Nightlord: Sunset (11 page)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10
TH

I
had things set up in the rock garden well before the sun went down.  The reflecting pool would be the mirror for this, and there was even a good rock next to it for the cow.

All day long, I’d drawn symbols with great care on the stone, scratching lines around it and the pool, rearranging rocks around the whole thing—the theoretical Japanese gardener would have been scandalized.  I had Sasha holding a tape measure and using a protractor; she occasionally helped me with some of the larger stones.  Colored candles were arranged around the pool and at tactical points around the diagram.  The whole reflecting pool and makeshift altar would’ve looked really good on a movie set.  I was proud of it.

I was shooting for overkill this time.  Forget snow; I was aiming to shove a scrying spell so far up the Fist’s nether portion I would see daylight coming in their ears.

The cow, of course, was content to hang around, chew cud, and watch everything.  Not a clue.

After the sun went down, we both went out to give this a try.  Sasha was playing the part of my assistant; she didn’t need talent to help.  She would hand me things—the knife and the bowl—and sprinkle incense in the brazier, chant with me, and the like.  Maybe you don’t think that’s too important, but you try keeping a complicated chant going in perfect time while hunting for your sacrificial knife… and where did you put that baggie of incense?

Maybe the surgeon doesn’t
need
a nurse to hand him instruments like that—but he’s glad she’s there.

This wasn’t a finesse operation.  I was stacking the deck with elaborate preparations so it didn’t need to be.  If it had required finesse, I’d have been up a creek.  Power I could provide.  Skill?  No, I was lacking that.  Maybe in another hundred years; magic is
subtle and complicated.  I wasn’t a surgeon using a scalpel; I was a headsman with an axe.  Either way, the amputation is a success.  That’s all I cared about.

We went out back wearing long robes.  Lucky for me it was nearly a full moon—a good time for scrying, as the moon illuminated hidden night-things.  I led the cow over next to the stone and we took our places.  We chanted, I hit the cow above and between the eyes, then we hefted it onto the rock, head at the lower end, nearer the pool.  I took the knife, spoke the chant louder and stronger, contributed some of my own power to form the framework of the spell, and cut the animal’s throat.  Blood poured out and power flared along the diagrams I had drawn.

The blood trickled into the pool and the waters roiled, turned red.  They began to spin and churn, rapidly becoming a whirlpool.  The whirlpool deepened.  I could see it reached down far below where the bottom of the pool used to be.  This did not seem right for a mirror-like scrying spell, but maybe the waters would open to show me things.  The notes weren’t too specific on the results, just the process.

I didn’t move, but continued the chant as the last of the life flowed into the spell.  It wasn’t done yet; it needed more.  I expended some more of my own power, drawing more ambient magic into the spell.  It was like I upped the current in an electromagnet and sucked more power toward my spell.  I raised my hands higher, even as I raised the tempo of the chant.

The whirlpool touched bottom.

Suddenly, there was just a ring of red water whirling madly in a circle.  In the center, there was an opening, as though it were a window in the wall of a room. 
Down
was suddenly
across.
  It gave me a powerful sense of vertigo, but I braced myself against the sacrificial stone and remained standing, watching.

Through the opening, I saw several men in the process of taking places, facing me.  They were wearing dark fatigues and holding assault rifles; they were muffled up completely, much like the trio that had tried to torch Sasha and I on the front porch.  The floor was inlaid with gold and silver in an intricate mosaic of some arcane nature.  The whole room was done in Early Medieval stonework with heavy roofing beams visible.  Aside from the troops, there were three men, one older, two younger, and they were dressed in fancy robes.  They had their hands upraised, and I could hear them chanting faintly.

Everyone got very quiet and stared at me.

I gaped.  The scrying spell was only supposed to work one way… but… no, I could feel some other spell, interacting with mine.  It felt… it felt
as though they had each reached across a great gulf and met in the middle, and this was a compromise.

The gunmen charged forward, screaming, firing from the hip.

Bad move.  While the viewpoint told me I was looking out through a wall, they obviously hadn’t realized they would be fighting upward through a pool of spinning water.  They piled up like a freeway accident in a fog.

