Author: Derek

Anne

“Now, my vojnici, we will obtain what it has taken these long years to find,” the gazda said to the gathered vampires, in heavily accented English. “Our clan will be one step closer to the Mandate of Heaven.” The eight other vampires in the basement roared their approval. The gazda took a step closer to Anne. He was short, barely making five and a half feet. Like Nao, his hair was platinum blond, but where her eyes glowed a sapphire blue, the gazda‘s eyes glowed an angry, ruby red. The grazda firmly gripped Anne’s chin and forced her eyes to meet his. She could feel his overwhelming presence thrust itself into her mind with all the smoothness of a sledgehammer. His low laughs were drowned out by her screams. He was just as quickly gone from her mind. Anne just hung from the chains binding her to the iron pipe.

Anne looked over to Kurt and the others. Kurt looked incensed, but the other Avalonians looked almost bored. Even those two traitors that Lady Maritza had sent along didn’t seem interested in what was happening as they covered her friends with their submachine guns. Samantha had managed to let Anne know what was going on when the vampires freed her from the chair long enough to install and chain her to the iron pole in the center of the basement. Anne couldn’t believe that Nigel and John were working for the vampires. She was still having a hard time believing her rival on the city’s police force, Detective Harvey Welks, had been on the vampires’ payroll.

“David, are you ready to harvest the blood?” the grazda asked, pronouncing his minion’s name “Dah-veed.” The human nodded, smiling beatifically up at the grazda. “Then do so. We will complete this before the dawn.” The human occultist put on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and walked up to Anne.

“Going to slit my throat?” Anne taunted defiantly. He ignored her and freed her left arm. His grip was much stronger than Anne expected. “So, are you going to cut my wrists and make it look like a suicide?”

“Interesting thought, but no,” David answered, tying a tourniquet around her upper arm. She felt the tiniest prick as David carefully inserted the a needle into her arm. Satisfied, he produced three glass vials and filled each of them with her blood. As each filled, David stoppered the vial and placed it into his jacket pocket. Then he withdrew the needle and put a bandage on her arm.

“That’s it?” Anne asked, shocked.

“That’s all the blood we need for the ritual,” David answered, “We were going to kill you. Especially considering how deadly your unpurified blood is to the vampire. Nao made a strong argument for keeping you alive so that we could keep using your blood against our rivals. It’s quite elegant when you think about it.” Anne hung her head, trying to look resigned to her fate. It wouldn’t do for David to see her smiling.

David walked back to where Nao and the grazda were standing. Set up next to them was a small card table with four unlit candles, what looked like a small spice rack, a stand with a collection of cooking utensils, and a stainless steel mixing bowl. If Anne didn’t know better, she would have sworn David was about to give a cooking lesson instead of performing a magical ritual. He poured the three vials of Anne’s blood and added something from one of the bottles on the spice rack. The basement filled with the rotten egg smell of sulphur. David concentrated, and Anne could feel the flows of wild magic bend to his will. The four candles sparked to life. The flows were dancing around David as he tied them to the candles. Something about the knots he used on the flows made them pulse stronger. Veronica had said practitioners on this side of the gate used candles during rituals as amplifiers. Now, Anne understood what she’d meant.

“Grazda, now we need the death blood of a vampire,” David said. The grazda looked among his vampires. They all seemed to swell, as if begging to be asked to do this for him.

“It should be one of your scions,” Nao said, “The closer the better.” The grazda nodded his head and pointed to one of the vampires. As the other vampires shrunk back with disappointed looks on their faces, the black-haired vampire grinned viciously and strode to the card table.

“Pyotr, you have always been the strongest of my children,” the grazda said, “You have always made me proud. Now, I ask you to make the ultimate sacrifice so that the clan can continue on the holy path. Do you have any reservations, my child?”

“Nema, moj otac,” Pyotr said in a booming voice. The grazda‘s face broke into a wide smile. Pyotr bent over the mixing bowl and bared his throat. The grazda plucked a long, thin-bladed knife off of the table. Moving faster than Anne could see, the grazda grabbed Pyotr’s hair and instant before slashing Pytor’s throat. The grazda held the vampire steady as a stream of dark blood poured into the bowl. As the two bloods mixed, a cloud of noxious smoke filled the basement. It took everything Anne could muster to focus on the flows of wild magic around the table and not retch.

David uttered phrases that sounded like mangled elven as he added the contents of two more bottles to the concoction in the bowl. The flows of wild magic danced around the candles and then into the bowl. A braided flow water, earth, and heat leapt out of the bowl and lanced into Anne’s mind. The basement disappeared and Anne was suddenly lying on a cold, hard table.

“Which of the infants have you chosen, great lady?” boomed an achingly familiar male voice. A woman’s face came into view above Anne. Except the face was huge. It was like looking up into the face of a giant. The woman’s eyebrow cocked up in surprise.

“I see the choice has been made for us,” she said, in a soothing, if loud voice. “What let you come back and see this I wonder?”

“Meliandre, our time is running short,” the familiar voice said. Anne couldn’t see who was talking, but she’d met that man before. Where was she? A baby started crying in loud screams of discomfort. Anne tried to get up, but she didn’t have the strength.

The baby’s screams cut off suddenly and Anne could taste the salty iron of blood.

Anne was jarred back into the basement. Her eyes focused on the flow from the table to her. She could see even smaller flows dancing around the basement. How could she have missed those before? There was enough raw wild magic in the basement to destroy all of them. Anne started pulling those small flows of wild magic into the braided flow between her and the table.

Then all hell broke loose.

