by Peter Dawes
The seer rushed forward to allow the others passage inward. Before another could manage through, however, I acted out of reflex, using my mental gifts to slam the door shut and turn the lock. Immediately, the seer swung around to see what had happened and, without needing to instruct Robin, my brother ran for him, seizing the opportunity to act. Raising the wrench, he readied a blow and when the seer turned to face us, I held him in place. The hold lasted long enough for Robin to swing for the vampire hunter.
He fell to the ground, a tempered blow knocking him unconscious, but not killing him.
“One down,” I said, right as the door burst open again. Both Robin and I looked up at the next man at the same time, seeing him emerge with one of the female sorcerers at his side. She directed her attention toward Robin, and with a word, she pried the wrench from Robin’s hands and stalked forward to engage him. The seer, on the other hand, directed his attention to me.
My fangs ran down, the need to eat only escalated with the excitement of battle coming over me. He lifted his sword and I did as well, and both of us shrugged off the pretense of a mental challenge to match brawn with brawn. I heard the other two sorcerers attempt to enter and directed one last, cogent thought toward shutting the door and engaging the lock with my mind again, hoping this time it would stay.
Then, I rushed toward the seer, my sword already in motion to engage his.
The cacophony of metal impacting metal bounced from one wall to the next, loud grunts from both of us preceding another engagement between our swords. My adversary gritted his teeth and I matched the intensity of his blows with fevered strikes, attempting not to be distracted by the maddening sound of his heart racing. “I have the elder vampire secured, Francis,” the sorceress called out, her voice barely audible through the haze of engagement.
“Help me with him,” Francis managed, but I risked diverting my attention toward the girl long enough to send her flying across the hallway. In my periphery, I watched her slide on the carpet, rolling backward and end over end, and directed my attention back to Francis before he could get the better of me. Our swords collided again, but as my instincts clamored, I thought of him like prey I was attempting to subdue.
And like a seer, I used the tools at my disposal with which to do so.
Light crested over my fingertips with startling speed, not needing to be evoked as it raced from hands up to my sword like the weapon I clutched could conduct its energy. The next swing I took knocked the seer backward, and when he failed to lose his footing, I hit him harder and with much more telekinetic force behind the action. This shoved him up against the locked door, with his compatriots looking on behind the glass window in horror. Whatever look they saw in my eyes, they expected blood to be shed.
Instead, I freed a hand and pressed it against his forehead.
“Take a nap,” I said, shutting my eyes only to direct my thoughts into his mind, stripping him of consciousness before immediately retreating.
While the two sorcerers struggled to open the locked door, I shifted my focus back to the sorceress. She had scrambled back to her feet, but did not appear steady on them. Intense fear overshadowed the girl when she realized she had become my next target. While the urge to make a snack out of her remained a staggering temptation, I pointed the palm of my hand at her instead, sending another wave of invisible force raced toward her. It threw the girl into one of the shut doors ahead of us.
This time, when she landed on the floor, she stayed down.
I looked quickly toward Robin, hearing him groan. While I had been indisposed, the sorceress had worked some form of witchcraft against him, leaving him unmoving and deposited onto the carpet. Running for where he lay, I sheathed my sword once I came to a stop beside him and crouched down afterward. “Can you move?” I asked, reaching for one of his arms.
“No,” he said, grimacing as I moved him. “Whatever she did to me, I seem unable to get up.”
“Is there another way out of here?” I looked up, toward the end of the corridor, and saw another hallway intersecting the one in which we found ourselves. Pulling Robin to his feet, I draped his arm over my shoulder and shifted him until I had a firm hold of his waist. While his legs supported some of his weight, he barely managed to aid in the effort of walking. Frowning, I continued past the collection of unconscious people, both relieved and unnerved that they all still bore a pulse.
“The elevator has to come down here,” Robin murmured. “Try looking for that.” We lumbered toward the end of the hallway and turned toward the right, continuing onward once we had. “They might be waiting there for us in the vestibule, you know. You reek of blood and are armed with a sword. We’re going to cause enough of a stir to direct them toward us even if they’re not there.”
“Always so pessimistic.” I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the metal doors of the elevator up ahead. “Provided we get out of this damned hotel, what do we do next?”
“As much as I would love to return to the room and fetch my things, your other personality has made that impossible.” Robin leaned against the wall when I shifted him there. I considered it a mercy that he did not collapse onto the ground. Rather, he remained upright long enough for me to press the up arrow and close my coat to conceal my sword and injury.
We made eye contact once I was finished. Robin raised an eyebrow. “How wounded are you?” he asked.
“Near to the point of being ravenous,” I said, collecting his weight again, “But I can wait.” Directing his arm back around my shoulders, I winced as my chest ached, almost as if it needed to add emphasis. My fangs slid back into my jaw when the elevator dinged and the doors parted. “Would they dare follow us to the Underground?”
Robin limped with me into the elevator car. “I would assume them capable of anything right now, though I suspect they went to the room first.”
