by R D Martin
"Well? What do you have to say?"
"Leave up, Lettie." One of the vampire's companions spoke up. "Can't you see the bag's been drained? It probably didn't even hear you."
The dour vampire turned on her companion. "That's not the point, Armonde. They are here to serve, and I will not be—"
Whatever she'd been about to say came to a halt as the other vampire waved a dismissive hand and turned his back on her. The woman stood with her mouth agape, staring at her companion's back for a moment before whirling to face Bella. If the vampire's expression before had been sour, it was now a thundercloud of anger. As Bella watched, her eyes shifted from bloodshot to full red. The air between the them became thick with tension, waiting for a spark to light the powder keg.
Bella tried to keep her face passive but still felt her eyes widen when the woman's fangs appeared. She heard the snarl before her brain could register the movement.
The vampiress spun around and slammed her tiny fist into the back of her companion. It was a solid shot, and the male vampire was lifted off his feet by the impact and fell to the floor, landing on his back.
"You will not disrespect me, Armonde. I am your Elder, and—"
The vampire on the floor snarled and slammed both his palms down, thrusting himself up and forward. Bella glimpsed a hand rearing back before it came around with enough speed to make it blur. There was a loud crack, and the female's head whipped to the side. Long gouges marred the side of her face, rips in the flesh that healed almost as fast as they appeared.
All conversation ceased as every head in the room turned as the female screeched and reached up to touch her face. The marks would be gone in moments, but the fuse had been lit. Without a sound, she leaped at the male, hands extended as if to tear his head from his shoulders. The man caught her wrists, but it was a near thing, and the fight between the duo began in earnest.
Staring at the blurs of movement in front of her, Bella almost jumped in fright when Cat's head hit her calf. Looking down, she saw her familiar run toward one of the far doors and stop, turning to look back at her. She understood and followed, walking rather than running. With everyone watching the fight, it was time to make her escape.
There were four doors in front of her, and she didn't know which led where, but she trusted Cat when he stopped in front of the second to the right. Reaching for the handle, she ducked as something flew near her head and shattered against the wall, causing splinters of wood to rain down on her. As tempting as it was to look back, that was all the encouragement she needed to leave. Heaving open the door, she stepped out of the room and pulled it closed behind herself, cutting off the noise from the room as though a switch had been flipped.
Standing in the hall, she didn't debate which direction to move. She just ran, putting as much distance between herself and the vampire quarters as she could. Her heart thundered, and her body ached, but when her lungs screamed for air, she stopped. Leaning against the wall, panting as hard as she ever had, she looked around. Everything appeared the same in this place. Same gray walls with the same disturbing tapestries hanging from them. Bella groaned and slid down the stone wall until she hit the floor. She was so tired she'd give anything for a good night's sleep.
Cat jumped into her lap, pawing at her legs for a moment before settling himself down. Running her fingers through his fur, she felt an electric jolt run through her hand and up her arm, spreading from there until it suffused every inch of her body. It soothed her muscles a little and took the edge off the worst of her pains, for which she was grateful. As a familiar, Cat had powers of his own. While he couldn't heal her, he could help her aches somewhat.
Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the cool stone behind her. She had some answers, though nowhere near enough, and she'd almost died to get the ones she had. Was it worth it? Did she need to go through all this? Part of her mind wanted to shout no, to demand she go back to her room and just wait for morning, however many hours away that was. The other part of her, however, demanded to know the truth. It demanded to know why the Imperium would think she was following in her father's footsteps. Everything seemed centered on him.
She let her thoughts drift toward her life growing up. He'd been, well, her father. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing special. He was a workaholic, but so was every researcher she'd ever met. His life had been boring, centered on books and lists. So why did everyone know him?
She sighed before shifting. There was one place she could get more answers. She knew for a fact that Wallace hadn't told her everything. The vampire had confirmed the Imperium Representative wasn't to be trusted, but he had the answers. All she had to do was be strong enough to take them.
"What's the worst they can do? Kill me?" Though the question was aimed at Cat, even he knew it was rhetorical. When you were dealing with the Imperium, there was always worse they could do. Killing her was just where they would start.
19
Bella hesitated with her hand inches from Wallace's door. Once she did this, there would be no turning back. Either it worked or she'd spend the rest of her very short, very painful life being tortured by the Imperium in imaginative and creative ways. Her life would become a cautionary tale parents told children to keep them in line. Was she ready for this?
It felt like déjà vu as she wavered with her hand raised, caught between straining to knock on the door and fighting the desire to turn and run. Her entire body was a live wire, electricity coursing through her with nothing to ground it. She could still stop, still turn and run. There was nothing stopping her. It would be so easy…
The fluid motion of the door opening caught her as much by surprise as it did the Representative's assistant. Shock barely had time to register on the older woman's face before Bella reacted.
Bella's hand, already raised to knock on the door, opened. Energy surged through her as she let the magic fill her, shaping and forming the coursing power into something usable in less than the space of time it took to blink. A white glow, brighter than the yellow light of the floating orbs, surrounded her hand. The glow traveled down her wrist and forearm and up to her shoulder before snapping back like a rubber band. The white light formed a ball that flew from her palm and struck the older woman in the chest.