Anne

Anne had been forced to do some humiliating things in her career with the police. Being stripped naked and then tied to a chair was definitely a new low. She wasn’t sure the casual manner the vampires had torn her clothes off made it better or worse. Thankfully, they’d left her alone as soon as they were done. That bitch, Nao, had said something about collecting the others before leaving. Anne was really hoping Erik would cut that bitch’s heart out.

Anne shivered. The basement was dark except for the single lit bulb hanging a few feet above her head. It was also cold. If she got out of this, she wasn’t going to tease Erik anymore about his hatred of any temperatures below seventy. Anne closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Yes, she was in a bad spot, but she had friends coming for her. Plus, it wasn’t like she was completely helpless. After all, if Erik could fight his way out buck naked, surely Anne could do the same thing. She just hoped she could find some clothes before Kurt saw her.

Anne concentrated until she could see the faint lines of wild magic flowing through the basement. Earth, water, cold, and dark, Anne thought, feeling the strongest lines, What can I do with these? Almost everything Veronica had taught her involved binding of heat, light, and air. Maybe, if she bound cold and water she could freeze the ropes. Anne tugged on the strands and began a binding. She could easily see how cold and water could be tied. Then she hit the block in her head. Pain flashed through her mind. The light bulb above her exploded, showering Anne with glass and droplets of ice-cold water and plunging her into darkness.

Damn it, Anne thought, I wish Samantha’d been able to figure that out before we left. Erik had asked Samantha and Veronica to accelerate Anne’s magic training before they’d done the trade for Mia Gold. Accelerated training involved Samantha linking Anne’s mind with Veronica as they went through some lessons. That was painful and exhausting enough, but they’d barely managed some small spells before the block in Anne’s mind threw them all out of the link. Something about that block was tied up with Anne’s ability to interact with wild magic and sling spells.

“Not what you were trying to do?” asked a male voice from the darkness. “I think you used too much water in that binding.” The voice was deep and rich with an English accent. “Actually, that was kind of impressive considering how little wild magic is down here.”

“Who are you?” Anne demanded, glaring at where she thought the voice was coming from.

“A simple occultist,” the voice said, “Or at least, I was before meeting Gazda Miklos. It’s a shame, really. I do miss the feel of wild magic bending to my will.”

“What’s a shame? Who’s Gazda Miklos?” Anne asked.

“Patience, Ms. Hearst,” the voice said, “You’ll meet the gazda when the ritual begins.” Anne was momentarily blinded by a flashlight turning on. As she blinked to clear her vision, the beam was pointed upward, filling the basement with a dim light.

“I do apologize, Ms. Hearst,” said a man some fifteen feet from her. “Your torch was a bit more intense than I expected.” He was probably a tad under six feet, with a lean face that was more pretty than handsome. White blond hair was cut short and styled exquisitely. He was wearing khaki slacks and a black turtleneck sweater, but he looked slightly uncomfortable in the clothes. Anne was suddenly very aware of her nakedness.

“My, I don’t think I’ve known anyone who blushes over their entire body,” the man said, as if examining a specimen. Then he shook himself. “I apologize, Ms. Hearst. That was rude. Please, relax. I’m afraid none of your, um, attributes, have the least effect on me.” Anne’s skin heated even further. They both were quiet for long minutes.

“Why are you doing all of this? Why me?” Anne asked.

“The Prophecy of Blood,” the man answered, “More to the point, the Revelation of the Two-Blooded Woman.”

“You realize that means nothing to me,” Anne replied.

“Of course,” the man said, then he seemed to ponder something for a long moment. “I guess there’s no reason you shouldn’t know. The Prophecy of Blood is the sacred text among the vampire clans. Like any good sacred text, it lays out the vampires’ morality and rules for society. Much like the Talmut, Bible, and Quran, it is more a collection of parables. Except for the revelations. Those are a series of steps that need to be accomplished before a vampire can secure the Mandate of Heaven and bend all others to his or her will.”

“Mandate of Heaven? I thought vampires were cursed. Why would God give them a mandate?” Anne asked.

“What you call a curse, the vampire call a blessing,” the man said with the quiet reverence of a true believer. “At any rate, I think the term was passed down when the Tartars ravaged across Asia and Eastern Europe. ‘Mandate of Heaven’ is a Chinese term for divine rule. It the vampire’s case, who has the Mandate of Heaven can control the blessing. Including giving it and removing it.”

“Really? So, this Miklos thinks I’m part of one of these revelations he needs to get the mandate?”

“Just so,” the man answered, “The Revelation of the Two-Blooded Woman says a woman will be born whose blood is poisonous to the vampire, but if it is purified, the blood will allow the aspirant to fully control his own blessing.”

“And you think this ‘Two-Blooded Woman’ is me?” Anne asked.

“Don’t you?” the man asked. Anne was about to disagree, but she stopped herself. When that vampire had bitten her back at the hotel, he’d burst into flames. Maybe there was something to this revelation of theirs. Before Anne could ask anything else, the basement was suddenly bathed in harsh, white light. Anne heard a door open behind her and several people trodding down a wooden staircase.

“David, please wake the gazda,” Nao said from behind Anne. The man bowed before spinning around and opening a trap door. As David descended, Nao walked around so that Anne could face her. The vampire stared hard at Anne, and she could feel Nao’s presence push into her mind.

“So, David explained part of it,” Nao said in a barely audible whisper, “Let me enlighten you some more, Dva Krvnih Zena. If you do what I tell you, when I tell you, then you and your friends might survive this night. If you don’t, then I can assure you that no one that you love on this earth will be safe.”