Thief of Lives

by J. C.

  Toret headed downward as he heard the thud of the dog battering against the wall where the entrance had closed. He quickly exited into the cellar.

  Several practice swords lined the walls. He grabbed the stoutest blade that looked manageable and headed into the open passage they'd dug down into the sewers.

  Sapphire couldn't have gone far. He would catch up to her, and together they would escape from Bela to the Suman Empire. He no longer wanted revenge. Now, all that mattered was survival.

  * * * *

  "Get up! Get up!" Vatz shouted, pulling on Magiere's arm.

  She sucked in air and struggled up to all fours. She felt as if she'd been struck with an iron cudgel. Her head ached, but the worst was her jaw. Then awareness took her, and she realized Vatz was looking at her.

  Magiere closed her lips tight with a quick pass of her tongue, and relief came at the touch of reverted teeth that closed smoothly together.

  "Hurry," Vatz said. "He took Wynn, and Leesil's on the next floor fighting the other one."

  Magiere pulled herself up, grabbing her falchion from the floor. Before she could stop him, Vatz rounded the railing's end and headed down the stairs, crossbow in hand. She followed quickly, regaining clarity with each step. When she reached the second floor, Leesil was dislodging himself from under the corpse they'd passed earlier, and there was no sign of Chap. She helped pull Leesil up.

  "Where's Wynn?" she asked.

  "He took her," Leesil called out as he headed around the railing down the next flight of stairs. "That butchering undead we've been after—he has her."

  Vatz tried to get ahead of Magiere, but she pushed him behind. "You stay back."

  At the bottom of the stairwell, she saw Chap repeatedly throwing himself at the wall next to the landing in the foyer, ignoring the open front door. His snarl was broken only by yelps on impact. Wynn's crossbow lay at the foot of the stairs.

  Leesil ran out the door onto the front porch, looking up and down the dark street.

  "Stop it," Magiere yelled, grabbing Chap before he lunged again.

  Spinning out of her grip, the hound turned and snapped at her. Magiere backed away. Vatz took a step up the stairs, not about to get near either of them.

  "What is wrong with you?" she shouted at the dog.

  Chap circled back around, glaring at the blank wall next to the base of the stairs.

  "Pay attention," Magiere said. "Where did the tall one go? Find me a trail, damn you!"

  Chap glowered at her for a moment and then backtracked to the stairs. He sniffed the floor and whirled about to rush outside and down the steps. Magiere trotted out next to Leesil and watched as the hound worked the street's cobblestones, back and forth.

  He stopped, head low, facing the way they had first come, and his rumble shifted to a vicious growl that carried in the night air.

  "Chane is panicked," Leesil said. "I'm betting he heads into the sewers again."

  Chap darted back to them, clearly wanting someone to follow him. But he also kept looking through the front door toward the wall he'd been insanely battering himself against.

  Leesil followed the hound's gaze, and for a moment the anger on his face turned to puzzlement. Magiere put it aside and turned to Vatz now standing in the doorway.

  "Do you know the new guard barracks, just inside the inner ring wall?"

  The boy nodded uncertainly.

  "Run to Captain Chetnik," Magiere said. "Tell him what's happened, and that there is at least one vampire in the sewers. Have him double the guard on the bayside openings, but no one goes in. Can you do that?"

  Realizing the task was important and real, Vatz nodded. "Yes, I'll be fast."

  She tossed him her pouch of remaining coins.

  "Find a coach if you can. Do what you have to."

  As the boy scurried into the street, Magiere stepped back inside to pick up the abandoned crossbow.

  "Leesil, give me your remaining quarrels."

  He unstrapped the quiver across his back and handed it to her from the doorway. A number of the quarrels' feathered ends were splintered or snapped off, but three were still whole. Leesil remained fixated upon the foyer wall.

  "Let's go," she said.

  "No," he replied.

  He stepped inside to study the wall Chap had assaulted and ran his fingertips slowly across its surface. Then he stepped out the door again, this time looking at the left side of the building beyond the front door's frame.

