by M. P. Taylor
“No darling, it would be yours,” she pulled down her sunglasses. Red eyes glared across the street at me, “But I'm not going to fight you. You've already been defeated.”
My ward flared up but not from the front. I turned about just in time to see a sword shatter its way through my barrier, a similarly dressed man stepped through and advanced upon me. His eyes, red and filled with hatred, aimed at me.
Chapter Two
There was no time to react on a conscious level. The man moved with incredible speed, his sword turning in his hands, readying a deathblow. It was all I could do to thrust my hand outward and focus my will.
“Nix!” the command was given, arcane power stirred the air nearby. From it, moisture was drawn and solidified into razor shards of ice. They torn into him in great numbers, cutting his skin and tearing apart his coat until he jumped back outside of my ward.
With an effort of will, I solidified that part of my ward that had been broken. My defense was once more whole but he had broken them the first time with just a sweep of his sword. It didn't inspire much confidence.
My eyes glanced backwards to see if the woman had elected to attack me from behind as her companion had. She was still sitting upon the end of my car, watching with interest. Her eyes didn't have the same hatred as the other but they were certainly just as red. Enjoyment, I could see it written in her smile.
Vampires, I realized the moment I had the spare second to think. Once more, that didn't bode well for me. My spells were powerful enough to kill one but that was only if they managed clean hits and that was almost certainly asking too much. Vampires were fast. Blink and your neck would be snapped... and those were the ones without swords. Given that his blade had made short work of my ward, I doubted it was just a piece of steel. It had probably been enchanted by some black market mage.
“The papers,” the woman said, “Give them to me and you may go free. You've clearly stumbled into this but we are not beyond forgiveness for honest mistakes.”
The man had paused in his attack, apparently waiting to hear my reply.
I took that moment to focus my will and recall a more powerful spell. The razor ice had been my first instinct, but it certainly wasn't the most punch that I could pack. Talking to me had been a mistake and I'd make them know that, even if it would cost me my life. The more time I could buy, the more focused my next spell would be and so I decided to probe for whatever information I could get.
“Stumbled? Into what exactly? Identify yourselves and perhaps I'll give some thought to the matter,” it was a long shot but, as my mentor said, 'Never let a poor chance go to waste'. Not sure if he meant for me to be interrogating vampire during a fight, but that which didn't kill me...
The man scoffed, “She's gathering strength, clever bitch. Let's kill her and be done with it.”
Cheerful type.
His companion shrugged off the suggestion and finally got off the hood of my car. She pulled forth from her coat a blade. It matched that of the man; a longsword that had an oddly charred look to it as if it'd been left to smolder in ashes. There was power in the blade, a lot of it. I glanced back at man's weapon and felt the same aura of magical strength, no wonder he had sliced through my ward as if it were butter. They were packing some serious enchantments, stuff that I wouldn't be capable of making for decades.
The woman stiffened her form and placed the tip of her blade on the ground. Her eyes once more meet with mine as she spoke, “You face Lady Irena and Lord Erik, blood knights of the dragon Eristehen.”
Oh.
Lady Irena's earlier words had been correct, I had clearly stumbled into something much larger than I'd intended.
To those in the known, blood knights were something to be spoken of in whispers. They were born of old magic, that of dragons and death, but that wasn't enough. The dragon she spoke of, Eristehen, was a discerning type. He selected his knights only from the fiercest of the vampiric warriors. To be a blood knight of Eristrhen was to be a god of war. They were said to live only for the challenge of stopping death with skilled combat. No opponent was too much for them, and their greatest glory was to die upon a pile of worthy corpses.
My hands felt weak and my heartbeat increased as I began to realize the depths of my hubris. I still held my ward up. Somehow I even managed to continue meeting her gaze. It wasn't easy. Each second that passed made more more aware of my nature, that of prey. And her, she was a predator – fierce and hungry.
I swallowed, trying to deal with my dry mouth before I spoke, “I've heard your kind live for battle and yet you are offering me a way to live.”