I clapped my hands and dispersed my spell, closing the odd gateway.  There were screams—strange screams that seemed not so much as to cut off, but to fade away into the distance.

I jumped down into the bloody water and snatched at an assault rifle, jerked it from the grip of the top man—now the only man.  He choked and coughed as the reflecting pool became a churning pool of water and blood again.  He went for another weapon.  I stomped his forearm, then his other forearm; my boots took the sting out of touching him.  He struggled backward with his legs and I let him.  I even let him get to the edge of the pool and push himself out as he backed away from me.  Once out of the water, he gasped and coughed, then lifted his head and said something to me in a language I did not understand.

It hurt.  I felt like someone had just dialed up my personal body temperature.  I felt feverish and hot.  Then my blood felt like it was beginning to boil and I screamed, going to my knees in the water.

Sasha hit him on the head with a rock, not too hard, and he collapsed.

I slowly got up and climbed out of the pool.  He groaned and rolled over, trying to get up.

“Shall I kill him, my lord?”

“No,” I gasped, still feeling the burning pain slowly subside.  “I have a use for him.”

She hit him again, this time on the other side of the head, and he decided to take a nap.  I fell down next to the pool and wished I could pass out comfortably.  There are drawbacks to being dead.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11
TH

M
orning dawned very bright and annoyingly clear.  I struggled through my morning ordeal, clutching Sasha for comfort as I shuddered and sweated and hurt.  Being blasted by someone’s faith really takes it out of you.

Then we both cleaned up and headed down to the basement.

Our prisoner was restrained by the simple expedient of drilling some holes in a big picnic table and feeding ropes through to tie him down.  I could’ve just hog-tied him, but I wanted him to be spread out on the table, feeling vulnerable.  He was shorter than I, with dark, curly hair and a wiry hardness to him that spoke to me of a professional soldier. 

“Morning,” I said, cheerfully.  I was pretty sure he had a concussion, but I hadn’t been able to check; I’d barely been able to use a long knife and tongs to strip him.  His clothes actually protected me somewhat from whatever force emanated from his body.  Now that the sun was up, though…

I peeled back an eyelid, and he spat at me.  Since he missed, I ignored it and checked his pupils.  They were the same size, but he still seemed disoriented.

“Feeling better?  Hungry?  Thirsty?”

He was silent.

“First lesson.  Always answer questions.”

I held out a hand.  Sasha put a pencil-torch in it.  I took the torch and ignited it, adjusted it for a clean, blue flame.  He stared at it with a sort of stoic fascination.  I brought it slowly toward his feet, closer and closer, waiting for him to answer… and I sighed inwardly when it became obvious he was either calling my bluff or truly unwilling to talk.

I hated it.  I had to make a decision:  kill him now or force him to talk.  The only way I could reasonably let him go was if I could get information I needed… or give him information I wanted him to have…

I gritted my teeth, tried to think of it as saving his life, and applied the flame to his little toe.  It raised instant blisters.  He screamed and I jerked the flame away.  I tried not to breathe; the smell of cooked meat made me queasy.

“Now, feeling better?” I asked, forcing a light tone.  “Hungry?  Thirsty?”

“NO!”

“Good job on answering.  You’ve learned, I hope,” and I closed down the torch.

He cursed us and reviled us in both broken English and a language I’d never heard.  I had a tape recorder going under the table, so I wasn’t worried about it much right then.  I let him go on at length.  A good sample might make it possible to identify the language.  We’ve got good linguists at the University.

When he wound down, I just looked at him.  He looked back.

“So where do you come from, friend?” I asked

“I will not tell you.”

“Why not?  Is that where all your murderers hide?”

“We are not murderers!  You are!”

“How do you mean?”

He snarled at me.  “You are murdering evil creature, drinking blood of innocent!”

“Oh.  Who says?”

“The First of Cardinals of Telen saw vision from God, and Fist have fight your kind ever since.  You will die,
marivel.
  Today, tomorrow, or next—matters not, but you will die.  We never break faith, and we kill you, for God is with us!”

“So I’ve noted,” I replied, wondering what a
marivel
was.  Was that an insult or just his word for my kind?

