by David McAfee
“You know her?” Theron pointed at the body, which had started to flake away in the light breeze.
The youth nodded.
“You feared her,” Theron noted.
The youth nodded again.
“You see what I did to her, this most powerful of Athens’ Bachiyr?”
He nodded and took a step backward.
Theron sprang forward, catching the other Bachiyr off guard and grabbing his shoulders before the youth could think to block him. The young vampire struggled, but Theron’s hand clamped onto his shoulder and brought him in close. Fear radiated from him like a cold mist, and he reprised his opinion of the youth’s age. Not more than a decade, most likely. Theron flashed his fangs, smiling as the younger vampire shut his eyes and tried to look away. Theron dug his claws into the youth’s flesh, reveling in his victim’s pained groan.
“Look at me,” Theron commanded.
The young vampire turned to look at him, his face a mask of fear and pain.
“You know who I am,” Theron said.
The young vampire nodded.
“Say my name.” Theron squeezed his fingers, digging them deeper into flesh.
“Theron!” the other gasped. “Theron of Macedonia.”
“Good.” Theron relaxed his grip a bit, and some of the tension went out of the other vampire’s body. “Tell every Bachiyr you meet about this. Make sure they know that I am the one who killed Adonia of Athens, and let it be a warning to them. I will do the same to every Bachiyr who tries to hunt me. Swear to do that, and I will let you live.”
The younger vampire nodded, his face reflecting his eagerness to get out of this alive.
“Swear it!” Theron dug his claws deeper, grinding their tips against the young vampire’s bones.
“I swear it!” he replied. “By the Father, I swear!”
Theron released the youth’s arms, smiling. The younger vampire dropped back a few paces, rubbing the bloody holes in his arms. He glared at Theron for a moment, then turned to go.
“Wait,” Theron said. The youth turned around to face him, a wary look on his face. “There is one more thing I want you to do. Take her body back to the Council’s gate in Athens and leave it with the clerk.”
The young vampire’s eyes widened again. Theron understood. Such a thing would be taken as a direct dare to the Council. Doubtless the youth thought he was crazy.
“Do it,” Theron repeated, “or I will kill you and find someone who will.”
The youth nodded again and stepped over to Adonia’s body. He lifted it over his shoulder and started walking down the street. Occasionally, he would glance over his shoulder, perhaps to make certain Theron was not about to go back on his word. Theron considered going after him and driving his claws through the other vampire’s spine, but decided against it. He wanted this message delivered.
Once the Council saw Adonia’s body, they would know they had underestimated their former Lead Enforcer. Few, if any, of their servants would be a match for him. Which meant if the Council of Thirteen wanted him brought to justice, they would have to do it themselves.
He walked down the street, headed for the edge of the city. It would take the youth an hour or so to reach the Council’s portal in Athens, and it would take another few hours for the Council to be roused and alerted. By then the young vampire would be in a cell somewhere, waiting for Algor to interrogate him. Theron had witnessed many such interrogations. The young vampire would very likely never leave the Halls of the Bachiyr. An older, more experienced vampire would have simply fought Theron then and there, preferring to die outright than suffer through Algor’s manipulations. Theron had done him no favors by sparing his life.
He smiled as he left Athens and began walking through the lush, moonlit countryside, wondering how long it would take Ramah to find him.
However long it took, he meant to make the bastard work for it.
THE END
61 A.D.
By David McAfee
© 2013 David McAfee
Cover design by David McAfee
Cover Image provided by iStockPhoto
This is a work of fiction. The events depicted in this story, though based on real events, are entirely products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner and should not be construed as fact.
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Visit David McAfee on the web at mcafeeland.wordpress.com
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---For Cole, the part of me I never knew was missing.---
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Prologue
She enjoyed this part the most. The part where they started to scream. It didn’t matter how old or how strong they were, when she started to work her particular brand of magic, they all screamed. Even the tough ones; the ones who thought they could hold out and be strong. The ones who thought they were stronger than she was. Those types usually screamed loudest of all. Of course, that could be because she was harder on them than the ones who cooperated, but it didn’t matter.
In the end, she thought, all Bachiyr are cowards. They all had their breaking point.
This particular Bachiyr hadn’t lasted long at all. His screams sounded long and loud, echoing off the walls of the keep and traveling the length of the hallways and through the chambers beyond. She couldn’t hide her smile as she realized that the humans in the valley below probably heard them, too. Good. It would give them yet another reason to stay away from her home, as if they needed further warning.
She watched her prisoner squirm, enjoying the burnt smell of his flesh while her fire scorched his toes. She controlled the flames with a simple psalm, but she had to constantly monitor it to make sure it maintained just the right temperature. If she allowed it to get too hot the fire burned away the nerves and the prisoner would feel nothing. If she allowed the fire to get too cool it lost its effectiveness. After several millennia of practice she had mastered the ability, much to her prisoner’s dismay.
