Emily Shadowhunter 4 - a Vampire, Shapeshifter, Werewolf novel.: Book 4: DAY WALKER

by Craig Zerf

  Sylvian drew his rapier and Bastian drew both his short and long swords.

  ‘Damn,’ cussed Bastian. ‘We’ve been suckered.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Sylvian. ‘But not to worry. As soon as Emily recovers, I feel that we shall comfortably outnumber them.’

  As he spoke Emily stood up. She looked slightly unsteady but then grimaced and set herself. Deathwalker appeared in her right hand. ‘Try to shoot me, will you?’ She sneered. ‘Well we shall see about that.’

  She stepped forward but as she did so another three rounds hammered into her almost simultaneously. Then another. She stopped walking and Deathwalker shimmered in her hand and then disappeared.

  Faintly, with a look of utter amazement on her face, she pitched forward and fell to the floor. Her eyes were open and she could hear and feel, but she was completely paralyzed except for the ability to move her eyes and see what was transpiring around her.

  The pack of Bloodwraiths fell on Sylvian and Bastian like a tsunami and all that Em could do was watch.

  Bastian blurred into motion, weaving one movement into the next, both swords spinning so fast as to create a whirling wall of silver. Anything that came into contact with the blades was instantly severed or deeply cut. Blood sprayed and limbs and pieces of flesh were scattered about like wood from a wood-chipper.

  Sylvian chose the aerial route, somersaulting over his adversaries and striking at them from the apex of each leap. Stabbing into their necks and twisting savagely as he spun.

  One of the Bloodwraiths hooked his talons into Bastian as the Jamaican spun out of one of his moves, slicing deeply into his calf and almost tearing the muscle from the bone. He staggered and fell and the rest of the Bloodwraiths were onto him, ripping and slicing at him as he tried to roll away, hacking back at them with both of his swords.

  And then one of them tore his right arm off. He fell next to Emily and all that she could do was stare blankly into his eyes as he died.

  Just before they slashed his neck open he smiled at Emily and whispered. ‘Be strong.’

  Then he was gone. And Em couldn’t even call out his name.

  Sylvian vaulted over the circle of Bloodwraiths that surround Em and hacked off two of their heads. But then the report of the snipers rifles rang out and two slugs smashed into the Bloodborn’s chest. He sank to his knees beside Emily and his rapier slid from his nerveless fingers as the magic took control of him, dulling his senses and stilling his body.

  Around him and Bastian and Emily lay the dismembered corpses of fifteen Bloodwraiths.

  Martin walked up to the Bloodborn and stared down at him. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You are the infamous Bloodborn Count.’

  ‘Oui,’ admitted Sylvian. ‘I am le grand duc de Bourgogne, Sylvian Baptiste, Ordre des chevaliers du Saint-Esprit. And I have been responsible for sending over two thousand of your brothers to the true death.’

  ‘And now it is time for you to die,’ said Martin.

  Sylvian shrugged. ‘We all die.’ He turned to Emily. ‘I am sorry, mon cher,’ he said. ‘We have failed you.’

  Martin picked up Sylvian’s rapier and placed it in the Bloodborn’s loose grasp. ‘A man should die with his sword,’ he said.

  Sylvian nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  And Emily felt his blood pour over her as the Bloodwraith took his head off.

  Chapter 34

  The Morrigan flickered into existence in the kitchen, opposite the seated figures of Merlin, the Prof and William. She arrived in the guise of the crow and morphed into a beautiful woman in a clinging silk dress.

  ‘How dare you?’ She hissed as he landed, her eyes blazing with fury.

  ‘I dare to do as I want,’ answered Merlin. ‘I dare to do what I feel is the correct thing to do.’

  ‘You used a summoning spell on me,’ shouted the Morrigan. ‘Like some common demon.’

  ‘I called you in a civil manner but you ignored me.’

  ‘I am a goddess,’ snapped the Morrigan. ‘I am not at your beck and call.’

  ‘And I am Merlin,’ roared the magician as he stood up. ‘I am The Wild Man of the Woods. The last of the Druids, the keeper of all knowledge. The son of Satan and the right hand of the Lord. And you, Morgan la Fay, now stand in my thrall, you can attempt to escape but I have bound you to me. You have questions to answer.’