“You mock God?” he demanded.

“Of course not!  I’ve felt the power of faith and it stings like nothing else I’ve ever known.”

He looked at me with a keen gaze, then nodded, satisfied.

I nodded to Sasha, and she walked back upstairs to listen in through the intercom and surf the Web for references.  For someone who never used a computer for the first few hundred years of her life, she was getting quite good at it.

I sat down on the edge of the table.

“Look, I don’t want to kill you.  Okay?”

“You lie,
marivel
.  I tell you nothing.”

I didn’t contradict him.  If that’s what he wanted to believe, who was I to shatter his illusion?

“Okay, don’t tell me anything.  But listen to this.  I am going to let you go.  You can go wherever you please, as long as you don’t stay here.  If you stay here, or anywhere nearby, I will hunt you down and kill you without hesitation.

“Now, I’m pretty dangerous,” I went on.  “So dangerous, in fact, I think I can take your best assault squad.  So here’s the deal I’m offering.  If your bosses want to send a dozen of their best men, armed however they want to meet me, I’ll take them on.  If I win, you guys give me a bye.  I’m off-limits.  You leave me alone.  If I lose, problem solved and you can do what you like.”

“I will have no part in vile bargain—”

“Shut up,” I interrupted. “I’m not asking you.  I’m telling you.  I’ve got a spot all picked out.  There’s a place in
Death Valley—I’ll give you a map—and I’ll be there in four weeks, on Thursday night, September eighth.  I’ll arrive at midnight.  We can talk over the deal, shake on it, and square off like civilized enemies. If your side will go for it, wonderful.  If not, fine.  We’ll work something else out.

“But
you
do not make these decisions.  You have superiors, right?”

He looked stubborn.  He said, “Yes.  But—”

“Just tell them the proposal.  If they like it, great.  If they don’t, I expect them to not show up.  Fair?”

He looked at me like I was insane.

“No,” I sighed, “don’t bother to answer.  You think I’m crazy.  Maybe.  But that’s me.”

I jerked on the ropes, snapped them, and set him free.

“Come on upstairs and I’ll give you some clothes and some money.  Then you can go away.”

He stared at me, dumbstruck and wondering.  Then he jumped me.

Not a good choice; he was slow from the double-knock to the head and off-balance from his torched toe.  I hit him once in the gut and once in the side of the neck; he went down, gasping and wheezing.  I stood over him and glared.

“Can’t you see I’m going to great lengths
not
to kill you?” I demanded

I didn’t wait for an answer.  I muscled him up the stairs and plopped him in a comfortable chair. Sasha had previously laid out some sweats for him and slip-on shoes.  I dug up some cash, about five hundred, and handed it to him.  I already had the map for him and I gave him that, too.

“Now,” I said, “there are two things I need to say.  First, I’m sorry that I had to hurt you.  I believe that we wouldn’t have had our conversation at all if I hadn’t, and I apologize for your toe.  I don’t like the idea that I had to do that, and if it makes me sick to think I actually did it.  Moreover, it was rude of me.  Please forgive me.”

He said nothing, just stared at me some more.  I was getting used to it.

“Second,” I went on, “I know you’re still my enemy, and I know you still want to kill me.  That’s fine, as long as you can be at least reasonably polite about it.  So it’s time for you to go.  I see your cab is pulling up out front.  You know what a cab is?”

He nodded, still without a word.

“Good.  Now,” I finished, softly and with all the menace I could muster, “go away before I kill you.”

And he did.

“My lord?”

I watched from an upstairs window as one very confused fanatic got into the cab.  But, being a fanatic, he would probably rationalize—or irrationalize—away this generosity on my part as a ploy, a greater scheme.  Well, it was, but he couldn’t
know
that.

“Yes, my love?”

“I listened, as you wished.  I could find nothing relevant to any Cardinal of Telen, or even Telen.  But does not a Cardinal imply a Catholic priest?”

