnel. Code and Cinzia stopped, and Knot nodded at one of the forks, putting a finger to his lips.

  Code strained his ears, but all he heard were crackling torches and a faint, distant dripping sound.

  Lathe’s reputation among the Nazaniin had been infamous for a few reasons. He’d had outstanding instincts, first of all, better than any fighter Code had ever seen. He also seemed to have particularly acute, almost inhuman senses. Knot seemed to have the same qualities.

  “Where in Oblivion is Trave?” Code whispered, but Knot just held up a hand to silence him. Code frowned, his jaw set. If the vampire had betrayed them, Code would make him pay for it. Assuming he lived long enough.

  Then Code heard it, too.
Footsteps echoing in the tunnel, approaching from the left fork. The faint echo reverberated off the walls, until Code realized it wasn’t just a reverberation but multiple footfalls. Three, maybe four vampires were walking toward them.

  The rocky walls were smooth, without ingress; there was nowhere to hide, other than down the right fork—and hope the vampires didn’t catch them up. Knot had the same idea, and moved quickly a few rods up the right fork of the tunnel; but then he stopped and pressed himself against the rock wall. Apparently Trave’s instructions indicated they take the left fork here. Otherwise Code assumed Knot would have led them away from the danger.

  Wait it was, then. Wait, and then fight. Code suppressed a shiver, but a smile crept to his lips. It was true what he had told Cinzia about not delighting in fighting more undead, but it was also true what he’d said about being curious. And, honestly, he’d never fought a vampire before. He wanted to see how he held up against the creatures of legend.

  Fighting three or four vampires at once was something else entirely, of course, but he’d take the bad with the good.

  Code’s hand drifted to the pouch at his belt. He only carried three crystals with him—two was the largest number of faltira crystals he could take without harming himself, but it was always good to carry a reserve—and each crystal would last him roughly twenty minutes, close to a half-hour if he was lucky. That was, at best, an hour and a half of psimancy at his disposal, assuming he had some time in between doses. There was no telling how long they’d be down here; it might be twenty minutes, but it could also be hours. Best to rely on their other methods of dealing with the vampires unless things became truly precarious. He willed his hand away from his faltira pouch, instead glancing at the sprig of nightsbane pinned to his jacket.

  This will work, he told himself. You aren’t going to die in the tunnels beneath Triah fighting a den of vampires. That would be ridiculous.

  Beside him, Cinzia raised a stake in one hand, the axe he had given her in the other. She was tenacious, Code would give her that. And, apparently, far stronger than she appeared.

  The footsteps grew louder, and Code could hear voices whispering now, too. He deliberately slowed his breathing, and wished he could do the same to his heart as it thumped heavily in his chest. He had heard that, in perfect silence, a vampire could hear a human’s blood pumping from thirty rods away.

  “Stop,” one of the vampires said sharply, and very close now, probably just around the corner. “Do you feel that?”

  “Aye,” another responded. The first had clearly been a male, but this one Code could not quite place. Could be male or female, young or old.

  Knot signaled for Code and Cinzia to follow behind him at a distance, and he crept quietly toward the fork.

  “Nightsbane,” said a third voice, although this was more of a growl.

  Knot sprang around the corner, stake in one hand, Nazaniin sword in the other.

  “Alert the Coven,” one of the vampires hissed. “We’ll take care of this one.”

  Code swung wide around the corner in time to see one of the vampires running back down the tunnel, while the other two—a man and a woman—backed slowly away from Knot.

  Code raised his crossbow, aiming at the fleeing form, and pulled the trigger. The bolt connected with his target, who stumbled, then fell to the ground. Code was already winding his crossbow again, another bolt at the ready.

  “There’s more of them,” the woman said, as Cinzia rounded the corner too.

  “Then we’ll kill them all,” the man said. Both drew their longswords.

  But their words did not match their actions; Knot continued advancing on them, and the two retreated as he did.

  Code reloaded. The fleeing figure had stumbled to its feet, but it moved noticeably slower. Code took aim, exhaled, and fired. This time the bolt missed, ricocheting off into the tunnel. The figure continued running, until a shadow pounced out of nowhere, tackling the vampire to the ground.

  Code squinted. That had to be Trave. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to make the vampire pay, after all.

  The female vampire looked back at her fallen comrade, then at Knot, Cinzia, and Code advancing on her.

  “We cannot get close to them, Vladek,” she hissed.

  Code hooked the crossbow on his belt. He raised both hands in peace.

  “Vladek, is it?” he asked. Knot eyed him, but he didn’t care. “A bit obvious for a vampire name, don’t you think?”

  “You don’t know what you’ve walked into,” Vladek growled.

  Code shrugged. “Nightsbane. Wooden stakes. Use your observational powers, mate; I think we know pretty well what we’ve walked into. We just want one thing, really. We’re looking for a little girl, a vampire like yourself. Any idea where we could find her?”

