Published: June 3, 2020

18

GARRICK

The claws digging into him were sharp. The teeth were sharper. All hacking at his skin, sinking their poison into him while he was overrun by wolves.

Get up, his vampire growled. He needed to get to his feet to gain the upper hand, but he could not.

Until, he felt her come to him. Not her, although as her magic curled up his body, it felt like her soft caress, soothing him, even after it hardened like a shield. The wolves gnawed, but couldn’t gain traction.

The collective on top of him growled their frustrations. When another trail of Kayla’s magic found its way to him, his heart fell from his chest.

If her magic was on him, that meant…

His head popped up. Their eyes connected. She’d breeched the bunker protections.

It was a thought he and the pack leader came to simultaneously. The wolf’s head snapped up to the open bunker hole. Its head lowered as it growled viciously. Then the other wolves, followed him inside.

Sharp, shattered, and surprised screams erupted from the bunker. Not all who were inside could disappear and move locations like Kayla’s father or the mage Carissa. Some of them were trapped behind the wall of wolves howling inside. Magic flew as the mages fought to protect themselves.

He needed to get up; he focused himself on getting to Kayla, but she was quicker. Kayla’s lithe body flossed through the crowd of mages storming from the bunker to get away from the wolves.

In the chaos, she found him. Crouching down, her face filled with worry as she checked his wounds where her magic was the most concentrated. Her touch coupled with her magic soothed the poison and calmed his vampire enough to pick himself up, hanging on Kayla as he lifted from the floor. His body was wounded, badly, but his vampire pushed away the pain. He needed to get her to safety.

They fumbled while he found his footing and focused on the scent of clean air. He needed to get them outside.

“This way,” he moved through the cement catacombs. Kayla grabbed his hand tightly, causing her magic to pulse around him like it were trying to heal him, as they made it to the street.

Outside, chaos reigned.

Like inside of the bunker, the streets were in turmoil. Mages of all kinds poured out onto the sidewalks in confusion and in fear. In his many years, he had never seen terror like this.

Some were shouting, others crying, most rushing, racing to get away. Several men knocked into an elder woman. Her silver hair flew into the air and came down to her knees at his feet. He hoisted her up.

“Are you alright?” he asked, looking into her azure eyes.

She nodded and coughed, then wrenched herself away, pointing over his back.

The wolves were on the attack.

He gripped on to Kayla, flossing through the crowd, he and Kayla made their way as far away from the mage compound as possible. But the chaos followed them.

Another mage zoomed past them, some blipped as they scurried down the streets to get away from the safehouse.

“We have to move,” he pulled Kayla behind him. She was not as fast as him, but he could not carry her in this state.

He looked down the street, the city was teeming with life several blocks away. Supernaturals of this realm had a code to remain discrete about what they were. He wondered if the wolf would hunt him in a crowd of humans. He’d have to find out.

With Kayla’s delicate hand firmly in his, they raced toward the busy crossways and into the crowd of humans. He glanced back in the distance at the safehouse. The shifters slowly made their way toward them.

He pulled Kayla into the crowd, twisting and turning on their path until he no longer smelled the shifters behind him, but the scent of danger did not quell, only simmered.

If not for the pain of his wounds, he would have continued on. He took shelter in a nearby alley and bent over, clutching at a painful patch on his arm where a wolf took a chunk. His wounds were slower to heal than the last time.

“Are you okay? Do you need blood?” She was already rolling up her sleeve as she eyed him worriedly.

“No, I can sustain,” he said, pushing her arm away. He needed a lot of blood to fix this. Too much for her to provide. “My body only needs time to heal.”

She doubted his words, but nodded. Several mages blew past them on the run.

The screams in the distance grow stronger. It was only a matter of time before the humans noticed. Just under the current of the wind, he smelled a shifter nearby. The feeling danger curled up his neck.

“We need to find shelter to wait this out,” he said.

Kayla nodded and stepped forward, but he stepped in her way.

“Not you. I’ll go scout a place; you stay here.”

“What, why?” Kayla started to protest, but he pushed her further into the alley.

“The shifters are growing too close and have scented me and will be easily targeted. If the wolves find us on the road and I am unable to fend them off…” his words lost traction in his throat before he cleared his throat. “I can avoid capture if I go alone. I will find a clear path.”

