Undeath and Taxes

by Drew Hayes

  I nodded my head, but said nothing. Every word I spoke risked getting us into worse trouble. Best to use them sparingly.

  “So, Fred, are my people right? Are you Richard’s guy?” Orson’s tone was casual, while his face was as serious as a man giving a eulogy.

  “Yes, I work for her father,” I replied. It was true, though likely not in the way he was interpreting it. It seemed prudent not to allow him time for follow-up questions that would undo the assumptive deception, though. “And he is not at all going to be pleased with your actions. Return us now, while there is still time, and perhaps some bit of mercy can be shown to you.”

  Orson snorted; it was a loud, powerful sound that rebounded off the warehouse’s walls. “I know Richard is going to be pissed. I knew that when we planned this whole thing. But what was our other option? Live like second-class parahumans? Scrape and bow and beg for a place at his table? To hell with that. I ruled my last town, and I’ll rule this one too.”

  “It was my understanding that Richard’s position can only be taken by one stronger than him. Taking Sally won’t make you more powerful.”

  “There are many kinds of strength, Fred,” Orson said, eyes narrowing just a touch. “Richard has the physical kind, but I’ve got the mental kind. When I issue my challenge, he’s going to let me win, because I’ve got something he loves more than his position.”

  “Daddy hates his job,” Sally said. Her soft, high-pitched tones reached every ear in the room. She stared at the floor as she spoke, as though there were no one else around her. “He hates it. He does it ‘cause it has to get done, liking cleaning up a room.”

  “There you go, then,” Orson said, allowing a toothy smile to slice across his face. “Richard will be free of a job he doesn’t like, and I will take my rightful place as ruler.”

  “I hate when people die,” Sally said. This time, everyone grew slightly still at the sound of her words. “I’m sorry.”

  Orson gave the small girl his full attention then, the wicked grin now erased from his face. “What are you sorry for?”

  “I don’t think anyone should die. Dying is really bad. It means you leave people lonely. I still miss my Mommy. It would be better if no one ever had to die.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Orson told her, using what I think he believed to be a comforting tone. It sounded more like a gentler form of threatening, which, perhaps, was the best he could manage. “As long as your dad does what we tell him, everything will be fine. No one is going to die.”

  Sally lifted her head, finally looking at the people surrounding her instead of the ground. I’d expected any number of expressions to be on her face: terror, pain, panic, any of these would have made sense, given the situation. What I saw instead was grief; a terrible sadness etched into her tiny face, suddenly seeming so much older than it had any right to appear. With great care, she looked at each man present, as if she were memorizing their features. When she finally spoke again, her words had a gravity that could have pulled satellites from orbit.

  “You are. You’re all gonna die. I’m so sorry.” With that, Sally began to cry, a soft, shivering sob that was almost noiseless as the tears ran down her face.

  Orson was momentarily taken aback by her earnest concern, but quickly recovered. Clearly, he was too much of a professional to take the implied threats of a child seriously.

  “Oh, to have the fantasies of youth again,” Orson said loudly, his voice breaking the somber spell cast by Sally’s warning. “I’m sure she thinks her father will come bounding in the door to rescue her. We know better, don’t we, boys? By now, he’s probably worried himself into a panic. When we deliver the ransom note, he’ll kiss our feet in gratitude at the chance to get his daughter back.”

  I’d seen Richard fight before, and not when things were especially serious. If I’d stolen his daughter, I wouldn’t let that set of werelion jaws anywhere near my body, even if he feigned surrender. Right about then, I began suspecting these five had bitten off more than they could chew, but not more than could chew them.

  “All right, I’m done talking to the hostages. Shove them somewhere out of the way and stick a guard on them,” Orson ordered. “I’ve got a challenge to get ready for.”

  5.