As suddenly as the assistant appeared, she disappeared, leaving the doorway empty as the ball of magic blew her back. Bella stepped into the room in time to see the woman crash into the furniture in the middle of the room, knocking one overstuffed armchair on its side and bouncing off the other to land in a heap on the floor. Kicking the door closed behind herself, Bella prepared another spell as she advanced.
The assistant must not have been as frail as she looked. The older woman scrambled to her feet, reaching behind herself with both hands. If it weren't for the look of unfettered rage on her face, Bella would have laughed at the image she made, like an embarrassed child caught with a hand in a cookie jar. No child, however, would pull out two gleaming steel guns with barrels almost large enough to see the bullets inside them. Bella hated guns, but she'd been ready for this.
She released the spell she'd been holding, and lines of energy shot from her hands like purple snakes with gaping maws. The energy surrounded the guns, forming a semi-opaque ball around the weapons and the hands holding them. And as if she was acting out a slow-motion movie scene, she watched the woman pull the triggers on both guns at the same time.
Smoke billowed from the gun barrels, and the purple shields expanded like balloons as they absorbed the energy. Once, then twice more, the woman pulled triggers. Each time the purple shells expanded and shrank, drinking in the bullets’ momentum and making the weapons useless.
The woman snarled and, raising her arms above her head, lashed them forward. Bella ducked, dodging to the left to avoid the hurled weapons. The old woman's aim, under the circumstances, was impressive. The first missed by a large margin, but the second bounced off Bella’s shoulder and narrowly missed the side of her head as it passe
d, making her lose sight of the assistant for a fraction of an instant.
By the time she turned her head to focus on her target, the woman had pulled a curved knife and was charging across the room. Where was she hiding that? Bella threw up a shield as she considered her next spell. She couldn't afford to go on the defensive. That would get her killed. She needed to deal with this woman now, before Wallace came out of whatever dark corner he was hiding in.
As the spell formed on her lips, she watched the woman's dagger slam into her shield. There was a brief flash of light at the contact before deep red sparks began flying in every direction. The look on the assistant's face was one of pure concentration as she pushed the knife, pitting her steel against the magic.
A lead ball formed in the pit of Bella's stomach that only seemed to grow larger as she watched the tip of the blade pierce the outer edge of her spell and sink through. She knew Imperium members were trained to deal with witches, so having weapons that could pierce through magic was a necessity for them.
The assistant grunted and, with a jerk in her shoulder, plunged the blade into the shield. As it went through, her spell fizzed and crackled, almost like it couldn’t find the woman it was supposed to work on. The assistant began ripping through her shield like wet tissue paper, and the cold look on the woman's face was enough to tell Bella she was about to get the same treatment. The shock was enough to make the spell on Bella's lips die.
A slight pop was all the warning she got as the shield failed and the assistant lunged at her with the knife outstretched. It was only an accident that kept the tip from piercing Bella’s chest. Stepping back, she tripped over her own feet, falling away from the curved blade. As her hands came up, she released the pent-up energy inside her to do what it wanted.
The magic shot from her like a tidal wave, slamming her to the floor at the same time it hit the assistant. Stars exploded in Bella's vision as her head bounced off the marble floor. Darkness threatened to creep its way in until she shook her head to clear it. Through watering eyes, she gazed at what her magic did to the assistant.
The woman hung in the air, flailing to regain control of herself. Bella had been to a few movies where an astronaut lost tether with the ship or station and just floated in space, and that was how the woman looked. Her arms and legs moved wildly as she tried to find any purchase to regain control. But the more she struggled, the more she seemed to spin in place. Just watching was enough to give Bella vertigo.
Scuttling away, putting space between herself and the weightless assistant, she stopped when her back hit a wall. This wasn't how she'd expected to win the fight, but she'd take what she could get. Breathing hard, she tried to ignore the pounding of her pulse as it raced through her, drowning out everything else. The thought occurred to her then that the assistant had neither spoken a word nor called out for help. That was the first thing Bella would have done, unless she thought she could deal the problem on her own.
Dread reached up and wrapped its fingers around her throat as her head snapped up. The assistant was still spinning in the air, but now she held something long and white that Bella didn't recognize at first. About the same length as a stage magician's wand, the rod clutched in the woman's hand was twisted, almost like a spiral, until it reached a very pointed tip.
No. That, that can't be. Can it? The assistant held the spiraled wand in front of her and a white glow surrounded it, confirming Bella's suspicions. Somehow, hidden in some place she didn't want to know, the assistant pulled out a unicorn horn. Unicorns were magical creatures that, in life, acted like amplifiers for magic. Magic plants grew larger around them, healing spells worked better, even attack spells were more effective if you could keep the animals around long enough to cast it. In death, however, their magic reversed and parts like their horns acted like magic vacuums.
As the assistant waved the horn, it grew brighter as it absorbed the magic holding her up. Like a hot-air balloon coming down for a landing, the woman's form lowered to the floor. The moment her feet touched, giving her enough freedom to move, she pushed off the floor toward Bella.
