Forged in Blood and Lightning: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Descendants of Thor Trilogy: Book One)

by S. A. Ashdown

  No one will let me forget. He hesitated, braking gently in front of the intimidating wrought-iron gates, his eyes drawn down the oak-lined avenue to the headquarters, their marbled columns protruding on a high, stepped entrance, the strong, gleaming pillars defending the building like soldiers of justice. It was a Renaissance jewel once occupied by an eccentric old couple with more money than sense, until it was ‘officially’ purchased by the government. The shadow government, more like.

  Menelaus leant out of his window to press the intercom. He no longer bothered to look up at the bands of runes around the gateposts, or the security cameras rearing their mechanical heads, but he felt their robotic sensors follow his car as he pulled through the opening and cruised down to the gatehouse, where he was stopped to scan his security pass. The guard waved him through, holding a half-eaten pie, crumbs stuck to his tie.

  Standards are slipping. Menelaus smirked to himself, his smile fading to a dull sense of unease as the full splendour of the headquarters unveiled itself. Arched windows flanked the porch, rising three storeys into the sky, flooding the hallway within with brilliant sunshine. Menelaus knew there were half a dozen levels below ground too, maybe even more. HQ commandeered a big hill, and who could say what hid in the bowels of the ship?

  He parked round the corner, and returned, taking the steps two at a time, glancing at the decorative lintel above the wide doorway, Lady Justice rendered in three personas, the implements of their judgement and retribution jutting from the stone in a subtle threat. In the centre, Iustitia, the Roman goddess, carried the sword and scales. On her right, the Egyptian goddess, Maat, and to the left, stood the Grecian Themis.

  Yet, out of all the magistrates he’d met, only a few were women. There were a handful of female Excubiae, or Guardians, but Menelaus had noticed that the women tended to work as auxiliaries or as SRs – scientific researchers –, because they preferred the less aggressive – and he had to admit – less dangerous roles. It made meeting potential lovers difficult since each tier of Praetoriani tended to stick together. That started at school, when children from Praetoriani families were educated internally, moulding the future workforce within its own walls. At sixteen, each child faced a choice: stay in the Praetoriani and choose an apprenticeship, or leave. The majority stuck with what they knew, what their families expected. It hadn’t even been a choice for Menelaus, as he had nowhere else to go.

  He found Julian in the library that overlooked the driveway, sipping chá from a china cup. The green-leather chair he sat in matched the notebook he’d placed next to the saucer. He wrote everything down in that thing, in a secret code that would flummox the best of Bletchley, as Julian despised computers. He’d conceded that technology was a necessary evil during a discussion at Menelaus’ apartment, but Julian would still fight the digitalisation of the underground archives until he was long dead in his grave. It was hard to steal an acreage of scrolls, manuscripts, and carefully filed notes. Menelaus had countered it was hard to set digital records on fire, and they finally agreed to disagree after they both started drinking too much whisky.

  ‘You were right to be worried,’ Menelaus puffed, as he slipped into the adjacent chair. He rested his elbows on his knees and gazed out of the arched windows, watching his mentor’s thin eyebrows arch almost as high in his periphery. ‘They’re back in town, Julian. And they’re making babies.’

  ‘It’s what I’ve feared.’ Julian arranged his cup on the saucer, careful not to drip tea on the polished table. He had special dispensation to bring hot drinks into the library after he’d argued that tea was an essential part of his cultural heritage, and the seating here was appropriate for his injured hip, unlike the hard chairs in the cafeteria. To the chagrin of his colleagues, the HR department had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, despite the fact it was common knowledge he used his oriental walking stick for effect rather than from necessity. ‘You’ve seen it happen?’

  ‘No, but my source is reliable.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said, tightening his grey ponytail, ‘can you guarantee it?’

  Menelaus scoffed. ‘The baby in question was one of my students. Still is technically. He’s a good kid, but I don’t trust the De Laurentis tribe.’

  ‘Who turned him? Ah, it must be Malachi. Michele hasn’t turned anyone in centuries, and I doubt this boy of yours is particularly special. What’s his name?’

  ‘Lorenzo Angelucci.’

