by Izzy Shows
We reached the landing, and as soon as the space widened, Finn stepped in front of me to take lead. I grabbed his arm and yanked him back to my side.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. There were doors on either side of the hallway we had entered, likely leading to bedrooms that one could only hope were vacant. With the luck I had, they were brimming with vampires. “You can’t go ahead.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Do you remember that part, where we agreed I would work the case and you would handle the boring part? This is the case. This is my arena, not yours. I’m the one who knows how to handle this situation, not you. You’re a bloody liability, I’m worried about you in every single altercation.”
“I never asked you to worry about me. I handled two vampires so far; I think I can do this.”
“You handled two vampires I pinned down!” I snapped. “That doesn’t mean you can get through a fight without dying. How am I supposed to get through a fight like that? I need you to at least hang back while I deal with the first wave. You don’t know what’s going to come at us, it might be a vampire or it might be a thrall. How are you going to feel about taking down a human when they’re running at you? Just let me deal with it.”
“I’d think I can take down a human better than I can take down a vampire,” he said. “I happen to have guns that can do that.”
I gaped at him. “How would you live with yourself?”
“If someone is attacking me, I can and will defend myself. It’s that simple, Blair.” He looked grim as he spoke, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. I wish it were that simple for me; I wish I could brush it all aside and not have the sleepless nights. Even some of the monsters I killed haunted at me, bemoaning their deaths and blaming me for not being able to talk them out of whatever it was they had done to earn their deaths. But maybe Finn was all talk.
Now was not the moment to get into it, after all.
“Just stay back and stay quiet. If you need to get beside me, you can, but this is what I need to be able to focus.”
“Fine. We’ll do it your way.”
We crept forward in silence.
41
The first door on my left flung open as if I had stepped on some sort of trigger, and a group of vampires appeared in the hallway, moving so fast that I could barely see the blur of their bodies. I jumped backwards reflexively, throwing an arm wide to block Finn from going forward, even going so far as to drag him back a step or two.
They stared at us for a brief second before they charged, and then I was lost in the heat of battle. There was nothing but me and the first vampire that reached me for the fight.
I swung high, aiming for its head, but my wrist was caught in a vice like grip, the vampires sadistic smile taunting me as he closed what distance remained between us. I gritted my teeth, refusing to gasp at the pain that was firing off in my wrist. I had seconds left before it would be broken and I would be completely useless, I had to do something. I cast my eyes around, trying to find an idea in the blur of bodies.
That did not come to me, but four pairs of claws dug into my flesh, two piercing through the thin cotton of my tank top, and two biting into the skin of each forearm.
I had three vampires to deal with and one of my arms was out of commission. I needed an idea and I needed one fast.
Clenching my jaw hard, I hooked a foot around one of the legs of the vampire who held my wrist and yanked it towards me, then allowed him to carry me down with his momentum so that my wrist wasn’t wrenched from its joint. We fell in a heap, my neck dangerously close to his face, but he had let go of my wrist and it had taken me away from the other three.
Good. That’s all that I needed.
I rolled off him before he could get his bearings, scrambling to my feet.
A downed wizard is a dead wizard, I reminded myself. Sometimes, in a battle where I wasn’t as confident as I would like, I imagined Aidan was there to tell me what to do. It helped to bolster my confidence and courage.
I put my back to the wall and lifted both wands, holding them up and at the ready.
It was enough to bring the vampires to a screeching halt. One of them even lifted a hand to place on the shoulder of the one attacking Finn. When that one turned to look at me, I realised that I had everyone’s undivided attention.
It was bloody unnerving.
“Well. Hello, then,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “I don’t suppose you could all be convinced to get the fuck out of my way?” Not that I had any intentions of letting them do that—I had sentenced every vampire in this house to death already—but it never hurt to give them the option.
“The Dark One will stop you.”
“No one will stop me, sweetheart,” I said with a grim smile. “Incendium et glacio.” Both wands fired off at the same time, launching a spray of frost and flame simultaneously that would have been utterly beautiful to behold in a different circumstance. The light of the flames shimmered on the surface of the frost as it swirled around the vampires, blanketing them in an impenetrable cover while the fire ate them from the top down.
I kept up the spray for several moments until they were engulfed in flames and the ice began to crystallise around them, encasing them in coffins of their own size and shape. I let the spell drop then and watched the way the fire glimmered in the little cracks of the ice, continuing to feast upon the bodies of the vampires.
“You’re bloody terrifying, has anyone told you that?” Finn’s voice held a certain degree of awe that made me blush and laugh.
“Please. I’m nowhere near as good as Aidan was.” I shrugged. “Maybe someday. Come on.”
We didn’t make it two steps before another door opened, and this time the group that poured forth—a mixture of thralls and vampires—didn’t hesitate before they attacked.
I heard the report of Finn’s gun firing off, spraying the group as they came at us, and I waited for one of them to reach me first. He kept up the spray so that only one or two could break through at a time, and I was there with a stake when that happened, taking down vampire after vampire until all that remained were bodies on the ground.
