Brightblade

by C. T. Phipps

  “No. Minji came to us dying of cancer about a year ago. Her family couldn’t afford the medical treatments, so vampirism seemed an easy solution,” Arthur said. “We knew each other from my band groupie days and I made her, much to Tracy’s annoyance and relief.”

  “Trouble in paradise?” I asked.

  “I love two women. One because she makes me feel human and the other because she makes me feel better than one.” Arthur didn’t blink. “I was never interested in Minji that way, though I let her think her clumsy attempts to seduce us all worked.”

  “Yes, because she’s so horrible to look upon.”

  Arthur rolled his eyes. “I’m not so old that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to have an emotional connection. I like my partners to be happy and she wasn’t—at first because of being forced into spying on me and later because she liked us.”

  “What does Sophia have on her?” I asked.

  “I dunno. I can feel her terror as her creator. It’s not for herself, though. I thought I could help her, maybe get her out from whatever Sophia had on her. Time has run out, though. Ashura is ready to kill her.”

  “Why? What changed?”

  “She tried to stake Ashura while Sophia was fleeing,” Arthur said. “It was enough of a distraction that she got away. Suddenly, her status as the devil we knew seems a lot less justifiable. Ashura wants to cut her head off. She really loved that blouse. Tracy wants her to live no matter what.”

  “Ashura didn’t know she was a spy,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Ashura has been betrayed enough times to never tolerate it again,” Arthur replied. “I’m not sure how she’s going to react to the fact I was hiding her true loyalties.”

  “You know I’m not going to agree with killing her,” I said. “I suppose that’s why you want me there.”

  Arthur shook his head. “Not quite. I need you to convince everyone else not to. Alex is with Ashura on destroying her. He’s powerful enough to destroy us all and righteous enough to not feel any guilt doing it. Except for my saying you should be allowed to weigh in, Minji would already be dead.”

  “Crap.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Judge Not, Lest Ye Something-Something

  I walked out of the Black Spot’s basement and tried to put together my thoughts on recent events. I was slowly adjusting to my new status and it wasn’t so bad anymore, even if I’d probably never get used to the taste of blood. Jack’s reaction to my condition offended me, even if I understood how he felt. I, too, didn’t want to be around a—

  “Monster?” Arthur asked as we entered the bar side-by-side.

  “You’re weirding me out with the fact you can read my mind,” I said, simply.

  “Now you know how it felt to be the only Morgan sibling who didn’t know what everyone else was thinking,” Arthur replied.

  “You were a teenage boy for a lot of that,” I replied. “Believe me, it was no picnic for me either.”

  The ghoul corpses on the ground had been cleaned up and disposed of, blackish ichor stains still spread around the place. I tied to ignore the smell of the overturned bottle of dhampyr blood but it had splashed over the counter. Ashura was holding the half-empty bottle and sipping it like a lush.

  Alex stood next to her and Tracy was on the other side of him. The six-foot-seven form of Ashura’s chauffer, who I didn’t know the name of, loomed over all of them, blocking the exit. Kneeling on the ground was Minji. I was about to tell her to get up when I sensed the room (and that was more literal in my case than usual). Except for Arthur and Tracy, everyone here was fully expecting Minji to die.

  Minji included.

  Minji’s fear was palpable to me, like a thick blanket of horror and guilt. It tasted like oil on my tongue. In this city, vampires were a law unto themselves. The government barely even pretended they controlled the place. There would be no retribution for anything they did here. That didn’t mean it sat right with me.

  “You’re seriously going to kill her for this?” I asked. “This isn’t right.”

  Ashura stared at her. “Says the woman who just cut through a dozen ghouls.”

  “That was different,” I said.

  “Yes, they’re ugly,” Ashura replied. “We can put a bag over her head before we decapitate her if you want.”

  “She didn’t have a choice,” Tracy replied. “Besides, we knew she was spying on us.”

  “Wait, you did?” Minji asked, crying bloody tears.

