Sanctified: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Branded Book 1)

by David Bussell

  ‘Thank God,’ I said, breathing a long sigh of relief.

  ‘Oh, so now you’re religious?’ said Gen, raising an eyebrow.

  I shot her a withering look and carefully removed the needle from Neil’s forearm. He was fastened to the table by four thick straps securing his wrists and ankles. ‘Cover my back while I get him out of here, will you?’ I said, unfastening his bonds.

  I was just about to hoik Neil over my shoulder and take off when I heard a slow clapping sound. Turning around, I saw Pinstripe strolling into the chamber.

  ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,’ said Pinstripe, quoting from an old song. ‘Or not, as the case may be.’

  I placed Neil gently back on the table. ‘Please don’t do this,’ I said.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Pinstripe, cupping a hand to his ear. ‘Do I hear the dreaded Nightstalker pleading for her life?’

  I snorted. ‘Oh, God, no. What I mean is, can we please just cut to the chase? You know, do away with the witty banter and the whole staring match thing?’

  His expression darkened, betraying a mixture of disappointment and anger. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m up for a ruckus, but it’s been a long old day and I’d really like to get home and finish watching that new season of Stranger Things. I hear Steve Harrington’s hair is incredible in this one.’

  His eyelid twitched and a bead of ruby red blood emerged from his wounded tear duct and tracked down his cheek, forcing him to dab at it with a handkerchief to restore some masculinity.

  He tried for a smile. ‘What exactly is it you think is going on here, girl?’

  ‘What do I think? I think you tried to turn my boyfriend into your boss’s personal blood bag, and now you’re going to get your head kicked in.’

  This time he succeeded in smiling. ‘You honestly think I went to all of this trouble for his blood?’

  I didn’t like the sound of those italics. Not one bit.

  Pinstripe fixed me with a psychopath’s stare. ‘Whatever gave you the idea that I’d supply the master with the anaemic swill pumping through that boy’s veins?’

  I saw Gen’s face drop as the pair of us arrived at the same realisation. This was a trap, and Neil was just the bait.

  A dozen suited goons entered the room, each of them wearing the mark of Judas upon his forehead. The last two closed the doors behind them, sealing us all together in the windowless, subterranean chamber.

  ‘This weakling’s blood would be a mere drop in the ocean for our purpose,’ said Pinstripe. ‘But the blood of the Nightstalker…’ He kissed his fingertips and tossed them joyfully into the air. ‘That would be worth a thousand sacrifices.’

  Of course it would. This was never about some symbolic victory. Pinstripe didn’t kidnap Neil to make me feel bad. He didn’t kidnap him to bolster his reputation. He did it to lure me here and drain me dry.

  ‘Now,’ said Pinstripe, turning to his men. ‘Get that pathetic lump off of my table, and strap her down.’

  I drew the dagger. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

  ‘I’m so glad you said that,’ he replied, drawing a barber’s shop razor from the pocket of his jacket and unfolding the blade.

  With a nod of his head, the goons came for us, their complexions white, their flinty eyes ringed with kohl-black circles. Each of them drew a matching weapon, a large, serrated hunting knife. It was the kind of knife a yuppie might carry if he wanted to look tough during a hike across the Lake District, only these boys meant business.

  My dagger looked decidedly small by comparison.

  ‘Flick it,’ said Gen, as the goons continued to advance.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘The dagger. Flick it.’

  Not sure what I was doing it for, I shrugged and snapped the dagger with my wrist. Much to my surprise, it extended like a police baton, transforming from a knife into a full-blown sword.

  ‘What the hell, Gen?’

  ‘Cool, huh?’

  ‘It turns into a frigging broadsword? I really feel like you should have led with that. I can’t believe I’ve been fighting with a toothpick this whole time!’

  I wasn’t about to waste another second, so I got stuck into our attackers right away.

  As the first of the vampire goons stepped into my range, I swatted his dumb bowie knife aside and swiped off his head with one clean stroke. The decapitated noggin flew off like a champagne cork and thudded to the ground.