  Vladek sneered. “You won’t. You’ll be dead long before you do.”

  If the vampire moved quickly, he could strike Code with his longsword in a lunge—if he could withstand the nightsbane for long enough. Code thought he could reach his own sword in time to parry a strike. Probably.

  Code nodded at the vampire who’d collapsed in the tunnel, pierced by his crossbow bolt. “That one doesn’t seem to agree with you. If you tell us where the girl is, we probably won’t kill you. How does that sound?”

  Vladek shook his head. “You really don’t know where you are or what you’re doing. Nightsbane might work on me, but it won’t work on others down here. You’ve stumbled on something more powerful than you can imagine. Take my advice, and leave while you can.”

  Code took another step forward.

  This time, Vladek took a step back, and that told Code all he needed to know.

  With his right hand Code slipped from its sheath a wooden stake that he’d hidden on a wristband beneath his sleeve, while he drew his sword with his left. He lunged as Vladek’s eyes widened, and the vampire took another step back, but it was not enough. Code plunged the stake into the vampire’s shoulder, missing the heart by a good margin, while deflecting a wild blow from Vladek’s longsword with his own Nazaniin blade. Vladek grunted, clearly in pain from the nightsbane less than a rod away from him and from the wood now embedded in his shoulder.

  Knot clashed with the female vampire while Code parried another wild blow from Vladek. He drew another stake from his belt with the intention to seek this one into the vampire’s heart, but Vladek recovered far more quickly than Code anticipated. He’d hoped, during the day, at least, with his training and skill, he’d be able to overpower Vladek quickly enough to end things without much of a fight.

  But despite his first two wild blows, the nightsbane, and the wooden stake protruding from his shoulder, Code barely got his sword up in time to parry Vladek’s next strike. The longsword clashed into Code’s sword with a sharp clang that sent a tremor up Code’s arms.

  Code danced around Vladek, but the vampire stayed with him step for step. Code’s training with the sword was formidable; hours a day every day for two decades. But, as the vampire’s footwork matched his own impeccably, and as the vampire matched Code blow for blow despite his clearly weakened and pained state, Code began to understand for the first time what he was up against. He had trained for decades; the vampire had trained for centuries.

  Disengaging after another flurry of blows, Code threw the stake at Vladek’s chest. The vampire deflected the stake midair, but Code followed it quickly, now holding his sword with a two-handed grip.

  Cinzia flanked the vampire. He tried to catch her eye, shaking his head as subtly as he could—Vladek would undoubtedly sense her approach, and could kill her with a single stroke—but Cinzia paid him no mind.

  Code increased the power and speed of his attack, keeping Vladek on the defensive and his attention away from Cinzia. But then something changed in Vladek’s eyes, nothing more than a flicker but enough to tell Code the vampire knew where Cinzia was and what she was doing. Vladek deflected another strike from Code’s blade and twisted, simultaneously kicking Code i
n the stomach, sending him stumbling back, and lashing out at Cinzia with his sword.

  Code watched in horror as the sword cut toward Cinzia’s unarmored, completely unprotected shoulder.

  His horror turned to confused awe when Cinzia caught the blade, bare-handed, stopping it mid-arc.

  Vladek seemed just as surprised as Code for a fraction of a second, before tearing the sword from Cinzia’s grasp. Not, however, before Cinzia buried a stake in the vampire’s heart. Vladek choked out a gasp, then fell to the ground, clawing ineffectively at the stake in his chest.

  Code did not waste time; he brought his sword down on the vampire’s neck. It took three strikes to sever Vladek’s head, but when it was done Code kicked it across the tunnel, away from the body.

  “What,” Code gasped, catching his breath as he glared at Cinzia, “in the mother of all Oblivion was that?”

  Cinzia didn’t answer. She was spattered in blood from the decapitated corpse.

  Code glanced back to see the female vampire lying prone, three stakes piercing her chest. Her head, too, had been removed from her body, now a healthy distance away. Their bodies leaked blood onto the dirt and rock, almost black in the dim, flickering torchlight.

  “Did you know about this?” Code asked Knot, pointing at Cinzia.

  “Knew enough,” Knot said, but he, too, watched Cinzia warily.

  “Not now,” Cinzia said. “We have a mission to focus on.”

  Code glanced up the tunnel at the third vampire to make sure it hadn’t moved: it was still motionless on the ground. Trave stood in the distance, waiting for them. But Code wasn’t done. “This isn’t something you just shrug off. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit recently, but an ex-Cantic priestess stopping a vampire’s sword swing with her bare hand might actually…”

  Code trailed off, something clicking in his mind.

  He had seen this before. He had seen this exact behavior before, both on Arro with the Daemon Hade, and in Maven Kol with the Daemon Nadir. The avatars they had both claimed, whatever they had been before, gained superior strength, speed, and durability.