Lips peeled back and tongue protruding, the vampire bent over Aiden’s throat. Ice cold and slimy, his tongue slapped against the soft flesh of her throat twice. Then the barbed hook embedded in her flesh, and Aiden cried out in pain. Her blood flowed from the cuts, and Daniel sought to seal his lips over the wounds so he could drink.
Desperately, Aiden fought to break free, but the vampire’s strength was simply overwhelming.
The night air reverberated with a series of pealing thunderclaps, and a powerful downdraft struck the parking lot. Daniel jerked his head away from Aiden’s throat, and his barbed tongue dislodged, ripping open her flesh. Aiden cried out and pressed a hand to the wound to staunch the bleeding. Everyone stopped to stare up as a vast shadow passed overhead.
“What is that?” Daniel asked as the shadow descended.
“That Mr. Would-be Lord of the Night,” Matthew breathed, sounding both relieved and self-satisfied. “Is the real deal.”
Chapter Three
The shadow swept over the parking lot and crossed in profile against the silver moon. Aiden received the impression of a man’s body and vast black wings extending perhaps fifty feet from his torso. From the distance, she couldn’t discern whether they were feathery or leathery. The creature’s shape was that of a bat as opposed to a butterfly.
The figure hovered, descending upon beating wings, and each downward sweep created another thunderous crack and tremendous blast of air. The downdraft hit people and pavement with torrential force, sending leaves and litter flying.
“Magnus!” Matthew shouted. “Any day now would be appreciated.” The priest’s voice shattered the collective trance.
“Magnus,” Daniel breathed, staring upward. The vampire remained frozen, maintaining a brutal hold on his captive.
Aiden kept her hand pressed to the wound on her throat to staunch the blood flow.
The winged figure dropped earthward, making a controlled descent, and the black wings furled, folding inward with startling speed and neatness. By the time he touched ground, the wings transformed into a leather cloak clasped at his throat.
The newcomer’s features were shadowed, obscured beneath long hair that tumbled down his back. In the dim light, Aiden received the impression of sable and copper. His height and weight were well above average, his physique heavy and muscular. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans over steel-toed boots. The beaten leather cloak moved and clung with the supple tenacity of a living creature, swathing and billowing in a dramatic display. He moved with confidence and power, more beast than man.
“Excuse me a moment while I deal with this, my dear,” Daniel said. The vampire shoved Aiden hard, sending her to the pavement.
She landed on outstretched arms, skinning both of her palms. She rolled to her side. Her head spun, and a retching nausea swept her body.
“What kept you so long?” Matthew demanded.
“What kept me?” Magnus repeated. He spoke with a layered accent, alluding to many different languages and locations, culminating in a rich and distinctive brogue. He headed straight for Matthew. “I didn’t even know you were back in the country, let alone in need of rescuing.” His exasperation was plain and good-natured.
Matthew scoffed. “You’ve rogue vampires trespassing in your territory, Magnus. I think you’re losing your edge.”
Magnus shrugged. “Star Wars was playing at the Crown.”
“Sorry to interrupt your little reunion, but this is becoming tedious,” Daniel said. He turned on his minions. “Well? What are you waiting for? Attack him.”
The carrot-topped vampire boy and the policewoman released Matthew, surging toward the new arrival. The boy reached Magnus first. Without breaking stride, Magnus delivered a forward punch which punctured the vampire’s desiccated flesh just below the breastbone. The boy screamed, and the policewoman caught hold of Magnus’ arm, attacking him with fists and fangs.
Magnus shoved his arm deeper into the boy’s chest until it disappeared to the elbow. He appeared to be groping for something. The vampire responded with a terrible, tormented wail.
“What are you doing?” Matthew asked, plainly disgusted. Hobbling, the priest made his way to Aiden and sank to the ground beside her.
“His heart has shifted.” With a satisfied grunt, Magnus found his objective and ripped the boy’s heart from his chest.
Before the vampire’s scream faded, his body turned to ash. Reaching overhead, Magnus hooked his arm around the policewoman’s neck. He threw her to the ground and pinned her chest with his foot.