The thralls had died before they had even reached us, and my heart lurched at the thought that perhaps some of them could have been saved.
I felt the fatigue hit me then, as if all the spells I had worked up until that point had just gone off all at once. There was only so much strength that I had channelled into me from the quartz stone, only as much as I could have carried from a full night’s rest and proper nutrition. You couldn’t pour more water into a cup once it had reached its fill point, and my fill point wasn’t enough to keep up the level of spell work that I had been weaving.
I was going to have to pull it back a notch if I wanted to get the two of us through the rest of the house without falling flat on my damn face. Though I had to admit, after that wave, Finn was doing a good job. I hadn’t expected him to be useful, certainly hadn’t expected his guns to come in handy, but they had.
“How much more ammunition do you have?” I asked as I turned to look at him.
He was pulling a clip out of his backpack, loading it up. “Nowhere near enough, I’d wager.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” I sighed. There would always be a need for more—more magic, more stakes, more strength, more bullets. There was never going to be enough to get you through the fight, no matter how well prepared you thought you were.
We walked warily towards the end of the hallway and were ready for the door to open this time—but surprise! You don’t get to be ready for anything.
Had I not learned that lesson yet?
On either side of me, both doors opened at once and the flood that came forth was truly daunting. I took one look at Finn and we both nodded. We took two steps back and he lifted his gun while I raised the fire wand.
“Incendium!” I cried, fire pouring out to mingle with the bullets Finn had fired into the air. Sweat poured
into my eyes as I worked to control the flames, lining them up with the bullets so that they didn’t melt them but instead aided them when they found purchase in a body, tearing into the flesh of each enemy and wreaking havoc there.
It didn’t take long for one of them to break through the line and tackle me to the ground, leaving Finn to keep the others at bay.
Falling back on my reflexes, I slugged the vampire across the face and followed the hit up with a quick head butt that left me seeing stars, but had the vampire howling and launching itself away from me. Maybe head butting someone while you have a broken and bloody nose isn’t the best idea under the sun, but it was the only one I’d had at the time. And hey, it worked.
I rolled my weight onto my back just as the vampire came forward again, and launched myself up and into the monster, slamming my feet into him and letting my momentum carry me with him. I landed on top of the vampire and pulled back my arm.
“Vis!” I shouted as I slammed my fist into his face, rejoicing at the satisfactory crunch his cheekbones made when I connected. I pulled back and slammed in again, destroying his face. As I pulled back my arm a third time, I shifted my weight back a bit, reaching into my bag and pulling out a stake. I brought my arm forward again and slammed it home without missing a beat. I panted for a moment, letting the thrill of the kill consume me, the blood pulsing under my skin, before I shook my head and chased the feeling away.
It’s the brand, it’s just the brand, that’s what’s got you caught up in it, I thought. I had to battle with myself to come back to who I knew I was and stand up off the vampire. I re-joined Finn, bringing up my wand with a shaky hand to give him aid.
“It’s too bad you don’t have a wand that sprays wood!” He shouted.
“Ha! That would only be useful in this situation, but you’re right, it would come in handy right about now.”
“Bullets and fire are only going to keep them back, not put them down.”
“Enough fire would,” I grumbled.
“You know we’re just delaying the inevitable.”
Death? No!
“Here, I’m going to take two stakes, you jump in,” he said.
I nodded and shifted my weight so that the bag was available to him. He holstered his guns and grabbed two stakes from the bag. I followed suit, shoving my wands into their respective holsters and grabbing my own two stakes.
I took two running steps. “Vis!” I shouted, activating the tattoo on my ankle, and jumped into the air. For a moment, it felt like I was flying, soaring up above the crowd of vampires beneath me, before I came crashing down amongst them. I wasted no time, slamming each stake inside of the closest available chests. I pulled two more stakes out, spinning and kicking out a leg to drive a vampire behind me back as I brought the stakes to purchase in two more vampires. It was exhausting work, but I powered through it, my throat turning raw from the amount of times I screamed the Latin word for strength, pumping stakes out of my bag and into vampires like there was no tomorrow.
Well, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow if I didn’t get this done.
I felt a hand clawing at my ankle and whipped around to see a thrall there. They’d taken a bullet to the leg and shoulder from the looks of their bleeding, but the savagery in their eyes showed me that they weren’t going to let that stop them from taking me out. I was painfully aware that I had nothing on me that would kill them in any sort of humane fashion. A knife to the heart was much more merciful than a wooden stake, and I didn’t want to waste one of those on a human anyhow. I couldn’t use my magic on them—that was against the laws, wasn’t it? I wasn’t willing to do it, regardless.
“Finn!” I shouted, kicking away the thrall’s hand. “I’ve got a human for you!” I winced at my own cavalier tone and reminded myself that this person was set on killing me, even though they must have realised how hopeless their quest was.
Unless they did realise that. Unless they were suicidal. Unless living here, in this endless cycle of almost death, had brought them to a point where they were willing to charge into battle because it meant finally breaking out and into the quiet arms of death. I shuddered at the thought, turning my back on the human thrall and re-joining the fight with the vampires that remained.