He could see the worry intensify on her face.

“I have trained many years for this,” he assured her. When another wolf howled in the distance—one that she could hear—she nodded weakly, slid down the wall and tucked herself between two large garbage barrels.

Fear coated her scent, but she didn’t argue.

“I’ll be back before sunfall,” he said. “We should hide you in the garbage barrels until I return.”

She sputtered, looking at the large garbage barrel with disgust. “You want me to, to hide in the dumpster?”

Her green eyes darted to the rusted side of the large metal square. From the look on her face, it was the last thing she wanted to do. Not that he blamed her, even with the lid closed, it smelled sour, but it made for a perfect scent cover.

“It will mask your scent and be safer in there then open in the alley. No one will be able to find you.”

Her face contorted as she nodded begrudgingly, gagging as she stepped close enough to lift her inside.

“What if there’s rat in there?”

“There isn’t,” he assured.

“How do you know? Did you look?”

“I can smell their blood. There is nothing living in there.”

“Foremages, I hope you’re right,” she hoisted several pieces of cardboard to one corner, fashioning it into a makeshift chair. “This is disgusting.”

What waited them if they did not find shelter was much worse.

“Cover yourself with the black bags if you hear someone coming. Don’t come out.”

“Hurry back,” she ordered him.

Quickly, he poked his head from the alley and onto the street and moved when it was clear.

The legion in him told him to move east. The scent of shifter came from the west. This far away from the mage compound, where the humans were more concentrated, the air was clearer.

What am I doing here? He thought to himself as he traveled down another unfamiliar street.

Life in this realm had become too dangerous for a single legion. His duty was to serve on his honor to his King, not entangle himself in mage business. The gashes over his arms and the chuck on his torso missing was confirmation of that.

Yet, the vampire in him struggled.

He hadn’t put more of his pleasure venom in her and the effects were waning. It should have been extinguished by now, but deep inside of him, something still lingered. Something that swelled his chest whenever she was near to him. Even now, hole formed in her absence.

He’d asked his father once why he never mated his mother. It was clear that they loved each other deeply. His father told him simply that he’d never fall victim to the mate bond.

“Bonded pairs share more than just love.” His father had said, “Once you are bonded, you no longer belong to yourself and that is a very dangerous thing for a vampire. It makes you inferior. I will never allow myself to become that.”

At the time, it angered him. To him, it seemed as if his father admitted openly that he didn’t truly love his mother. But now as he rushed to find he and Kayla shelter, he understood.

They had not bonded, but he felt inferior to the bond already. He’d never be able to protect Kayla in the way that she needed. It’d been proven already when he’d been outmatched by shifters, ineffective against mages, unable to keep them safe. The pain in his chest grew.

He was better as a legion. That had been his strongest attribute. As a fierce fighter and adept warrior, he was not used to this feeling. It made his vampire want to tear the entire world to shreds, ashamed that he was unable to protect his own.

But what choice did he have now?

Get her to safety. But find his way back.

His vampire growled openly in the street at the thought.  

In response, a whispering hiss called on the air. He froze.

Warm city wind blew into his face as he strained his ears to listen. For a moment, it felt like several pairs of eyes were on him, but nothing moved. He looked around, on this street, every other house lay abandoned. They could stay here for the night. He didn’t have time to find something more suited.

Days were short this time of year, the sun had already tilted toward the horizon.

He did not have much time. Down the next street, he found what would have to pass for shelter for the night. An old two-story house with boarded windows and chipped paint looked just the perfect place to lay low. He stepped inside of the abandoned it. Despite the musty smell of rotting wood and the thick layer of dust throughout, it was otherwise empty, and had been for a while.

They would rest here while he healed, wait out the vampires in the night and head out at first dawn to find someone of her own kind to help. Evading shifters in broad daylight would be easy enough if he could remain amongst the human population.

They seemed to avoid them at all cost. He hadn’t smelled one on this side of the city, where the scent of human was almost overwhelming. This would bring good fortune on this night.

He traveled the same roads back to where he left Kayla to wait him out.

Inwardly, his vampire relaxed when her scent of her grew stronger. She was safe.

Sunfall had come and they needed to get off the streets and to someplace safe before the sky became totally black.

“Kayla,” he whispered, entering into alley. “I have secured accommodations.”