“No, I mean why are you fighting with your bare hands like a barbarian?” Matthew removed a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to Aiden’s throat. When she stirred and attempted to rise, Matthew shushed her. “Rest now.”
“Could it be I’m a barbarian?” Magnus reached into the depths of his cloak and drew a concealed weapon. Metal hissed as it slid across leather, the song of a sword clearing the scabbard. The blade had the length and breadth of a long sword. With a deft downward thrust, Magnus severed the pinned vampire’s head. His foot sank through the dissolving body and landed squarely in the leftover ash.
The three remaining minions charged as a pack. The black man and the elderly man rushed straight at their armed opponent, demonstrating a laudable lack of tactical sense. Magnus stepped into the attack. His sword caught the old man clean through the heart and removed the vital organ with a deft twist.
Magnus ducked the outstretched arms of the black vampire and then cut the legs out from under his opponent. The little girl ran at him from behind and leapt. Latching onto his throat with her only arm, she sank her pronged tongue into the swordsman’s throat. Magnus grunted and reversed his grip on the sword. He angled the blade upward and severed the vampire’s tongue. She fell to the ground, shrieking as blood gushed from her mouth.
Magnus dispatched the two remaining minions while his audience watched. He killed with a brutal efficiency and blood lust which belonged to another era. After, as the dust settled, he brushed off his cloak and stepped out of the cloud.
Daniel clapped slowly and dramatically. “Very impressive, Magnus, but then you’ve always been a showoff, eh? I have the sense to know I’ve lost the battle before it’s begun. So, if you don’t mind my asking, there’s something I’ve wondered for decades. What the bloody hell are you?”
Magnus and Matthew exchanged a long look, and then Magnus shrugged.
Matthew cleared his throat. “Daniel, Magnus is of House Shemyaza.” He spoke with malicious satisfaction, a sentiment unbecoming of a priest.
His tone gave Aiden chills. In her entire life, she had never before heard Matthew sound mean.
“Impossible!” Daniel exclaimed. His dead body moved with the stiff motion of a marionette. “House Shemyaza is extinct.”
“Magnus, if you would.” Matthew motioned his friend into the circle of light.
Magnus hesitated. “I want to kill him.”
“You will,” Matthew agreed. “At least allow Aiden to see you.”
Clearly reluctant, Magnus obliged. For the first time his features were plainly visible. Aiden caught her breath. To call him beautiful would have been inaccurate because his features were too masculine. To call him handsome would have been woefully inadequate. Clean lines and broad planes defined his face, a robust symmetry bordering on perfection. He possessed a tawny complexion, and his flesh had the polished sheen of stone. Magnus had a high forehead, an aquiline nose, and a generous mouth set in a predatory smirk. His warm topaz eyes, the color of gemstones and gold coins, lacked whites and possessed an elongated-slit black pupil—cat’s eyes or maybe snake’s eyes. His rich sable hair fell in a loose mass about his shoulders. Each hand had six fingers.
“Dear God,” Daniel prayed.
“That’s right,” Matthew said. “This entire time, for decades, while you searched in vain for immortality, Daniel, I was concealing it from you. How old are you, Magnus?”
“Two thousand ye
ars. More. I don’t keep track.” Magnus shrugged.
Dead silence followed the preposterous claim.
“I’m going to kill you. Do you hear me, Matt? I’m going to rip out your heart and eat it!” Daniel screamed. A fit of fury seized the vampire. Daniel sprang at Matthew, flying at the priest with extended arms.
Magnus stepped between the vampire and the priest. The sword sang to the night. It sliced through the air with clean broad strokes, severing Daniel’s arm and then his leg. The vampire crashed to the ground. Magnus altered the position of his sword. With a downward thrust, he drove the blade through Daniel’s abdomen, cleaving his torso neatly across the waist. Daniel’s corpse underwent sudden and rapid decay, collapsing inward.
When the ash cleared, Magnus stood beside Aiden and Matthew. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
Matthew chuckled. “What, rubbing that sanctimonious braggart’s nose in your immortality? Yes, I must confess. I’ve wanted to do that for decades. Oh, oh, oh!” The priest grimaced in pain and pressed a hand to his left shoulder.
