Brightblade

by C. T. Phipps

  “I am glad we can be friends before your change,” Ashura said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, Arthur didn’t tell you?” Ashura asked. “He saw you truly becoming one of us in a vision.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Born to die and die again

  “What did you say?” I demanded, not sure I heard her correctly and angry once I was sure I had.

  “That you are destined to become a vampire on some happy night in the future,” Ashura said, clapping me on the shoulders. “You’ll make a fine vampire! Once you get rid of your pesky human concerns.”

  “Like not wanting to eat people?”

  “That’s one of the major ones, yes.”

  I wanted to punch her. If I thought it would do any good, I would have. But all the physical violence in the world wasn’t going to change a prophecy. “Arthur saw this? With his powers?”

  “Yes,” Ashura said. “He has an advantage over most undead as a seer. Like the crazy woman from the show about the blonde hate criminal.”

  “No Buffy jokes now, please,” I said, devastated.

  “Joke?”

  I wondered if there was any chance, she was lying just to screw with my head. I wouldn’t put it past Ashura. Somehow, though, I doubted it. My luck just didn’t run that way. Besides, I felt the truth of it. Like someone walking over my grave.

  Eternity stuck with a liquid protein diet. I hate warm drinks. “I’m staking the vampire who does it.”

  “Oh, probably, we all end up hating our sires eventually.”

  “That includes you and Arthur,” I said, dryly.

  “Yes,” Ashura said, sighing. “He may rejoice in the wealth, the blood, the power, and the freedom now but eventually there will be a time when he realizes just what he lost. In the meantime, I cherish every moment I have with him and shower him with gifts.”

  “Like Tracy?” I asked, sarcastic.

  “Not hating his sister and sparing his Judas creation,” Ashura said. “But Tracy too. In the end, I only hope that Arthur isn’t the one to turn you because you will hate him then.”

  “Why would I hate Arthur?” I asked, unwilling to believe it could happen even under those circumstances.

  “You already loathe the slightest hint of the undead about us both,”

  “I could never hate Arthur.” Ashura looked at me like she knew I was lying.

  I sighed. “I’m also getting better about my hemophobia.”

  No, you’re not, Zadkiel said.

  Shut up, I snapped. “We should find Ms. Mitra.”

  Ashura nodded. “I’ve already called you a LiftWay to her home address. You should go with Alex to visit Sam. Take Tracy or don’t. My presence or Arthur’s would only aggravate Samvrutha.”

  “She doesn’t like vampires?” I asked.

  “You should get along fabulously,” Ashura said. With that, she walked past me and headed back into the bar.

  Is this likely? I asked Zadkiel. Me becoming a full vampire, I mean.

  Yes, Zadkiel said.

  Wow, way to cushion the blow, I said.

  You are now fused with the blood of Lamia on a cellular level, Zadkiel said. Becoming a vampire may simply be a matter of dying.

  Well, I can avoid that, I said, not feeling it for a second.

  Perhaps, Zadkiel said. Or perhaps not.

  Is it…bad to be a vampire? Am I wrong for feeling this way?

  No, Zadkiel said.

  To which? I asked.

  Yes.

  Stop that, I muttered.

  No one determines the fate of your soul but you, Zadkiel said. Vampires have welded me and the worst of the world I have faced have been humans.

  That comforted me. I returned to the Black Spot and blinked as I saw there was no sign of the rest of my associates with one exception. Alex was standing there, his staff in hand, waiting for me. They’d removed Minji and there was only a little bloodstain where she’d had a piece of wood shoved through her chest. I was a little disappointed that Arthur had left without saying a word and Tracy had joined him.

  “Hey,” Alex said. “So, I heard pretty much everything.”

  “Is peeping Tom an undead ability I can look forward to mastering?”

  “No, now it’s Eavesdropping Eddie,” Alex said, amused. “Also, I’m still alive as far as I can tell. Being a vampire isn’t so bad, though. I mean, for some people.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I take it you want the next conversation. This almost seems like an intervention.”