  ‘He’s Italian? That throws a spanner in the works. Maybe he is special. Michele likes his Tuscans.’

  They waited as a rotund assistant waddled around the library, eyeing Julian’s cup and frowning, before replacing a book and retreating to the far corner. Julian shrugged at Menelaus’ inquiring look. ‘Tea envy.’

  ‘Sure,’ he smirked. ‘Back on topic. Lorenzo’s half-Italian, I think, through his mother. He’s been working double shifts to pay debts his absentee father saddled them with. He wanted an extension on his dissertation. That’s all I remember. It sounded like excuses to me after a while. And you’re right about Malachi, it’s him. My source saw it happen.’

  This time, the pause was thoughtful and not due to interruption. Outside, the avenue was bruised by churning clouds overhead. It wouldn’t be long until another downpour, but Menelaus couldn’t stay inside tonight. He had some tracking to do.

  ‘Saw it happen, you say? And this source of yours still lives?’

  The startling image of Raphael strolling into the university library, youthful beauty unchanged in a decade, pierced his natural scepticism. Raphael was special. ‘He’s good at that, apparently.’

  ‘Does he share your abilities?’

  ‘Invisibility? His gifts lie elsewhere. Just as mine lies spelled into a magistrate’s vault.’

  This time the silence was as bitter as Julian’s stewed tea. ‘I better go, before I have to sail out.’ The sky burst as Menelaus stood and nodded to his mentor.

  ‘You better change out of the tweed, Professor.’

  The lab complex extended deep into the labyrinth buried beneath the courtyard. Menelaus dutifully washed his hands at the basin provided at the checkpoint, topping up with alcohol gel smeared past his wrists. He scanned his lanyard and was buzzed in by a tech assistant before signing his name in the visitor log. It seemed as if every day another layer of red tape was added before you could speak to someone.

  He waited in a sterile corridor, a figure clad in black, stark against the squeaky floor and the whitewashed walls. He hated the way the florescent lighting flickered and made his head ache, hated the persistent, artificial breeze drying his skin. No way could I work down here. Not after what they did to me.

  He was relieved to spot Rachel’s slim figure swaying down the corridor, her spotless lab coat swishing behind her like a cape. She stopped and smiled, and he took his cue and joined her side. ‘Any chance of a tête-à-tête?’

  Rachel shrugged as she tapped her lanyard against a keypad, beckoning Menelaus to go first in case the door closed too quickly behind her. ‘If you hurry. I’m in the middle of research and I’ve had three extra projects dumped on me for inexplicable reasons.’ She slipped out of her coat and hung it on a hook by the door, eyeing the lunchbox on her desk. All the other surfaces were covered in test tubes, beakers, and electron microscopes, a computer with three massive screens and clusters of stationery. One glance at the high-tech equipment, and Menelaus lost count of the zeros on the laboratory’s blank cheque.

  ‘I need a scent mask.’ Tracking vampires was tricky, not because they were hard to find – if anything, it was easy to follow the trail of bodies and missing persons reports – but because they tended to sniff out stalkers before they could get close enough. A mask for his scent and he had a chance. There was no point wishing for his invisibility back.

  ‘What are we dealing with?’

  ‘Vampires. De Laurentis.’

  ‘Really?’

  Menelaus nodded. ‘Yup. Got any of their blood samples left?’

/>   Rachel shivered in the cool lab air and sat at her desk, flipping the lid on her lunchbox and extracting a sandwich. ‘It’s been a long time,’ she said, as she removed the cling film, ‘so it’s possible. The computer sends requests for fillers to restock the supply if it gets low. If no one picked it up, an official IOU will be in the system somewhere.’

  ‘Can you check?’

  Between mouthfuls, Rachel reached for her laptop and hammered the keys, typing in several passwords until a database popped up on the screen. ‘De Laurentis… here we go. There are a few vials left. I’ll need a speck of your blood too, only a finger prick.’ She swallowed a bite and added, ‘Grab that Petri dish over there, will you?’

  Menelaus found it in an open drawer and brought it over. ‘No problem. How long will it take?’

