Hemorrhage (Medicine and Magic Book 4)

by SA Magnusson

  “The Veil holds back a great many dangers from the other side,” Ariel said. Darvish stiffened, and I could tell that he was listening. “There is incredible power on the other side, and it’s a kind of power that would threaten our world.”

  “Why would it threaten our world, especially if our magic is derived from it?”

  “Derived from it, possibly, but it is not the same. The magic on the other side of the Veil is raw, pure, and if it were up to those on the other side, they would use their magic to control this side.”

  “Solera mentioned something like that.”

  “Solera would only mention what was beneficial to her.”

  “And I’m not sure what that was. All that I know is that there seems to have been a war on the other side of the Veil, and—”

  “A war precipitated by those who long for more power. Even on the other side of the Veil, there is that desire. We would do well to ensure that power stays on the other side of the Veil.”

  “What if all of these attacks are tied to that war starting to spread over to this side? Wouldn’t that be even more reason to ensure the stability of the Veil?” I wanted her help and felt as if I needed to convince her. Bringing it around to the Veil had the best chance of succeeding, though she watched me with a look that said she saw through my intent.

  We rolled to a stop. “We are here,” Darvish said.

  I breathed out heavily. We were here, and yet I didn’t know where here was, other than on the northwestern edge of the city. Though we were here, I felt nothing. There was no surge of magic, no energy, nothing to detect.

  My normal advantage in being able to detect magic used around me would be absent when it came to the vampires. Even when facing their familiars and the rune mages they enabled, I wouldn’t be able to do all that much.

  Darvish climbed out of the front of the van, and as I got out of the side door, I wrapped myself in a barrier, sealing it around myself. What I wouldn’t give for some other type of armor.

  “Are you going to stay in the van?” I asked Ariel.

  “I might prowl around and see what I can sniff up.”

  “Will there be any way for you to warn me if there’s something coming?”

  “I will do what I can,” she said.

  Others spread out around us, moving into a position and fanning out. Darvish had several vans full of dark mages who had come with us, and all of them were ready, magic bursting from each of them.

  It was an all-out assault.

  I wasn’t sure this was the best strategy, but then again, they were determined to rescue Barden. I couldn’t blame them, either. We were the only ones who might be able to do anything about this, especially as we were the only ones who didn’t have the same connection to the Veil.

  Darvish came up to join me. “The spell we followed is within that building.”

  It was an enormous home, a mansion, and the kind of building I didn’t expect to see this far outside of the city. A wrought-iron gate circled the entire estate, with ivy crawling around the bars. The air was still and heavy around it, almost as if some sort of magical spell managed to suppress movement, and I couldn’t shake the uneasy sensation I had.

  “Will they know when we cross over whatever threshold they have?”

  “I am not a vampire expert,” Darvish said.

  “But you caught one. You’re more an expert than me.”

  His brow furrowed. “It’s likely they will.”

  “What if this is just the beginning of them?”

  “Then we must be ready to confront them. I will free Barden.”

  “If they’re using mages, I’m going to help, too.” I looked over at him. “Aren’t you the least bit afraid?”

  “My people don’t fear the vampires.”

  “Maybe not the mages on your council, but what about those who don’t have the same level of skill? What about those who have potential but haven’t yet achieved it?”

  I was thinking about Barden’s son. I hadn’t seen Rory since I had saved him. And there would be others like him, other dark mages who had been forced to hide their abilities from the mage council all these years, and now that there was no longer fighting, they should be able to use their magic more openly. If there were vampires thinking to draw on it, then they wouldn’t be able to.

  “That is why so many have come, Kate,” Darvish said. “We aren’t a part of the council, but that doesn’t mean we don’t count. My people will fight for the others. Will you?”

  I would have liked more rest. Better preparation. Since I had neither, there was no use lingering. “I’m ready.”

  “It might be easier if we were to do this in the daylight,” Darvish said.

  “Only if you want to kill them.”

  “That isn’t your intention?”

  “I don’t want to destroy the vampires.” I glanced back to where Ariel lingered near the van. “If we do that, we risk the Veil. I want to end whatever they are doing and however they intend to use the mages, but I’m not sure that destroying the vampires is—or should be—our goal.”

  “You are far too compassionate, Dr. Michaels.”

  “Would you want to go to a doctor who wasn’t?”

  “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.”

  Darvish and several of his mages started forward to the fence surrounding the estate. Several of them placed their hands on the fence, and a spell built from them. Power surged, a biting cold that raced along my spine, and when it released, the fence fell forward.

  “That’s one way to get inside,” I said.

  “It certainly is the easiest,” Darvish said.

  “You will have their attention.”

  “It’s not their attention I’m after. Barden needs to know we’ve come for him,” he said.

  The mages started forward and I followed, keeping a barrier around me. I held onto it tightly, and as I crossed the yard, I also began to focus on the image of the magical sword, letting it appear between my hands. It crawled forward slowly, a thin band of light that spread out, and I held it with one hand.

