11
Early that evening, I set out for my meeting with the vampires. It took me an hour of dithering to pick an outfit, but in the end, I opted for my usual Parallel gear: durable coat, trousers and boots, plus my pouch of cantrips and my lucky dice. Just in case. I paced in circles around the living room until I couldn’t delay any longer. Drawing in a breath, I stepped into the node’s path.
As I passed through the current of energy, a sharp pain pierced my neck. A clawed creature appeared from nowhere and clung to my side, biting and tearing. The foul stench of the dead filled my nostrils. Coughing and gagging, I hit out, dislodging my attacker as we landed in the swampland on the other side.
Cold swamp water splashed my boots, and the clawed beast crumpled into a decaying heap. I caught the coin before it hit the ground, but it was already blank on both sides.
Not again.
“Ow.” I gingerly touched my neck, and my fingers came away damp with blood. I needed to fix the damage before I went to see the vampire lord. They might wear a civilised veneer, but I’d bet a bleeding human wandering into their midst would be too much to resist.
The swampland was dark, the castle cast in even more shadow than usual. I trod through the marshy earth, glad I’d worn my boots, my neck throbbing with each step. Maybe Brant was right—this is a seriously bad idea.
The Death King stood waiting for me outside the castle, a darker shadow etched against the blackness. “There you are.”
“I got attacked by another phantom on the way.” I showed him my bleeding neck. “Got anywhere I can clean up? I don’t want to leave a trail of blood on the vampires’ floor.”
“Ryan will take you inside.”
The Air Element appeared from the darkness, so sudden they startled me. Even more so when a skeletal horse appeared behind them like a demonic hellhound. I pressed a hand to my thumping heart. “At this rate I’m gonna drop dead of fright before I set foot in the vampires’ place.’
The horse cantered forward and nudged my hand with its bone-white head. I recognised it as Neddie, the same horse I’d ridden before… and who’d kicked Brant headfirst into the mud.
“He likes you,” Ryan observed. “C’mon, this way. The horses get weird around blood.”
“So do the vampires.” I pulled back my collar from my neck, hoping I hadn’t already got blood on the dark fabric. “Do you have any healing cantrips, then?”
“Of course.” They led the way around the castle and through a side door. A corridor waited ahead, and I counted six wooden doors, three on each side. The Air Element unlocked one of them and led the way into a wide room.
I stared around in surprise. The room was the size of a large studio flat, with a modern kitchen at one end and a door leading into a bedroom at the other. The main living room contained a massive TV and gaming system in front of a large plush sofa.
“I see what you mean about the Death King letting you live in luxury.” I followed them through the darkened room, where they opened a cabinet in the kitchen and handed me a healing cantrip. “Thanks. Is it okay if I wash off the blood?”
“Go ahead.”
After using the healing cantrip, I ran the kitchen tap and dabbed at my neck with a damp cloth. “I didn’t know you Elements played video games in your spare time. Is there even electricity or internet here?”
“We can play offline,” they said. “The whole castle has its own electricity supply. Cal, the Earth Element’s doing—he’s a genius with electronics.”
“I can’t imagine the Death King has much use for it.” I found myself grinning at the mental image of His Deathliness with an Xbox controller in his hand.
“You’d be surprised,” they said. “Sometimes I go back into the other realm to play with my friends back there, but I dropped out of touch with a lot of them when I was hired as the Air Element.”
Because most people were too scared of the Death King. I didn’t blame them, but it was a shame Ryan was stuck with only three actual human people for company, one of whom was a complete arse. “That’s cool.”
A chill breeze swept through the room, and the Death King stepped straight through the door as though it wasn’t there. “I wouldn’t advise you to be late to meet with the vampires.”
I put the cloth down. “Does he do that all the time? Whatever happened to privacy?”
The Death King frowned. It was at that point that I noticed he wore his human guise. Why did he need to play human to meet with the vampires? They knew who he was. “If you’re done, we’ll leave now.”
“All right, keep your wig on.” I caught sight of Ryan wearing a scandalised expression and made a mental note to hold my tongue once we reached the vampire council. It’d been a long, hard day, and my nerves were high enough that for some reason, the Death King no longer registered as a threat. Calm it, Liv.
The Death King didn’t speak a word as he led the way out of the castle and into the murky grounds.
“I didn’t have to dress up, did I?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Given your propensity to attract danger, it wouldn’t have been worth the effort. What did you do to draw your attacker’s attention?”
“Nothing whatsoever.” I buried my hands in my pockets, doubly cold with the damp water on my neck. “It jumped me when I came through the node.”
I hoped I hadn’t accidentally let anything into the house. Devon wouldn’t be amused if I’d sent another zombie phantom in her direction.
“And have you found anything new?” he asked.
“Another one of these.” I showed him the coin. “Same spell as before, I’ll bet, but it didn’t leave any traces behind. The Order doesn’t seem to give a shit, so the vampires better have something good to say.”
There was a long pause. “What did you tell the Order?”
