by J. Armand
“Are you serious? You betrayed me. You’re selling my soul to the Devil incarnate for your own gain.”
“Oh come on. Don’t be so sensitive. You just have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” I yelled. “I want to kill you!” I took the dagger Micah had given me from my back pocket and threw it at his heart at the first opening. It passed right through him again as he turned to mist and stabbed the other man in the forehead, giving Noah the opportunity to finish the job with a slice across the throat. The warrior collapsed in a ball of azure light and faded away, along with his polearm. That was something I had never seen before. If he wasn’t undead, what was he?
“Thanks. I was getting bored of that.” Noah stretched and sheathed his katana. “Let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I snapped. “Everything you told me was a lie. What makes you think I’d ever trust you again, let alone be in your company?”
“I told you, you just have to trust me.”
“That’s not good enough for me, sorry.” I got up and went back into the mansion to look around. “You aren’t even denying that what Castile said is true.”
“Because it is, sort of. It’s not what you think. Perspective, remember? Isn’t that what this prick said? You’re not in any danger, not any more than you were wandering into the home of some Ancient or trying to pretend you’re human to a group of hunters. Now stop being a whiny brat and let’s go.”
“Get lost,” I told him as I walked up to Castile’s ashes. I wonder if that man we just killed had anything to do with the coming darkness the Ancients were all talking about, I thought. Noah didn’t seem that surprised by his strange death, but I wasn’t about to ask him. I scooped up a handful of Castile’s ashes in my hand and walked back outside.
“You’re starting to piss me off, kid,” Noah complained. “I’m fine with doing this the hard way and you know it.”
I opened my hand when I reached the grass. The ashes were gone. Not even a speck. Noah picked me up under his arm. Before I could fight back, the world became a blur as he tore across the land at light speed. This wasn’t over, but there was no running from Noah. Maybe for now it was better to play along.
Chapter Nine
“You’re unusually quiet.” Noah sat across from me, kicked back like everything was great in life. “I like it.”
“Where are you taking me?” Those were the first words I had spoken to him since Castile’s estate. My head was still spinning from traveling at breakneck speed. He had dragged me all the way to the airport and snuck us into the cargo hold of a plane.
“Japan. You like it there.”
“I liked it there before I knew what you were planning. What makes you think I want anything to do with you aside from killing you?”
“If you could kill me, you won’t have anything to worry about from Aurelia. It’s not like you have anything better to do than practice.”
“I have friends now. I can think of plenty of other things I’d rather be doing.”
“Those aren’t friends, those are pets. Pets that are going to get themselves killed any day now.”
“Nothing lasts forever, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it while it does.”
“That’s deep. I guess it’s an improvement from your usual whining.” He got up as the plane started to take off. “Well, good night!”
“Where are you going?” I asked. If I could have staked him in his sleep and thrown him out of the plane I’d have been only too happy to do it.
“Nice try, but I’ll be somewhere you can’t get me unless you want to crash a plane full of innocent people. And you might want to go through all this luggage and look for something else to wear. You look ridiculous and smell like a forest fire. You know I have a very sensitive nose.” With those kind parting words he disappeared in a cloud of mist. I needed to get back to the Blackbournes, but I had no way to contact them. With William’s amulet I could beat Noah, or at least give him a very bad day and get him to leave me alone for awhile.
Once, when we were in Japan, I thanked Noah for everything he’d taught me. He told me not to thank him. The best thanks a student can give a teacher, he said, is using the teacher’s lessons to surpass him. Was he trying to tell me something when he said if I could kill him I wouldn’t have to worry about Aurelia? Or was this another lie to keep me complacent a while longer?
---
“Why are we getting off here?” It was hard to tell sitting in a pile of luggage, but we had only been flying a few hours at most when the plane landed and Noah brought us to the entrance of the airport. There was no reason for us to have left the boarding gates if we were changing flights on our way to Japan.
Noah took a map out of a passing tourist’s hands to look it over. Judging by all the signs in the airport it appeared we had taken a pit stop in Germany.
“Everyone’s looking at us,” I whispered to him. The tourists and travelers gawked at Noah in awe as he nonchalantly inspected the map in the middle of the crowded waiting area. It probably wasn’t often that a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound man who could be the fitness champion of the world stood shirtless in an airport. It was probably even less often that that man radiated a supernatural magnetism that would cause even the chastest individual to drop to their knees in worship.
“They’re looking at me,” Noah smirked. “Nobody wants to see your nasty charbroiled carcass.”
I hadn’t put on new clothes on purpose just to bother him. Even if I did, they wouldn’t last more than a few hours anyway. He turned to the befuddled woman whose map he’d pillaged and spoke to her in German with a wolfish grin.
“I didn’t know you spoke German,” I said to him after he handed back the map.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Just the way I like it.” He grabbed me and prepared to take off running at Mach speed again.
“I thought we were going to Japan.” I yanked my arm back.
“Yeah, I lied.”