  Darvish glanced over for a moment. “What is—”

  He never had a chance to finish.

  The magical sword pushed back the masking spell. A dozen or more people suddenly appeared around us and Darvish clenched his jaw, magic surging from within him. Power slammed at us from each direction.

  I held the sword up, letting the light sweep out over the yard.

  I should have thought to do that sooner. They had masked themselves when they had attacked before, so I should have been expecting them to do so again, and the fact that I wasn’t prepared for it was my mistake. My mind was foggy from lack of sleep, though that wasn’t an excuse if people died because of my fatigue.

  The dark mages fell upon the attackers.

  Most of them seemed to be nothing more than rune mages. Several attacked, holding out their magic wands, using that to slam spell after spell upon the dark mages and their barriers, but the dark mages were more skilled.

  More of the rune mages appeared, and I couldn’t tell if they were coming out of the building or if there was some other place they were hiding.

  “This is an awful lot of familiars to be here,” I said.

  “Which suggests there will be quite a few vampires,” Darvish said.

  “The Siren family wasn’t the strongest in the city. What’s changed?”

  “Their use of magic has changed,” Darvish said.

  “Will your mages be able to withstand this kind of assault?”

  “Don’t fret, Dr. Michaels.”

  “Fret?” I continued to hold onto the sword, and as I did, there was a flickering near us.

  I’d seen it before, and when the flickering ceased, I shifted, wrapping a barrier around the vampire. I sealed it inside, constricting the barrier, tightening it around the vampire.

  One of the dark mages headed toward the vampire and tried to shoot a spell inside, but it bounced off.

  “You will
need to release your captive in order for us to finish this,” Darvish said.

  “We have to have a different way than simply catching and killing,” I said.

  “I’m afraid there may not be,” he said.

  I squeezed, holding on to the barrier, but decided to try a different tactic. When I had been with the vampire in the warehouse, I had wrapped the barrier around the vampire’s head, and I wondered if a temporary suffocation might allow us to incapacitate them. Once they were incapacitated, then the dark mages would be able to take care of them. They could hold them until we could sort through this.

  Wrapping the barrier around the vampire’s head, I squeezed. It took a moment, but the vampire eventually crumpled, dropping to the ground.

  I released my connection to it as another flickering appeared.

  This was in front of Darvish.

  Trapping the vampire inside the barrier first, I withdrew it, shifting it so that it was only around the man’s head. I squeezed again, much like I had the first time, and trapped the vampire, waiting until he collapsed under the weight of the spell.

  “How many times do you think you can do that?” Darvish asked. He knelt next to the vampire and attached his own spell, wrapping it around and tapping a finger on the vampire. As he did, I could feel how the spell sealed off.

  That would be a useful skill to have. If I could place magic around something and leave it there, then I wouldn’t have to maintain the connection.

  “I don’t know. How many vampires do you think we might have to deal with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The dark mages continued to push forward, taking step after step, stalking across the yard. As they went, more of the familiars appeared. A dozen of them, possibly more, had magic wands, and spells bounced off the dark mages.

  “There has to be another way,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “These familiars. They’re using spells that are tied to runes, so if we could remove those runes and free the mages holding them, we might be able to prevent the familiars from continuing to attack.”

  “You need to let go of your restraint. We will do what it takes to reach Barden.”

  The physician side of me couldn’t do that.

  Everything I’d been through lately told me that I needed to find a balance. Even Ariel had said so outright, but how could I find a balance if I was forced to kill within the magical world but tried to heal in the human world?

  Could I find a way to heal to save?

  The hard part was that my magic didn’t easily allow healing. It was designed for destruction and power, and it didn’t have the subtlety and finesse other mages possessed that would allow them to use it in such a way. Mine was destructive, deadly, and even though I personally didn’t want to do that, there might not be any way I could change it.

  And yet, I couldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that there was no alternative.

  I had seen that runes could be removed. There had to be something I could do to help with that.

  I had to find some way to mix the two parts of myself, and if I couldn’t, then what good would I be as a physician? I couldn’t kill. These rune mages were people, and though they might be vampire familiars, they needed that compassionate side of me.

  A surge of magic pulsed against me. Mage magic.

  It was nearby—from within the house.

  I glanced over at Darvish. “I’m going inside.”

  “Inside means you intend to confront them directly,” he said.

  “No. Going inside means I intend to find the mages who are being used.”

  “I will come with you.”

  “Your people need you here.”

  Darvish grunted. “My people are just fine.”

  “What happens if there are other vampires?”

  “Then we capture them.”

  And once they were captured, I had little doubt that Darvish’s team would use the opportunity to cut them down. I had to end this before the dark mages decided to tear through the vampires in revenge for their grabbing Barden.