“Maybe.  Possibly it’s a schismatic sect.  I somehow doubt the Catholic church would have anything to do with magic—and that doorway was a product of both my spell and
theirs
.  It can’t be the Catholics, nor any other Christian faith with which I am familiar.  They would want to kill us, sure, but they wouldn’t stoop to sorcery for it.  I suppose there may be students of Jewish mysticism who would go for it, but I don’t think this is any publicly-recognized Church.  I’ll bet it’s some sort of splinter sect off one of the major religions, if it’s not an outright cult.”

Sasha nodded and was silent for a while.  She stepped up closer to me and hesitantly took my hand.

“Will you truly challenge them so?”  She asked quietly, but she couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice.  She was afraid.  Both for me and about me, and afraid of losing me.

“I’ll challenge, them,” I replied, “but not necessarily in the way they think.”

“You have a devious, underhanded, sneaky plan?”

I grinned.  “No, it’s pretty straightforward.  It does involve a deception, but after that, it’s pretty up front.”

Sasha took my hands and drew me to her; I went.  I held her and she pressed her head to my chest.

“I am afraid.”

I nodded.  “I know.”

“May I ask why you did not touch his mind, my lord?  Why did you not take from him all he knew?”

“He wouldn’t know the things I need,” I answered, half-truthfully.  “I also didn’t want to go in there at all; it’s—and this is going to sound weird coming from me—it’s wrong.”

“Not so very weird, my love.  You are a good man.  You have ruthlessness only when it is needful.  Besides, you are right; he was just a soldier and doubtless knew little of value.”

“Yes.  But there is something deeper here.  Do you recall the view through the pool?”

“Yes.  Quite a nice castle, I thought, until the men came through.”

“Exactly.  That’s not normal.  That was a portal, not a view—and the men beyond were startled, but not shocked.  That was no scrying spell; they were using magic to open a doorway for delivering their soldiers to wherever they want.”

Sasha was silent for a long moment.

“Such is the stuff of legends, my lord.”

“I know.  But so are we.  I’m forced to accept this is possible.”

She squeezed me, hard, as though reassuring herself I wasn’t an illusion.

“Sasha?” I asked.

“Yes, my lord?”

“You know other vampires, right?”

“A few, of various species.  We are not terribly social with each other.  We are solitary predators, usually.”

“I would like to meet some.”

She looked up at me, curious.  “Why?”

“I may be able to appeal to their self-interest to gain help.”

She narrowed her eyes, looking into mine intently.  “You mean to go to war.”

I nodded.

She bit her lip and worried it, thinking.

“It has been tried, my lord.”

“And?”

“Never have their leaders been discovered.  Always, they regroup and gain more power to themselves, then kill us.”

“But I intend to go to them—back through their own doorway.  Has that ever been done?”

She shook her head.  “Never, to my knowledge. I was not even aware they could do such a thing.”

“Wherever they are, the other side of that opening will be a stronghold and will have someone who knows what we must know.”

She hugged me tightly again.  “Yes.  I agree with your reasoning.  But it is
dangerous
.”

I laughed, probably nervously. “I know!  Oh, trust me, I know!  But I consider it more dangerous to just let them keep taking potshots at me—and you!”

She cocked her head.  “My lord has, of course, included me in this plan?”

“Ummmm…”

“And realizes I am an efficient killer?”

“Ummmm…”

“And knows how much I love him?  And knows I will not permit him to go into such a conflict without me?”

“Ummmm… I had really not intended to permit—”

“—me to be placed in danger.  I know.”

I nodded.

She smiled and stepped back, then took my hand and pulled me along.

The shrine-like little room was mostly dark, except for a pair of pillar candles—one at either end of the shelf with the sword.  Sasha didn’t bother to turn on the lights; candlelight was enough for us to see clearly, even when the sun was up.  She moved to the portrait and the shelf beneath it.  She hesitated for a moment in reaching for it, then slowly lifted the blade from the shelf.

Now, at night, I can tell you what playing card you drop by the sound of it hitting the floor.  Likewise, I’m much more sensitive to magical operations.  During the day, my senses are still jacked up all out of normal range—my vision is sharper, my hearing and sense of smell much more sensitive.  Likewise, I sometimes feel very psychic; people’s feelings, the oddness about things with spells, and so on.  I don’t actually
see
magical force during the day, but I can sort of feel it, especially when it’s densely packed, as in a spell.