“We don't kill children,” she said coolly, steeping forward at a constant pace, “Unless we have to.”
Ah, I apparently wasn't even a worthy kill for miss tall, dark and deadly.
Then again, she might be bluffing. Maybe she simply thought it would be safer to try and intimidate me rather than fight a fair battle. She wouldn't have been the first creature of the dark to underestimated me. True, I was a rather young wizard but the power was strong in my blood. My mentor had once said that, with time, I'd be a capable archmage. Not that he knew much, he was long dead; a victim of youthful arrogance.
That trail of thought was distracting, I blocked it off and focused on the struggle for survival.
Good thing I did. Her companion had once more tried to advance. He was upon my ward before I could even respond, but that was to be expected. A slash came down as I uttered the words of power. A ripple of energy coursed about but nothing seemed to happen immediately. He then tried to move towards me, through a newly made slash in my ward, but found himself moving slowly, as though a typical human.
One of the basic principals of my magic, that being cryomancy, was the theory of entropy and enthalpy; the lesser known cousin of the former. Enthalpy is basically the energy in a thermodynamic system and entropy is the decay of said energy over time. Cryomancy focused on burning energy and thus creating a cold state.
When baldy stepped through my ward, I'd created a state of near-entropy about me. The results being his movements were sluggish, his inhuman speed turned into a parody of itself.
I cracked him across the face with my staff. Teeth flew, causing me to briefly wonder if vampire teeth grew back, before I struck him in the stomach and knocked him out of the ward once more. To his credit he rolled out of the blow and seemed no worse for the ware.
Maintaining the entrophy field and my ward had made it impossible to strike with another spell, I simply didn't have the energy. That was the funny thing about that particular spell; if no energy could reach you, then you couldn't very well call upon arcane power. You could only have what you started with. I released the spell and felt myself being reconnected with my magic, the raw force of creation.
I went on the offensive.
A quick glance confirmed that the woman was still content with her leisurely pace. She was in no hurry to rush to her companions aid and I hoped she'd stay that way. Judging by the laugh she gave when he had been rebuked, I thought it a safe bet.
That left me with the necessary task of unleashing everything I had upon bald knight. If I could isolate them, fight them one at a time, then perhaps there would be a chance. I'd never fought one before but I remembered the basics from my years of tutelage.
Fast, quick, deadly, these were words that were always used to describe the noble vampires – the ones who maintained control of their urges and wore human appearances. Their weakness was chiefly the sun, its light would kill them with any decent amount of exposure. No one was really sure why, it certainly wasn't UV radiation. Vampire meets sun, ashes meet ground. Fire hurt them as well, it prevented their regeneration. To kill one it was often recommended to cut off the head and throw it in a furnace.
Just decapitate two vampires and find a furnace, no problem. I settled for a more blunt approach.
Seattle's winter had been harsh and I had plenty to work with. A quick muttering of strange words and Bam! I
ce slithered under Erik's feet as if a living thing. It moved rapidly upwards, lifting the blood knight with such suddenness that he was unable to jump aside. My goal was simple. To crush him between the rapidly expanding ice and the ceiling of the parking complex. Crushing might not have qualified as cutting the head off, but I was one to develop my own methods.
He responded by being the anti-King Arthur and put the sword back into the stone, or rather ice. Calmly, he twisted his hand about and brought his sword upward with nearly impossible speed. A quick stab down and my ice stopped – the spell broken by the blade's touch.
Well that was unfair, but I squared my shoulders and readied another spell.
It was then that I felt my barrier being broken from behind – a subtle shift of energy that was hardly noticeable.
I turned and glanced the ashen steel of Irena's blade. There was no time to cast a spell or call upon raw entropy. I could only try to turn my body and hope that would be enough.
It wasn't.