  "Leesil!" Magiere said angrily.

  He lifted the tip of his left blade across his lips as if it were a finger, signaling her to silence.

  "It's too wide," he whispered, and pointed to the left side of the building.

  He reached his hands into the doorway's left side, extending one blade on the inside and the other outside. When he pulled them back, she could see the doorway wall's width was less than the length of his arm. Then he stepped out, looked to the left side of the building, and spread his arms, widening the measure he'd just shown her.

  She stepped out with him to stare at the left side of the building.

  Although the door's wall on the inside ran directly to the left side of the foyer, the outside wall was three or four times wider by the measure Leesil had just shown her. She could think of no reason why one stone wall of an old house would be so much thicker than the others.

  Magiere looked to Leesil in puzzlement. What was he was trying to tell her in silence? He carefully pointed the tip of his blade at her chest, and she looked down.

  Before she even saw the growing glow of the topaz, Magiere felt twinges of burning hunger roll in her stomach.

  There came a soft grating of stone from inside the foyer. The wall at the bottom of the stairs slowly inched outward.

  Dark-blond curls and the profile of a round face peeked out of the exit. The one called Sapphire scanned the parlor room across the hall. She smiled with relief and stepped out.

  As she turned to the front door, Sapphire sucked in air and screamed out in panic: "Toret!"

  Magiere flinched, almost turning about at Sapphire's cry, suddenly wary. She assumed Ratboy had run out the door in search of a sewer, but perhaps he was still in the house as well. Why else would this painted doxy wail for help?

  Sapphire lunged back for the opening, and Magiere kicked out against it.

  The hidden door slammed closed on Sapphire's arm, and Magiere leveled her falchion as she swung for the woman's neck. Squealing, Sapphire ducked and wrenched her hand free. Magiere's blade clanged against stone.

  This was the little harlot who'd been sitting in Leesil's lap.

  "Search the upper floors," Magiere snapped at Leesil. "She's not alone in here."

  "But Chane—" Leesil began.

  "I want no one at our backs," she shouted, and rushed after Sapphire fleeing down the hallway.

  The undead scurried along the railing of the stairs leading below. Magiere slashed at her from behind, but she ducked aside and as the falchion shattered through the railing. Sapphire darted into the parlor along the far wall around a velvet divan. Magiere followed rapidly and swung down. The blade split through the back of a divan.

  As she wrenched her blade free, Sapphire tried to dash out the parlor archway, but Magiere kicked her in the stomach. Sapphire stumbled away in her heavy gown. She grabbed a cream porcelain vase from an end table and threw it.

  Magiere side-stepped, as the vase shattered against Sapphire's own portrait, and steadily closed in on Sapphire with purpose. The undead squealed again and ran behind another divan. Magiere smashed this one as well, sending Sapphire scurrying to the far corner of the room.

  The familiar ache grew in Magiere's jaw, but she swallowed down the pain. There would be no mindless rage this time, no loss of self to hunger. She wanted full awareness of every moment. She let hunger creep into her head just enough so that her night vision sharpened.

  This creature had been sitting in Leesil's lap.

  Sapphire looked around wildl
y.

  Magiere swung down, the falchion shattering the light oak table to Sapphire's right as she cringed back, crying out.

  Magiere felt no pity. For certain, Sapphire felt no pity for her victims. She'd killed an unarmed house guard at the Rowanwood without a thought. Now she pleaded for help as her victims had surely done. How had this pathetic creature survived in the night?

  Sapphire kicked up the table remains at Magiere, but the gown fouled her attempt, and Magiere swatted the fragments aside. As Sapphire made one last dash toward the parlor entrance, Magiere snarled her free hand in the woman's hair. Sapphire's head snapped back as she was jerked to a stop.

  "Turn around," Magiere demanded. "Look at me."

  Sapphire stared into Magiere's black irises, sobbing with quivering red lips. And yet, strangely, no tears fell from the dead woman's eyes.