“What?! What’s in Germany?” It took me a moment and then I remembered: the Strigoi. Why would he bring me to them? All they ever want to do is experiment on me or use me. Wouldn’t that be counterproductive to his plan?
“Don’t worry about it, trust me.”
---
“Vance!” Noah pounded on the door to a run-down gothic chapel. “Open up, I’m here with your science project!”
I scowled at him. “Science project” was the most derogatory term he could call me after learning about my past. Leave it to Noah to come up with it.
“See if you can get inside.” Noah hit me on the shoulder. “They have some magic crap that won’t let me in.”
“Gee, I wonder why. Maybe I should get that too.”
“You’d need a house. You don’t even own a cardboard box.” A harsh reality. I wished I was back with the Blackbournes.
My hand was magically repelled from the door handle, preventing me from opening it. Telekinesis worked just fine, but I couldn’t walk through the doorway without being bounced back. A somber-looking man around Noah’s age, dressed in ceremonial robes, stepped into the candlelit hall before us.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“Is that any way to treat an old friend, Vance?” Noah grinned and picked me up by the back of my shirt. “I want to turn this in for a newer model. This one keeps talking back, I think he’s broken.”
“Free will is not a defect… just an oversight,” Vance said, and set down the stack of old books he was carrying.
“Vance, let us in or he’ll never go away.” I tugged free until Noah set me down.
“The sun has to rise eventually.” Vance started to close the door. Noah picked up a rock and threw it through a stained-glass window in protest. “Must you always be so juvenile? I haven’t forgotten your explicit orders to destroy me after my involuntary aid at your chateau. Why should I open my doors to danger?”
“Don’t worry about that. I took care of her.�
��
“Really?” I squinted at Noah through the corner of my eye.
“I can tell you’re lying.” Vance wasn’t entertained by Noah’s ploy. “Why does your sword have an aura?”
An aura? Only things with souls had an aura. Auras were the invisible light that radiated from the souls of both living and undead, and some supernaturals were able to see them.
“It’s a long story. Let me in and I’ll tell you,” Noah bargained.
“Come in.” Vance’s insatiable curiosity was too great to resist such an offer, even if it could cost him his head. At his command, the repelling barrier dispersed long enough for us to enter. The dimly lit chapel was small, but the high arching ceilings made it seem so much grander. Though the building had been a place of religious worship, there were no statues or ornamentations depicting such. Musty scrolls and stacks of tomes were scattered on every surface.
“Vance, I think you have a hoarding problem.” My joke fell on deaf ears.
“What have you been up to? Mixing up anything good in your creature cauldron lately?” Noah swept a bunch of books onto the floor and took a seat on an old wooden chair that didn’t look like it would support someone his size.
“This is a peaceful arcanum. We don’t conduct experiments here, only research.”
“That’s boring.” Noah flipped through a tome, then threw it over his shoulder. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but was holding back.
“Show me the sword.” Vance collected the displaced literature and tried reorganizing it amongst the clutter. “We’ve been working on recreating the tethering of a soul to an inanimate object as we did when we defeated Aurelia’s sister. With the Grand Grimoire lost to us it has been difficult to achieve.”
“I thought you said you don’t conduct experiments here,” I reminded him.
“Theoretical research for now,” he mumbled. “You appear to have become stronger since we last met. Your aura has grown and shines brighter.”
“He’s been training with me.” Noah sounded like he was boasting, but was it about his teaching skills or my results? “If you find any of the others like him I can use my Midas touch on them too.”
“Show me the sword.” Vance ignored the comment and repeated himself. Noah shot up and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him down on the rickety table.
“I wasn’t saying that to hear my own voice.” Noah bared his fangs. “Where are the others?”
I wasn’t a fan of Vance, but I liked Noah even less lately. This sudden outcry of aggression wasn’t completely out of character for him, but it was uncalled for.
“I don’t know,” Vance choked.
“Bullshit. You saw what this kid could do. You said yourself he was a success. I’m not gonna believe that you didn’t go looking for the others and I’m not leaving until you tell me where they are,” Noah threatened.
“Why do you want them?” I asked.
“He wants his own army, or Aurelia does,” Vance choked out again.
“Don’t you wanna know where they are?” Noah looked over his shoulder at me.
“No,” I answered. “If they’re not already part of this world I don’t want to be the one to get them involved.”
“Oh.” Noah released his hold on Vance and helped him up in a questionable display of a truce. “Never mind then.”
Vance and I exchanged equally uncertain glances. I was perplexed. Noah had dragged me here to see if Vance had found the others like me the Strigoi had made? If he didn’t want to hand them over to Aurelia, why would he care?
Noah placed his new katana on the table. “You can look, but don’t touch,” he warned.
“Where did you get it?” Vance cautiously inspected the sword. “It’s fascinating. I sense a very dark energy from it.”
“Some guy on the street.” Noah summarized quite a bit.
“So you stole it.”
“No, technically the kid stole it.”
“The guy who had it was killing people for no apparent reason,” I explained. “Innocent people.”