“So, crowds would not be an advantage.” I heard a bang echo from deeper in the basement and envisioned the door I had locked finally swinging open. Hurriedly, I pressed the button for the main floor and hit the one to shut the doors directly afterward. They began to close obediently, affording me the chance to think again. “This is probably a service elevator. We will make the attempt to sneak out of here before we create a public spectacle.”
“That would be preferred. As would be this spell wearing off.”
“One miracle at a time.” We settled to a stop on the main floor and I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. As the metal doors parted, I hobbled forward with Robin, grateful when we entered a vacant corridor which faced a set of bathrooms. The front entrance looked to be to the right, so I directed us left, past a set of doors leading into a ballroom and beyond a passage leading into the kitchen. A secondary exit laid ahead of us, with a door which indicated an alarm would sound if we used it.
“You’re going to rouse everyone here,” Robin noted.
“Hopefully we can make it elsewhere before they notice,” I responded.
Robin regained a small amount of surety by the time we reached the door. I lifted a foot and kicked it open and while the buzzer that sounded could hardly be described as loud, it rang just the same. We made it out onto the narrow side street which ran behind the establishment and already, I heard the pulses and felt the itch to let my fangs descend again. A groan emanated from my throat, my focus on the busier road ahead of us. Maybe we could hail a taxi. Maybe we could put enough distance between us and the hotel for me to finally eat.
“Is my mind playing tricks on me or do they think we might be helping Patrick?” I asked, needing the mental distraction. “I cannot put together all of the pieces, but I faintly recall that being a topic of discussion before Flynn unseated me.”
“Yes, I said they meant to detain me,” he said. “They think I am the conspirator. Heaven only knows what they think of you. Patrick seems to be reconstructing the spell that brought him and Sabrina back to life.”
“Yes. And I was concerned over what use he had for Monica.”
I frowned, turning onto the sidewalk the moment we managed to the busier thoroughfare. The memories reassembled like puzzle pieces sliding into place, still bearing gaps when Flynn had taken over. Still, I knew the nature of the beast we faced now. As I peered behind us, I saw the door we had used to escape swing open and did not bother to assess who emerged from the other side. The sight disappeared the further we strode down the street. “We need to find a way out of here.”
“Off our feet, for starters. I am doing nothing more than slowing us down.”
“The Underground it is.”
We marched forward, garnering looks from pedestrians passing us on the sidewalk. Blending in with the evening crowd as much as we could, they gave us a wide berth, but filled in the spaces around us. I clenched my jaw to avoid the descent of my fangs and forced myself to take measured breaths, both experiencing the onslaught of hunger and pain while attempting not to be panicked. The entrance to the tube lay across the street and directly ahead, but it might as well have been miles away.
Robin struggled to support whatever I could not manage, and though I dared not hope for it, the spell which had afflicted him seemed to be waning. His feet rested flatter on the concrete beneath and knees bent with each step I helped him take. When we reached the intersection, we stopped with the remainder of the pedestrians and waited for the light cycle to permit us to cross. I chanced a look backward, over my shoulder toward where our pursuers might be.
When I saw a familiar man cutting through the crowd, I paled.
“Gillies is here,” I muttered. The stoplight turned green and we hobbled forward with everyone else. “We might not get onto a train in time.”
“If you see him, then I doubt it,” Robin said. “This might be a lost cause.”
“Unless I want to create a public spectacle.” I shot Gillies another quick glance, weighing that he might make it across the street before the light changed again. Another pack of personnel followed behind and I could only imagine the reinforcements waiting to be dispatched. Frowning, I looked first toward the Underground entrance, then around at the collection of shops dotting the road ahead of us. My head felt dizzy, my thoughts rapidly becoming more encumbered. “We might need to hide before I can handle a direct confrontation. I am far too hungry to focus.”
“What are our other options?”
“Essentially, to surrender.”
“And, as you said, that isn’t an option. We’ll never break out of their facilities.” Robin scanned the storefronts we passed after ignoring the stairs leading subterranean. I watched as he focused on one and followed his line of sight. Beyond a clothing store and a nail salon laid a coffee shop which had closed for the day. “I suggest the café. Lock the door behind us and we can disappear out the back.”
“Seems as good of an idea as any.”
I scolded myself not to look back again, living in silent hope that the light had granted us precious moments we would need. Despite the distractions screaming at me from all sides, I managed somehow to increase the speed of my gait, nearly dragging Robin to the closed café and pausing at the front. Fear raced through me while I focused on the lock, this one not nearly as easy to manipulate as the one in the hotel basement had been. That we managed to slip inside and secure the door behind us struck me as nothing short of miraculous.
Not wanting to waste the last embers of lucidity I was clinging onto, I hefted Robin onto my back, moving more swiftly without him at my side. His limp arms held on as tightly as possible as we wove around tables, around to the kitchen area, and toward the door which laid in the back. The sound of glass shattering caused me to jump, and as I heard the crunch of debris, I kicked open the last obstacle standing between us and freedom.
When we emerged on the other side, I ran.
Everything hurt. My head. My chest. My back and my legs. I ran for what appeared to be an apartment tower and unlocked the secondary entrance when we approached it. Clambering down the stairs, we stopped inside a laundry room and shut ourselves inside. Behind the closed door, with heavy wood and a bolt standing between us and them, I reckoned we had minutes before they could surround us.
