She’d just fallen asleep when a thundering boom from outside the room wrenched her back into consciousness. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes shot open.
Gunfire.
Eve tried to sit up, but Zach was faster. Before she could even move he was tackling her off the bed and smothering her on the floor.
“Stay down,” he warned, glancing towards the wall. The shots were coming from out in the hallway, along with the accompanying cries of wounded men.
Her instinct was to freeze. Were these assassins come to finish the job? Were they a lynch gang come to hang another magi? Could she hide? Could she stuff herself under the bed?
But all those questions burned away in a fire of indignant rage when Zach pinned her like she was a defenseless child. She was a screlling mage, for Edeh’s sake, not a despairing damsel.
“Get off me!” she growled, knocking him aside with a firm elbow to the stomach. She rolled away and peered over the bed towards the door. The gunshots kept coming, and she heard several dull thuds…then nothing. What in the void was going on out there?
Eve closed her eyes and called to the Fane again. Its energy coursed through her, and she wrapped a thin, nearly imperceptible barrier of kinetic energy around herself. Experienced magi could form a shield strong enough to dampen the force of a bullet, but she prayed to the Goddess that hers wouldn’t have to face that test. She reached out a hand to weave a similar barrier around Zach, but he’d already lunged over to the couch and drawn his pistol. He gingerly crept forward towards the door and held up a warning hand—he wanted her to stay put and be quiet.
She let herself be more annoyed by his overprotective brazenness than was probably reasonable. Anger was more useful than fear, and it actually managed to calm her nerves enough to concentrate. She’d been taught plenty of self-defense techniques at home and at school. If some torbo thought he was going to just waltz in here and gun her down, she’d be ready to teach him a lesson in manners—
And that was when a bullet blasted a hole in the door.
***
“You sure it’s late enough?”
Amaya glared at the moon-faced thug looming over her left shoulder. “They’ve been here almost two hours. It’s plenty.”
He said nothing and was apparently willing to accept her expertise on the matter. That was good, because these two dolts weren’t being paid to think. It was an unfortunate truth about the criminal underworld most outsiders didn’t understand in the slightest—even men as powerful and connected as Simon Chaval didn’t have his own people everywhere. Or rather, he didn’t have his own muscle everywhere. He had plenty of legitimate business contracts in a city like Vaschberg, of course, and even more illegitimate ones who had their hands in everything from drugs to guns, but those weren’t the type of men who got their hands dirty. For that, you had to dig into the local muscle, and that typically generated far less impressive results.
Here she was relying on two men with the cumulative intellect of a cockroach. They were big, though, and they looked at least reasonably convincing as bodyguards for her current persona as a wealthy businesswoman. She’d thrown on an elaborate blue evening gown, and the hotel manager hadn’t batted an eyelash when she had reserved a room for the night, or when she’d distracted him long enough to glance over the guestbook and find out where DeShane and her escort were staying.
Climbing in through one of the windows would have been a tempting, if conventional, option, but she’d already ruled that out. With the increase in street violence in the city over the past few years, upscale establishments in particular had made tempting targets like windows much more fortified. So instead she and her brutes were stuck with a more direct approach.
She signaled for the two men to keep their mouths shut as they walked down the corridor toward the suites. It wasn’t midnight yet, but it was late enough that the hallways were empty, and that was all that mattered. In all likelihood this was going to end up a quiet operation and her two cohorts would prove useless. From what little they knew about the young woman, DeShane wasn’t a particularly powerful or noteworthy mage, but she was still a mage—if they gave her the opportunity, she would be trouble. Amaya felt better having these two along in case this turned into a firefight.
One of the men stood in front of her while she leaned down to the door and examined the lock. She couldn’t hear anything on the other side, and with any luck their prey would already be asleep. She slid out a hairpin and set to work popping the lock open.
“Other way,” the thug above her said.
Amaya shot him a glare and started to scold him, but then she belatedly realized he wasn’t talking to her. She turned to her left and saw a tall, gaunt woman dressed in a body-length black coat slowly approaching them from farther down the hall. A chaotic shock of auburn hair with a streak of white crowned her head, and her face was covered behind a tattered crimson scarf.
It wasn’t until the woman stepped beneath one of the dim hallway lanterns that Amaya realized this wasn’t a wandering hotel patron. The light glinted off a dozen wicked-looking knives sheathed in a baldric around her chest, and she carried what appeared to be an ancient cavalry saber in a scabbard at her belt.
“I said turn around,” the thug repeated, pulling back the hammer on his pistol.
She stopped about ten meters away and sized each of them up in turn. Eventually her piercing green eyes latched onto Amaya, and the Talami woman couldn’t help but shiver. Something about that gaze…
And then the mysterious woman leapt forward. She moved with surprising speed, her hands outstretched in front of her—
Both thugs fired at nearly the same time. The woman’s body immediately flipped backwards and slumped against the wall.
Screams cried out across the hotel and echoed down the corridors. Amaya bit down hard on her lip. So much for doing this quietly. At this point they might as well just smash the door open and confront DeShane directly.