He’d tried to resist her, even going so far as to tell her to go to the Abyss and calling her all manner of filthy names. He even spat at her, but he missed. She had seen it all before. In four thousand years she’d seen just about everything there was to see. Not much surprised her these nights.
After two minutes she cooled the flames—not out of any sense of mercy, but because she needed information. A prisoner who is screaming can’t speak.
The Bachiyr’s feet were little more than charred stumps. Even if she let him go—which she had no intention of doing—he would never walk a
gain. But at times like these few prisoners ever seemed to think that far ahead. Mostly they just wanted the pain to stop. It made getting information much easier.
“There, Agnor,” she said when he stopped screaming, “is that better?”
Agnor whimpered something in reply, but she couldn’t make it out.
“You’d better speak more clearly, Agnor.” She reached over and touched his cheek, running her nails along his jawline with enough force to break the skin. Blood dripped from a thin red wound, and he shivered in his bonds. It reminded her that she had not yet fed this evening. She would have to remedy that soon. “You don’t want to displease me. Your feet were just the beginning.”
“It is better,” he said, his teeth clenched against the pain.
“Good. I am glad you can talk. We have much to discuss, you and I.”
“I already told you, I don’t know where he is.” His voice had taken on a whiny tone. Not good. He already knew he would never leave her keep alive. Damn. It made it harder to get what she wanted, but the difficulty often made the getting more entertaining.
“Agnor,” she cooed, “You are a clerk to the Halls of the Bachiyr. No, no. Don’t try to deny it, I know it’s true. You have access to information that few others can get. If anyone outside the Council of Thirteen would know of his location, it would be you.”
“I don’t—”
“Spare me,” she said. “You are a terrible liar.”
“And you are going to kill me no matter what I tell you,” Agnor said.
“True enough,” she admitted. “You’ve seen my face. I can’t very well let you leave. But whether your death takes ten seconds or ten days is up to you. Tell me where he is and you will die like this.” She snapped her fingers. “Or keep stalling. You are only dragging the pain along further.”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned the flames on again. This time she started at his fingertips, charring away the skin and flesh as slow as she could, marveling at how his skin crackled and curled upward as it turned black. The acrid odor reached her nostrils and she covered her nose with a damp cloth. Despite her pleasure at the smell’s source, she could only stand it for so long. Agnor screamed again, shaking his head violently back and forth. Amidst the screams were words which she barely understood. Another denial. He was really playing out the lie. Excellent.
When his hands were gone, she cooled the flames again. This time she had to wait several minutes for Agnor’s screams to subside. When at last he quieted, he lay on the stone altar whimpering. Several small red trails leaked from the corners of his eyes. Blood. The coppery smell mixed with the scents of moss, stone, and burned flesh. She sighed, pleased with herself. She had another card to play.
“Do you think they will save you?” she asked. “They don’t even know you are here. When you failed to report to the Council this evening, how much time do you think they wasted looking for you? None, I’ll wager. You are nothing to them, Agnor. Nothing. They will replace you without a moment’s thought on where you might be. That bastard Herris has probably already seen to it. You owe him nothing, and The Father even less. Why suffer longer than you must? Tell me what I need to know. Where is Ramah? Where did they send him last?”
Agnor quieted and turned to look at her. His eyes hardened, and the set of his jaw firmed. She didn’t like the expression on his face at all, and she already knew what his response would be. Damn it.
“It’s Headcouncil Herris,” he said.
She nodded. She’d expected as much. “Very well, Agnor, clerk of Herris. Have it your way. I will enjoy making you talk.”
Agnor closed his eyes. She was just trying to decide where next to burn him—perhaps his manhood—when her thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock on the wooden door. Only one person would disturb her at a time like this.
“Come in, Feyo,” she called.
The door opened and her pet human entered the room. Feyo was large by human standards, and muscular, which is why she kept him around. She had taken him from the lands just south of the sea as a child and raised him at her keep, biting him every month or so to keep him healthy and stronger than normal. He bore the black hair, dark skin, and deep brown eyes of his people. He kept his tight curly hair cut short so that it resembled a small black rug on his head. Today he wore little more than a loincloth, leaving his lean chest and abdomen bare and shiny with sweat.
Had she any such desires she might have mated with him. But fond as she was of her servant, he was still human. She might as well mate with the dogs or horses.
“Mistress Baella,” Feyo said. “I have good news.”
“Speak it.”
“Your runners have found one of the renegades from Jerusalem.”
Baella turned to face him. That was good news. “Where?”