  Sally remained silent as we were dragged off to another corner of the warehouse. We were close enough to hear the others in a general sense, but picking out more than a few haphazard words at a time was beyond my capabilities. Red ended up being stuck with guard duty, taking a seat on an aged wooden crate and setting his gaze so it fell on us. He appeared bored, and I didn’t much blame him for that. A silver-bound vampire and a therian child, also chained in silver, don’t make for very exciting guard-duty. If he’d hoped for unexpected action, we were not the crew to deliver it. Eventually, his attention waned, and he began checking his phone more often, evidently becoming engrossed in some internet reading.

  “Sally,” I called. My words were soft, but not a whisper. I didn’t want Red to think I was plotting anything, yet, at the same time, I didn’t want him overhearing unless he put a mind to it. He gave the sound of my voice no apparent consideration, so I continued. “Sally, are you all right?”

  She gave me a small bob of her head. The tears had stopped flowing; however, her nose was still runny and the area around her eyes had turned a puffy red.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get out of this just fine.” Admittedly, after her strange prediction, I wasn’t entirely sure which of us I was trying to reassure, but being the adult in the situation made me feel that it was my duty to at least attempt some consoling.

  “He’s going to be mad,” Sally said, her own voice in hushed tones as well.

  “No one will be mad at you,” I told her.

  “Not at me. At them. He’s always mad when I get taken.”

  My next trite phase died on my tongue as I soaked in her words. “Sally, does this happen often?”

  “Used to,” she replied glumly. “People want to hurt Daddy, but Daddy is too big. They try to hurt me because I’m small.”

  I wasn’t certain which part revolted me more: how resigned Sally was to the fate of being constantly kidnapped, or the knowledge that therian society was so cutthroat that such things were acceptable. Then I recalled her assessment of their impending death. Perhaps acceptable was not the correct phrase for the methods these people were employing. In a way, it made a psychopathic kind of sense. Winslow was a pretty sizable city, and there had to be lots of therians in it. Trying to take Richard’s position by force was laughable—even Krystal considered him one of the strongest were-creatures she knew. So the only method remaining was to attack his weakest point, the daughter he loved so dearly. If this had happened before, then Richard clearly had some sort of Sally retrieval system in place. Otherwise, he’d have been killed or deposed long ago.

  “I’m sorry they took you,” I told her. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop them. No one is going to hurt you, though. I promise.”

  Tears welled up in the sides of her eyes once more. She turned away, looking at the raftered ceiling looming over us. I wondered if she was trying to picture the sky outside, or if she was just gazing at the reality that surrounded us.

  “Edmund, come give us a hand. We’re loading the truck.” This voice came from the main part of the warehouse, and at a guess, I would have said the speaker was Gray. To my momentary surprise, Red let out a sigh, put away his phone, and rose from his seat. In my time with them, I’d forgotten that Red was a nickname I’d assigned him, not his genuine moniker.

  “Coming!” Red/Edmund yelled. He shot a single glance our way, the meaning of which was abundantly clear, and then headed off to join the others. They exited amidst a myriad of sound indicating heavy lifting. Obviously, they weren’t that concerned with us making a break for it, which was sound judgment since our silver chains were locked to the chairs we currently sat in.

  Still, I expected to feel a soft flutter of relief at
not being under someone’s watchful eye, but that relief didn’t come. What arrived in its place was an unexpected sense of dread, a deep-down, to the soul of my being, terror. I’d have cried out for help if I could have found the courage to move my tongue. Anyone, anything, was better. I would have gleefully welcomed back our kidnappers just to rid myself of such panic. Somewhere, though, in the few coherent portions of my mind, a piece of me recognized the sensation. The last time I’d felt it, there had been some subtlety and nuance; it hadn’t been nearly as overwhelming.

  Then again, the last time I’d felt it, Gideon hadn’t been pissed off.

  “I thought they’d never leave,” said the voice of a child who was centuries too old to be one. Gideon stepped out from behind some boxes, clad in a small tuxedo that must have been custom made for his tiny body. He looked much the same as he had the first time I saw him—a tan-skinned child somewhere between six and eight years old, dirty blonde hair mussed in every direction. The key difference this time was his eyes. Their violet color had always sparkled, but tonight, they positively burned. I didn’t need many guesses to know the cause for that change.