“Kreel,” the thug on the other side of the hall muttered. “What, was she drunk after a costume party or some—”
His voice caught in his throat when the mysterious woman abruptly and inexplicably pulled herself upright. Her hands flared out to her sides and a brilliant flash of magic sparked in her palms. Two whip-like cords of raw flame appeared in her grip, and with a subtle flick of her wrist, they lashed out towards her attackers. The men shrieked as the flaming whips coiled around them like a constrictor snake, binding them helplessly in the place and then literally burning them alive.
Amaya’s brain screamed at her to flee, but her legs refused to cooperate. She’d fought powerful magi before and understood their near-limitless potential for destruction, but it wasn’t a fear of magic that froze her muscles in place. Nor was it the sight of her associates being reduced to screeching piles of ash right beside her. She wasn’t even looking at them; her eyes were locked on the wall behind the mysterious woman. The wall…and the smear of luminescent blue blood dripping down it.
Vakari.
The word echoed in Amaya’s thoughts and chilled the air in her lungs. She’d never actually seen one before, but every child in the world had been raised to fear the legend. She had heard them called everything from zombies to vampires, and perhaps both were fitting descriptions for these Fane-twisted creatures that fed off the lives of other beings and were practically impossible to kill.
This was DeShane’s mysterious protector. This was the same person who had killed their men in Lushden and then eliminated their assassins on the train. The Enclave must have sent her; it was the only explanation. It meant that any attempts to get to DeShane in the future would be nearly impossible.
And right now, it meant that it was time to run.
Shaking herself from her involuntary stasis, Amaya swept up one of her companion’s fallen pistols and sprinted in the opposite direction down the hallway. She fired a pair of shots into DeShane’s door—just in case the girl was stupid enough to stand next to it—before
swiveling and firing her last bullet through the window at the end of the hall. She then tucked herself into a tight ball and flipped out through the shattered glass down to the street below.
The last thing she saw before dashing off into the alleyway was the shadowy silhouette of the Vakari standing in the window, featureless except for the glowing blue blood splattered across her coat.
***
Eve should have run and hid under the bed. It was the only sensible course of action when bullets started flying through your hotel door, after all, and it was probably exactly what Zach was expecting her to do.
But instead she found herself leaping forward towards him even as he rolled away from the doorframe. She grabbed onto his arm and wove the same protective spell she’d already placed upon herself. The air shimmered as the kinetic barrier formed a translucent shell around him, and then she turned her attention to the doorway. One of the spells from Maltus’s book flashed in her mind, and her palms began to thrum with Fane energy—
Glass shattered just outside the door, and it snapped her out of her trance. The gunshots and screams outside stopped other than a few muffled, whimpered cries that seemed to be coming from other hotel occupants further down the hall.
“Just stay here a second,” Zach told her. “You’re the one they’re after.”
“They killed my mother,” she said, biting down on her lip. “It’s time they were scared of me.”
Eve leapt past him and thrust open the door even as he tried to hold her back. She half-expected a swarm of Dusty goons to be standing out here waiting for her, and she was prepared to lash out with every ounce of power she could muster.
Instead she walked into the middle of an inferno. The carpet and walls were bathed in flames, and the smoke was already getting so thick she could barely see. She coughed and dropped to a knee, then clamped a hand over her mouth. The window to their left was shattered opened, and she didn’t see any other possible escape.
Thankfully, they wouldn’t need one. She forced herself to relax and concentrate on all the lessons about energy and heat she’d learned in her first two years. She might not have fully mastered the art of conjuring fire yet, but perhaps she could still quench it. She could almost feel the flames as they feasted on the fiber and wood. It was like a beast trying to sate its hunger, and all she needed to do was take its dish away.
Suddenly the Fane was coursing through her again, and a vortex of flame and ash was swirling around her body, wildly tussling her hair and gown. The air was hot on her face—she could feel the sweat already dripping from her forehead—but she refused to let it distract her. She continued to siphon the pyre’s fuel, and the flames roared as if in protest…
Her eyes opened, and the fire was gone. Instinctively she released her hold on the Fane, and an odd rumble echoed down the hallway before finally dissipating a few seconds later. She blinked away the haze clouding her vision and peered past the scorched walls and floor to the pair of blackened corpses lying in the center of the hallway. They were barely even recognizable as people anymore, and a sudden wave of nausea washed over her—
And then there was pain. Eve yelped as she collapsed to her knees and clutched onto her arms. They throbbed uncontrollably; it was like every muscle was pulsating at the same time. She was dimly aware of Zach trying to comfort her, but she didn’t know how long it was before the pain subsided into a dull ache and her senses returned.
“What’s wrong?” Zach was saying. “Are you burned?”
“No,” she said hoarsely, wetting her lips and trying to swallow. “No, it’s…it must be the Flensing.”
Her mother had tried to describe what it was like to experience the Flensing many times before, and her professors had prattled on endlessly about its dangers. But none of those lessons had prepared her for the intensity of the pain. It felt like every nerve in her body was pinching at once, and she couldn’t even find the strength to breathe…
It took her a long moment to even realize what she had done. She’d never learned a spell to control flames like that. She had just…woven it. And in the process, she had invoked the Flensing for the first time.