Gasping, back against the wall, she raised her hands and began mumbling words in a language not meant for the human tongue to speak or the mind to remember. The sounds fell from her lips like water over falls, and the air in the room shifted. Darkness converged in front of her palms and an electric buzz, like the sounds of thousands of flies converging, filled the air.
The assistant's eyes widened, and throwing the dagger at Bella, she leaped to the side. The knife flew straight and should have hit her between her eyes, but the darkness in front of her pulled it, swallowing it like a leaf in a hurricane.
Bella's hands tracked the assistant, following her as she jumped and dodged, making herself a harder target to hit. She'd only get one chance with this spell, and it had to count. Age must have chosen that moment to catch up with the assistant, because she stumbled in front of the only standing chair left in the room. Seeing her chance, Bella took the shot and released the darkness.
Inky black tendrils, like something belonging to a sea creature that had never seen light, shot across the room. The tendrils didn't move around anything in their way; rather, they moved through it. One tendril touched the edge of a coffee table, and when it passed, the edge disappeared, cut away from the rest of the table so cleanly that what was left behind was sharp enough to shave with. An overturned chair lost a leg and part of its seat in the same manner.
The assistant, leaning against the same cushioned seat she'd bounced off earlier, looked over her shoulder at the approaching darkness. If Bella hadn't known better, she would have thought the woman was smiling. But that would be insane, wouldn't it? Who would smile at approaching death?
It turns out, the people who do so are the ones not about to die. The instant before the dark tendrils touched, the woman rolled to the side and Bella knew the woman had tricked her. The assistant had faked the tumble, encouraging her to let the magic off its leash. The spell could only be called once in twenty-four hours, and as Bella watched it wrap around and devour the chair, her heart sank. That spell had been the ace up her sleeve. A banned spell she'd learned by accident. There was nothing that could fight it, nothing that could stand in its path. Worse, now that the assistant knew Bella had the spell, it was all the evidence the assistant would need to have her arrested. Not that any more excuse was necessary.
The woman stood and brushed invisible dirt off her jacket sleeve. Not even a single gray hair in her tightly woven bun was out of place.
"That," she said in a voice that sent chills down Bella's spine, "was stupid. I would have taken it easy on you, let you live after roughing you up a little so Wallace could deal with you, but now"—there was a gleam in her eyes that betrayed her malevolent joy—"now I get to kill you."
The woman sauntered forward with the smooth grace of a panther stalking prey, another knife appearing in her hand as though it had grown from her palm. Bella raised her own hands as she prepared another spell, but she knew it was too late already, she was dead where she sat even if she was still moving. Her heart thundered in her chest hard enough to hurt, and her lungs froze up. The gleam in the woman's eyes brightened even more as she lunged, throwing herself at Bella with the tip of the knife leading the way.
Magic surged through her, blasting from her core outward, mixing water and wind into a funnel aimed at the charging woman. Closing her eyes, Bella screamed as she let the magic take over, not caring if it burned every cell in her body as long as it did something, anything to let her live a few minutes longer. With her eyes shut tight, she couldn't see what the magic was doing, but she could still hear it. Gale-force winds ripped through the room, and furniture smashed into walls. The howl of wind was loud enough it matched the ferocity of her own pulse.
When the last of the energy left her hands, Bella slumped like a marionette with its strings cut. If the assistant came now, she wouldn't have the strength to fight back. Her mind screamed at her,
begging for her to fight back, even as it imagined the tip of the blade piercing her neck. One heartbeat, another, and another. Was the woman toying with her? Why didn't she just get it over with? Another heartbeat, then another.
Bella opened her eyes, afraid the flash of steel she knew was there would be the last thing she'd see. Her eyes focused, and she gasped as they crossed to stare at the blade tip inches from them. But instead of finishing the job, the knife didn't move. Bella slid to the side, refusing to take her eyes off the weapon until she'd made it far enough away to see everything.
The blade was still clutched in the woman's hand, but both it and she were encased in a thick layer of ice. Looking around the room, Bella could see a coating of permafrost covering most of it, beginning where she'd been sitting and expanding outward like a horizontal tornado. Everything from floor to ceiling was now as white as the Himalayas after a heavy snowstorm, frozen in place by her magic.
Turning her attention back to the assistant, she stared in awe. The ice covering the woman was completely clear, surrounding her like a protective cloak. The magic must have hit her fast because she still had the predatory smile fixed on her face. Summoning the little energy she had left, Bella pushed it into the woman. The minuscule threads of power delved deep and, to her amazement, reported the woman was still alive and healthy in her frozen bondage. Bella wanted to sigh with relief but stifled it when the magic reported something more. The assistant, dour-faced and murder-hungry, wasn't entirely human either. But if she wasn't human, what was she?
Later. Figure it out later. She shook her head and walked around the ice statue of the assistant to the front door. It was the barest luck she'd been close to it when she created the ice storm, or else it would have frozen shut. As it was, the small amount of frost gathered around its edges tinkled and popped as she opened the door wide enough for Cat to enter.