Countess Wilhelmina was audibly wheezing as she slowly brought herself to stand again, using her sword to steady herself for a moment as she did so. She coughed as though to clear her throat, covering her mouth, and then glanced at her hand. Apparently, she saw blood. She grinned at Raina almost madly, wiping her lips with the back of her hand and smearing crimson across her cheek. Even in the significant lighting of the hotel lobby, Brenna could see the High Court vampire’s flesh beginning to glow more intensely with some kind of intense emotion – excitement, definitely, but perhaps also fear. With a bit of effort, she assumed a ready fighting stance once more. The Countess sidestepped to her left and slightly away as she spoke.
“I promised … that I would not kill you,” the Countess told Raina, now sounding winded.
Raina nodded lightly, still very calm as she used one hand briefly to brush a few loose strands of hair back over her left ear. She was glowing intensely now, as though she was being illuminated by a strange spotlight that cast light only upon her exposed skin and nothing else upon or around her.
“I don’t intend to break that promise, either.”
There was a pause. “Umm … okay.”
“That does not mean … however,” Wilhelmina added, “that I will surrender to you, either. By the Code … a fight can be won by forfeit. Neither of us has to die … to settle this.”
Wilhelmina paced around the lobby with a deliberate sort of wandering, her flesh glowing just as obviously as Raina’s. She was weaving slightly, as though she was still actively sparring with Raina, but she was also clearly heading somewhere else. Brenna saw what she meant to do and gave Mary a slight push away.
“She’s gonna make a run for it,” she whispered to Mary.
Mary wiped away her tears and sniffed lightly, having managed to control herself while watching the duel. She glanced at Brenna, then to the Countess, who was nearing them. Her pretty face contorted with anger.
“Like fucking hell she is. Let her try.”
Brenna gestured for her to move aside, spreading out as they both intended to form a wall to prevent her escape. If Wilhelmina decided to chicken out of this deal and bolt, she would have to get through them first. Stupid, perhaps, but it would surely buy Raina enough time to catch up with her and finish her off.
Countess Wilhelmina paced over almost blindly towards Brenna, back-stepping towards her with only a single glance over her shoulder as though she figured she had maneuvered her way past and had found a clean route to use for her departure. Mary drew a knife quite similar to the one Jen had produced shortly before her death, crouching slightly in preparation to spring at the treacherous High Court if she made a move to run.
“Why don’t you just give up?” Raina suggested.
The Countess began to laugh, but choked upon her own blood, coughed for a moment, and then spat some aside, almost directly at Mary. A trail of crimson ran from the corner of her pink, thin lips.
“Because,” she said, “if you surrender, I promise the Debt of Blood that I claim from you will be small. But if I surrender … you will kill me. I may as well commit suicide, rather than surrendering.”
“By all means, please do,” Mary grumbled bitterly under her breath as she stood beside Brenna.
“Raina!” As one, everyone looked to the Grand Duchess. She appeared almost distressed, somehow dismayed by this exchange of words. “Do not listen to her! Her promises are meaningless! The Countess has killed our people, including your Maker. The House of Fallamhain must be avenged! She must pay for what she has done!”
Visibly, Raina did not agree with this. Brenna could not blame her for her reluctance. She had never killed anyone, never seriously hurt anyone in her entire life. She wasn’t a violent person, nor was she a vengeful type. If anything, she was forgiving to a fault, for she had not simply forgiven the rogue vampire that had been responsible for killing her parents – she had even pitied him. This was not her fight. She barely knew these people that called themselves the House of Fallamhain. And she had perhaps even less reason to hate the Countess than she did to despise the Grand Duchess, since it had been Duvessa’s consort that had raped her and forced the Change upon her.
“And if I die … who will be left to punish you … for what you have done?” Wilhelmina countered. She paused to cough slightly, her breath coming in shallow, quickening gasps as she looked to Raina. “Who, I ask you? Will you?”
“Ignore her words! She speaks madness!” Duvessa protested loudly, her patience clearly at its limit. “Stop this ridiculousness and kill her!”