  Alex shrugged. “Our LiftWay is waiting outside but the bill is on the former voivode. If you want to talk, I’m happy to do so. I still care for you, Ashley, and always will. I’m also somewhat experienced in matters of the supernatural, though fair warning that I am literally only good at investigating and killing things. Everything else in my life is give and take.”

  “That’s why we never worked. We both spent too much time focused on everyone else. Neither of us can slow down, just being us.”

  Alex looked at her. “Probably. On the other hand, John Lennon said that life is what happens when you’re making plans. Every little crazy thing that’s happened to us both and the leads we chase down are what our lives are made of. The trick is figuring out what we make of our lives while experiencing that crazy that’s at the heart of it.”

  “Are you talking to me or yourself?” I asked.

  “I said we, didn’t I?” Alex said, chuckling. “You know I finally tracked down my father and put him down this year.”

  Well, that was a new thing—casual admission of patricide.

  “How do you feel about that?” I asked.

  “That I should feel far worse,” Alex said, looking over his shoulder out the bar window. “I was raised to be part of the House, just like you. In the House, well before the Vampire Nation revealing everything destroyed it, you made positions above you open by force. It was pretty much Byzantium meets the Borgias meets House Slytherin. I thought I escaped that. I was still very young when the House fell after all. Except, now as I approach my thirties, I’ve spent my life hunting monsters and doing cover-ups. My last moment was killing my father for revenge and his last words being him praising me for exceeding him as a wizard.”

  “Well, he was always an asshole,” I said. “He was just trying to make you feel guilty, one last time.”

  “Maybe,” Alex said. “On the other hand, maybe he was right. I sometimes wonder if the House falling was a good thing. Has the world really improved because we know about the things that go bump in the night? Is New Detroit a good place? Sometimes it feels like opening tours to Dracula’s castle just meant more people got bitten.”

  “Way to reassure me,” I said, grimacing.

  “I don’t believe you’ll become a vampire,” Alex said. “The future is not written no matter what the diviners and Einstein’s theories of block time say. Even if you are, I believe you are who you choose to be. Not who you are made.”

  “So, it is an intervention,” I said, blinking.

  Alex snorted.

  “The House was a bad thing, even if they did good things sometimes. The revelation of the supernatural has bad consequences, but also good ones. Real life is full of shades of grey. Maybe it’s time someone did what the House did, the right way. If the government won’t step up and provide real justice to the victims of the supernatural, without being monsters to the innocent supernatural, maybe it’s time we did.”

  Alex nodded. “I agree. Let’s do that.”

  “Gonna bring your little doe-eyed girlfriend?” I asked.

  “Jane was snarky, cynical, and surprisingly dangerous despite her appearance. So, I guess I have a type. Ready to go meet Sam or should I leave you alone to meet with her?”

  “Why would I want to meet her alone.”

  “Err…” Alex paused. “We kind of know each other.”

  “Kind of know her, you dated once, kind of know her, you’re the father of her children, or kind of
know her, tried to murder her for the House? And are you suggesting that I don’t look dangerous?”

  “You look like the cover of an indie urban fantasy novel,” Alex said. “You know where the women look vaguely tough while simultaneously able to get modeling jobs.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or insult.”

  “You could do sports modelling or maybe MMA ring girl.”

  “I’m leaning toward both now. You also didn’t answer.”

  “We knew each in a professional capacity,” Alex said. “You do know a few of my other girlfriends but she’s not one of them.”

  “How many do I know?” I asked, wondering just who they were.

  “I dunno, three?”

  “Is this a startling coincidence or are you a magical horndog?”

  “Yes?” Alex suggested.

  “I suppose this is the part of the country where people with supernatural fetishes gravitate to.”

  Alex said, “Yes, I admit it. I grew up with a thing for the Charmed Ones. It dominates my every waking moment.”