  Magiere let the falchion pendulum down in front of her and up under her other arm, her grip tight in Sapphire's hair.

  No! Sapphire mouthed, as she raised a hand to shield herself.

  Magiere slashed crosswise, pulling on the woman's hair at the same time. As her arms scissored outward and apart, the falchion swung level through the dark room.

  One final sob from Sapphire ended halfway as the blade passed cleanly through the forearm of her raised hand—and then her neck. The hand spun and dropped to the floor first.

  Magiere's gaze never left the pale, painted face as the body collapsed and the head hung suspended in her grip, draining black fluids onto the carpet.

  She stood a moment longer before realizing she was panting. Her grip had tightened so severely that the dark-blond hair began to tear out between her fingers.

  This thing had tried to take Leesil.

  The room dimmed around her, though her settling vision still picked up details in the dark. She looked down to see the topaz dim and lifeless against her hauberk.

  Magiere dropped the head onto the rumpled folds of the corpse's gown.

  Running footsteps on the stairs broke her fixation as Leesil hurried into the room with Chap close behind. He crouched down immediately by the corpse, stared but a moment, and reached for the head.

  Magiere was about to stop him. It wasn't time to collect proof for the council, but he waved her off.

  "I may need this," he said simply.

  He took a dark blue drawstring bag from the corpse, placed the head inside, and tied it to his belt. Taking out flint, he struck it several times with his blade until he ignited the torches he'd brought with them. He handed one to Magiere.

  "Find Chane and get Wynn back," he said. "Chap's already tracked him to the first sewer grate up the street. I know where Ratboy has gone."

  Before she could ask, he stepped out of the parlor toward the foyer. Magiere followed him to the opening in the wall. Inside were narrow stone steps leading both up and down.

  "Chap's already confirmed it," Leesil said, staring at the steps leading downward. "Ratboy is mine."

  "Take Chap," Magiere told him. "And this."

  She unhooked the topaz amulet's chain and went to fasten it about his neck. Leesil was about to stop her, but she shook her head.

  "I don't think I need it anymore," she explained with a glance back toward the parlor. "I can feel them now when they're close. If we can't find each other later, we'll meet back at the sages' barracks."

  Leesil nodded and motioned Chap into the passage. As Magiere was about to head for the front door, he grabbed her by the arm.

  When she looked at him, all the warmth and wry humor she'd become accustomed to finding in his face, his eyes, his smile was gone without a trace.

  "You stay alive," he said.

  Magiere felt cold inside.

  Leesil wasn't just hunting anymore. This was vengeance. Or some fool's need to rectify what he thought was a failure from the past. Somewhere in the back of her mind she'd probably always known this, and now there was no time to stop him.

  "And you," she said.

  Magiere slipped out the front door, down the steps, and into the cobble street, running for the first grate she saw.

  * * * *

  From the shadows between two houses across the street, Sgaile watched the unfolding events with an unsettling ambivalence. He had followed the renegade and majay-hi all day as they looked at houses in the city's wealthier districts. He did not know why.

  He had already ignored the wish of Aoishenis-Ahare— Most Aged Father—and yet he could not leave well enough alone. He had not been told all and nearly spilled the blood of his people, even though it ran through the flesh of a halfblood mongrel. And the majay-hi would not keep company with a traitor. It was not possible.

  As dusk settled, the half-blood renegade and his companions had entered the house across the way. Sgaile settled in to watch. For a while, nothing happened. Then a tall man ran from the house, carrying the gray-robed woman over his shoulder, and disappeared into a sewer grate. A short while later the renegade, the human female, and the small boy appeared. The boy ran off down the street, and now the armored woman went straight to the same sewer grate and disappeared below the city.

  Sgaile waited longer, but the renegade half-blood did not emerge. Neither did the majay-hi. He slipped from his hiding place and approached the house, the front door half-open.

  Snapping a stiletto into his right hand, he stepped inside and walked silently along the hall past the base of the stairs, watching in all directions. As he passed an archway to his right, he spotted a headless body upon the floor. The room was a shattered mess all around.