  It was a hell of an opening statement.

  The goons went still as they took in the sight of their companion’s head rolling across the floor at their feet.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ screamed Pinstripe. ‘Kill them both, and make a mess doing it!’

  The mob obeyed, charging as one.

  The second vampire who entered my kill-zone didn’t fare any better than the first. I buried the sword in his stomach, which burst like mouldy fruit and spilled a pile of fetid guts onto the ground.

  Meanwhile, Gen set into the rest, throwing herself into the vampires’ midst with her morning star and tearing through them like a wheat thresher. She struck out at the attacking vampires, landing a tattoo of weltering blows upon them and earning at least three notches on the handle of her weapon as she beat a path through the undead horde.

  I fought hard and I fought angry. Vampires fell left and right of me, hitting the ground like bags of wet cement. It was as though the sword was wired into my central nervous system. I didn’t even need to engage my brain to use the thing, the blade found its mark as easily as my eye fell upon it.

  One of the vampires lunged at me with a clumsy stab, but I sidestepped his attack and landed a blow to his side. Abbey Beckett for the win! The blade bit into the goon’s midriff and carved off a great, slippery flap of flesh. As his eyes rolled back in his head and his knees unhinged, I moved onto my next target, slashing him across the throat. The vampire’s head tipped back suddenly, revealing a gaping neck wound that vented a spray of blood, painting my face crimson.

  Oh, it was on. On like Donkey Kong in a thong smoking a bong.

  A second vampire went to avenge his murdered brother, but the semi-decapitated goon—head draped over his back like a hunchback’s hump—hadn’t cottoned on to the fact he was dead yet, and came out swinging, accidentally sinking his bowie knife into his would-be avenger’s gut.

  As yet another vampire met his maker, I saw a new goon coming my way, locked into a full charge. Unfortunately for him, he managed to slip on a fallen comrade’s spilled innards, and found himself sliding helplessly in the direction of my sword tip. With only a slight tilt of its blade, I was able to skewer him through his screaming mouth, piercing his head like a cocktail stick through an olive.

  Across the room I saw Gen, battling the vampire heavies like a woman possessed, smashing one in the head so hard that his skull cracked open like an egg. The fight was going decidedly in our favour, at least until I felt a punch to my stomach that folded me half and sent my sword spinning across the deck. One of the vamps had sensed my distraction and landed me in the gut with a fist like a cannonball.

  I keeled over backwards, hugging my abdomen. Immediately, I felt four bodies pile on top of me, their claws digging into my flesh, fangs snapping at my neck. My surroundings went dark as the scrum of torsos and limbs knotted together and blotted out the light above. The sound of battle turned muffled and quiet as the vampires pressed down harder, suffocating me, starving my brain of oxygen. I struggled and fought, but couldn’t worm my way free of the tangle.

  My resolve faltered fast. I didn’t belong here. Not “here” at the bottom of a pile of vampires, but “here” at all. How had I gotten myself into this mess? How had I wound up in this place? If I hadn't mouthed off at my boss and been stuck with the night shift, some other chump would have picked up that dagger. Someone else would have been given the brand and named Nightstalker. This was never my destiny. I had no business battling the forces of
darkness. I should never have been allowed a look behind the veil. I was an ordinary person, a regular member of the public. A wage slave, a normal, just like everyone else.

  I tasted blood in my mouth, coppery and thick... and that’s when I realised something. This was my blood. The same blood that had been pumping through my veins when I fought off the vampire in my office. The same blood coursing through my arteries when I jammed my keys in Pinstripe’s eye. My blood. And not one of these fanged fucks was getting a drop of it.

  I went off like a landmine, exploding to my feet and sending the vampires flying in all directions. In a flash, I snatched up my sword, swung it in a wide arc, and took the throats of the whole pile. Four vampires fell to their knees clutching their necks. They might as well have tried tapping a fire hose with toilet paper for all the good it did.

  The Desk Babysitter had flipped her desk and gone absolutely berserk.

  32

  Only two more vampires remained now, one last goon and the final boss himself, the man in the pinstripe suit.

