Nightlord: Orb (47 page)

“No, it’s my own fault for repressing it.  It bothers me when I think about it.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve considered dealing with it?”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” I asked.  “Kill my own daughter?  My granddaughter?  Bite the goddess again?  That didn’t work before and could easily get me killed—either by her, during the process, or afterward, by her cronies!”

“Um.  Could you calm down a little?” Mary asked, nervously.  “I don’t like the things your shadow is doing.”

“What?” I turned in my seat to look at my shadow on the wall.  Yes, it was a dark, dim area rather than just an area without color.  It was also looming much taller than it should, displaying taloned hands and vague outlines of veined wings—tendrils, maybe, spreading like semi-transparent bat-wings?

As I watched, it shrank, settled, and resumed a shape defined by the normal rules of light and matter.

“It’s not supposed to do that,” I noted.

“I agree!”

“No, really.  I’ve only seen it do something like that once before.  I’m not sure when it started, or why.”

“Demon infestation?  Religious belief?”

“I’m afraid to guess.”

“So, you’ve got a creepy shadow that does stuff when you get angry.  Does it do that during the day?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think so.  I hope not.”

“It would be nice if I could check for you,” she suggested, sweetly.

“It would,” I agreed.  “I’m not sure I can make that happen, though.”

“You’re a vampire wizard-king from a magical universe with a million souls inside you, along with elf-blood, dragon and demon and deity ichor, and a quasi-divine status from lots of people clapping really hard.  And you’re not sure you can do a little thing like that?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” I muttered.  Mary gave me an amused look.

“You have a better way to put it?”

“No,” I admitted.  She spread her hands in a “Well, there you are,” gesture.

“I was thinking about that,” I continued, “and about the visit I expect from Sebastian, tomorrow.  I’m not completely sure it’s going to be a cordial one.  I think it will be; they want my spell.  I’m not sure how much they want it, compared to worrying about what sort of destruction I’m going to cause—never mind the whole undead thing.”

“What did you come up with?”

“We’re not the same sort of vampires, obviously.  I don’t know what mixing different types of vampire blood will do.  My blood might turn you into my sort of vampire—it could dominate your current sort.  Or it could mix and you’ll wind up a hybrid kind of night-stalking monster.”

“Cheerful.”

“Or,” I continued, “it could be rejected out of hand—either with no effect, or with horrific mutations in your flesh as your blood fights mine like a cancerous growth for the next century.  I really have no idea.  But, since things are already awful and may be about to get seriously worse, getting killed in a blood-mixing experiment might not be the most awful thing on the horizon.”

“Don’t hold back,” she advised, sarcastically.  “I hate it when people try to sugar-coat things.”

“I’m trying to let you make an informed decision.”

“By telling me you have no information?”

“Well… by admitting ignorance.  I’ve never tried this before.  You’ve already mentioned you would like some of my blood.  If you really want to do it, I’ll let you.  But we should do it soon, before the cruise missile hits and we have to test your resistance to high explosives.”

“That’s a good point.”  She regarded the magic circle.  “Will this help?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you help me if it appears to be going wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?’

“It might work wonderfully, it might do awful things to you, or it might have both good and bad qualities.”

“Fat lot of good you are.”

I didn’t answer.  There didn’t seem to be anything to say.  She sat down in her chair again and thought about it.

“A few days ago, I’d have jumped at this chance,” she told me.  “Elder blood?  Original and ancient?  Damn the risks; give me some.  But vampire blood from a completely different sort of vampire?”  She shook her head.  “I didn’t know there
was
another species of vampire.”  She sighed and rubbed her temples.  “It’s tricky enough when different tribes cross over from one to another.  You’re not even in the family tree.”

“Which may be a good thing.  My sort might not react with yours—kind of like getting a surgical implant; your body accepts it and moves on.  Or it could be fundamentally incompatible, like A-positive and B-negative blood transfusions.”

She raised her head and looked at me, visibly making up her mind.

“Enough talking.  Let’s do this.”

We moved the chairs together in the middle of the circle and strung four ropes from the rafters, in the corners of a square.  I had Mary lay down across the chairs and started tying the ropes to her wrists and ankles.

“You know,” she said, conversationally, “if I knew you were into this sort of thing, I’d have volunteered for it sooner.”

“There’s a whole new line of questioning,” I observed.  “What are
you
into?  And what’s your life story?”

“If this works out, I’ll tell you tomorrow night and we can test my limits.”

“How do you mean that?” I asked, tightening a restraint.