  As we started forward, I noticed the occasional flicker of vampire movement. When I did, I caught them, suffocating them briefly, allowing the vampires to collapse so dark mages could hurry forward to capture them.

  When we came across rune mages, those with magic wands were the most difficult. The shielding defeated them and Darvish pushed them back.

  By the time we reached the house, fatigue threatened to overwhelm me.

  Maybe I should have waited another day. But if I would have done that, I would have been on call, so it would have been two more days.

  This couldn’t wait that much longer. Barden needed our help and I wanted to know why Aron and I had been targeted. And why the vampire families were attacking each other, if that really was the reason the gunshot victims had ended up in the ER.

  A thought occurred to me. “Have your people disappeared before?”

  “There have been some disappearances, but we attribute them to the council.”

  “What if the council was never responsible for them?” I asked as we approached the main entrance to the home. A curved doorway awaited us, and I wasn’t sure if it would require magic to power through or if I would be able to simply enter.

  “The mage council has targeted us for years, Kate Michaels.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. The council might have targeted them over the years, but there was a limit to their resources, and I didn’t think they captured dark mages who weren’t a threat to them.

  Could this have been happening for years?

  “Is there a difference in numbers between the mage council and the Dark Council?”

  “Why ask this now?” Darvish asked, another spell building within him.

  I forced his attention onto me. “Has there been?”

  “There have always been discrepancies in our numbers,” he said.

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Dark magic is more difficult to reach.”

  “But if it comes from the Unseelie fae and the mage council magic comes from Seelie fae, there shouldn’t be any difference. Not really.”

  Maybe this problem was more than about the Siren family.

  If that were the case, why wouldn’t Barden and the Dark Council have heard about it before now? The mage council certainly wouldn’t care, and even if they heard something, they wouldn’t have acted upon it. They would have viewed the vampires as having done work on behalf of the council.

  “Kate Michaels?”

  I shook my head, pushing away those thoughts. If Gran and Gramps were involved… I would be more than incredibly disappointed in them. I’d be angry.

  Darvish reached the door and waited for me. “They have it sealed.”

  “Can you bypass the seal?”

  “Not easily. Your magic will be necessary for this. I’ve seen what you can do.”

  I let magic build. In this case, destructive magic wouldn’t be any sort of problem. I would feel no remorse and I let it surge out from me and into the door. It exploded open.

  “Now would be a good time for that sword of yours,” Darvish said.

  “I’m not sure that it will work quite like you think.”

  “If it unmasks them, then it will do exactly what I need.”

  I focused on the sword, summoning it. It surged into existence, and light exploded around us. Five shapes became visible.

  Two were vampires.

  “I’ll focus on the vamps and you get the rune mages,” I said to Darvish.

  Magic exploded from him and I pulled upon the barrier, wrapping both of the vampires within it. I was still able to hold onto the sword, and the longer that I did, the easier it became to manage. It took an effort, and it would weaken me the longer that I held it, but it wasn’t beyond my abilities. Maybe it should be.

  I squeezed, suffocating both of the vampires.

  Darvish finished off the rune mages before turning to
me, noting the fallen vampires and then my sword. “You are a dangerous woman, Dr. Michaels.”

  “We’d better hope so, because there’s magic all around us and no telling how many vampires.” I wanted to be ready for the next attack and held onto the sword as we continued into the home.

  The house was as well-decorated on the inside as the outside implied. A magnificent formal bench rested along one wall, likely more worth a month’s pay. Tile gleamed and paintings along the wall had the air of wealth. An oriental rug ran along the floor, and I didn’t want to think what that had cost.

  Magic tingled against my spine. It wasn’t powerful, certainly not the same as a mage using heavy duty magic, and nothing like what I detected from Darvish next to me, but there was the distinct sense of it.

  “Down,” I said.

  “Down to where?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. There’s magic somewhere nearby, and I think we need to find it.”

  “This is the rune mages, you think?”

  “It’s different. I don’t detect magic from the rune mages, so I don’t think that’s what it is.” I frowned, focusing on the power surging around us. “What if this is the dark mages they’ve captured?”

  “Only dark mages?”

  “That’s my fear,” I admitted. When we’d first heard of the rune mages, there had been the possibility that they were using hedge mages, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it wasn’t all dark mages.

  “Which is why you wondered whether there had been dark magic users disappearing.”

  “It’s part of it.”

  “But then you ask about a discrepancy in the numbers between the mage council and the Dark Council. You suspect the council is aware of this.”

  I met his eyes. “I’m worried that they are. It would explain some things.”

  “Such as why the Dark Council never had the same numbers as the mage council.”

  “That would be part of it. We don’t know that for sure,” I said.

  “We don’t, but your conclusion makes sense.”

  “Will it cause Barden to break the treaty?”

  Darvish clenched his jaw. “Let’s get through this first, and then we can decide if we maintain the treaty with the council.”