  Sgaile froze in place, listening in the dark, but he heard no sounds in the house. When he turned back to the front door, he looked at the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

  The wall had a crack in it.

  More than a crack; it was a portal in the stone that had not been fully closed.

  Sgaile pulled the door open and slipped inside and downward.

  Chapter 19

  Chane splashed along the dark sewer tunnel, carrying Wynn and following the ankle-deep flow toward the bay. At the city's low side, he could emerge into the poor district inside the third ring and disappear into the side streets. With luck, Toret would take his second death at the hands of the dhampir and the half-blood, and he would be finally free.

  Wynn choked from either the stench or the pounding of his shoulder into her stomach as he slogged through the sea-water used to flush the city's bowels.

  "Chane, please," she uttered. "Put me down."

  He glanced behind but saw nothing except mortared stone walls, and so he carefully set her on her feet. She still clutched the glowing crystal in her hand.

  "We must hurry," he urged her. "If Toret escapes and pursues us, he will kill you. Or order me to do so, and it is beyond my power to disobey his commands."

  He gripped her wrist lightly, the long sword still in his other hand, and pulled her along. The quarrel wound in his chest still burned, as did the gashes on his leg from the hound's teeth. Wynn tried to pull away, and he tightened his grip, not allowing her to stop.

  "What are you saying?" she asked, both frightened and confused. "Let go of me. I will only slow your escape."

  He turned on her, as if by sheer will he could cow her into obedience, but then anger washed from him.

  Her robe's hem was soaked, dragging at her with its weight, and in his grip, he could feel her shake. Chill water did not affect him, but she was alive and suffered from it. At the sight of her round, soft face, he knew the cold was only part of the cause.

  Dried tear tracks marred her cheeks, and her small lips quivered with each short breath, expelling vapor into the dank air. Brown eyes stared back at him, but not as the visitor come to share intellectual curiosities, a hunger for knowledge, and a cup of mint tea in a quiet room, side by side.

  She looked upon him with fear.

  But Chane did not release his grip.

  "The creature who attacked you on the stairs is my maker," he said flatly, "who made me
his kin and slave, and I cannot refuse his commands. He can sense where his creation has gone—and track me. If he finds me, you will die, one way or another."

  "So you… are a vampire?" Wynn asked softly. "You killed those people… did those things?"

  "To survive," he answered. "Toret raised me to this state because he needed money and protection. I could offer both. I never asked for this, but I accept what I am, as does any other being."

  "So it is not your fault?" she said.

  Could she understand?

  "A matter of perspective," he responded. "Something for the philosophers among your guild."

  He looked back along the tunnel, feeling urgency take hold again, and resumed his flight. Wynn tried to keep up with him now.

  "You could put me up the next grate," she suggested between panting breaths. "Please, Chane, let me go."

  "Toret, or even Sapphire, may still try to catch up," he answered, "It is too dangerous yet."

  "But you said if Toret finds you, you must obey him." When he did not answer her, she cried out, "If you are a killer, then why are you protecting me?"

  Chane pulled her faster through the filthy water.

  "Because your life is not wasted in mindless drudgery," he growled, as if the answer were all too obvious. "Most mortals are little more than cattle, and their loss affects nothing."

  She jerked back, surprising him enough that he almost stopped.

  "You saved me because I'm a sage?" she asked. "Because my head is full of knowledge you find useful?"

  "Of course," he responded.

  But this was a half-truth, and the rest was not appropriate for the time or place. When he looked back again, the tunnel was not empty. A light flickered in the distance.

  "A torch," Wynn said. "Would Sapphire or Toret carry a torch?"

  "No," he replied.

  "Then it is either Magiere or Leesil, or both. Release me and flee."

  Chane glanced at Wynn.

  He could let her go, and that might slow the dhampir or the half-elf for a short while. But they would not turn back now, even if they found Wynn safe and unharmed. It had not occurred to him to use Wynn as a tool or a hostage, but such a ruse might soon be necessary.