“In lots of ways.  But first, will you please tie me up really good, sir.”

“I don’t hear
that
often enough.”  When I finished, she was stretched out in midair, hanging by her wrists and ankles in the middle of the Ascension Sphere’s circle.

“This is an arrangement I’ve been in myself,” I told her, conversationally.  “When I was feeling pretty awful, my friends hung me up like this so I could thrash around without destroying everything I touched.  You bounce around like a gerbil on meth, but you don’t go anywhere.”

“I guess not.  So, what’s next?  And can we hurry?  I’m starting to get excited.”

I produced the hypodermic from the first-aid kit.  I’d taken blood from my arm that afternoon and kept it in the refrigerator.  The hypo was a tiny one, intended for emergency administration of insulin or other drugs, and only had about a drop or two of my blood in it.

“I’d let you bite me,” I told her, “but you might not get anything; blood behaves strangely around me.  Or you might get more than you want and find a bad reaction becomes lethal at high dosage.  I’m trying to give you a minimal amount so we can gauge the effects.  All right?”

“All right.  Hit me.”

I slid the needle in, pressed the plunger, pulled it out, stepped back.  We waited.

“Feel anything?” I asked.

“Tingling.  It’s doing something, but I don’t know what.”

“Is it spreading?  Intensifying?  Any pain?”

“It started local and it spread.  It’s all over, now, but it’s not diminishing or intensifying.  It’s a slight tingle, all over me and all through me.”  She paused to stretch and wriggle a bit.  “It doesn’t feel bad.  Could you use the needle to get more out of you?”

“Maybe.  We’ve got about half an hour until sunrise,” I noted.  “Let’s see how that goes.  I’ll get another dose ready late tomorrow.”

“Assuming I don’t turn into some sort of giant blob of rotting flesh that hungers for human souls.”

“Assuming, yes.”

We waited, but nothing further happened.  I started to feel the sunrise and the prickly, stinging sensation that goes with it.  Mary blinked at me and squinted, as though she had trouble focusing.

“You’re up later than usual,” I told her.  “The sun is coming up.”

“Yeah, and I suddenly feel tired.  Is that your blood?”

“I don’t know.  It could be excitement,” I pointed out, pushing her slightly and causing her to swing a little in her restraints.

“Ha.  Maybe.  Want to take me down for the day?  I don’t think I’m going—”  She faded off, head falling back, eyes closing.  I checked for a pulse, didn’t find one.  I untied her and laid her out for the day.  I kept her inside the circle, though.  It might help.

Sunday, November 15
th

First thing after my shower and change, I set about draining power from the Stalls.  With a scheduled visit from a magi representative, I might develop a sudden need for spells.  Stuffing power into a gemstone isn’t that complicated; it just takes work.

I put everyone on high alert and settled into the living room and my headspace.  I was anxious, even nervous, about having this happen right here in my house, but I couldn’t very well ask him to meet me at night, and I wasn’t going to leave Mary alone during the day.

Finishing the deconstruction and reverse-engineering of the gate spell was the only thing on hand complicated enough to distract me.  It was slow going, at first; my mind wasn’t really on it.  Still, it was fiendishly complicated and soon had me fully engaged.

And then I was done.  The spell was taken apart, labeled, analyzed, and diagrammed.  Go me.

Which left me with the traditional problem of:  What do I do now?  Twiddle my thumbs?  Watch video?  Stare out the window and wait?

I went out to the barn and patted Bronze’s neck.  She brushed my cheek with her nose and blew warm air down my shirt.

Patience.  Whenever I need patience—or pretty much any virtue—Bronze is always there for me.  Sometimes I think I poured the best of myself into her when I made her.

I heard that, Boss
, came from inside the house.

Wiseass,
I sent back.  I heard the distant chuckle.

I double-checked Bronze’s spells.  Everything was in order and rather highly charged.  If she doesn’t move much, she doesn’t take much power.  Did she produce magical energy by eating flammables?  Am I missing an easy way to build an energy converter?  If she already turns chemical energy—burning—into magical energy, maybe I can watch the process and figure out a way to duplicate it.  My current spells for that sort of thing are woefully inadequate.

I wonder if she has any ruthenium in her alloy.  Trace amounts, maybe?

Someday, I’ll have to look into all that.  Add it to the long, long list of things I’ll do “someday.”

If I wander into a universe where there’s a holiday every year called “Someday,” I’m in trouble.  Then again, it might be a good thing to have.  Imagine if leap year had a holiday.  February 29
th
, the Someday Holiday, for going out and doing all that stuff you promised yourself you would do “someday.”

