“After healing the women I don’t have much left, but I’m already on it,” James said as he reached into the pockets of his robes to fish out bits of materials that would focus The Way. He stopped suddenly and from a small gray velvet pouch he poured a ring of ground stone on the ground at his feet. He’d cast the same spell to great effect the night before. When he finished, he stepped out of the white circle and ran to catch up.
“Don’t you need to stay in the circle?” Malwynn asked as the lantern flickered again.
“No,” James said. “Sometimes the effect is more powerful if you remain in the circle, but it is not necessary. The spell is on me, not on the stone. Stay close.”
The lantern went black again, and this time, it died for good.
Knowing their moment had come, the vampires issued forth from the cover of the trees like a carpet of fire maddened ants. They ran through the tall grass, swimming through it, claws swinging and teeth bared under the thick gray clouds as the rain began to fail again. Animal noises, guttural noises, came from them as the final wall between them and their prey came down.
Mal stopped his jog and locked eyes with a female vampire that led the charge five steps in front of Aleksi. He bore his primal will into her vacant soul and took it over like an ocean wave destroying a beached shipwreck. A one thought wish of—kill—turned her to the side and she smashed into a male vampire running beside her, taking him to the ground. She slashed and clawed at the surprised ally, quickly killing him. Mal used the few seconds he had remaining to do the same thing to more of Aleksi’s devout undead, turning five more of their own against them with little more effort than the time it took to look at them. Aleksi screamed in frustration as he watched his servants turns against his will, and their supposed oath and all for a glance.
“Damn you!” Aleksi screamed as he and the vampires still following his will crested the hill the tracks lay on and leapt at Mal and James. Once in the air the spell James weaved hit the vampire, and his flesh darkened and cracked as if he’d fallen into an oven made to cook vampiric flesh. He screamed in agony but fell forward on top of James, taking him to the ground and landing on his chest. Mal readied a bit of moss for a spell to assist but another vampire slammed him in the side and tackled him straight off the tracks and the berm, and he plummeted into the tall grass with a fanged monster biting and scratching at his leather armor. Like his leader’s flesh this vampire’s crackled and burnt like fat dropped in a frying pan, despite the falling rain.
From his back Mal couldn’t draw his sword so he punched up as he felt the cold rain seeping in and the scissoring claws clamp onto his throat. He could feel long nails sink into the nape of his neck just below his dark hair where Chelsea often rested her hand when they sat next to each other. He felt violated by the thought in that moment. That was a safe thought, a happy thought and it had no home here in this wet and bloody hell. His knuckles found purchase on the jaw of the monster over and over, but they seemed to have little effect. The gray sky started to fill with stars, and began to turn black. The only thing he could see now were the pinpricks of red evil staring down from where the vampire’s eyes were. The undead choking Malwynn was seconds away from strangling him to death. He heard something heavy hit the ground and his sister bellow a war cry nearby, but it felt a world away, like something happening on the shore as he swam under dark waters too far away to do anything.
Snap to it, or no more Chelsea. No more Umaryn. No more James.
Mal needed a spell that was easy, and fast. He had to race death.
Ashes.
His vision became black as a shadow on a moonless night. Mal stopped punching with his left fist and dropped it to his trouser pocket where he kept a small vial of ashes. He’d bought the ashes from an old man days ago who promised the necromancer that they came from a very special place. Mal had taken a great risk buying the vial in Daris, potentially exposing who he really was, and here and now he took the greatest risk of all: hoping the remains would fuel the spell and channel the energy to save his life.
Mal grunted another punch into the face of the vampire and tried to roll his chest so he could get his two hands together to unscrew the lid of the small jar. The vampire laughed at his attempt to roll, thinking he was trying to roll away. Trying to escape.
“You’re not going anywhere. You should’ve stayed in your warm city. Your safe city. But no. You had to come out here and dig deep where the past must be forgotten. Ah, ha-ha. And my hands around your throat is what you find. And when you go limp, you’ll feel my teeth in your neck death mage,” the vampire said in between fits of laughter.