Again, Raina was obviously conflicted. The poor girl had a conscience, unlike either of the other two High Court females in the lobby. She was a hybrid vampire in more ways than one. She was not only blessed (or perhaps cursed) with human physiological traits, but she also still had her human sensibilities. Raina had not spent the better part of her lifetime sucking blood from people both willing and unwilling. She had not made her way from night to night at the expense of others as both Duvessa and Wilhelmina/Elizabeth had done. Hers was not just a political dilemma but also a conflict of her own core beliefs. She was willing to fight the Countess, but only because she had been indiscriminately killing people right and left. She had only done what she had out of necessity, and while she now clearly had the upper hand in the fight by wounding her opponent, she had no desire to continue because Wilhelmina had ceased to be the aggressor. Brenna was almost willing to bet that if Raina had her druthers, she would have simply sheathed her sword and walked away from this whole deal. If only it could have been that simple…
“We have not finished this fight, child,” the Countess informed Raina. “You have not defeated me yet.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
“And I do not want to kill you, either.”
“Then I guess we’ve got ourselves a bit of a quandary here, huh?”
“Indeed, we do.”
Raina lowered her sword slightly, relaxing her stance. “Can’t we just call it a draw?”
“That is not an option.” Wilhelmina pinched the blade of her sword between her thumb and forefinger, and then wiped up its length to clean the remaining blood from it before licking the sanguine wine from her fingertips. She gave a very brief glance once more over her shoulder to Brenna for some reason before she looked back to Raina. “You must fight me … your grace. The Code requires it. You chose … to challenge me. Now you must finish … what you have started.”
Raina shrugged, lowering her sword completely. “And what if I don’t want to?”
“Raina!” Duvessa gasped, clearly appalled.
“You will fight me, Duchess Raina Fallamhain,” the Countess insisted formally as she returned to her fighting stance. She seemed to regain some measure of strength from the pause in fighting. “And we will finish this fight … one way or another.”
And then there was movement, graceful but swift and sudden. Brenna felt it happen, but it took a couple of seconds for the reality of it to register in her brain. The full extent of the pain did not reveal itself immediately, only the initial sharpness accompanied by an impossibly deep, penetrating coldness. A burning heat, a quickly swelling fire that flared up as soon as she jerked the blade from her torso, soon replaced the chill of the initial entry of Countess Wilhelmina’s sword into her chest. Brenna’s hands instinctively covered the wound as red-hot pain shot through her body with the same quickness as the blood that dribbled between and over the fingers she clutched to her midsection.
Mouth agape with both shock and agony, she fell to her knees as Mary screamed. The blade had entered Brenna dead-center, just below her sternum. From the pain that radiated so deeply that she felt as though someone were firing a blowtorch right through her, she was sure that the tip had exited through her back under her left shoulder blade. She did not know if it was a mortal wound. She could not tell if anything vital had been pierced. All she knew was that there was blood, lots of blood, and plenty of pain to go with it.
She glanced up in time to see Mary charge at the Countess with knife in hand. To her credit, she was not as mindlessly enraged or careless about it as Jen had been. She attacked skillfully enough to actually block Wilhelmina’s attempt to cut her by jamming her left hand against the High Court’s elbow and simultaneously thrusting her knife into her foe’s body clear to the hilt. The Countess staggered back with a strangled cry of pain and grabbed the wrist of Mary’s knife-wielding hand, preventing her from withdrawing it to stab her once more.
“Die already, you fucking bitch!” Mary shrieked as she instead seemed to try to shove the knife deeper still into the High Court. “Fucking die!”
“Mary…” Brenna croaked weakly, feebly trying to reach out to her with a blood-drenched hand, though she was not sure what she hoped to achieve in doing so.
Rather than succumb to the pain of her own injury as Brenna felt she was doing then, herself, the Countess’s face twisted with rage and determination. Instead of pushing her away, she swung her right arm overhead and reached behind to grab a fistful of Mary’s curly burgundy hair with a yank, pulling her in closer.