I slumped to the floor beside where I had settled Robin, wincing at the way the hilt of my sword dug into my side. Robin groaned and he and I both leaned against the wall behind us for support. “How are you faring?” he asked. I felt the weight of his gaze settle on me.
“Not good,” I said, shutting my eyes. Every pulse in the building had begun wafting toward me, strangely bringing with them the thoughts of each occupant. My head became a warzone where idle chatter and drums conspired to drive me insane. “My control over my powers seems to be slipping as well.”
“We only need a moment to catch our breath. Then we can find you food.”
“I believe I could amass a collection of bodies now.” The mere thought of blood made my insides twist. “When you set out to wound me, you did a good job of it.”
“I hesitate to think of what would’ve happened had I not.”
“Yes, well, catching our breath might not do me much good.” I lingered on those words in some attempt to brush aside my fixation on blood and bodies, noting the irony of being a breathless creature. Opening my eyes again, I stared at the ceiling and perked an eyebrow when this observation brought with it an ancillary thought. “I could turn human,” I mused out loud. “I think I have replenished enough energy with which to do so.”
“But you’re injured,” Robin countered. “Is it wise for you to assume an even more vulnerable state?”
“It would clear my mind at least and keep the hunger at bay. I am no good to either of us this distracted.”
Robin sighed. “At least feed from me first before you do. I am especially no help to you if you revert human and collapse onto the floor.” Movement in my periphery directed me to the hand resting on his lap, which shakily rose and turned, wrist facing upward. When I peered at Robin and perked an eyebrow at him, he smiled wanly. “I lack the dexterity to undo the buttons of my cuff. You’ll have to help.”
Taking hold of his forearm, I made eye contact with him one last time to ensure he wanted to offer me his blood in his condition. The wan smile held, offering gentle reassurance, and while I shifted my hands to start unbuttoning his cuff, I grimaced at how appealing the offer had become. “I dislike having to do this.”
“Oh, I am quite used to being teased by you. Maybe this time, it won’t be nearly so visceral.”
Glancing back at him, I surrendered to a smirk while he mirrored the expression. Within seconds, however, my focus became centered on the pale skin of his wrist, eyes honing on the sight of the vein running from the bottom of his palm into his arm. My fangs ran down and, once they had extended, I brought the offering to my mouth and bit.
His tepid blood ran onto my tongue, sliding down my throat and prompting me to groan. Pursing my lips around the wound, I pulled from it while resisting the urge to tear further in, wanting draughts instead of the trickle rushing into my stomach. Robin tensed and as he gasped, I waded back into my senses, not certain of how long I had been feeding from him. By the time my fangs slid back into my jaw, I felt at least some of the crushing hunger afflicting me subside.
Unfortunately, I had also given the Order enough opportunity to reach us.
Banging at the door made me jump. I shifted my focus toward it, frowning at the purposeful way each knock rattled the wooden barrier. “Come on out, Peter,” Gillies calmly instructed. “You, too, Master O’Shane. There isn’t a stone in this city we can’t upend looking for you.”
Glancing quickly at Robin, I saw him shift to attempt being more upright, locking my gaze with his once his eyes returned to me. “This is probably foolish, but I am going to attempt it anyway,” I said.
“What do we do if it fails?” he asked.
“Hope that what you gave me is enough for me to concentrate on a battle.”
Taking in a deep breath, I held onto it, feeling the air weigh useless in my lun
gs and focusing on that first. I shut my eyes and thought about the stillness in my chest, the chill of my skin, and the pallid color of my complexion. I thought about all the cosmetic things which indicated my vampire state and reverted it all to that man I had last seen in the mirror when he was human, from rosier cheeks to thundering pulse and duller senses. I saw it all as a switch – a simple thing to turn or flip – one end containing the undead immortal I had been turned into so many years ago. The other side, however, contained everything which had made me human again.
When I thought about my family, I made the jump across the rift.
Air rushed into my body and every nerve lit on fire. My eyes shot open and I heaved for another breath, the act gaining sudden purpose bordering on dire. The thoughts of others, which had already been ebbing toward me, exploded into a shout before receding like ocean waves. It took seconds for the vibrant colors of the world to fade again, and at that moment is when I recognized the sound of my own heart beating.
I sputtered and coughed, settling onto all fours and focusing on the sight of the floor in some effort to center myself. While the banging at the door persisted, I blinked and told myself to think first of regaining my bearings, aware that the pain in my chest felt like shards of broken glass had taken up residence there. Still, I told myself to ignore it. I no longer felt the insatiable urge to plunge my teeth into anything, and after a wave of dizziness passed, I settled into the familiarity of being human like a practiced art.
Looking up at the shut door, I drew one last breath meant to calm myself. The wood on the door frame splintered and when the next hit knocked it completely from its hinges, I shot to a stand, both hands lifting as light raced up my hands, all the way to my elbows. I directed the energy I gathered toward blocking them from entering, hearing a yelp of protest when one came too close to the photokinetic shield I had created. Staring at it, I continued channeling energy toward it.