I should send the idea to my congressman, whoever he is.

Bronze and I watched video for a bit.  She really seems to like shows about vehicles, animal documentaries, and horse races.  The horse racing I understand, but the vehicles… is she studying them for weaknesses?  How to beat them in a race?  I think she is.  She doesn’t like it that cars are faster than she is.  I’m not sure there’s anything to be done about it, exactly, but she’ll draw her own conclusions.

I refilled her troughs with charcoal and kerosene before going back into the house.  Firebrand finished the fuel in the fireplace before I belted it on.  We sat down to wait, to think, and to consider what lies I was going to tell.

And, since I was going to lie, I needed a psychic protection spell.  I built one for myself, then spent most of the rest of the wait simply putting more power into it.

Sebastian rang the doorbell.  He either didn’t notice or pretended not to as I looked him over.  I also had Diogenes give me a report on my skinphone about anything it could find around the house.  The only people it reported were the Four, and they were in the hayloft.  Damn.  I forgot they would probably be out there in the early afternoon… well, if things went bad, they were probably out of the blast radius.

I opened the door and invited Sebastian in.  He came in without hesitation.

Once we were seated comfortably—a real trick with a few feet of steel at one hip; I laid Firebrand on my lap—he started the discussion.

“I would like to be sure you know I had nothing to do with the… incident… in Mexico.”

“I’m almost certain you didn’t.  You’ll understand, though, I have to be a little less than completely trusting on this point.  It may be the Fries and Mendoza families decided to use you, but can I really ignore the possibility you helped them?”

“I see your point,” he agreed, nodding, idly tapping his cane on the floor.  I knew it was magical—at least, had a spell stored in it—but I felt confident Firebrand could burn it to ashes before it made contact with anything.  “I understand completely.  And I assure you the house of Wilmont is completely neutral in this sort of thing.  It’s the tradition of our house and we have a reputation for impartiality lasting centuries.”

“Well, the good news is I believe I can trust you,” I told him.  He visibly relaxed.  “As a result, I’d like to ask for some information.  In exchange, I’ll happily tell you how the incident in Mexico went down—at least, from my point of view.”

“I will be delighted to be of service.”

“According to the history of the magi, how did vampires come to be?” I asked.  Sir Sebastian put his cane across his lap and drummed fingers on the arm of his chair.

“The details vary,” he told me, “based on who you ask.  There are broad strokes running through all the various versions.  In the ancient days of Atlantis, magic was a much more powerful force than it is today.  Magi could do more than simply gesture a candle into flame; they could hurl balls of fire.  Oh, yes, we can do it now,” he admitted, waving his hand dismissively, “if we want to spend an hour performing a ritual for it.  Back then, it was easy, at least according to our histories.

“Magi routinely extended their lives with powerful spells, now lost to us.  One family chose to do more than extend their lives—the house of Ubyr, or so most legends would have you believe.  They decided to pursue immortality.  It is generally understood the spells to extend life somehow drew on the lives of others, feeding it to the magus.  Following that logic, it seems likely the research of Ubyr expanded and extended the principle.

“There are a number of arguments at this point.  Some say their spell was meant to draw on some source of overwhelming magical power.  Others say it was meant to consume the life force of everyone within its range.  Others say it was performed incorrectly, or the spell itself got out of hand, or they rushed to use it without discovering its faults.”  Sebastian shrugged.  “Whatever the case, it is generally agreed the spell broke the power of magic in the world, reducing it greatly.  Also, the spell killed everyone on the island of Atlantis and destroyed it, causing it to sink beneath the waves.

“The one thing not in dispute is the efficacy of the spell.  Vampires exist, and the first of them all came from that ancient house of the magi, Ubyr.  While the house is believed extinct, some of its members, or at least their… descendants?... are obviously still abroad.  Some magi feel this is the responsibility of the greater community of our kind, to police our own and clean up our mess.  At the other extreme, some feel it is merely a fact of life; vampires exist and hunting them does nothing but draw attention to both our kinds.”

I laid Firebrand on the floor.  Sebastian set his cane aside.  It seemed like a friendly gesture, but I motioned for him to pick it up.

“Come walk with me a bit, please,” I invited.  We went out front to inspect the giant chessboard on the lawn.

“You know,” I told him, “that’s the first time anyone has mentioned the development of a new spell.”

“It’s hard to do in these modern days.  Things were easier back then.”

“I imagine.  Do you happen to know why the Fries and Mendozas decided to try and kill me?”