Mary cried out and allowed her head to be tilted back, rather than resisting enough to be scalped by brute force. Wilhelmina opened her mouth wide, bearing blood-reddened and glistening fangs. Whether it was an intentional play upon the vampire stereotype, or merely the constriction of her throat at the same moment she happened to be exhaling, Wilhelmina hissed before she struck.
Good Lord, she actually hissed.
* * * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Raina saw it coming, but she was so stunned that Wilhelmina was willing to follow through with the threat that it took far too long to react. By the time Raina had neared her enemy, Wilhelmina was but a moment away from tearing into Mary’s throat with her fangs. She saw Raina’s approach, however, those pale blue eyes meeting hers just as she was drawing back to strike, and she was ready for it.
Using only one hand, she swatted Raina’s raised and ready sword aside with her own before she could thrust it forth, and she then swiftly brought it back across. Raina flinched away from the counterattack, feeling the tip of Wilhelmina’s sword ever so lightly brush her cheek. Like a sudden whirlwind, Wilhelmina spun and ducked as she grasped Mary’s wrist with her right hand, cutting across her stomach as she did so, and emerging with Mary’s arm cranked about into a painful joint lock that (along with the cut to her abdomen) doubled her over in an instant. Mercilessly, she thrust her sword into Mary’s torso between her shoulder and collarbone, effectively skewering her vertically with at least twelve inches of steel. Mary let out a strangled sound of agony as the sword was yanked free of her flesh, audibly scraping bone as it exited, and a thin splash of blood was flung from her sword into Raina’s face, almost going into her eyes. Wilhelmina promptly cast aside her victim with a pushing kick to the ribs that sent Mary rolling away as the Countess went after Raina.
There was no time to worry for Brenna or Mary. She could not stop to evaluate their injuries, to help them and comfort them. Whether or not their wounds were mortal would not change the fact that Wilhelmina’s blood-wet sword was coming at her once more, this time with a renewed and surprising vigor. As Raina desperately parried, blocked, and attempted to counter each of Wilhelmina’s cuts, slashes, thrusts, and hacks, she had to struggle not to allow herself to be distracted by the fact that her foe seemed undeterred by the dagger that still protruded from her side. Her face was visibly wrenched with pain, but she was hardly affected in her motions by it. Raina had sustained several cuts, herself. While she was surprised that they barely hurt in spite of the blood that oozed from her wounds, they were nothing compared to what Wilhelmina had sustained. Either the Countess was utterly consumed with her rage, insanely driven by her need for revenge, or she was simply a much fiercer warrior than Raina could have ever hoped (or wanted) to be.
Just as she was thinking of throwing a sweep or trip to work into the exchange as she had before to unbalance her, Raina felt her right leg being kicked out from under her before she even saw it coming – too busy watching her enemy’s sword, damn it! The blow to her shin did not hurt as much as it surprised her as she yelped and awkwardly tried to shift her weight back to her left leg, although a split second too late. Wilhelmina thrust her sword flatly against Raina’s while grabbing her sleeve and pulling, effectively turning and dropping Raina straight to the floor with enough force to knock the wind from her lungs and suddenly bring stars into her vision. She was stunned by the takedown, but conscious and able enough to avoid the downward thrust Wilhelmina made at her chest by narrowly rolling halfway to her left. Instead of pinning her to the floor through her chest, like an insect stuck to a display board with a needle, she instead felt the tip of Wilhelmina’s blade pierce her right shoulder shallowly and tear a broken line across both of her shoulders in its downward travel. Hadn’t she promised only moments ago not to kill her?
Raina was able to continue her roll enough to get over upon her knees and raise her sword once more. This was not a good position, but it was better than being upon her back. She could fight from a kneeling position. Actually, she could fight if pinned upon her back, as well, but not while using a sword, and certainly not against someone else with a sword that was still standing. However, she was not quick enough to get her feet underneath herself quickly enough to be able to crouch-step in any direction, and so it only took Wilhelmina three attempted blows to force her to lean far enough away to fall aside. Raina tried to roll out of the way of an inevitable downward slash, but she felt her enemy’s blade cut cleanly across her left flank. Again, the pain was not immediate from that injury, but the burn and ache of the others she had endured was beginning to flare as the number of her wounds quickly added up – death by a thousand cuts, apparently.