“Matthew?” Magnus bent, reaching for the priest.
“Father?” Aiden said. She continued to swim in her own weakness and resented her passive role.
“Help Aiden,” Matthew said, waving away Magnus’ hand. “Let me rest. I’ll be fine. Here, take this.” He fumbled with his pocket and then handed Magnus a small silver flask. “It’s holy water. Aiden’s been bitten. The wound will need to be purified. My crucifix got knocked out of my hand and landed over there near the gutter.” He indicated with his hand.
“I’m fine. Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Aiden protested.
Magnus loomed over her, attempting to inspect her injuries. His fingers were hot and alien against her skin, and she flinched from his touch.
“Stay put while I retrieve the crucifix,” Magnus ordered. He moved away from her. A moment later, he returned carrying the crucifix.
Aiden shook her head but stayed still. She automatically tried to place his accent and failed. There were too many layers. “Where are you from? I can’t quite place your nationality.”
“I’m Averni.” He sank to the ground beside her, and those six-fingered hands touched her again, causing her flesh to crawl.
“The Averni were a Celtic tribe,” Aiden said. Her foggy mind recalled little else other than the Averni had been from the region of Gaul before it became France.
“That’d be correct.” The Celt reached out with his strange, strong fingers and pushed Aiden’s head to the side to expose the wound. He removed her hand and examined the bite. His glittering gold eyes were intelligent and inhuman. Up close he smelled earthy and sensual, a suggestive scent which caused Aiden to flush and look away.
“Why is your name Latin?” she asked.
“My mother was Roman. Stay still,” he replied.
“How bad is it?” Matthew asked.
“Not too bad.” Magnus threaded the crucifix’s chain through his fingers so the holy symbol rested in his palm. He opened the silver flask and poured holy water over the crucifix.
Aiden felt excited and afraid and so tense she wanted to crawl out of her skin. “Are you really immortal?”
“Yes,” Magnus said. “This is going to hurt. I’m going to have to hold you down.”
“Aiden, you can trust Magnus,” Matthew said.
It took a second for the threat to register. “I, no,” Aiden said immediately, her resistance too little and too late.
Magnus shoved her to the ground with one hand and pressed the crucifix against her throat with the other.
The crucifix burned. Aiden cried out in pain and anger. The stench of burnt flesh filled her nostrils. She thrashed with all of her strength only to be held firmly in place. A white-hot wall of pain submersed her consciousness, and she drowned, sucked down into a merciful state of oblivion.
She came to on a bed of asphalt. Her neck throbbed with a pain far worse than the original bite wound. She tasted blood in her mouth, and the inside of her lower lip hurt. With a groan, Aiden brought her hand to the wound and discovered a cotton gauze pad taped over the injury. Her vehicle’s side door was open, and her first aid kit lay beside her on the pavement.
With a groan, Aiden sat up and looked around. Ten feet from her, Matthew lay unconscious on the ground with the Celt’s leather cloak folded beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. She felt a huge relief to see the garment had ceased its unnatural writhing. Magnus crouched alongside Matthew, more cat than human in posture. Without the cloak, the straps of his baldric were visible, crisscrossed over his chest. The sword had returned to the sheath on his back, the hilt visible over his left shoulder.
“How is he?” Aiden asked. She climbed shakily to her feet and staggered toward the pair. Magnus’ presence made her uneasy. She did not trust him.
“He’s unconscious,” Magnus said. “I’ve called for an ambulance.”
“You know how to use a cell phone?” Aiden asked, faintly astonished.
Magnus shot her a sour glance and then grinned. “Very funny.”
Aiden crouched beside her mentor and placed a gentle hand on the old man’s smooth brow. “What’s wrong?” she asked. She lacked medical training and had no explanation for the priest’s inexplicable unconsciousness. “He was okay before I passed out.” She regarded the Celt with pointed suspicion.
“His heart is weak. The beat isn’t normal. It’s as if part of his heart has stopped working. He may be having a heart attack. I’m not sure...” Magnus trailed off, clearly unfamiliar with fear and worry.