Ah. I’d accidentally let slip that his fellow liches were being killed. “I showed them the coin, but they refused to see a link with the COS’s suppliers.”
“You showed them the coin?” He turned to me, his human face shadowed so it looked as scary as his masked one. “If I wanted to hire someone from the Order, I’d have gone to them, not you.”
“The Order dragged me in,” I said ineffectually. “I had to give them a reason for all my trips into the Parallel. They’re using the COS’s cantrips themselves, you know, and I thought if I prompted them to look into it, they might take me seriously.”
“And did they?”
My shoulders slumped. “No, but they can’t say I didn’t try to warn them. Also, they want me to stop working with you.”
“Yet you still came here.”
“I did,” I said. “This isn’t work. We’re meeting the vampires at their own request.”
Instead of replying, he glided across the swampland, forcing me to run to keep up with him. I’d have preferred to ride a horse, but I didn’t much fancy arguing with him in such a tetchy mood. So much for being a united front against the vampires.
The same icy silence pursued us as we crossed the swampland, and if he could hear my chattering teeth, he didn’t comment. I’d usually been careful about keeping secrets, but the fact that everyone at the Order seemed to be ignoring the potential issues with the COS and their operation rubbed me up the wrong way. The Order was usually the first to throw the book at people, after all.
My shoulders tensed as the warehouses came into view. I’d wondered if anyone would recognise the Death King in his human form, but not many people were out on the streets at this time. Most had the sense not to stay out after dark, with vampires and other creatures of the night on the prowl. Curtains were drawn in the windows, doors were barred, and the more affluent had used magical means to seal their houses closed against potential threats.
The Death King’s silent glide continued until we’d left the warehouses behind and entered the main road leading into the city’s heart. Despite the scarred streets and collapsed buildings remaining from the war, the vampires had kept their meeting p
oint close to the Citadel of the Elements, formerly home to the council which had ruled the city of Arcadia before the war.
On the far side of the main square, an empty black tower stood etched against the night sky. The magic that had once sustained the citadel was long gone, but somehow it remained standing. Not that anyone went inside if they had any sense. Like the other places the Elements had vacated, they said so many phantoms haunted the tower that none dared to enter for fear of succumbing to madness. Shivers danced down my spine at the sight of its gleaming walls, engraved with the symbol of the Elements—five circles surrounding a sixth combining all five. I wondered if the Death King had borrowed his own design from theirs, replacing the central symbol with a skull.
The Death King veered sideways towards a squat building on our left with narrow windows curtained in black. The vampires didn’t actually live there most of the time, but their council met at night, and despite the darkness, movement stirred behind the velvet curtains.
Doubts entered my mind, spurred by the haunting shape of the abandoned citadel. What if the vampires did know I was a spirit mage? Was I endangering everyone I knew by coming here to meet with them? It was too late to turn back now, so I held my head high as the Death King greeted the pale young man standing at the door. He was unmistakeably human, his throat peppered with needle-sharp bites.
Bracing myself, I walked after the Death King through the polished oak doors. The red-carpeted hallway was lit by old-fashioned lanterns, igniting the path through a door on our right.
We entered a wood-panelled room containing a long table lined with chairs of dark wood and plush red upholstery. A smartly dressed vampire sat at the head of the table, gesturing to us to sit near him. Pale as milk, he had features that indicated Asian heritage, slick black hair, and a complexion that made him appear several centuries younger than his likely actual age.
“Grey,” said the vampire, with the hints of an accent. “It’s an honour to meet with you.”
Grey? Was that the Death King’s real name?
“Lord Blackbourne,” he said. “The honour is mine, I’m sure. This is Olivia Cartwright.”
The vampire lord’s pale eyes flickered over me. “So this is she.”
Okay… “Hello, Lord Blackbourne,” I said carefully. “I’m Olivia. The Death King and I are temporarily working together.”
“Why, pray tell, did you ask for an audience with me?”
“We—” I cleared my throat, my heart hammering against my ribcage. “We wanted to speak to you about some recent unusual deaths here in the city. The revenants are being driven out of the tunnels, hunted by something that’s killing them in a brutal fashion. Something dead.”
The vampire lord drummed his elegant fingers on the table. “And why is this supposed to be of concern to me?”
“It’s not just the revenants it’s affecting,” I went on, when the Death King didn’t deign to speak up and confirm my story. “Phantoms have been attacking anyone who goes near the nodes, including the revenants. They’re afflicted by some kind of spell which turns them into clawed monsters—living monsters. You must have seen the bodies. They’re decaying, as though they came back to life only to be killed again.”
“Is that so?” He gave the Death King a glance. “Is there any particular reason you picked this human to help you in this case? You must know she’s in a precarious position, being a spirit mage.”
Shock punched the air from my lungs. “Excuse me? I’m not—”
“Please spare me the lies.” The vampire rubbed his temples with his long fingers. “They give me a headache. I knew you for a spirit mage the instant you stepped into this room.”