It was impossible. This wasn’t one of the spells in Maltus’s book, and no krata was supposed to be able to weave that much power on her own. Magic didn’t just happen. It took years of study and practice, along with very specific formulae and understanding of the Fane…
And yet here she was, enduring an agony that only true magi were supposed to confront.
“Impressive,” a calm, male voice said from down the hallway. A second later Danev’s bodyguard, Aram, pivoted around the corner.
Zach immediately raised his gun and pointed it at the other man. “What are you doing here?”
Aram cocked an eyebrow as he glanced down at the weapon. “My job. Or I would have been, but someone beat me to it.”
“What…?” Zach trailed off as he turned to the bodies.
“Chaval made his move,” the man explained. “Not long after you left, we found one of our attendants unconscious. Someone was spying on us, and I knew they would eventually come here. I was waiting for them.”
Eve swallowed heavily. Her throat was still dry, but at least the pain had reached bearable levels. “But you didn’t kill them.”
“No,” Aram said, shifting his eyes to the wall. “And we have a new problem.”
Eve followed his gaze over to the unblemished section of the hallway. There, dripping from the wall, was a viscous blue liquid that almost seemed to be glowing…
Zach drew in a deep breath. Eve wasn’t far behind.
“Impossible,” Zach murmured, his head shaking. He lowered his pistol.
“It would seem you have a Vakari watching over you,” Aram said, his voice still as calm as if he were reading off a menu. “The question is why.”
“Goddess be merciful,” Eve breathed as she slumped backwards. First assassins were trying to kill them, and now one of those…monsters had stepped in to protect them? How was that even possible? It made no sense at all…
“We need to leave,” Aram told them firmly. “Now.”
Zach shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere until we know what’s going on.”
“The police will be here soon, and you don’t want to deal with them,” Aram said. “We aren’t going to learn anything else here.”
“So where do we go?” Eve asked, her head still shaking. “What do we do?”
“First, you come with me,” the bodyguard said, extending his hand. “Then we get some answers.”
***
The Vakari dragged herself slowly along the alley wall and scowled at the trail of glowing blue blood she had left behind her. She hadn’t expected a few bullets to ache this much, and she certainly hadn’t expected it to take this long for the wounds to close. It had been a long time since she had stepped foot in this part of the country, and she didn’t have fond memories of the last trip, either. But this erosion of her powers was new, and now that she was actually here, the source was obvious.
The Fane was dying.
She could still feel it pulsing meekly from the strands of weeds between the beaten cobblestone path and from the vermin scattered around the alley, but that was barely an echo of its full power. Out east, large urban centers like this teemed with life, and the Fane roared with all the fury of a mighty river. Here it was like the feeble trickle of a dying stream.
Eventually, perhaps even within the next decade, the Fane would have completely receded from this place. She didn’t know what would happen then. The Edehan church claimed that life could not exist at all without the touch of their Goddess’s Fane, but they had lied before. All she knew for certain was that once the Fane was gone, she would quickly follow. And perhaps that wasn’t such a terrible thing.
She coughed and collapsed into a pile of refuse at the edge of the alley. In her weakened state she’d lost the Talami woman, which meant that soon Chaval would know a Vakari was on his trail. Most men,
especially those who knew how the Enclave worked, would have been appropriately terrified into submission at such a prospect. Chaval would not. Instead he would probably just send a larger force next time, but that did have its own benefits. More bodies meant more food, after all, and as the eternal hunger throbbed inside her, the Vakari decided that perhaps this failure was for the best.
Leaning against the wall, she rolled the ends of her tattered jacket down her wrist then tapped the small blue crystal inset into her golden bracelet. The stone hummed for a moment before lifting up and hovering about a centimeter in the air.
“What happened?” a male voice asked from the stone. She could hear the tension in the man’s voice despite the stone’s distortion and his best efforts to conceal it.
“Chaval’s thugs tried again,” she told him.
“What about Eve?”
“The children are alive and safe under Danev’s protection. Unfortunately, Chaval’s yohisha escaped.”
She could almost visualize the groomed and proper Glenn Maltus pacing back and forth as he considered her words. Sometimes she thought it was a shame he hadn’t given her a more powerful sending stone. A part of her would have loved to be able to at least see his face through a ghostly projection, if not his entire body. But such stones were ludicrously expensive and rarely portable, and at least she didn’t have to rely on one of those screlling telegraphs like a pathetic torbo.
“I expected more from you,” Maltus said after a moment of silence. “That’s twice now you’ve disappointed me.”
She grunted. “I can barely heal here, you realize. This place is dying.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” he said flatly. “You were sloppy. Again.”
“I’m not a spy, and you know that,” she reminded him. “I can’t learn anything with my hands tied like this. You should let me make direct contact.”
“No, not yet,” Maltus insisted. “Your job is to keep them safe and observe from a distance, nothing more.”
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