By then Mal had the jar’s lid off, and had upended the contents into the palm of his hands. His father had taught him never to waste, but in this situation he figured his father would excuse his lack of decorum on that practice. He couldn’t reply to the vampire. He had no air left inside him and the stifling grip it had on his neck caused too much pain for him to indulge.
Please work.
Mal grabbed the wrists of the vampire and squeezed with all his might, pushing his deepest thoughts, hopes, and wishes into the chalky gray ash covering his hands, praying that it would siphon away the power of the vampire and fuel his spell.
Mal’s hands turned white hot and suddenly sank into the flesh of the undead as if he were made of wet river clay. His face as white as his attacker’s, Mal smiled as he felt the hands go weak around his neck and loosen. The stars faded immediately as the vampire traded taunts and laughter for screams of pain.
“Aaaiiieee!” it screamed, and Mal open-palm slapped the vampire across the face with the ash. The blow tore his entire cheek off his skull and sent it flying into the tall grass. Mal felt teeth under his fingertips as the flesh pulled free. The necromancer punched up with his left hand at the throat of the vampire, returning the favor, sinking his Way-infused fingers into the flesh and wrapping his hand around the trachea of the vampire. Mal ripped the useless bit of biology out with a wet crunch and tossed it into the grass towards where the vampire’s face had flown. The vampire looked at him with eyes that had lost their fervor, and it fell to the side when he shoved it.
Mal got to his feet just in time to draw his sword and hack the head off an approaching undead. Mal looked into the massive fight raging just feet from where he’d nearly died, but couldn’t tell who in the fray was friend or family. There looked to be dozens of people scrumming about on the tracks, attacking someone on the ground, and fighting in a grand melee. The new downpour coupled with the blackening early evening sky left him little ability to see what was happening.
Then he saw a bright red flash of Umaryn’s armor behind vampire bodies. She stood surrounded, swinging her hammer and punching with a mailed fist like a mythical ancestor back from the dead, channeling the might of centuries. A good swing from Chael’s hammer sent a vampire six feet through the air, knocking two more down as they swarmed towards her.
“Umaryn!” Mal screamed as he fished out some of his moss for a spell. He’d lost the first handful when the vampire blasted into him.
“Brother! Help James!” she screamed back. Her desperate, angry plea was met with more hysterical, victorious laughter from the vampires and felt his anger rise.
“Where’s Chelsea?” he yelled as he approached, stabbing an unaware vampire in the back and twisting his sword. It fell dead again for the last time onto an iron rail with a metallic ring and a splat.
“At my feet, fighting!” his sister yelled.
“I’m safe, help James!” he heard Chelsea bark out from behind the melee.
Mal’s dwindling mental resources pieced together where he’d seen Aleksi tackle James to the ground and where he stood now. It took a moment of math to realize that the open area in the crowd was where the apostle was, for better or for worse.
Mal ran towards the grouped vampires and took two down immediately. A powerful sidearm swipe from his sword half-severed the head of one, and a punch from a fist clenching Obri
nnor’s moss sundered the body of another. The undead were no match for an angry necromancer of Mal’s skill. They fell to the ground lifeless, leaving an opening for Mal to see what lay at the center of the group.
Aleksi still sat astride James, his mouth attached to the apostle’s neck like a human lamprey. Aleksi’s whole body heaved head to toe as he drained gulp after gulp out of Mal’s limp and sallow faced, robed friend. Mal could see no life in James’ eyes as they rolled upwards towards the rain, looking for help that no one living could see. No one living could give. Mal watched as the caring, giving man that had redeemed his disservice with Alisanne died alone in the dark, surrounded by the undead. No one would benefit from James’ touch ever again, and now his soul was damned, for there were no other apostles to free his spirit. He would become undead, and there was nothing Mal, Umaryn, or Chelsea could do about it.
He coughed once, sending a mouthful of his own blood all over his face and neck, and then he was still.