  “Arthur?” Ashura asked, her eyes predatory and soulless.

  “I was playing the game,” Arthur defended himself. “Trying to stay ahead of Sophia.”

  “Good,” Ashura said. “That still doesn’t protect your creation from the consequences of her actions. She betrayed her lineage.”

  “Alex, are you really into this?” I asked, appalled. “She’s an innocent.”

  Minji snorted.

  “You’re not helping!” I snapped, looking down at her.

  “I was very close to destroying Sophia Baron when she distracted me,” Alex replied. “My fireball missed incinerating Sophia and she got away.”

  Alex threw fireballs now? That was new. “That’s no excuse.”

  “I managed to tag her with a blood tracker,” Alex replied. “She’s killed two people since escaping. Probably to heal the damage that she’s endured.”

  “I…see.” I suddenly felt a lot less triumphant about knocking one of them out.

  It was an elderly couple called the Donovans, Zadkiel replied. After Sophia got in her sports car, she ran down the nearest mortals she found and fed on them. There were witnesses but they’ll be mesmerized by the vampires on the police.

  I could have gone my entire life without knowing that, I said.

  Why you had to know, Zadkiel said. Minji is not beyond redemption. You should protect her.

  I know, I said. I just don’t know how.

  “We’re at war, Ashley, and even the least vampire is a strong asset to the enemy. You made a mistake letting her keep her free will, Arthur.”

  Arthur didn’t respond.

  “It’s your defense, Minji,” I said. “You should say something.”

  Minji looked up and stared into her eyes. “You should probably kill me because I can’t say I won’t do it again.”

  This was not helping. “Why did you do this? Is she controlling your mind?”

  “I would know,” Arthur said. “But I did my best to help you, Mindy. You know that.”

  “You know I hate that name,” Minji said, frowning. “Anglo people convert names like Minji Pak to Mindy Park, then they cause my family to star in Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: Enterprise where they’re way cooler than me.”

  “In no universe do those shows make them cooler than you,” Ashura said, clearly not sharing Arthur’s (or Alex’s for that matter) taste in sci-fi. “You’re a vampire and they’re merely actors.”

  “Clearly you never saw Grace Park in Hawaii Five-O,” I said. “I also don’t believe you’re related.”

  “Because we’re not,” Minji said, sighing. “But I figured it was worth a shot to get the geeks in the audience to spare me.”

  “Why?” Arthur asked. “Please, just tell me. Sophia must know you’re burned. What do they have over you?”

  “A lot,” Minji said, looking down. “Things even more important than my life. Enough that Sophia was able to persuade me to go against friends. You and Tracy are my only friends, Arthur.”

  “I don’t blame you, Tracy,” Arthur said. “But I do want to know specifics.”

  “I do blame her,” Ashura interjected.

  Minji frowned. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I command it,” Arthur said, raising his voice. “Obey.”

  Minji’s eyes glazed over as she struggled against some sort of invisible barrier, probably Sophia’s own mental commands before slumping over. “My mom has cancer.”

  “Really? That old saw?” Ashura asked. “A sick relat
ive?”

  “Sophia gave her it,” Minji replied. “Me too.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “It’s one of her powers,” Minji replied. “She can corrode people from the inside and out in addition to controlling minds as well as being a real bitch. She’s not a wizard like her father but entropy is something she can control. My mother used to work for the Barons as a receptionist before Sophia noticed my brother Jae-jin had grown into someone good looking. She took him and gave him to her sister Andrea. My mother objected so Sophia rotted out her insides. I was coming back from college and begged for their lives.”

  “And you became a spy?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Minji said. “The cancer was meant as a means of control. Sophia would make it much worse if I didn’t obey her despite already having my mother and brother. I think she was surprised when Arthur turned me because she couldn’t imagine treating a servant like a person. Sophia changed my brother, took away his free will, and he attacked me with a tire iron. Just to show she could make him do whatever she wanted. My mother has become Sophia’s personal assistant. Sophia has smiles painted on her soul so that she can’t even conceive of betraying her. Tracy may be a Bloodsworn as well as a dhampyr, but my mother is a Blood Slave.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  An appropriate god to invoke, Zadkiel said. What Sophia Baron has done is unholy.

