by Shayn Bloom
I want to say no. I can’t. “Yes,” I exhale. “It tastes good…”
“I would know…” Jack murmurs in my ear. Grabbing me around the throat, he spins me around. “Surrender, wizard!” Jack screams at Gabriel, dragging me forward. “Surrender or I’ll cut her throat!” The blade is back against my neck, warm from the heat of my own breath.
Gabriel is too distracted to notice. “Decimate!” he yells, pointing his wand at a vampire. The vampire explodes away from him in a shower of red light. “Nullify!” Merri rockets at another vampire. Yowling, the vampire falls onto a wood pile. “Torgi!” Gabriel shouts, pointing his wand at the pile. It bursts into flames. Screaming, the vampire writhes insanely. Burning alive.
“Halt!” The word booms from the sentinel tower, louder than anything. “Halt, wizard! We have the human girl! Surrender now! You and your owl! Do so, or her life is forfeit from this earth!”
Turquoise eyes aflame, his brow flecked with sweat, Gabriel searches wildly around. Unable to believe it. Then he spots Jack and me – Jack with his strong arm grasping me around the middle and me with the knife at my throat, my expression tight and scared. Oh no! It can’t end this way!
It has to, my alter ego says sadly. I’m sorry, Nora.
Are you? I ask her. Are you really?
Around the compound, vampires are getting to their feet, nursing aches and pains. Black eyes and bruised faces abound. Flapping high, Merrifeather perches on the palisade, awaiting instruction. The vampire on the wood pile continues to scream, writhing in his inferno. Everyone is watching Gabriel.
“Put the fire out,” Jack orders calmly, staring down turquoise eyes. “Now!” He drags the knife down my throat.
“Ouch!” I gasp.
Face impermeable, Gabriel points his wand at the burning wood pile. “Sumio aqui!” A swimming pool’s worth of water splashes onto the wood, dousing it. The vampire stops screaming and moans, gurgling water from his mouth. The wizard is paying him no heed. Instead, he’s looking daggers at Jack.
The vampire grins. “Patience, wizard. He is coming.”
I can only guess who he’s referring to. We wait. Nobody daring to move. I can’t move my head without cutting my throat against Jack’s blade. So I take inventory as best I can with fixed vision.
Eleven vampires attacked us including Jack. One is dead, killed by Gabriel – he’s lying on the ground nearby. One is permanently disfigured, having his eyes torn out by Merri – he’s collapsed on the ground as well, apparently having passed out. One is severely burned, a combined effort of both Merri and Gabriel – he’s lying on the doused wood pile. Can’t say if he’s fainted or not.
That leaves eight. Seven in front of me, including Amoretta. One behind me, being Jack. Eight plus three casualties are eleven. I think I can guess who’s in the tower. That’s twelve. But where’s thirteen?
Where is the Newborn?
Silence falls on the compound as a breeze sweeps my hair. Vampires are watching me hungrily. Something moves on the periphery of my vision. Something black. I crane ever so slightly to look. Ouch! I do it anyway, and I’m rewarded for my efforts. Yay! I’m so relieved! Wolf’s leg is twitching!
Jack’s noticed, too. “Henry,” he begins, “Get –”
Thud! Thud! Thud! The sound fills the stockade. Thud! Thud! Thud! It’s coming from a sentinel tower. Thud! Thud! Thud! Somebody is descending the wooden staircase inside. The noise is incredibly loud. Geez, I guess that’s what you get when the whole freaking place is made of wood. Thud! Thud! Thud!
He emerges from an opening at the tower’s base. A tall, slender vampire. Gray haired, despite looking no older than forty. His garb is fascinating me most. Long, enveloping black robes are fastened around his figure. Marvelous. Undeniably so. He’s the first vampire I’ve seen in robes.
Spreading his arms wide, he comes to greet us. “Welcome!” His voice has the same booming quality we heard. Apparently it’s natural. “I’m so pleased you came!” Sweeping over to where Jack and I are standing, he stares into my eyes. His are bright red. “Here is our specimen, I see,” he remarks, taking my chin in his fingers and squeezing it. “The pleasure belongs to me!”
What the fuck?
“Hands off, Mortimer!” This comes from an equally powerful voice. Turning slowly in front of me, the vampire reveals Gabriel over his shoulder, turquoise eyes glinting and deadly. “I’m warning you!”