But he didn’t hear her move.

“Kayla?”

Still, she made no answer. Uneasiness gripped his chest. His vampire rose to the surface.

There was danger. Everywhere. The faint scent of shifter, the eeriness that crawled up his spine telling him that the wolves were scattering, prowling through the city, closer to him now, the sickness in him that said he didn’t have long before the poison set, yet, there was something else, just beyond his hearing that irked his vampire.

“Kayla,” he called as he began checking behind the garbage cans and the few doors that were lit by dim bulbs at the corners, but she was not there.

Her scent was, but it grew weaker the further he went, so he turned back. He narrowed her scent to a patch of building side with nothing but several stories of brick.

He took another breath to be sure. She was stronger here, like she’d been standing next to him. He reached his hand out as if she’d been made invisible to him, but his hand only met the stone. It must’ve been a mage door. The ones only they could open and close by pressing their hands to it. One, he wouldn’t be able to open.

“Kayla,” he called again, but stopped.

The shadows moved. He stilled.

The alley had lost its daylight. He was out of time.

Another shadow caught the top of his eyeline.

Vampires. A lot of them.

They scattered the roofline like ants on the hunt, jumping from building to building above him.

His gaze fell down the stone building and onto the long expanse of the alley. They had the high ground and the advantage. His back slid across the building side as he moved silently. He stared at the wall and prayed to the all gods that she was safer than him.

A light thud fell behind him. At the same time, another shadow appeared under the glow of one of the backdoor lights before its owner came into view. Him again.

Pale ashen skin and tight beady eyes surveyed him with surprise, but he got the sense it was feigned. “I didn’t think I’d see you again. I thought you were only passing through.”

“I got caught up.”

He raised a brow, “I see. You look like shit.”

Cha! He was one to talk.

He’d looked no better on this day than he had when he faced him on the mage’s porch. Mac, if he remembered the name correctly, looked like he died four centuries ago, with his thin waxy skin and morose eyes. But worse was his irritating voice that filled the street with its caterwauling sound.

“And,” he continued. “You didn’t check in,” Mac tsked.

Garrick’s jaw cracked as he prepared himself for another fight.  “I do not wish to war with you.”

“You couldn’t even if you wanted to,” the vampire looked him over with a doubtful look. “But you’ve chosen war, haven’t you? The day you decided to be in bed with the mages? Tut-tut. See where that’s gotten you?”

Another vampire fell from the building top and landed two paces behind him. Garrick repositioned himself so his back was against the building. His eyes blackened to coal, and his fighting fangs came down.

“How do you make your eyes shine like that?” Mac asked. “The witches do that for you?” He didn’t sound like he was interested out of curiosity, but jealousy.

“I do not wish to war with you,” he hissed.

The vampire in front of him chuckled, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I don’t wish to war with you either, but you’ve been bedfellows with our enemy,” he turned back to his original conversation.

“Can I have this one? You said next one was mine. It’s my turn to clean the filth,” a thin haired vampire, two heads shorter than him, said eagerly. Her mouth was stained dark pink from dried blood despite only having one fang, but it only enhanced her savagery.

“No,” Mac said but the young vampire was already moving like the wind.

Garrick prepared himself for the dagger she pulled from a pocket on the side of the black cargo pants she wore, but in a blur, Mac caught her hand before she could stick him with it and twisted it until it popped from its socket. So, the vampires in this realm had the same speed.

The tiny vampire yelped, dropping the dagger from her hand with a clang on the ground, and clutched her arm to her middle.

“I said: no,” he seethed. “We’re taking him to see Clint,” Mac said decisively when the girl hissed.

“Why?” She retorted and spat. “He’s filth.”

“He deals with mages,” someone agreed from the shadows.

“We should make his death slow,” said another.

“My decision is final.”

The collective silenced unhappily.

“Why’s he so special?” the tiny vampire reset her wrist with a groan.

“Because this vampire can cross mage thresholds,” Mac said simply. A few of the vampires gasped in disbelief. “I saw it with my own eyes. And whatever magic he has that makes it so, we’re going to find out what it is and take it.”

Even injured he had some fight in him, although in his state, the lesser vampire held the advantage. Despite it, he straightened. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Several more soft thuds landed behind him, deep within the shadows. They were gathering numbers, and yet again, he found himself outmatched.

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