  “I’m sorry,” Sally blurted out as soon as he arrived. “Daddy said you were on a trip, and I didn’t want to ruin it, but I got scared and I—”

  “Hush, Little Wyrm,” Gideon told her in gentle tones. “I’ll always come for you. You never need to say sorry when I appear.” He managed a far better “soothing” voice than I had, not that it did me any good; I literally cowered in place. Had I not been chained down, I’d have been running into the night. It was strange, part of me was still coherent and rational enough to understand what was happening, but every animal instinct in my body was overpowering that part, demanding we escape.

  “But your trip . . .”

  “Is a silly trip that I can go back to when I please,” Gideon reassured her. “You are what is most important. After all, friends look out for each other, don’t they?”

  Sally nodded. This line of reasoning jived well with her understanding of acceptable practices. “Don’t be too mean to them, please. They didn’t hurt us.”

  At the mention of there being more than one person captured, Gideon gave me the smallest flicker of attention. I shook so hard that I knocked my chair over. I expected the loud noise to echo through the empty warehouse, but no such racket arose. He turned back to her, and I was ratcheted back down to my previous level of soul-quaking dread.

  “I will be as gentle as possible,” Gideon told her. “If they are willing to properly apologize, there is no need for me to be harsh. For now, why don’t you take a short rest? I’m sure you’re tired after so much excitement.” His irises brightened for a fraction of a moment, and seconds later, Sally’s own eyes began to droop.

  “No . . . I’ll . . .” Sally opened her mouth, letting out a loud yawn that again failed to echo. “I’ll stay . . .” And with that, her small head fell to her shoulder, the sandman’s sudden charms too much to resist. Gideon stayed crouched by her side for a moment longer, just enough time to tear away her chains as if they were made a Play-Doh. (I’m still not certain if dragons are immune to silver’s power, or if they’re simply so strong, it doesn’t make a difference. In the end, the concern is largely academic, because the results are the same.) He pulled her carefully into his arms, then set her down on the floor. Only when she was comfortably resting did he turn his attention to me once more.

  “Blood-eater,” he greeted, all softness gone from his voice. “I will keep this brief; the spells I cast to slow the fools outside will wear thin soon. I require your assistance tonight. What is going to transpire in this warehouse is not something I wish to expose Sally to, not even as she slumbers. You will be entrusted with her safety. You are to leave this place and use those dead legs to carry her back to Richard with every ounce of speed available to you. Should anything more happen to her, there will be consequences.”

  At the word “consequences,” I spasmed so hard that I nearly snapped a chair-leg, which was no small feat considering my strength was reduced by the silver.

  “Right, the terror,” he muttered. The small boy put his hands on his tuxedo-clad hips, clearly contemplating a rogue idea. He could have been like that for minutes or hours—time had grown wonky in my perceptions—but finally, he reached a conclusion.

  “What I am going to do, I do purely out of regard for Sally,” he informed me. “Technically speaking, I will violate several unspoken laws of dragon pride, as well as a few ardently spoken ones.” A small, dangerous smile danced on his lips. “But what is the point of being a king, if one cannot ignore the rules when it pleases him? So rejoice, blood-eater, because I am going to remove your fear. Just remember, what you are about to experience is merely a single drop of my power. If you want to see how deep the well goes, then fail in safely delivering Sally home. I will show you every bit of my strength then, and you will pray for Hell to accept you just so you can be free of me.”

  With that not at all utterly terrifying warning, Gideon stepped closer to me. As he did, he raised his right hand. The nail on his thumb began to warp and extend until it was no longer a nail, but a small copper-colored claw. He pressed the tip of it into his index finger until the flesh parted. A single droplet of blood welled up before the wound sealed itself closed.