  ‘I stand in no one’s thrall, Merlin,’ she answered. ‘Especially not a mortal human being.’ With a dramatic flare of blue light she attempted to translocate herself. But naught happened as her magic merely stuttered and coruscated around her. She was trapped.

  Merlin laughed dryly. An expression of certainty rather than amusement. ‘Morgan,’ he said. ‘I may be many things but I rather feel that the monikers, mortal and human are no longer part of my lexicon. I left both of those definitions behind many, many centuries ago. But it seems as though you still carry the moniker of traitor. You brought about the fall of the hero, Cúchulainn by lies and deception; you conspired in the fall of Queen Odras. Your meddling helped the Tuatha Dé drive the Formorians into the sea and your duplicity saw the demise of the great King Arthur. And all these times I simply stood by, believing that the will of the gods should not be proscribed by the will of man.

  Well, no more. We cast a search spell on you, so do not deny that you have been fraternizing with the enemy. With the creatures of the night.’

  ‘Impossible,’ argued the Morrigan. ‘I would have felt such a spell.’

  The Prof shook his head. ‘Oh no, it was small, you see. Infinitesimally small. Far too small for you to detect.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, you useless old Boggart,’ snapped the Morrigan. ‘Anyway, so what? I am a goddess, I do and go where I please.’

  ‘No,’ said Merlin, sadly. ‘I can no longer allow that. You stir up trouble for your own selfish means. You demand war and worship. Two characteristics that should never be coupled together. You care for nothing but your own power.’

  ‘Untrue,’ argued the Morrigan. ‘I went to the gods to ask for their help to fight against the Nosferatu.’

  ‘And so you did,’ agreed Merlin. ‘But that was not to protect humanity. You merely wanted a war and the more beings involved in it the better for you. The more chance you had of gaining worshipers. Of increasing you power. Tell me, Morgan,’ continued Merlin. ‘What have you told the Nosferatu? How have you helped them? And bear in mind, if you do not answer, I have you in my thrall and I can force you. We both know that will prove to be most painful and I hoped that we could avoid it.’

  ‘There is no need to threaten,’ said the Morrigan. ‘I will tell, after all, I am not ashamed of what I have done.’

  And so she told Merlin of her helping Nathan, from granting him the means to gain leadership of the Nosferatu to giving him knowledge of the Gargoyles and, finally, to her gifting him some of Poseidon’s net.

  ‘Even now,’ she finished. ‘Your precious Emily has most likely been spirited away to a Nosferatu stronghold in a place that even I do not know about.’ She smiled. ‘So, you see, Merlin, there is no way out of this war. And that is all that I ask for. War and worship. So, I have won again.’

  William got to his feet, strode over to the Morrigan and struck her in the face with his fist, using every ounce of strength that he could muster. Lightning crackled about the room and the air filled with smoke as the goddess staggered back, her lip bleeding. Then she laughed. ‘Really, oh mighty Omega. Is that all that you have? How pathetic. You cannot fight the goddess of war. You are naught to me. Your anger, your strength, your will to do war on me will be reflected back on you tenfold. So cease you pathetic attempts. You cannot harm me.’

  ‘No,’ admitted Merlin sadly. ‘He cannot. But I can.’ He raised both his arms above his head and started to chant. As his voicing grew stronger and faster the Prof joined in, his chanting a counterpoint to that of the magician.

  Sparks snapped and crackled about the room and clouds of noxious smoke appeared at floor level. A ground m
ist of yellow sulfur. Things started to materialize in the mist. Tentacles instead of legs and bodies of slime and putrescence. None larger than a household cat. They moved towards the Morrigan, sliding and squelching as they did so. Ovoid faces with no eyes, open maws with no teeth. Nostrils mere holes in their slime covered skulls.

  The Morrigan started to keen in terror. ‘Please,’ she screamed. ‘No, Merlin. I do not deserve this.’

  They grabbed at her legs, crawling slowly up. Many of them. First ten then twenty. Then hundreds until she was covered in a pile of rotting, writhing creatures that had been dragged up from man’s deepest, darkest nightmares.