“What do you plan?” Mortimer asks. His expression is incredulous. “You’re surrounded and outnumbered. Best of all,” he adds with a gleeful smile, “we have your friend here in custody!” Sighing contentedly, he looks upward, then his smile dies. “Can’t we do anything about the bird?”
“No, sire,” answers one of the vampires – a young male. “We tried taking it down but it’s ferocious! Ripped out Thomas’s eyes!”
Mortimer says, “So I saw. Put him out of his misery. The rest of you!” he yells, his temper instant. “Use your brains, blockheads! There are long pieces of wood around! Use them as pikes to tear the bird down. This isn’t magic!”
“Well said,” Gabriel observes.
Mortimer whirls around, his black robes billowing. “Silence, conjurer!”
“If we tie them up first,” Jack begins loudly, “we can deal with this situation better, sire. The werewolf has only minutes before he’s revived. He received four bites and has been out, but it won’t be long!”
Mortimer’s taunts are for all to hear. “See! There! Somebody with a brain! Thank you, Jack! The rest of you would have let the werewolf recover and attack me from behind! Learn to think, idiots!”
I’m surprised to witness the chief vampire being so mean to his followers, but it’s entertaining so I’m not complaining. I’m rather enjoying myself until I feel the blade prick against my throat.
“Not an inch, Nora, not an inch,” Jack breathes in my ear.
Mortimer is approaching the wizard, his arms wide. “What are you waiting for?” he asks, brow furrowed. “Drop your wand!”
Gabriel is searching around wildly like a trapped animal. I feel terrible for him, but I don’t know what to do. I realize people in my situation are supposed to yell, ‘No, Gabriel! I don’t matter. Save yourself!’ The truth is I do matter. I want to live. Death is still on my backburner.
“Drop your wand,” Mortimer commands. “Drop it and she lives. Hold it for another second and she dies.”
I’m staring into turquoise eyes, my own desperate. Please, Gabriel! Do it!
Mortimer snarls, “Drop it at once!”
Turquoise eyes surrendering into a cloudy sheen, Gabriel gives up. First his arm slackens, lengthening, falling to his side. Then, a second later, the wand leaves his grasp to stick in the mud.
My wizard is finished.
Defeated.
Five years at Magasant.
For nothing.
“Get the wand,” Mortimer demands. The young male who spoke before retrieves it. “Give it to me, Seamus!” Taking the wand from his follower, Mortimer presses it against Gabriel’s neck, finding his pulse. He jabs hard, making the wizard wince. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” says the vampire, his voice laced with satisfaction as he presses the wand into Gabriel. “I can’t use it, but it feels like power all the same. Oh to be a wizard! Oh to be a wizard… clearly isn’t everything!”
Slipping the wand into the pocket of his black robes, Mortimer turns to his followers. “Three stakes. One fire. Put the wizard in the middle and remember to tie the ropes tight, fools! Get on with it!”
* * *
We are tied to stakes.
Gabriel’s in the middle. I’m on the left. Wolf’s on the right. We’re facing the front palisade gates – now closed. This is bad. This is really, really bad. I don’t know what they have planned, but it includes rope, wood, and kindling.
Oh fuck! Oh fuck!
This can’t be happening!
It is happening, my alter ego says. Well, you have to die someday.
&nb
sp; Thank you for that observation, I respond to her.
At least Wolf is conscious now. He’s transitioned back into a boy and is wincing every time I look at him. It’s the vampire venom. But he is conscious – I will take what I can get right now. As I gaze over at him, he offers me a sad, crooked smile, his maroon lips quirking upward. “I guess this is the end,” he says.
“Death isn’t the end,” I tell him. I’m trying extremely hard to smile back. I’m failing. “So you’re wrong!”
The werewolf looks sickly. His normally russet skin is white. It’s frightening to witness. Less frightening – I guess – in the face of my own death. Right now I’m simply grateful I didn’t have to see my favorite werewolf turn into a vampire. I’m glad he’s able to understand me. Able to say goodbye.