“Londinium.”
“Britannia? Why would Theron go there?”
“Not Theron, Mistress,” Feyo replied. “The other one. The tall one. The one who looks like a northerner but acts like a Roman.”
“Taras,” she said, not even trying to hide her disappointment.
On the table, Agnor snorted. He knew which one she wanted, too. Smarmy bastard. She turned to him and set his crotch on fire. His screams made her feel a little better, but not much.
“The Roman is of no use to me,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above Agnor’s screams.
“Ramah will not come looking for him?” Feyo asked.
“Ramah cares nothing for him. Neither does the Council.”
“But he has eluded them for decades. Surely they—”
“They will send lesser Enforcers to hunt him down,” she interrupted. “Herris and Ramah will not trouble themselves for one of such thin blood, Feyo. You know this already. Leave now. If you find Theron or Ramah, let me know.”
“But Mistress,” Feyo persisted, “Theron cares a great deal about the Roman even if the Council doesn’t, does he not?”
“Of course he does,” she snapped, losing her temper and her focus at the same time. The flames on Agnor’s crotch died instantly, but his screams went on. She turned to regard her servant, concerned about his line of questioning. Did he think she was a fool? “Theron hates Taras with a passion. He’ll never rest until…until…”
Until Taras is dead, she realized.
That’s what Feyo was trying to say. Of course. Bait for bigger bait. Ramah might not come looking for Taras, but he would come for Theron. And Theron, she thought, will come for Taras. No matter where he is.
“Brilliant,” she said. “Well done, Feyo.”
Feyo’s face cracked in a wide smile. “What are your orders, Mistress?”
“Send twenty men out. Give them each twenty gold and tell them to spread word of a tall, blonde man in Londinium with sharp teeth in every tavern and brothel they come to. When the men run out of gold, they are to return here and report. Theron likes to hunt in those places, he’ll hear about it eventually.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Feyo bowed and left the room.
Once word spread that Taras was hiding in Londinium, Theron would make all haste to get there. She would have to plant a message in the Council, as well, to make sure Herris found out. He would send Ramah, and she would be waiting.
Finally, after four thousand years, the Blood Letter would be hers.
Agnor whimpered, drawing her attention back to the table.
“You heard that, I suppose,” she said.
Agnor nodded. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“So it seems,” she replied.
His look of relief brought a smile to her lips, and she couldn’t stifle a short, derisive laugh. “You think that entitles you to a quick death?”
“But…you don’t need me,” he repeated. “You have what you want.”
“Yes, but not from you,” she replied. “Rest assured, when the time comes for me to kill Feyo he will die quick and painlessly. You, on the other hand, will be around for a very long time.”
Wh
en Baella brought the flames back, Agnor’s scream seemed even louder and sweeter than before.
I’m coming for you, Ramah.
1
A small tavern in Southern Spain,
61 A.D.
Gregor’s friends were laughing at him. “I’m telling you, I wasn’t drunk,” he said. “I saw him. He was seven feet tall if he was an inch.”
“You’re drunk now, Gregor,” Zebhoim said.
“So are you,” Gregor shot back. “Yet you see me just fine.”
“You’re a little blurry,” Zebhoim replied, winking.
“Maybe so, but I wasn’t drunk that night. He was seven feet tall and had long, shaggy blonde hair. Looked like one of those northerners, except for the teeth.”
“Yes, the teeth,” Boro said, laughing. “Tell us again how sharp they were.”
“They were like needles,” Gregor insisted. “And he came at me real fast, I almost didn’t see him. I barely escaped with my life.”
The serving girl brought the wine, and Gregor drank deeply of his cup before he continued. “The strangest part was when he spoke to me. A man like that, I expected to hear the language of the north, but he spoke in Roman.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to run,” Gregor said. “It was the strangest thing. I thought I was a dead man, but he stopped about five paces away and told me to run. Looked like he was in pain or something, and his chin had blood all over it.”
Zebhoim laughed again. “A tall northerner, speaking Roman, with sharp teeth and blood on his chin came up to you and told you to run?” At this, the rest of the table joined in the laughter.
“It’s true, I tell you,” Gregor said.
Zebhoim laughed harder. When he finally settled into a series of chuckles, he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “True or not,” he said, “it’s a story that deserves a drink.” He called to the serving girl and ordered another round, while several of the other men continued to laugh and poke fun at Gregor.
Gregor stewed in his chair until the serving girl arrived with the drinks, then he reached over and grabbed one. He might be angry that his friends refused to believe him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t drink their ale. He raised the mug to his mouth and downed it, much to the amusement of the other men at the table, who promptly ordered another round. Soon he forgot all about Zebhoim’s laughter.