Aleksi snatched his face away from the apostle and dark red blood ran down his face, neck, and chest, soiling his already filthy rags. He looked around at the starved and evil vampires on all sides, finally finishing his gaze on the frozen Malwynn. He stood abruptly, and that signaled to his minions that they should feed. They dove at James’ body at Aleksi’s feet, and the fanged murderer stood there, staring at Mal, a strange look on his face as his army of the dead feasted on the vitae of the fallen apostle. Their hunger was eternal, and the priest’s body couldn’t possibly contain enough blood to sate them.
“I take no pleasure in killing a man of the Church, Malwynn Everwalk. But I will take great pleasure in killing you.”
—Chapter Twenty-Two—
A NEW PATH TO TREAD
“Noooo!” Malwynn screamed as the vampires feasted on James. Their hunger had no limit; they ate his flesh as eagerly as they sucked on his blood. Blood flew up against the rain coming down, and a pool of red formed that seemed never-ending. In minutes, there would be nothing left of him, like fresh meat fed to piranhas.
“Oh yes,” Aleksi said with great satisfaction as he jumped over the crowd of vampires at his feet. He landed a few steps distant from Mal and cracked his neck as if he’d spent a long day at work. The gesture inflamed Mal. Nearby Umaryn and Chelsea swung their hammer and sword against the dozen vampires assailing them. Out of the corner of his eye Mal could see the women held their own. That was good. He had his hands full with Aleksi, and soon, the vampires that were refueling with James’ life.
Mal closed his eyes and drew on the power of the undead on all sides. This place... this moment. A necromancer should have been filled with overflowing joy, brimming with fonts of power for their spells, and despite the knowledge he had a reservoir to tap into greater than possibly any outside of the Empire, all Mal felt was creeping, insidious cold. Dread and loneliness filled him as he tried to tune out the sounds of his friend’s body being desecrated.
In the center of the maelstrom of power and emotion, Mal made a plan. It could work. It might work.
It had to.
“Time to die, death mage,” Aleksi said under his breath just as he coiled and launched at Mal like a venomous serpent. Mal opened his eyes and caught Aleksi’s furious gaze as he flew through the air.
Time ebbed. Each individual raindrop stood out, hung in the air like a pregnant wish, waiting for reality to allow it to fall, and allow it to become what it was to be next. Each hungry slurp, each ripping, tearing bite went silent as no time passed in the minds of Malwynn and Aleksi. They were entwined as one. Malwynn unleashed the full power of everything he felt, pouring it straight into the mind and rotten soul of the vampire that came at him.
Memories of James came bubbling and bursting forth. Every good deed he had done in Mal’s presence flooded over in the air between the frozen and suspended vampire and the saddened and angry necromancer. Every healing spell cast, every kind and wise word said. The memory of his disdain for armor, and the confession that he gave to the twins when he came clean as the agent for Alisanne. The guilt on James’ face came through too. Perhaps most importantly, the apostle’s dedication to faith and humanity poured forth. A true purity of spirit that Mal could only appreciate, and look up to. To aspire to.
A moment passed. Drops slid down in the air. Aleksi moved a few inches closer.
Malwynn pushed more into the vampire. He dredged up the memories on the road. In the train running through the gaps of the mountains. All four as family. All four united in a cause to do what they knew to be the right thing. Memories of love and making love. Memories and the active, raw presence of fear because of that love. The unrestrained horror of the thought of Chelsea and Umaryn slipping away, heightened in the wake of the death of James.
Mal watched Aleksi’s face twitch. He watched as another moment slid by that his internal pain moved over and infected Aleksi. Mal watched as his own suffering became the vampire’s.
Mal pushed harder. Unsatisfied. He dredged up the thoughts that came with love and loss. He allowed hope to appear in his own eyes so Aleksi could see how his evil, desperate, devout actions threatened to destroy it. Had already destroyed it when it came to James. Mal showed Aleksi his sister in the forge, hammering away on her next masterpiece. He showed him the smile on her face, the dedication that was as fervent as the vampire’s. He showed the undead menace all the great many things she’d created and would create as time passed, if she survived. All the good she would do, if she survived.