“Totally unrelated, but you wouldn’t happen to have a way to banish spirits, would you?” Noah asked coyly. “Really angry guardian spirits. Besides that tethering thing. I mean banished for good. Far away somewhere. Like Japan.”
Vance froze and turned to Noah. “This sword wouldn’t happen to belong to such a spirit, would it?”
Noah shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe?”
“What did you do?” Vance cried out. I should have known Noah was so interested in this katana for a reason.
“Yeah, I screwed the pooch on this one. I admit it. I might have unleashed an ancient curse on the world when we were back in Japan.”
“That’s what the guy with the polearm was? A spirit? No wonder the killings started the same night we arrived back in New York. It followed us back there. You’re the one responsible for all those deaths!” I shouted.
“What did you want me to do?” Noah yelled back. “I got bored watching you roll around in the mud all day. I had to find some way to entertain myself! I was poking around this Buddhist temple when I found the katana lying there.”
“Lying there?” I doubted that.
“Okay, maybe a few hundred feet underground in a sealed vault. What’s it matter? I’m trying to fix it now. I already killed that guy.”
“We killed him,” I corrected. “And if he’s dead, why are you worried? Why did we come here?”
“There may be more. Probably one or two… or four.” Noah smiled slyly. “I’m a bit rusty at reading ancient Japanese inscriptions.”
“If it is a spirit like you say then it won’t stop until the curse is broken. You have to give the sword back,” Vance said.
“Uh, no? It’s mine now. They’ll just have to get over it. And that’s why I need you. In case they can’t.” Noah pointed at Vance. “I’d get to work if I were you, because they’re usually right behind me.”
“I cannot believe this,” Vance fumed.
“I know. It’s getting pretty annoying.” Noah took a seat again and kicked up his feet.
“I mean I cannot believe I’ve allowed you to suck me into your lunacy once again.”
“Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants. If it makes you feel any better, you were the first person I thought to come to.”
“Why didn’t you just go back to Aurelia?” I asked. Noah stopped flipping through another dusty book.
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said, brat.” He sat up in his chair. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
“What’s that sound?” I asked. Something outside sounded like a speeding train going in circles around the chapel.
“Your time’s probably up,” Noah said to Vance.
“Archmage!” A very youthful-looking Strigoi girl came running in. “Oh, I didn’t know we had visitors. You should know there is a… a tornado surrounding our arcanum!”
“Yes, I can see that Heather,” Vance said as all of us except Noah peered out the broken window to see the winds whipping around the building. Out of the vortex stepped another obscured figure, but this one willingly dropped his disguise to show himself to us. It was another Asian man. This time he was dressed in only the lightweight pants of a martial artist’s gi with one black and one white leg and spikey black-and-white hair to match. He cracked his knuckles and smirked at us from the windstorm. His cocky expression was very similar to Noah’s and he had a body that almost matched Noah’s as well. The man stood there for a time, then crouched and touched the beads around his neck as if in prayer.
“I’m giving him the sword,” I said and went to grab it. Noah snatched it away and put it beside his seat.
“Don’t be such a coward. You wanted to kill the guy back in Manhattan because he was hurting Outsiders.”
“That was before I knew it was all your fault!” I shouted.
“Minor detail. It shouldn’t matter what the reason is for a fight. Just suck it up and go out t
here.”
“You’re the one who always told me there’s no honor in a fight without purpose.” I nailed him with his own philosophy.
“Goddamnit, why do you always have to pay attention when I think you aren’t? Then sit here and wait until the bookworms figure something out. No one can get in here anyway with that magic bullshit blocking them.”
“It doesn’t stop the wind,” Vance said as a gust tore through the windows, sending books and papers everywhere. The winds picked up and tore bookshelves and tapestries down from the walls.
“This is your fight, Noah. What are you so scared of?” Noah didn’t seem the least bit concerned, but I’d take any jab at him I could get. Maybe if we all got lucky we could get Noah out of our lives for good. “‘Those who cling to life die, and those who defy death live.’ It’s tattooed on your body.”
“’Know thy enemy,’” Noah quoted and reclined again. “Remember that? I’m not wasting my time until I know what I’m dealing with. That’s why we’re here.”
Three more Strigoi women and a bald man, all wearing ceremonial hooded robes, joined us in a panic.
“The walls are collapsing!” one of them screamed.
“The arcanum will surely be blown from its foundation at any moment!” another cried.
“Our years of research will be for naught!” a third shrieked.
“I’ll go secure the specimens in the laboratory, Archmage,” Heather offered and ran off.
“Specimens?” I glared at Vance. “What happened to a peaceful arcanum with no experiments?”
He pretended not to hear me and went back to Noah. “There’s no way to do our research if the arcanum is destroyed.”
“Fine. The kid and I will keep him busy.”
“No, I won’t. I don’t want any part of this. We are not friends, remember? You kidnapped me. I’m flying out of here and going back to my friends.”
“Good luck with that, because if I die, guess who they’re coming after next?” He poked me in the chest. “And if they’re coming after you, you can bet your ‘friends’ won’t last more than a second. That is, if they even let you leave here.”