  I saw Gendith overcome the goon with zero difficulty, clobbering him so hard that he hit the ground looking like a horse had stepped on his face. Now it was just her and Pinstripe. She charged at him, weapon swinging, and was almost upon her mark when—

  Pinstripe vanished into thin air, reappeared behind her, and brought his cut throat razor to her neck.

  He laughed and turned to me. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did you forget I could do that?’

  Gen drew a couple of ragged breaths. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she croaked, ‘just take him down.’

  ‘How very noble of you,’ said Pinstripe, keeping the blade at her throat, ‘but I’m afraid neither of you is leaving this room alive...’

  I saw his arm tense and knew I only had one chance.

  I hurled my sword at him, and as it pinwheeled through the air, it compacted, changing back into a dagger. The blade turned over a couple of times, dead on target, but just as it was about to sink into Pinstripe’s face, he pulled his head aside and the tip of the knife buried itself in the wall behind him.

  ‘Oh, so we’re throwing things now, are we?’ he mocked. ‘Well, if that’s the way we’re playing it…’

  He raised his free hand, fingers splayed, and as he did, the surgical implements on a nearby trolley levitated into the air and swivelled to face me, pointy ends first.

  I dived to avoid them, but I wasn’t quick enough. A pair of scalpels darted through the air and struck me in the hands, piercing my palms and pinning me to the wall. The scream that came out of my mouth was so loud I almost popped my own eardrums.

  Before Gen could retaliate on my behalf, Pinstripe clubbed her across the back of the skull and sent her sprawling to the ground, unconscious.

  ‘Gen!’

  I tried to pull myself free from the wall, but struggling only acted like a magnifying glass for the pain, enlarging it and bringing it into sharper focus.

  I was in agony.

  Pinstripe shrugged and offered a devilish grin. ‘Did you really think this was going to go your way, girl? Did you honestly believe I’d let you beat me?’ He ran a hand through his crow feather black hair. ‘I’ve been here before, many, many times. You won’t be the first person to die in this room, my love, far from it. As a matter of fact… you won’t even be the first Nightstalker to die here.’

  But for all the malice in his voice, his speech sounded empty and rehearsed, like a magician’s tired old patter. It was true that he’d been here before. True that he’d repeated this little diatribe of his, over and over. He was half-arsing this. Going through the motions. Treating me like another item on his to-do this. And that, more than anything else, was the thing that really pissed me off.

  The anger acted like petrol poured onto a bonfire. I screamed and threw my arms forward, wrenching my hands free of the wall, and as I did, the scalpels pinning me there dragged through the meat of my palms.

  A lance of pain pierced my skull and threw colourful spots before my eyes. As I fell to my knees nursing my wounds, Pinstripe chuckled. ‘Still got a little fight left, have you? That’s what I like about you fearless vampire slayers, you always add a little spice to the kill. So many humans just wilt away as I cut short their lives and take what’s mine.’

  He began to move slowly towards me, relishing my fear.

  ‘Stay back!’

  He laughed as he continued his approach, licking his lips. ‘Oh, Nightstalker, I bet you taste wonderful.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but I’m not on the menu.’

  I threw out a hand, willing my errant dagger to return to my bloody grip. It did its best to obey, but sadly for the dagger—though not for me—it ran into some resistance along the way. The resistance in question was Pinstripe, who happened to be blocking the weapon’s path in the most unfortunate manner.

  ‘Oh,’ said the vampire, right before he found himself stalling the dagger’s momentum with the back of his head.

  Blood erupted from his mouth as the weapon pierced the nape of his neck and ejected through his face. For a moment, the lodged blade sat beneath his tongue, making it stick between his lips in futile mockery, then the dagger disappeared through the hole and landed back in my grip.

  Pinstripe stood dumbly for a moment, blood pumping from his wound, phut phut phut against the walls—just like I promised—then he collapsed face-down on the ground, vomiting great scarlet gushes.