Cold steel plunged into my flesh and ran me through. She didn't stop until the hilt of her blade was pressed against my stomach. I stuttered backward in confusion. Her hand grabbed hold of me and steadied my body. Without it, I would have certainly fallen and done much more damage but her mercy wasn't without a price.
Irena pulled me in close. Our eye meet, and I could see the predatory menace in them. Her mouth opened, pearly white fangs that spoke of intent.
“Kill her!” Erik shouted.
Her gaze sharpened, filled with a deep loathing but it was not aimed at me. She came to look upon her fellow knight, “Careful boy, that almost sounded like a command.”
He snarled but didn't retort, I did, “Trouble with the marriage?”
“Should I ever marry a weakling like Erik, I'd let you kill me,” her voice was surprisingly pleasant, as if she could appreciate the joke. That didn't lessen the pain I felt or the blood that poured from my stomach but there really wasn't much I could do. When a vampire had you by the sword, it was over.
My ward failed completely. I was defenseless and Irena's momentary distraction with her companion was gone. Her gaze turned to me. I shuddered. A laugh came from her, victorious and terrible before she plunged her fangs down into my neck.
It was the second strangest experience of my life.
The pain was only there for a moment, a prickle really. It was soon replaced by an enjoyable pleasure that could only be described as bliss. A groan of enjoyment came to my lips. My hand brought itself up to support her head as though aiding a lover in a kiss. A rational voice told me that I was being drained of blood, stripped of my very essence, but it didn't matter. Such joyful pleasure was worth the price.
Time passed, I didn't know how long before she pulled back.
A bloodstained smile was on her lips, “I knew you'd taste good, mageling. Give me what I want girl, do it and I shall show you su-”
“Gods Irena, find a thrall later. This is work, not pleasure,” Erik shouted and awoke me from the trance.
The sensation, the bite, had crushed my free will in just a few seconds. It had nearly turned me into a thrall, a person who was utterly enslaved by a vampire through the act of feeding. I blushed at the thought, of the intimacy of the whole thing and at just how good it had felt – it was no wonder vampire romance was so popular. It took a great amount of discipline just to even begin thinking of anything but her sanguine eyes, her pale skin or even those fangs. It wouldn't hurt to let her have one more taste...
I needed a nice, long, and very cold shower.
The blood knights were bickering with one another while I was being held. Whatever they were saying was lost on me. Between the massive stab wound and bliss of the bite, I was amazed to still be conscious.
With what little strength I had left, I raised the loosely gathered papers I had taken from the apartment. Her eyes noticed the movement, her grip tightened but it was too late. 'Have them,' with a shake of my wrist I loosed the papers. A constant gust of wind had flooded the open aired complex. It took the papers and began to scatter them to the corners of the room.
Much to my surprise, I wasn't ripped in two by Irena's blade. She just turned to her companion and issued an order, “Erik! Gather them now or I'll tear your heart out.”
This time there was no snarl of disobedience. Erik quickly jumped into action, valiantly gabbing the loose papers. Enhanced speed or no, some of those papers were spreading quickly out of his reach. I matched my tormentors smile, it hurt, “He might need some help.”
“Is that your plan? Betting that I'd rather go after the papers than savor your company,” she bared her fangs once more, I flinched, “Its true, I need them...but who's to say I won't just kill you now? It would be easy. A single flick of my wrist and I'd shred those precious organs.”
Irena's tone was equal parts playful and intimidating. I faced down her gaze and spoke with only a slight tremble in my tone, “You could have killed me already...besides, I'm sure your smart enough to know what kind of wrath would come down on you, if you starte-ah killing wizards.”
“You think I fear them,” she brought her mouth down to my neck, “I feel insulted,” her mouth closed on the bite mark, a kiss not a bite, “Maybe I should show you just how much I don't fear your kind.”
One day I'd learn not to press, one day.