  She sighed and took a sip from her water bottle. ‘How long is a piece of string? It’ll take about ten minutes to work once you drink it. It should give you twenty-four hours of protection at top whack. Remember that – there isn’t much to go around.’

  ‘That’s all I need.’

  12

  Salvation In Those Eyes

  Lorenzo’s life skewed on its axis, with Jean-Ashley his centre of gravity. The hunt began with a passage, the shift from human to stalker, and a trip down a sable tunnel. The journey left inky stains on his morality, and at the end of it, Lorenzo would be holding her. His existence was descending into a slow terror, a horror replayed in nightly reunions. The bloodlust mingled with the purer desires of his heart. There was no humanity, his conscience had been drowned in a red sea of insatiable cravings.

  Why did she taunt him? Why did she keep looking at him with doe-eyed admiration when he hurt her? What separated him from those women-beaters he so loathed, what made him behave as his father had to his mother, the only difference his use of fangs rather than fists? Was it the fact he could heal his girlfriend, erase the trauma from her mind, only to start anew the next day?

  Lorenzo slugged back another gold-rimmed shot glass – the Red Hawk stopped short of serving vodka in tankards – and avoided eye contact with Grace, or any of the other barmaids. He’d only pick out a freckle or an angle of jaw that would send his memory racing back to his girlfriend and all the terrible things he wanted to do to her. He bit down on his cheeks as he bobbed up and down on the waves of his self-loathing, surfacing from his miserable thoughts only to be sliced by the callous laughter of Malachi and Penny, who sat on either side of him, sharing barbs over his head.

  The vodka burned his throat, and he gasped as Malachi elbowed his ribs hard enough to crack human bone, hissing in his ear. ‘I’m not paying your bar tab if you insist on being so fucking boring.’

  ‘I don’t need your crappy money.’

  ‘Really? I suppose you cleared your mother’s debts already?’

  Lorenzo sucked in his breath, willing his muscles inert, forbidding his knuckles to cave in his ‘Pater Sanguinem’s’ jaw. It was so tempting, but the price for such rebellion would be steeper than he could imagine. Malachi had let slip some stories, or ‘shenanigans’ as he’d called them, and he hadn’t bothered to hide the threats laden in his gory tales.

  For once, Lorenzo was grateful that Penny couldn’t keep her mouth shut. ‘Why does she owe so much anyway? She drink? Gamble? What’s the story?’

  ‘It’s none of your god-damned business,’ he spat, glowering at his empty shot glass, trying to wall them out.

  Cold fingers slid over the back of his neck, and he felt Malachi’s tangy breath, ‘Play nice, little vampire. Answer the lady.’

  Why does he care? He let his breath out, deciding to trade this lesser secret for a bigger one later on, when rebellion might be necessary instead of desirable. ‘Fine. My mum did nothing but try to avoid a beating from my father. She did whatever he said. He took loans out in her name to cover his many habits. So now you know. Back off.’

  Penny uncapped the bottle of vodka and refilled his glass. ‘Sucks to be you.’

  ‘Too right, sister.’ His voice was devoid of affection. He paused as he held the glass to his lips, glancing over to the other side of the bar. His breath and thoughts cut out. The young man sitting in the booth beyond the bar looked barely old enough to be in the Red Hawk, and Lorenzo quickly noticed he only had a bottle of fizzy water on the table, a tankard next to it.

  Lorenzo had been lost on dusty sand dunes for weeks, bombarded by the choking heat of thirst. Suddenly, there was a crystal lake sparkling in front of him, promising eternal, quenching refuge from the blazing sun of guilt.

  The young man met his gaze. Lorenzo could see his irises in detail, the corner lamp allowing their amethyst hue to shine and glitter with golden flecks. It was all Lorenzo could do not to slide off his stool and crawl over the floorboards, begging the creature for mercy, for a drop of his blood. There was no logic Lorenzo could employ to explain these feelings, but whatever, whoever this boy was, he tilted Lorenzo’s world back, away from Jean-Ashley, away from all things.

  When the boy blushed and looked away, his heart broke cleanly, and he wrapped each fragment in a blanket of longing, to reassemble later, after he’d tasted the peace of that pulse.