  “But that show was so unrealistic! Magic doesn’t work that way! So, did it end badly? Is she going to throw rocks at us if you come along?”

  “No, but I haven’t seen her since she became nosferatu,” Alex said.

  “You’re the only person I know who can say that in a serious conversation,” I said. “Which is bothersome since vampires are real.”

  “Let’s just say that I don’t think she’s going to be happy to see me if I tell her we’re working with vampires to recover a wand that can cure vampirism, but they intend to destroy.”

  “Given she’s in a position where, as described, her children smell delicious and she’s one moment of lost control away from an inconceivable nightmare, if you let them destroy it before giving her a chance to use it, I wouldn’t blame her a bit.”

  “Let’s hope we have that option,” Alex said.

  “Why is everyone so obsessed with destroying it anyway?” I asked, confused. “I mean, it seems like it could be very useful. Not just in vampire curing. I mean, resurrection. Wait, is it resurrection-resurrection or Pet Semetary resurrection?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I do know my bosses want it more than anything and they’re the least qualified people in the world to have it.”

  There’s a certain clarity in being doomed. How much do you have to plan for your future when your future has been planned for you? I hated prophecies. The fact that they existed and worked frustrated me. I wanted to believe in free will, but it always seemed that we were just molecules in boxes, bouncing around according to the laws of physics.

  Back at Solomon Academy, we’d had a lot of arguments about this, but the fact that oracles existed and could predict the future was as undeniable as the fact that I could smack you in the head from twenty feet away. It didn’t matter a whit whether you liked the implications of that fact, denying it was just irrational. It was one of the psychic talents that my family had absolutely no propensity for, but that didn’t save us from it. So, I was going to be undead.

  I was going to have to deal with that. I probably didn’t need to keep contributing to my retirement account. Of course, I still had to survive the next few hours. Look on the bright side, I might die first!

  Alex and I headed down the alleyway until we arrived at a black Cadillac with the red LiftWay logo on the side of the doors. LiftWay was the first and only AI-operated taxi cab service currently in America. Vampires weren’t the kind of people you would think to be early adopters of new technology but they were always at the heart of new tech companies and their ideas. Here, with LiftWay, these haunted carriages (Dracula reference!) could carry you around the city without anyone keeping track of your movements.

  I mean, the vampire government knew where everyone was going and what bodies the riders were potentially dropping off for disposal but that wasn’t “anyone.” Or maybe I was just being paranoid as the two of us entered the backseat. The doorway automatically shut, and the vehicle started moving with no one behind it. I could feel a presence there but didn’t see anyone but unless the LifeWay system was literally haunted, it was just a trick of my imagination.

  We remained silent until we arrived at our destination.

  Chapter Twenty

  Off to see the Wonderful Wizardess

  The LiftWay drove through Old Detroit and through the heart of New Detroit, passing by the rich restaurants and nightclubs that catered to the tourists. I saw the magnificent casinos, amusement parks, and shopping malls designed to drain every little bit of cash from visitors. If ever there was an appropriate metaphor for vampirism, it was New Detroit. People who entered dropped a house payment, a few liters, and probably most of their trip’s memories by the end of it.

  The thing was, it was probably better than the alternative. Vampires were dead parasites, but they didn’t have to kill if they had alternatives. New Detroit was the alternative, an enormous herd of gazelle that gave up the occasional leg, so they didn’t have to lose actual members of their ranks. The lions were still getting the better part of the deal, but the alternative was war between humans and the undead.

  A war I wasn’t sure humanity would win. Yeah, vampires couldn’t live without humans, but the simple fact was most people envied the supernatural. They were motivated by jealousy as much as fear. Plenty were angry at the Vampire Nation because they weren’t undead themselves. It was nicknamed “Dursley’s Syndrome” (yes, after Harry Potter) by pop psychologists.