  Can we help them? I asked.

  Yes, said Zadkiel. By killing Sophia.

  I’m entirely okay with that.

  Good, Zadkiel replied.

  “You could have told us,” Arthur said. “Anyone here could have kept your mother alive. We would have gone to bat for your brother too.”

  Minji shook her head. “Would you take that risk with someone you love? Even if I could help my mom, Sophia always leaves my brother at her mansion. He’s furniture there. I’m far from the only person she’s got under her control like that.”

  “Yes,” Ashura said, unsympathetically. “Threatening one’s families and loved ones is one of the basic methods of control—which is why you need to kill such threats rather than let them grow.”

  I looked at Alex. “You know she’s acting under duress. Surely you understand she’s a victim, here.”

  “The issue here is more than consent,” Alex said, not meeting my gaze. “More than the couple will have died soon.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Alex looked at her. “Bryce is out front. I’ve been helping him but—”

  I bolted out the front door and saw Bryce lying up against the side of the Black Spot’s wall. He was clutching his stomach and looked sick, his face turned to the right side. “Hey, boss, did someone get the number of that Dalek?”

  “Bryce, are you okay?” I asked, kneeling beside him. I could smell his blood and it didn’t smell…right.

  “You see it’s funny because Daleks are from Doctor Who,” Bryce said. “They’re evil cyborg aliens who want to kill everything. Ow.”

  He is very gravely injured, Zadkiel said. Sophia Baron has rotted his insides with her Devil’s touch. The wizard’s magic is all that’s keeping him alive.

  You can save him, I insisted. Heal him with holy light or something. It’s what angels are supposed to be good at!

  I am only a channel, Zadkiel said. The level of power I can exert on this world is limited by divine command or my wielder.

  What the hell does that mean? I asked.

  Zadkiel remained infuriatingly calm and collected. It means we can try to heal him together, but it will require us to be in perfect harmony. The amount of damage done and your status as a hedge mage—

  I am not a hedge mage, I interrupted.

  Terminology doesn’t matter. Your weak powers mean it could kill us both, or at least banish me from this world and kill you, Zadkiel said. I am willing to try, though.

  “You should just let me or Arthur change him,” Ashura said, standing behind me. I almost jumped as she’d done so completely silently. “Maybe make Minji take him as a Blood Servant. Force her to care for him as a pet until she’s repaid her debt to us.”

  “I don’t want to be a vampire,” Bryce said, softly. “Ashley, I need to tell you something about me—”

  “Don’t talk,” I said, shutting him up. “Just stay calm.”

  “I’ve turned his pain into pleasure,” Alex said.

  I blinked. “You can do that?”

  “Yes,” Alex said.

  “Huh.”

  I do not believe your friend Bryce would do well as a vampire, Zadkiel replied. But you must have faith in yourself for the healing to succeed.

  Not God? I asked. Because we’re screwed if that’s the case.

  He who does a righteous thing always does so in the name of my master, Zadkiel said. You may not believe it but that is more important—at least as I believe.

  It was never a good sign when the angels talked about belief over knowing. You’d think of all people they wouldn’t need faith. Just tell me what I must do.

  Believe in yourself, believe we can heal him, Zadkiel said.

  It was easy for him to say. Ever since the Raglady, ever since I’d killed another human being. Why would I believe in myself? Why would I have any faith in me, when I knew, knew, that I was the sort of person who could just discard my life’s values at a moment’s notice.

  This would not be an example of that, Zadkiel said.

  Gee, but it seems to be working so damned well, I said.

  I cannot provide any magic words that will heal your soul, Zadkiel said. I am the angel of forgiveness, though.

  You’re not the one who can forgive me, I said.