“He keeps nitroglycerin in his pocket,” Aiden said, sorting through the priest’s coat until she located the tiny yellow bottle. She pressed her fingers to Matthew’s throat and discovered an alarmingly weak pulse. It fluttered beneath her touch like a baby bird. Biting her lip, she twisted the top from the bottle and slipped a tablet into the priest’s mouth.
She glanced at Magnus. “How long ago did you call?”
“It’s only been a couple minutes,” he said.
A long silence ensued, so uncomfortable it itched.
Aiden broke. “How do you two know each other?”
“We’re old friends, Matt and I.”
“I see,” Aiden said, so very skeptical. “I’ve known Matthew my entire life. He raised me, and yet I’ve not heard him mention your name even once before tonight.”
“I met Matthew long before you were born,” Magnus replied. As it happened, the Celt’s voice adopted the quality of a bourbon brogue, smooth as silk when he made an effort. His smile constructed a deliberate mystery, taunting her with the implications. “If it’s any consolation, I’m not around all that much. Believe me, I’ve heard him mention your name many times. He’s very proud of you, Aiden.”
Aiden sighed. She couldn’t accuse him of lying, especially in the face of logic and overwhelming evidence. The minutes ticked by.
The silence drove her up the wall. “Are you really House Shemyaza?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Where’s that ambulance? It’s taking forever.”
“It’s coming,” Magnus assured her. But another minute passed, and no predicted siren sounded.
Magnus turned his head slightly to the side in the barest of movement, almost imperceptible. The Celt grew still, unnaturally immobile, a predator waiting.
Aiden’s heart labored as if in the final leg of a long, long race. “What is it?” she whispered.
Magnus released a held breath in a low hiss and became animated again. “His heart has stopped.” Magnus reached for the priest.
With a surge of panic, Aiden reached for Matthew also. Her fingers scrambled, searching for a pulse. She didn’t find one. Her thoughts raced, trying to recall the procedure for CPR, but she drew an absolute blank.
A second later her perfect memory supplied what she needed. Aiden scooted beside Matthew in order to apply CPR. She locked her hands and leaned forward to begin compressions, but a hand gripped her sho
ulder and pulled her away from the priest. “What do you think you’re doing?” Aiden cried out in anger, shocked by the Celt’s betrayal. She rebounded, going for Matthew again.
Magnus shoved her aside. “Saving his life.” The Celt laid his hand over Matthew’s heart, crouching over the priest like a great cat on limbs bent with inhuman dexterity. “You can’t die, old friend. Not yet.”
“Leave him alone!” Aiden shouted. Her tears fell freely. She started to rise, to snatch his hands away, to tear him from Matthew, but she knew she would fail—Magnus was too damned fast and strong.
“Come back,” Magnus commanded. A growl resonated from his throat, a deep reverberating roll of anger and power, held in check at a meditative hum. With a single utterance, he created music which traversed every known scale, rich in sound, layered in meaning, beautiful and soulful. The cloak beneath Matthew’s head rippled and writhed in a frenzy.
“Come back, old friend.” A flash of red emanated from Magnus’ hand, and the light spread and swathed Matthew in an aura of crimson. It was blood, brilliance. The energy flowed from Magnus and entered Matthew, and the entire transference lasted less than five seconds.
Matthew’s body convulsed, jerking on the pavement. The priest’s eyes opened, and he sucked down a loud draught of air. Then his upper torso heaved forward into a sitting posture. Magnus caught his shoulders.
“Magnus? Is that you?” Matthew said. His weak voice shook. His hands groped outward, a blind man searching for human contact.
Magnus caught Matthew’s hands, offering the empathy his friend sought. “It’s me.”
“I can’t see,” Matthew said. The frail hand contracted with all of the priest’s strength.
“Give the magic time to work,” Magnus said. His compassionate and kind expression—the most humane Aiden had ever witnessed—changed her opinion of Magnus irrevocably for the better.
Phoenix Contract: Part One (Fallen Angel Watchers Book 1) Page 4