Gabriel is not speaking. Or looking at me. Turquoise eyes are downcast and ignoring all around them. An expression of shock has unfurled down his face over the last ten minutes. Because he failed. He failed as a wizard. He failed as a Releaser. He failed as my protector, let alone his own. We deal with the end in different ways, so I won’t begrudge him. Won’t force him to talk to me.
I will tell him I love him when the time comes. Wolf, too.
Mortimer is gazing from Gabriel to Jack, his face amused. “This is quite something!”
Closing my eyes, I take several deep breaths of air. I realize they are among my last. They are beautiful, full and fresh like the air feels after a cleansing rain. Life is such a blessing. I know that now.
I’m surprised when I hear my wizard speak. “I want to know something,” he says to Mortimer.
The vampire responds, “Ask away, doomed soul.”
“The Newborn,” Gabriel begins, turquoise eyes blazing as they reflect red, “Is Jack the Newborn? Is he number thirteen?”
A pause.
Mortimer’s face twists into a smile. He searches for the named but doesn’t find him. “Jack,” Mortimer remarks, his gaze falling between us, “is not the Newborn. But – my dear wizard – I dare say Jack knows who is!”
I can’t help it. “How?” I ask him. A second’s reprieve from my death sentence is all this inquiry can possibly give me, and that’s reason enough to do it. “How does Jack know who the Newborn is?”
The vampire’s eyes are mad. “Because,” he begins, “Jack is the vampire who bit the Newborn. Didn’t you know?” I shake my head. “Poor thing!” Mortimer coos, delighted. “Your ignorance is complete!”
“Tell us who the Newborn is!” Gabriel shouts at him. “I demand to know!”
Red eyes grow impossibly wide. “You demand to know, wizard? Have you no awareness of your situation? I suppose wizards are used to giving orders to sub Purids,” he says, emphasizing his words with rage, “because you think you’re first on the pecking order of things. Don’t you?”
Silence from the wizard.
“We know you do,” Mortimer continues, his expression deadly, “that’s why you are first to get burned alive!”
“No!” I scream. “Please! Don’t!”
The vampire’s expression turns to pure delight upon hearing my screams. Bathing in them, he turns around to face the front of the stockade. “Get a fire going!” he roars to the surrounding vampires. “I said get a fire going! Seamus, more wood! Amoretta, get kerosene! We are having flesh tonight!”
This announcement is met with roars of approval.
* * *
I see no way around it.
Around the fire before us, piled high with wood and burning. Vampires surround the melee, their faces gleaming with hungry anticipation. I’m trying to free myself, but my hands are tied too tightly behind my back. I try pushing the ground with my legs. The stake is too deeply planted.
Staring into the sky, I see evening is falling. My last. Maybe – just maybe – I’ll get to see one more purple sky before the end. If I’m lucky. Though things like sunsets are harder to appreciate while burning alive. The unfortunate truth of this soaks my skin, filling my pores. Dread is engulfing my senses.
“Are you scared of dying?” Wolf asks from beside me.
Startled, I gaze over at him. His black eyes are wide and panicked, russet skin sweaty and reflecting flames. I have to think for a moment. “Sometimes,” I answer honestly. “Sometimes I’m scared, I guess. Yes.”
The werewolf nods, his muscular arms straining against tight bonds. No avail. “Are you scared now?” he asks.
Geez, so many hard questions.
Exhaling deeply, I close my eyes. I want to lie, but I’m not going to. Not to Wolf. “Yes,” I tell him, “because I think it’s going to be painful – dying like this. When I think of death I think of so many things. Never pain. I never thought mine would be a painful death. Silly me!”
Wolf grins his gorgeous, crooked grin. For a second I forget about what’s happening. We’re back in Dr. Tuten’s English 301 classroom on the first day and I’m smirking over his name. Wolfgang. The second passes and I remember where we are. See the roaring fire in front of us.
“Truth is,” Wolf begins, “after being bitten by four vampires and enduring their poison, fire doesn’t scare me much!”
Gabriel snorts from between us. We stare at him, but the wizard adds no more. He is giving the world the silent treatment. Fine by me. I can’t think of anything he can say to make me feel better about dying.
Disengaging from the crowd around the fire, Mortimer approaches our bound forms. Clapping his hands together and beaming, he says, “Tonight – my dear captives – you will burn alive until dead! You will then be consumed by vampires,” he adds, his smile growing manic. “Have you no comment?”