  With a final chant, the creatures started to disappear. And if one looked closely one could see that they were, in fact, being absorbed into the Morrigan’s body.

  By now the goddess could no longer scream. He voicing’s of terror had become a distant whistling of a steam kettle. A child crying softly under its blankets.

  Then with a crack of thunder the creatures were gone. And before them stood the Morrigan. But she was no longer human.

  William walked over to her and rapped his knuckles on her head.

  ‘You turned her to stone,’ he said.

  Merlin shook his head. ‘No. May the gods forgive me for what I have done.’ He turned and left the room, walking slowly and painfully, as if he were only moments from complete collapse.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said William to the Prof.

  ‘We did not turn the Morrigan to stone,’ explained the Boggart. ‘We encased her living body in stone. She is there, still alive, but trapped.’

  ‘And those creatures,’ asked William. ‘Those slimy, horrible nightmare things?’

  ‘Ah,’ answered the Prof. ‘Well, they are in there with her. And the stone skin shall keep them there forever. They are the Soul-Destroyers. They feed on your very soul, eating away at the fabric of your existence until there is naught left but an almost empty brain. But they leave the worst memories for you to keep. To re-run, over and over in your head for eternity. Everything that you have ever regretted, every bad deed, every modicum of pain that you have caused to others. Every single one, on a loop. For all eternity. It is a dark punishment. But one that I think she deserved. She has done much wrong.’

  ‘How long will you leave her like that?’ Asked William.

  The Prof shrugged. ‘Who knows? After a hundred years she will be little but a demented shell at any rate. And if Emily has died due to her traitorous deeds…well, let’s put it this way. Who the hell cares how long she stays there? I for one couldn’t give a toss.’

  Chapter 35

  Emily woke up in darkness. Not that it bothered her as she could see just as well in any amount of light. She tried to move, and it didn’t take her long to realize that she had been hogtied. A length of rope bound her hands together behind her back, then it ran down to her feet that had also been tied together. For a moment she wondered where she was and how she got there.

  Then it all came back to her and a howl of pure anguish was ripped unbidden from her throat.

  Bastian was gone.

  Sylvian was gone.

  She had failed them utterly. They had been there because of her and now, because of her, they were dead.

  She struggled against her bonds but could not break them. It’s just rope, she told herself. You can break chains of steel, why can’t you break this pathetic rope?

  Then she remembered the bullets hitting her. And the lethargy that they had imparted, robbing her of all ability save to lie still and watch her beloved friends die in agony.

  Some sort of enchantment, she whispered to herself. The ropes must be treated with it as well. Well, stuff that. She put everything she had into breaking free but to no avail. It was as if her arms had been paralyzed. She felt weak. Feeble and useless.

  The door opened and light flooded in. Em looked up to see a figure silhouetted in the doorway. As he stepped forward, his features came into focus. It was a stranger. Obviously a vamp but not one that she had ever seen before.

  He walked calmly over to her and peered down. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Good. You have recovered.’ And then he kicked her in the head and burst out laughing.

  Emily’s head snapped back and smacked into the concrete floor hard enough to crack both the floor and her skull. The pain was momentarily blinding but she could feel herself healing and in seconds she was fine.

  He vamp kicked her again. And again, laughing like a hyena as he did so.

  Then another walked in. A female. She joined in, hammering her boot into Emily’s ribs. Em could hear them cracking and splintering as the vamp put full effort in.

  After a couple of minutes they both stopped. The female lit a cigarette.

  Emily raised herself into a sitting position. ‘What are your names?’ She gasped.

  ‘Why,’ responded the female vamp.

  ‘So I know what to call you when I kill you,’ said Em.

  ‘Oh, very tough I’m sure,’ said the female as she kicked Em in the face.

  Emily spat out a mouthful of blood and sneered at her. ‘Name,’ she repeated.

  The male vamp laughed again. ‘I’m Christopher,’ he said. ‘This is Tangerine.’

  ‘Tangerine,’ said Emily. ‘That’s not a real name. It’s a fruit.’

  The female kicked her again. ‘Hey,’ snapped Em. ‘You better stop doing that or I swear, you’ll die painful instead of quick and easy. Anyway, where am I?’