Raina somehow got to her feet after that roll as Wilhelmina seemed to deliberately hold off and allow her recovery. Her right leg ached and cramped up from the kick she’d taken a moment ago, and the skin of her shin burned as though it had been grated raw. Wilhelmina’s black shoes were thin, flexible, and athletic, almost like slippers, but the bottom edge of her sole was rigid and rough enough to have given her a serious abrasion, in addition to shredding one of her dark sheer stockings. She put her weaker leg forward in her stance, favoring her left with her body weight, and she kept her grip low and forward while Wilhelmina backed away and extended her own with one hand, almost in a warning gesture.
Raina was still surprised that she did not feel winded at all, only frightened all the more by what she was doing, amazed by her own speed and strength, and struggling not to be distracted by the glow of her own skin (as well as her opponent’s). She continually reminded herself that this was really happening, this was the real thing, and the pain of her injuries would not let her forget the consequences of losing this duel. She tasted blood upon her lips, sweet and sharp, and she realized with a touch to her face that the seemingly light brush of her foe’s sword earlier had actually been a cut, a rather deep and long one that went across her cheek and even to the tip of her nose. The taste of blood energized her, made her eyes widen even more than they already were with fear, and spontaneously seemed to sharpen her senses. The downside of this was that it also seemed to make the pain of her wounds all the more obvious. Her left side, her right leg, her cheek, the small cuts upon her knuckles, and shoulders all burned as though red-hot bits of iron were being laid against her flesh.
Wilhelmina looked no better for wear, finally showing how damaged she was as she paused to grimace and jerk free the blade that Mary had buried within her left side, throwing it aside. It seemed like a bad move after the fact, because it caused her to cry out and nearly fall to her knees in agony. She coughed, lightly at first and then deeply, and then she spat as she stood tall again, bravely facing her again with her sword in both hands. Blood drooled from her lips as she wheezed and gasped for air. One or both of her lungs had been punctured. Perhaps tha
t made them just about even. Or perhaps Wilhelmina was a lot worse off than Raina, but she was simply too stubborn and determined to win to admit it even to herself.
“You’re wounded,” Raina informed her.
“So … are you,” she countered breathlessly before coughing again.
“Please, don’t make me do this anymore. I don’t want to kill you.”
“I just … killed your … Maker,” she protested, gesturing quickly toward Brenna. “She will die … from her wound.”
Raina’s eyes flicked aside to where she’d last seen Brenna kneeling. She was still upright, her eyes still open, but she was lying back against Loki’s arms as he knelt behind her, holding her up kindly. The wound was bad, but surely not mortal, not to a vampire. If her heart had been pierced, she would already have been dead. If her lungs had been punctured, she would be coughing up blood and wheezing like the Countess. But she was simply in pain, visibly, and bleeding profusely. Her wound would seal and heal. She would live … surely.
“Do you … feel it? Do you … feel fire … in your veins?” Wilhelmina asked breathlessly with a blood-reddened smile. She waved the sword about. “Silver … the blade … is silver-plated.”
Raina’s heart skipped a beat. Silver was a poison to vampires. Like garlic and ultraviolet light, almost all vampires were severely allergic to silver. Some states had already begun using an injection of silver nitrate as a means of execution for vampires on death row, rather than the more common and brutal practices of death by firing squad and hanging. It would certainly explain why the wounds that she had endured, herself, burned so fiercely like monstrous paper cuts. The silver was a severe allergic irritant by contact alone, but using a coating of it upon an edged weapon probably meant that traces of silver were left behind in every wound that it made. While Raina was unsure if her shallow wounds were serious enough to have accumulated enough silver to poison her, she was more worried for the sake of Brenna, who had suffered almost the full length of the Countess’s sword being thrust right through the middle of her. Silver, so deep and so close to so many vital organs…
The Darkest Colors Page 52