  I wiped the dagger on my jeans and returned it to its sheath. Job done. Clambering to my feet, I hobbled over to Gen, praying she was alright. Thankfully, she was already starting to come around by the time I made it over there.

  ‘Did you get him?’ she groaned, rubbing the back of her head.

  It made my face ache to do it, but I sketched out a smile. ‘It’s like you said, Gen: bloodsuckers beware.’

  But we weren’t out of the woods just yet.

  The room began to shake uncontrollably. I saw an aluminum trolley go skittering across the floor as if it had a mind of its own, and watched as flakes of masonry floated down from above. Neil jerked from side to side on his metal table. For a moment I thought he was awake, but it was only the tremor throwing him about.

  This was Pinstripe’s doing.

  I looked over to see him on his knees, blood soaking the front of his suit like a big red bib. How he was alive still I had no idea, but he was using his fingers to trace the air with some sort of complex invocation. Blood foamed from his mouth, gushing forth and collecting on the ground, but instead of pooling, it tracked along like a river.

  As Gen and I watched, more rivers appeared as blood drained from Pinstripe’s dead goons, forming a crisscrossing delta that ran towards a single point in the centre of the room.

  ‘Blood magic,’ Gen hissed.

  I went to get up so I could stop whatever it was Pinstripe was doing, but no sooner had I found my feet than I was knocked sideways by a sudden blast of gust.

  Pinstripe grinned, blood gumming his shattered teeth. ‘Goodnight, Nightstalker,’ he said, then tipped forward and died face down on the floor.

  The contents of the room swirled and eddied about at a rate of knots—scalpels, forceps, aluminium trays—skimming my flesh, dashing off the room’s walls. At the centre of all this din and strife—at the heart of the howling mass—a figure began to emerge, a human silhouette growing ever more distinct. Ever more alive.

  ‘What is that?’ I screamed over the roar of the tempest, battling for my voice to be heard.

  ‘A blood golem,’ Gendith called back, her voice crumpled, her face lined with defeat.

  I had no idea what a blood golem was, but it was obvious that something from another world was taking a toehold in ours. Something powerful. Something fearsome.

  The figure at the eye of the hurricane was almost solid now, and growing still. It was the figure of a giant man, built like a gorilla, arms outstretched as if pushing through some invisible curtain.

  ‘How do I fight it?’
I screamed.

  ‘You don’t!’ Gendith roared back, ‘you might as well try fighting the sea.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’

  ‘We die.’

  As I fought to stay upright against the tempest, a scalpel tore by my face, narrowly missing my eye and painting my cheek with a blusher of blood. I cried out in pain, but the sound was lost in the gale. Shielding my face, I cast my eyes to the ground and saw the rivers of blood draining into the golem had almost dried up. Soon the monster would belong to this world entirely.

  Unless…

  Something about the situation we’d found ourselves in made me think of Neil’s book, specifically the part where the Wizard and the Warlock combined their powers to defeat the big bad. And that made me think of something that someone had recently told me...

  I turned to Gendith. ‘You’re right, I can’t fight this thing,’ I shouted. ‘But we can.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Yes. Well, mostly. Why?’

  ‘Good enough. Give me your hand.’

  Gen glanced to the golem, which had almost grown to full height. Without further hesitation, she placed her hand in mine, uncertain what for.

  We stood there, hands linked, united as one.

  ‘Okay, so what now?’ said Gen shouting to be heard over the noise.

  ‘You know, you ask a lot of questions,’ I said, grinning. Then I turned her hand over and sliced her across the palm with my blade.

  To say she looked betrayed would be selling it short.

  ‘Motherfucker!’

  As Gen stumbled back, the cut opened up, spilling blood—royal blue angel blood—which slithered from the wound in throbbing gushes to join the rivers of red tracking across the chamber floor. The golem’s lifeblood. The raw materials of its existence.

  At first, the blue met the red like oil in water, then the angel blood began to infuse with the vampire blood, hissing and spitting like a red hot frying pan. The golem shuddered, its entire body convulsing, and then it let out a tortured howl as the Yang met its Ying.