  ‘You in the Castel Gandolfino,’ answered Christopher. ‘It is the official formal Italian residence of the Capo di tutti capi, Nathan Tremblay.’

  ‘Where is the chief asshole then?’ Enquired Em.

  Christopher casually kicked her again. ‘The Capo is not here yet. He is still in London. But he will return in three days. And then you will know pain like you have never experienced before. Mothers will keep their children awake at night with stories of how you suffered.’

  ‘Really?’ Asked Em. ‘What sort of mother did you have? You dick head.’

  Both of the bloodsuckers spent the next few minutes hammering Em around the room before they left, closing the door behind them.

  She lay there in a pool of blood for a while, waiting for her enhanced body to heal itself and then she dragged herself up into a sitting position and thought.

  It didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that she was screwed. If she couldn’t escape before Nathan came back then she was as good as dead. But the rope bound her as tight as an iron maiden and unless one of the ass-wipes that were guarding her actually untied it, then she couldn’t escape. All that she could do was wait for an opportunity to present itself.

  As an afterthought she called for her axe, Deathwalker but nothing happed. She tried again, forming a picture of it in her mind and concentrating as hard as she could. Thinking of when she first saw it, imagining the feel of it, the heft and weigh in her hand.

  Something flickered at the edge of her consciousness. She let her mind flow, seeking the ethereal thought that hovered just out of her reach. It was familiar. She almost had it.

  ‘Shadowhunter? Why do you call me back from the valley of shades?’

  Emily almost lost her concentration in shock as she heard the voice. ‘Lucas?’ She questioned. ‘Alpha Lucas Cain?’

  There was a pause and then the voice answered. ‘Yes, I believe that is who I was. It feels right. I believe that I used to be, Alpha Lucas Cain.’

  ‘Who are you now?’ Asked Em.

  ‘I am one,’ answered the wolf. ‘I am many. I am part of the after. And I ask once again, why do you disturb my rest?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ apologized Emily. ‘I didn’t mean to. I was just thinking. Trying to find a solution. You see, I’m trapped. I’ve been taken prisoner and unless I get out, then I’m pretty much dead. As to how I contacted you…well, no idea.’

  Again there was a long pause. ‘I remember,’ said Lucas. ‘You helped me across the river. You gave me eternal rest. I
thank you, Emily Shadowhunter, Guardian and Pack member. How can I help you now?’

  ‘I don’t think that you can,’ admitted Em. ‘Unless you can become corporeal and untie me.’

  ‘No,’ said Lucas. ‘I exist only in the ethereal. I cannot physically help you. But I do not understand. How do they keep you? I remember that your strength is prodigious. Surely you can simply break free.’

  ‘No can do, Alpha dude,’ said Em. ‘They’ve tied me tight with some sort of enchanted rope and I can’t wriggle free. Can’t even move my arms or legs at all.’

  ‘What if you change? Will the bonds still hold tight?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Asked Em. ‘Change?’

  ‘Yes,’ affirmed Lucas. ‘To your wolf form. Surely then the rope would fall free.’

  Em sighed. ‘Good plan, alpha,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, guardian.’

  ‘I was being sarcastic,’ snapped Emily. ‘I’m not a werewolf. I can’t change.’

  ‘You are Pack,’ insisted Lucas.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘You are Pack,’ he repeated.

  And Emily remembered William telling her the same thing. ‘You are Pack,’ he had said to her.

  ‘The Omega said that to me.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Lucas, the satisfaction apparent on his voice. ‘If the Omega says it is so, then it is so. You are pack, therefore you are wolf. Change and the ropes will fall from you.’

  ‘How?’ Asked Emily.

  ‘I cannot explain,’ answered Lucas. ‘That is like asking how to breathe. One just does. There is no how, only do.’

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘I can do no more,’ answered Lucas, his voice already fading. ‘Good luck, Emily Shadowhunter, guardian and Pack member. And thank you. My debt is now repaid. Goodbye.’

  ‘Crap,’ shouted Emily. ‘Great. Change. It’s like breathing. Asshats.’

  She thrashed around for a while in an attempt to get rid of her frustration but eventually calmed down and sat still again. She concentrated.