Shit. This isn’t good. It’s not good at all. If he told the Order, I was dead.
“Are you reading my mind?” Even the vampires weren’t capable of such a feat, but there were rumours of their perceptive nature. I should never have come here to speak to one of their lords.
“No, but it’s harder for your kind to hide what you are than you might think.” He smiled, revealing pointed fangs. “Your very nature is altered by the magic you wield. The more you use it, the more it shows, to those of us who know what to look for.”
I gave the Death King an alarmed look, but his expression was impassive. “Do all vampires know? I mean, can they all tell in the same way?”
“Not all,” said Lord Blackbourne. “It depends on how observant they are.”
“Are you—?” I swallowed against my dry throat. “Are you going to tell anyone else?”
“Only if I have reason to.”
Translation: only if I pissed him off. Good to know.
The Death King stepped in. “We would like to know if you have observed the effects of this phenomenon affecting the undead beings in the city. We believe it is being caused by an illegal usage of magic.”
I reached into my pocket and held up the coin from earlier. “I’ve found a blank cantrip like this one at the site of each attack. It’s one of those new cantrips from the market which turns blank after being used.”
“Interesting.” He didn’t take the coin from me. “Unless you can give me a cantrip which is intact and in full working order, I will not be able to divine its nature, much less who is responsible for creating it.”
Dammit. I should have known. “Aren’t you worried someone is stealing supplies from the COS at the market to turn into illegal cantrips? I take it you approved their new operation?”
“Of course I did,” he said. “The COS has been in the works for a long time. It’s going to save a lot of money and hassle for the practitioners of the city.”
“Not just the legal practitioners, though,” I said. “If anyone can now create an infinite number of illegal spells, they can make some real problems for everyone else here, including the vampires.”
“Infinite?” he echoed. “I doubt that will be the case. If this individual is acting alone, they would only be able to act as fast as their skills allow. For a complex spell, a considerable time investment would need to be made.”
“It can’t only be one person.” But who would know how to create an illegal spell like that? “Besides, it’s targeting the dead specifically. Aren’t you concerned for your fellow vampires?”
I felt the Death King’s disapproving stare on me, but I didn’t acknowledge him. I wanted to hear it from the vampire himself.
The vampire lord gave a thin-lipped smile. “If a spell exists which we cannot outrun, then perhaps we deserve what we get.”
My hands clenched. “The person doing this is using the nodes in some way, too. All the bodies have been found on top of the nodes. I guess it’s because the spell requires a surge of energy…”
“So do most of the commonly used cantrips out there,” he said. “What did you hope to gain from speaking to me? Unless I used the Order’s method of banning everything that disagrees with them, there’s nothing I can do to control what others do with their magic.”
“Do you have any ideas as to who might be responsible, then?” I asked.
The vampire looked directly at the Death King. “Look at your own first, I would advise.”
“What does that mean?” I stole a glance at my companion, but his expression was impassive. Bloody secretive immortals.
“I will take that under advisement,” he said. “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”
“I thought this might be of interest,” said the vampire, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out an object and slid it across the table. A round medallion with a skull engraved on the surface.
A soul amulet.
The Death King stilled beside me. “Where did you find this?”
“One of my people found it in the tunnels underneath the city,” he said.
“I see.” The Death King’s icy tone sent shivers through my entire body. “And its owner?”
“I assume you already found them.” The vampire rose to his feet with an elegant bow. “I think that’s all for now.�
�
A clear dismissal, clear enough to prove the vampire had known there had been lich victims without either of us mentioning the killings. Because the killer had left the soul amulet lying here in the city, miles from the scene of the lich’s death.
A frosty silence hung around the Death King as he walked out of the vampires’ house, making my nerves jangle. Finally, I gave up on my attempts to suppress my curiosity.
“Grey?” I said. “Is that your name? Or should that be was?” It made sense that he’d have been called something different back when he’d been human, but I’d had little cause to think on the matter. Aside from the heart-stopping instant when he’d been on the brink of death after losing his soul amulet, he seemed endless, as though he’d never been anything other than the King of the Dead.
He didn’t look back at me when he answered. “A nickname. Lord Blackbourne finds it amusing. He and I have known one another since before I was King.”
The thought disarmed me. A world without the Death King in it—or without this particular Death King on the throne—seemed as alien as the idea of the spirit mages walking among us.
As though sensing I wasn’t out of questions, he quickened his pace, his feet hardly seeming to touch the ground.
“What did he mean?” I hurried to keep up with him. “When he said look to your own, he meant one of your liches stole the amulets before killing your people, right?”
He didn’t answer, continuing to silently advance through the dark streets. While I normally had a healthy wariness of what might be lurking in the shadows of the city at night, I feared the man in front of me more. Yet not enough to run away, not even when we entered the swampland, nor when we crossed its shadowy paths towards the castle.
“Aren’t you leaving?” He glanced sideways at me as we finally reached the gate. “You should go home.”
Touch of Death (Order of the Elements Book 2) Page 11