  He dropped the shot glass and staggered back from the bar. Malachi was staring at him. Penny whipped her head in the direction Lorenzo had been looking, confused.

  Lorenzo lurched across the pub and scanned the inhabitants. The boy was gone. He rushed over to the table and cradled the tankard. Beads of water still clung to the smooth surface, where the boy’s mouth had touched the lip. A scent like no other, like mountain air after fresh rain, like the oxygenated atmosphere before the dawn of man, before the world had seen pollution. Lorenzo couldn’t breathe when he’d looked at him because the boy was air, sustenance and fluffy clouds and… and… one word pounded in his head, banging at him like a gong. His vision swam as he caved under the pressure. Salvation. Salvation. Salvation.

  He slipped from Malachi’s grip and zipped outside, absorbed by the moonlight for a nanosecond, charged by its energy. His nostrils flared and he flew down the street, dodging human traffic as he sped past. He didn’t need to follow the scent, however; the pavement was covered in gold dust, sparkling just like those irises.

  13

  Breaking And Staking

  Lorenzo paused outside Hellingstead Hall’s gated driveway, recoiling from the gargoyles on either side of the entrance. So, this was where he led me, Lorenzo thought, recalling Penny’s lacklustre lesson on local Pneuma and varmint, and where they lived.

  She’d discussed Theo Clemensen and his golden mane for a good half hour. She did manage to stop salivating long enough to mention Espen Clemensen and his general vampire hatred but refused to divulge her source. The church was stuffed with books, no doubt she was parroting something she’d read. Besides, Lorenzo bet Espen didn’t hate vampires as much as he himself hated the way Penny painted herself as some omniscient herald. That witch was so up herself.

  The pull from within those high box-hedges wrenched his guts. Lorenzo considered the possibility that sneaking across the border would mean instant death. Who could say how much truth there was in Penny’s claims about Espen? Would he burst into flames as soon as he crossed the threshold? The sign nailed into the wall beside the gate didn’t instil confidence. PRIVATE PROPERTY. INTRUDERS WILL BE STAKED. SURVIVORS WILL BE STAKED AGAIN. The risk terrified and thrilled him at the same time. One thing he’d inherited from his father was the dark urge to gamble when the stakes were high, even if in this case literal stakes could be waiting for him across the boundary.

  He twirled on his heel, debating whether to turn back, whether the cost was worth it. The trouble was the boy was on his radar now, a succulent, peachy bullseye in the dartboard pinned behind his lids. He couldn’t give up the chase. After all, hungry lions eat gazelles. This kid’s blood screamed at him. You can’t have a beauty like that, you can’t radiate such seductive innocence and expect not to be pursued.

  He
growled, thinking of Malachi’s taunt. ‘The fuck I’m boring.’ He reared back and launched himself over the high gates. At first, he thought it was adrenaline buzzing in his muscles, but the pain cranked up and he yelped, the violent sting sending him careering back onto the empty road. He scurried back farther as the gargoyles lifted their grotesque stone heads, suddenly animated, talons uncurling from the concrete fence posts and slashing at the air.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Lorenzo yelled. The sweat on his palms picked up the grit from the road as he waited, unable to move. After a while, the stone beasts returned to their watch posts as if the whole incident had been a bad dream.

  Rising to his feet, Lorenzo scoured the long barrier of hedgerow, walking along in the dark, muttering and cursing under his breath. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. Guess that serves me right for being cocky. After all, he’d tried to walk right in without even bothering to use a pinch of stealth and had been electrocuted for his troubles. But it raised the question, how did the boy get in? Was he Theo’s guest? It didn’t seem likely. Theo couldn’t keep his mouth shut for five seconds. But the boy had vanished as soon as his appearance at the Red Hawk was noted. A warlock’s scent marred the tongue with the tangy taste of magic, but this kid was candyfloss.

  He halted, the pull stronger in this spot. Lorenzo stared at the hedge, willing his perfect vision to slice through it and reveal the estate on the other side. He expected trees, a view of the house at an angle, but had no idea what else he’d find. He was approximately twenty yards away from the driveway. As good a place as any.