  No, but Mac would and has, Zadkiel said. Put aside your self-hatred and atone for but a moment. So that you do not have to carry another mortal’s burdens.

  I took a deep breath and looked back at Ashura, who had her arms crossed as if waiting for me to act. “And what happens afterward?”

  You go back to atonement. Redemption is never achieved but lived one night at a time, forever.

  I raised the sword. Maybe I didn’t trust myself. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t. But I believed in something. A core of what a person should be. Something that had survived in me all those years of training. I believed we should try to make the world better. I believed people should fight to do the right thing. “I will do this.”

  “Daisssssssyyyyy,” Bryce said, looking high as a kite. “Did you know magic makes you drunk? Is this drunk? I’ve never been drunk before.”

  “Death is too good for Sophia,” Ashura muttered, walking back inside. “My offer stands. Your servant is worthy of eternal life.”

  “He deserves to live, not unlive,” I said.

  “She can’t hear you now,” Alex said.

  “Slutty Zombie Mila Jovavich could hear me across town,” I muttered.

  “I am not a zombie!” Ashura shouted from the bar’s interior.

  Alex was keeping Bryce alive but it wouldn’t last more than a night. After all, Alex had to sleep sometime.

  I closed my eyes and believed. In who I could be. In good people, like Bryce, who deserved better than this. In people like Alex, who made mistakes, and just kept trying to get it right next time. Hell, maybe even a little in me.

  I felt a little surge of power as it burned me like fire running through me. The vampire blood was demonic blood and it was, for the first time, that I understood what that meant. The pain was agonizing but I was terrified about what that meant and almost stopped trying to heal him. Instead, I focused on the pain and absorbed it as the price for healing him. I didn’t know how long I managed to last before screaming and collapsing.

  Thirty-two seconds, Zadkiel said.

  So, most of a minute.

  In an extremely technical sense, Zadkiel said.

  I feel like hell, I muttered.

  No, you really don’t. You just feel exhausted. There’s a difference.

  I opened my eyes. Details, details.

&nbs
p; Bryce was leaning down to give me CPR. “Don’t worry, Ashley. I will save you as you saved me. Uh…where do I put my hands?”

  “Depends on if you are fond of keeping them,” I said. “But thanks for the thought.”

  Bryce bolted back. “You’re alive! Vampirism does grant great powers! Don’t drink my blood, or, if you do, don’t take it all. I’ve already given tonight! Which was kind of nice but maybe I need a cookie.”

  His blood smelled pure now.

  “I take it he’s feeling better,” I muttered. “How long was I out?”

  “About ten minutes,” Alex said.

  “And Bryce? Is he okay, Alex?”

  Bryce looked offended. “Uh, I’m right here.”

  “Mostly,” Alex said.

  “Mostly?” Bryce asked, looking unhappy. “Mostly I’m going to need a checkup in a month or mostly, you still have one kidney?”

  “The latter,” Arthur said. “Ashley has prevented you from dying but you have suffered damage to your internal organs that means you should probably lay off the cigarettes, alcohol, and red meat.”

  “But I need red meat if vampires are to feed off me!” Bryce said. “I’m on the paleo-diet or whatever else justifies eating steak every night!”

  I could tell he was joking. Worried but joking.

  He disguises his fear with humor, Zadkiel said.

  He must have a lot of fear, I thought back.

  And yet he is here, Zadkiel replied. Many supposedly great warriors would not have joined the fight, especially when surrounded by monsters. He is also lying to you.

  What? I asked.

  He is not a fool, Zadkiel said. He merely pretends to be.

  He does a great impression, I muttered.

  Yes, Zadkiel said. Why he is dangerous.

  “You accomplished a miracle here today, Ashley,” Alex said, offering his hand to help her up.

  I took it. “Maybe you should get a doctor’s advice instead of listening to…whatever we are.”

  Bryce shook his head. “Can’t afford it. It’s why I go to a witch instead of a doctor whenever I get sick.”

  I stared at him sideways.

  “What?” Bryce said. “It worked here!”