  Gideon leaned down to the shivering lump that was my body and carefully pulled open my mouth. I could no more have resisted him than I could have beaten Bubba in a beer chugging contest. My lips parted, and Gideon wiped the small bit of blood on my tongue. I swallowed involuntarily, because my vampire instincts demanded that blood be consumed, and then it hit me.

  If Gideon’s presence had filled me with incomparable dread, his blood had me overflowing with a blast of power. My silver-dulled senses all came rushing back, even stronger than they’d been before. The world exploded in color and sound, and I felt like I was hearing the entire city thrumming in my ears. My muscles spasmed like they would explode. I jerked in surprise and heard a dull crunch as the chair became splinters. But even through the head-swimming amazement of it all, I noticed one change above the others: my terror at Gideon’s aura had completely vanished. Aside from the blood-high, I was back in my normal frame of mind, which was a whole other level of incredible relief.

  After a moment to compose myself, I slowly rose from the ground. My chains lay in broken chunks around my feet, but that was likely Gideon’s work. Even on dragon-blood, silver is silver, and I am a vampire. I looked over and found him staring toward the central part of the warehouse, where the sound of softly scuffling feet was beginning to echo.

  “Control yourself, blood-eater,” Gideon instructed me, making no attempt to soften his voice. With my perked up hearing, I realized the sound was dying out a few feet away from us. Evidently, he’d cast more than just a spell to slow down our kidnappers. “Most of the effects will fade soon, though you will find my presence far more tolerable from now on. For now, you should have all the power you need to get my . . . Sally home safely. Take her. Now.”

  I did as I was told, not just out of fear of Gideon, though that certainly played a healthy part in my actions, but because I could hear the murder in his voice. He was right, what was about to happen was nothing that Sally needed to be around for. I scooped her up from the ground, set her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and then scouted my options. There was a window roughly forty feet in the air with the glass broken out. Even for a vampire, that was a hell of a jump. With my momentary boost, however, it felt laughably easy.

  Gideon stepped forward, coming into view of the rest of the room.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Gideon, and I have come to speak with you about the young girl you stole this evening.”

  Taking the cue, I leapt up and through the window while their attention was focused on him. They might have sent pursuers, but if so, they never came near me. With the dragon blood in my system, I was an undead blur, racing through the streets as fas
t as my power would carry me.

  Unfortunately, thanks to amped up hearing, it wasn’t fast enough to outrun the first of our kidnapper’s tortured screams.

  6.

  Richard ran his hands over his daughter’s head for the umpteenth time. She was still passed out, though whether it was from fatigue or Gideon’s spell, I had no idea. Getting her back had been easy; I could have smelled my way across town, even if I hadn’t been familiar with Winslow’s layout. Richard had met me at the entrance to the building, probably saving my life, since a vampire showing up with a kidnapped therian is not exactly a trust-inducing scenario. If I’d been thinking, I would have realized that before the cacophony of growls began, but that damned dragon blood still had me somewhat loopy. I was finally calming down a bit when Richard at last satisfied himself that she was really back safe and stepped into his living room to talk with me.

  “Wine?” He asked, his voice a deep rumble that spoke to how draining his own evening must have been.

  “Please,” I responded.

  Richard stepped into his kitchen and returned with a bottle of pinot noir. He pulled out the cork with practiced ease, then poured us each a large glass. Motioning to one of the unoccupied chairs, he indicated for me to sit. I complied, accepting the wineglass as I did, and soon, he took his own perch in a larger piece of furniture. We sat in silence for several moments, both delicately sipping on the wine. It was an exceptional vintage, and I made a mental note to get the year and label from him later.

  “You must have questions,” Richard said at last. I’d seen Richard partially dissolved by magical-monster acid before, but I couldn’t ever recall seeing him appear so weary.

  “I do have some things I’m curious about,” I admitted. “However, I know privacy and secrecy is a large part of your job. After tonight, I understand why a little better. I’d be content if you could just tell me what happened, keeping the strokes as broad as you need to.”