There were four of them, and from the looks of it they were starting to realise what they had got themselves into. Good.
I heard gunfire behind me and cringed, hating the thought of the human’s death now that I had looked upon him. Now that he was a person to me, I couldn’t stand the idea that he had died and that I was a part of it.
“Glacio,” I whispered, gesturing towards the vampires. I pulled this magic from within myself, welcoming the pain it wreaked on my body as it erupted from my fingertips, leaving them numb. It bound the vampires in place as I walked towards them, my pain etched into my face.
“I hate you,” I said, quietly. “I hate you so much for making me do this.”
I drove a stake home in each of their hearts, one by one, and I felt a wetness on my cheeks that had nothing at all to do with blood.
42
The hallway was clear now. Finn and I just stood and stared at one another for a moment, catching our breaths and letting the moment marinate in our brains.
“Can you, uh…” I panted. “Can you go downstairs, and grab my blade?” I couldn’t quite look at him, but I was thinking about the thrall that had grabbed at my feet. I didn’t want to be in a position again where I had to hesitate, look into the eyes of another human, and know them. I didn’t want them to become people to me, I didn’t want my job to be any harder than it already was.
“Yeah, I can do that for you,” he said, nodding his head a few times before turning to walk back down the hallway we had just battled our way through, stepping over the bodies as he went.
When he was gone, I stowed the wands in either boot, taking two stakes out of the bag and loading them into the thigh holsters that normally housed my wands. I was going to need them more than I was going to need my wands, that was just a face of life right now.
I waited for Finn, the silence interminable, trying not to sink into my thoughts. It was a futile fight, though, because they were washing over me in waves.
I knew that what we had gone through was just a taste of what was waiting for us whenever we got to the triad of vampires that were leading this show. I didn’t know how far away they were, but I also knew that neither of us had a lot of fight left. I figured we could probably take out one more group in addition to whatever fight would be waiting for us with the triad. I hoped that the stairs we were about to climb were going to take us straight to them, but I doubted that I could be so lucky.
Well, if I were lucky then I would find them dead at the top of the stairs and can call it a day and go home. I longed for my bed, for the comfort of a drink with Finn and Shawn, for a moment of normalcy to take the edge off everything we’d gone through today. Maybe we could have Emily over too, she was always so busy, but if I invited her and told her how important it was, maybe she could come…
Look at me, making plans for after I get out of her like it was a given that it would happen. Maybe that was what I needed to do to get me through the rest of this fight, just pretend that I was going to make it out alive. Because underneath it all, I wasn’t sure that was the case. My body was creaking, my muscles were aching, and I was sweating as if I had just run a marathon on a tropical island. I had used a lot of magic just to get us here, and I knew I was going to use a lot more when we got to where we were going. I didn’t know that I was going to be able to, though. I looked down at the wands in my boots, wondering how much more they had in them. At least when I used them it didn’t take from my own personal supply, though it did rock what actual strength I had in me. I still had to direct the magic, still had to guide it.
Mercifully, Finn showed back up a moment later in one piece, holding my blade in one hand. His pack was still strapped to his shoulder and it didn’t look like he had encountered any troub
le in the living room. Good. I hadn’t thought there would be anything down there, but you never knew.
“Here you go,” he said as he reached me, holding out the blade.
“Thanks. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
We made our way up the stairs, encountering no trouble this time. I tensed as we reached the door at the end, looking over my shoulder at Finn.
“I hope you’re ready for whatever is on the other side,” I said.
“Bring it,” he said, eyebrows bouncing. I laughed, glad for the moment of cheer to bolster my courage.
I opened the door and walked through—and saw the moon. We were on a flat roof, bathed in twilight, the full moon illuminating everything there almost as well as daylight would have. It wasn’t enough to ready by, but it was more than enough to see the trio seated on a sofa at the far end of the roof, with two guards at either side.
A chill went down my spine as I took in the sight of the guards; they were much larger than the vampires we’d fought so far, beefier, meaner. They weren’t going to go down without a tough fight.
I shifted my gaze to the three vampires I’d met before. Their claws were digging into the edges of the armrests and the bottom of the seat, they were clearly fighting to hold themselves back. Saliva dripped from their exposed fangs, their eyes wild with a frenzy I had never seen before. A chill went down my spine—something was wrong with them. Something had twisted inside of them and turned them into uncontrollable beasts that couldn’t possibly wait for the feed.
Were they victims?
Had we gone about this case the entirely wrong way?
I wasn’t going to be able to find out until I got through Thing One and Thing Two.
I hefted the blade in one hand and picked up a stake from one of my holsters. “This is your last chance, fangs. Stand down and submit to your Baron and you won’t have to die,” I said. That wasn’t a bad compromise, one I could live with, because a part of me was certain that Dudley was going to kill them. The three vampires who had initiated the crimes were certainly going to be put down, if there was nothing in them to be salvaged. I hoped that there was, I couldn’t stand the idea of someone dying because they had been manipulated beyond their control.