Mal shared the strange dream of what he thought he and Chelsea’s child would look like, if they survived. Mal imagined a beautiful blonde baby girl that looked just like the woman he loved, but with his bright blue eyes. She looked like Umaryn, if he was honest with himself. Mal shared the vision of a small house outside Daris that he wanted to build with Chelsea, should they survive. Maybe a little bit south, so the kids had a longer summer to play. Mal shared visions of Umaryn with the Knight Major Marcus Gray, and how she fought so blessedly hard to not look at him like she loved him, like she wanted to love him. Her hard exterior was softer than she realized, and Mal let that fucking vampire know that too. He let him know that nothing about him mattered. Nothing about Malwynn’s life mattered unless the others survived. His joy only came from them.
His loves. They were his life.
Mal shoved, stogged, forced, and hammered into the vampire the raw open wound of the fear inside his body and soul. He also shared the dogged determination that despite that fear, despite all those things that he couldn’t possibly bear to lose...
He would give everything to make sure the two women survived. If it meant his death so be it. And he’d do it again and again if it meant his loved ones would survive.
He had already lost everyone else in his life.
And then he let the vampire know that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt both women felt the exact same way about each other, and him. And that feeling alone gave Malwynn the resolve to stand against the horde time and time again, for so long as the horde came to hurt them.
Drops of rain descended like streams of honey on a tipped plate, rolling fat and sticky down through the air, hitting the bodies of the dead and living alike, smashing into the broken blades of grass and onto the thick steel rails, and the concrete sleepers that existed for no logical reason Umaryn could decipher. Malwynn watched as all of his inner turmoil, all of his humanity, hit Aleksi and sank in, revealing who he was—who they were—to the undead stranger, and casting a light no different than the sun on whatever remained of the vampire’s soul.
The knowledge didn’t kill the vampire, but it slayed his ability to fight.
Time resumed and Aleksi soared through the air at Malwynn. He didn’t know if the spell worked—if it even could work—but he stood his ground, sword in hand, another spell of The Way readying in the back of his skull. There was no giving up.
Aleksi twisted his body in midair, soaring past Mal and landing hard on the iron rails behind. His head bounce
d off the steel, reverberating the vampire’s head and the iron. Aleksi rolled to all fours, clearly in pain, his body wracked with grief from all that Malwynn poured into him.
The necromancer turned to face his buckled adversary, and stood silent, waiting for the vampire to say something, do something. Nearby, the battle raging around the two women slowed as the vampires caught sight of their leader on his knees.
Aleksi’s head tilted upward, searching out Mal’s face. Mal saw tears of blood streaming down the vampire’s cheeks, mingling with the rain that hammered down. The vampire had been broken by the vision Malwynn gave to him. “I had a wife,” Aleksi said, as if the memory of her had vanished for far too long, and had only just resurfaced.
“I hope to one day,” Mal said, looking into the approaching vampires that were leaving the two women. The undead looked confused, lost as to what to do. Mal felt the approaching tingle of relief that he had at least bought them another moment of life.
“I had children too. They... died here. Protecting what we have protected for decades now. I see that. I... I think I’ve lost my faith,” Aleksi said. “I’ve done terrible things. I’ve killed. Murdered many. I took an oath to protect Elmoryn and the Church of Souls and I did so many terrible things. We did so many terrible things.”
“I hope you haven’t lost your faith, Aleksi. Faith is the tie that binds this world together. I think you’ve lost sight of who you should have served all along,” Mal said. He lifted his eyes from Aleksi and saw Umaryn standing in her bright red armor. She helped Chelsea to her feet. The sight of her made his heart flutter.
“Who should we have served? We pledged our lives and souls to Alisanne, and The Church of Souls. Two things of paramount importance,” Aleksi said his voice full of confusion covering a foundation of duty, and responsibility.
“Alisanne was deluded and obsessed with power and prestige, Aleksi Oathman. She was family and I say this to you. She killed hundreds to preserve whatever is hidden here and to advance her own station. To hide secrets. What kind of person does that? Who are we protecting when we kill indiscriminately out of fear? She tricked you, I suspect. The same as she tricked others into doing her will. And let me ask you this; who does the Church serve?”
The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3) Page 28