The blade was pulled out of torso with a smooth motion. Her hand, a pillar that had supported me, was gone. I found myself struggling to stand up. It was a losing battle. Wounded and bloodied, I just tried to fall well. It was an art I'd mastered years ago. The trick was to sacrifice the rest of your body to ensure that your head wouldn't hit anything too hard. Stab wounds with ancient magical blade, survivable. Same stab wound with concussion, dead.
When I hit the ground, pain swelled in my chest. My breath became short and frantic while I fought back the darkness at the edge of my vision. Survivable was an oft debated term.
Irena began to walk away. Her footsteps were a slight boon to my moral. It meant she had not intended to finish me off, a small mercy. That didn't mean I wouldn't die from the wound but there was a chance for survival.
Her voice echoed, “Live little lamb. Live so I can feast again.”
I didn't even bother thinking of the implications of her words. Threat or taunt, I didn't care. I was in too much pain.
The first issue was the wound, a clean stab. It was bleeding out a constant stream of liquid that was less than I'd expected. The last time I was stabbed, it had been a river of crimson liquid that had knocked me out in a minute. I suspected that my earlier thoughts were correct, that Irena had spared me a fatal blow on purpose. Likely so that she could torment me longer.
Even if my major organs hadn't been nicked, I could still very easily bleed out. With what small reserve of arcane energy I had left, I channeled into a simple entrophic spell. My hand touch the wound and managed to freeze over the oozing blood. The flow soon stopped as the wound hardened. It would have thawed out but I kept my hand over it, gently easing more essence into the spell. An imperfect band-aid but it would solve my greatest threat to immediate survival... besides the vampires.
Crawling across the ground was hard. The sedan seemed as if it were a mile away. Each singular pulling motion made me groan out in annoyance. If it had been daytime there might have been a chance of someone walking by to help. Yet, it was the every laughing nature of fate to have monsters be nocturnal. As such, the complex was abandoned. It didn't help that I'd parked on the third floor – a brilliant gambit to avoid detection should things have gone wrong earlier.
When I finally got to the doorway, I thought it might be better just to lay down and rest.
It was that small voice that was the killer. A constant nagging for contentment that would only be fulfilled in death. It said that the ground felt soft and cool – just like my bed. What a nap it would be, final, eternal and blissful. Just close your eyes, you're tired after all.
Those thoughts were proof t
hat procrastination was the strongest human emotion.
Theron's voice, that of my mentor, roared into my memory. It scolded me for having even a moment's hesitation about ignoring the urge to sleep. It said that he hadn't given his life so that I could mope about on the ground as I died. My lessons snapped into mind. Discipline that only a wizard could understand took hold as I reached up and opened the door. From there I dragged myself upwards and into the chair.
A thanks to Theron, the merciless bastard, was all I could spare to the memories that shaved my ass.
Driving was out of the question, my thoughts and vision were far too hazy. I searched through the glove compartment until I found my phone. It had been lost among the numerous useless manuals and information pamphlets that came with a car. You know, the sort of things you left there only for that one bad day when you needed them. Coincidentally, that also applied to my phone. Turns out that when you have no real friends, family or even colleges, there wasn't much point to having a phone.
I turned it on. The start up time felt like an eternity but finally it flickered into life – a picture of my dog jumped onto the screen. I'd forgotten that I made it the background, I hadn't used the thing in nearly six months. Bucket had been a puppy at the time. By god, he had aged fast.
A quick scroll through the UI found me a contacts list with three names listed upon it; Theron, Gerald and Natasha.
Theron. Just seeing his name in those bold letters made me want to cry. It brought back emotions that I had long since sworn off. That was the funny thing about emotions though, no matter how much you tried to kill them, they found their way back. If it had been another day, one when I wasn't bleeding out and desperate for help, it might not have hurt as bad.
How much I would have liked to call Theron and ask him for help, but he wouldn't pick up. The dead never did.
My finger thumbed Gerald's name. I hesitated for a moment before I pressed the little green phone button and called his office. I had no right to ask him for help, he deserved to never hear from me again. I was a selfish creature and so I pressed the button anyway.