Staring from Wolf to Gabriel to me, Mortimer appears expectant. The others aren’t answering him so I’m not going to, either. We’re not going to give him the satisfaction of playing with us. He can kill us. He may not play with us. The mildest, teensiest bit of respect would be nice.
The vampire’s smile falters, then anger flares in his face. But he gets it under control. “I am shocked,” he says loudly, speaking mainly to Gabriel. “You and your entourage were so easily tracked through the forest. You – a Bureau of Magic Releaser! Couldn’t believe it when Amoretta told me. Oh yes,” he says, responding to my surprise, “she traveled your footsteps the entire time. Pathetic!”
He’s attempting to get a rise out of Gabriel. To his vast chagrin, it’s not working well. So – rage sprinkling his features – he tries a new tactic. Addressing Wolf, he says, “You – a werewolf of the Olympic Peninsula. A sacred, sworn protector of humans! You failed. Failed! The human girl will die!”
The werewolf is not dignifying this with a response. When the vampire leader realizes it, he flies into a rage. “You will all die!” he roars, spit flying from his mouth. “Let’s see you keep silent when burning alive! They don’t get till nightfall!” he exclaims to the watching vampires. “Bring kindling! We burn them now!”
Cheers and hoorays greet these words.
Vampires are everywhere gathering things. Bundles of hay, pieces of wood, twigs, branches – anything that’s around and readily flammable. Bringing the kindling to the stakes, they set it around our legs in circles.
Fucking bejesus shitballs!
Help me! Something! Somebody!
Now the vampires are gathered around us in a circle, their jeering faces and catcalls swimming in my face. Oh fuck! Oh fuck! This isn’t fair! I don’t want to die! I’m not ready! Not ready to go!
Goodbye, Nora, my alter ego says. This is the end of our conflicted friendship.
Goodbye, alter ego, I tell her. I will miss you, somehow…
Black robes billowing around him, Mortimer takes a branch from the pile at Gabriel’s feet. Putting it in the fire, he waits until the end alights. Holding it high, he waves it in the evening for all to see. “Friends! Witness not only a dinner being served but a show being performed! I give you a wizard burning!”
This joke is met with a tidal wave of mirth from the vampires. Unable
to watch, I close my eyes. If only I could close my ears… Good news is soon I will be dead, too, so I won’t have to live hearing Gabriel’s screams in my nightmares. This is my lone comfort. For I’ve arrived at the end of the line.
“To the superior race!” Mortimer calls, holding the torch high. Then – slowly – he lowers it to the kindling at Gabriel’s feet.
“Sire!” The cry of alarm comes from a sentinel tower. “Strangers in the forest! Releasers! Approaching fast!”
The vampire freezes, the lit end of his torch inches from the kindling. The kindling inches from Gabriel’s knee. “Wizards!” Mortimer screams, tyrannical fury instant. “I hate fucking wizards! You!” he shoots at Gabriel. “This is your doing! No matter what happens, conjurer, you won’t escape alive!”
Calm turquoise eyes reflect madly bright red ones. “You are mistaken, Mortimer,” he says without missing a beat. “I did not call wizards here, but they are here because of me. They intend to hunt me down for a crime of passion,” he explains, his gaze finding mine. “Give us to them, Mortimer, and you will be unharmed. My friends and I, on the other hand, will be lucky to escape with our lives.”
Cackling, Mortimer throws his head back. “You – you expect me to let you go?” His voice is faltering with disbelief. “When I have you on my plate? No – you’re not pulling that!” He turns to his followers. “Seamus, Amoretta – bar the gate. The rest of you into the towers! Let’s see what we make of them!”
“I warn you and your vampirical subjects,” Gabriel begins, staring levelly at Mortimer, “if you don’t do as I say, your home – all of this,” he explains, gazing around the compound, “will turn to ash!”
The vampire’s back is turned. Ignoring the wizard, he watches his followers bar the gate and charge up the sentinel towers, the thuds of their ascent resounding through the stockade. Thud! Thud! Thud!
“They are almost here, sire!”
Gabriel is impatient. “You cannot defeat Releasers at long range,” he tells Mortimer. “It’s impossible. You have no means of defense! Your only attack is charging your enemy and you just locked yourself in here!”