  It was disturbing to think I would soon be feeling that kind of envy for something I didn’t want. I was so focused on those emotions, I barely noticed when we arrived in the affluent Bloodfield Hills. It was called Bloomfield Hills but, you know, vampires.

  The formerly richest part of Detroit hadn’t changed, much. The mansions had been changed with the windows covered over with heavy shutters, stone fences added to those estates that didn’t already have them, and a lot of private security troopers carrying around ARs. The richest of the city had either been changed or sold out to the undead. Samvrutha’s address was one of the smaller mansions but it was still a beautiful three-story location with a fountain in the front, pool in the back, and a statue of a winged knight with its sword drawn on top of the roof. I could tell there an aura of magic around the place.

  “Peter and Arthur aren’t among the richest of vampires,” Alex said, looking out the side. “Like regular humans, only one out of one hundred vampires have true wealth. I understand this mansion was a gift from Thoth to make up for turning her into one of the undead. She’s turned it into a repository for magical books and a school for magical students. I understand she can animate the statue whenever unwelcome visitors come.”

  The LiftWay came to a stop and the door opened to the cool night air.

  “Would that include random people who have decided to show up to interrogate her without warning? I’m just asking out of curiosity. No reason.”

  Alex stepped out and I followed. “I know this is going to sound like a crazy idea,” Alex said. “But I figured we’d use the intercom first.”

  “Oh, is that how it works?” I asked. “I figured we’d break in and make a dramatic entrance like in TV.”

  “Yes, we should probably not do that,” Alex said. “She could call the cops.”

  “Not curse us to oblivion?” I asked.

  “Oh, she could do that too but more likely it would include restraining orders and lawsuits,” Alex said, faking a shudder. “Paperwork for years.”

  “Couldn’t she make my toes fall off or something instead? Anything but paperwork! Well, you dated her, so should you hit the button or me? Which is less likely to get us an exciting fight scene with a statue?”

  “Dated is a strong word. I also dated you,” Alex said. “How are we?”

  That was an interesting question.

  “Oh, right, sorry, we got back together last night, I’ve been meaning to tell you about it all da
y and it just kept slipping my mind with everything else happening.”

  “Ah,” Alex said. “How careless of me.”

  “Wait, are you asking me out?” I asked, blinking.

  “Would that be so bad?” Alex asked.

  “Am I interrupting anything?” A woman in a red cloak with a basket in hand asked behind them.

  I turned around and saw a fantastically beautiful Indian woman with light brown skin, beautiful black eyes, and long silky raven hair. She was dressed in a strangely antique attire that made me wonder if she was on the way to see grandmother before being attacked by the Big Bad Wolf.

  “Snow White?” I asked.

  “More like Fudge Brown,” Samvrutha said, for who could she be. “If you’re wondering about the costume, I just came back from a Halloween party.”

  “It’s July,” I said.

  “It’s New Detroit,” Sam replied. “The price of my continued existence in the city is that I must hobnob with the super-rich so they don’t think I’m snubbing them. Actively plotting against them would be more forgivable.”

  “We need to talk to you about a vampire wizard your mother knew,” I said. “Someone called the Nakoso.”

  Sam stared at them without blinking, her eyes taking on an iridescent glow.

  “Could you stop that?” I asked.

  “Stop what?” Sam asked.

  “The, uh, eye glowing thing?” I pointed to my own.

  “Oh, am I doing that?”

  “Come with me,” Sam said, gesturing to the iron gateway of her mansion that opened on command. It took a second for me to spot the remote control. “I’ll provide you the information you request. However, you must come alone Ashley Morgan.” There was the sound of thunder. Sam lifted a keyfob with a number of extra buttons. “Do you like it? I have like a whole bunch of ominous noises I can make with this thing.”

  “No,” Sam said.

  Alex looked down. “I’m still undecided.”

  “She goes in alone,” Sam said, blinking. “Unless you don’t trust me?”

  “With my life,” Alex said.