“If I’ve heard correctly, they think you’re a slave to a vampire mistress.”

“Very good.  What do you think?”

“You’re out in the sunlight and you know a spell nobody else does.  Either you found it in an ancient source, or someone ancient taught it to you.  I have to give their suspicion the benefit of plausibility.”

“Or I intuitively understand how spells are put together.”

I didn’t add the possibility of extensive magical training in another reality.  Can of worms, that.

“That is also possible, I suppose.”

“So, let me ask this.  If I could experiment with a vampire, examine its blood in, oh, a high-magic environment—you know, like in the old days—do you think it might be possible to develop a spell that could
cure
a vampire?”

“I… I suppose so.  But you would have to have a brilliantly powerful nexus.”

“You think I don’t?  And, if I don’t, it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes.  I suppose so.” He was obviously startled at the implication.  “But how do you persuade a vampire to cooperate?”

“Do you think all vampires want to be soulless minions of evil and drain the blood of humankind to continue their miserable existence in the darkened places of the world?”

“You put it poetically, but I take your meaning.”  He leaned on his stick and frowned, thinking.

“She also likes me,” I added.

“Ah.”  He continued to think, probably counting money in his head.  I toed a few of the more uneven bricks in the chessboard and stomped on them, hammering them more level.  Eventually, Sebastian straightened.

“I’ve also heard some of your spells are, shall we say, more physical than others?”

“Would you like to learn a spell to temporarily make you as strong as a vampire?  Or grow claws like one?  Or see in the dark?  You’ll need some vampire blood, of course, to cast it, and it burns away pretty quickly.”

“You mean to tell me you’re trying to cure vampires and you’ve developed ways to mimic their abilities?” he asked.

“You have to understand it before you can cure it, don’t you?”

“
Can
you cure it?”

“No.  Well, not yet.  Maybe not ever, if people keep trying to kill my only research subject.  And me.”

“Perhaps this is when you tell me what happened in Mexico,” he suggested.

So I did, or mostly.  I added a few extra parts, left out a few details, that sort of thing.  I think I left him with the impression that, while I caused considerable damage, it was only possible because I had a vampire’s powers to draw on.

“… and then I turned around.  The lady by the pool blasted me with something, and I’m certainly glad I had undead toughness and regeneration.  The spell hit me like a truck.  One of the side effects of the vampire powers, though, is also an occasional tendency to, well… how shall I put this?”

“Berserk?”

“Good word.  They do that when badly stressed?”

“Yes.  You didn’t know?”

“My test subject hasn’t been badly stressed,” I evaded.  “I suspected, though.  I don’t have a way to prevent it when you’re using undead powers, but it’s not normally a problem.”

“That’s when the fire started?”

“I presume so.  I don’t remember much after that.  I don’t even know if there were any injuries.  I was trying to get away, that’s all, but people kept shooting at us and… well… I wish whoever the lady was, she had let us go.  I’m not proud of what happened after that.”

“Lucia Rosaria Annunciata Mendoza.  Esteban’s eldest daughter.”

“If there are any survivors, please convey to them my sincerest apologies for everything after she hit me with her spell.”  I paused for a moment.  “Not for what happened before, though.  That was entirely their own damn fault.”

“I will.  But, to get back to this cure… if, for example, someone had a vampire, such as a friend or family member who had been claimed by one of those things, would you be willing to cure them?”

“Of course.  I can’t do it, at least not yet, but if I succeed in making such a spell I won’t keep it a secret.  I’ll give it to anyone who is willing to cure them instead of kill them out of hand.  They’re not all bad people.  Not even most of them.  Quite a few feel they’re afflicted with a curse, and it affects certain realities of their existence.”

Sebastian walked around the border of my chessboard, cane tapping, thinking.  Francine came around the house and sat down next to me.  The Four came around the house shortly after.

“Hi, Mister Smith!” Edgar shouted, waving, as they approached.  The others chorused it.

“Afternoon, everyone.  What’s on your mind?”

“Do you have pieces for your checkerboard?” Gary asked.

“No, I don’t.  Do you want to make some?”

“Could we?”

“How?”

“Out of what?”

“Hold it,” I told them.  “Yes, we can.  We’ll talk about it later.  Right now, I’m talking with my guest.  Sir Sebastian, these are Patricia, Luke, Edgar, and Gary.  Everyone, please say hello to Sir Sebastian Wilmont.”

They chorused a greeting.  Sir Sebastian nodded at them and smiled.

“Are you a knight?” Gary asked.  “’Cos only knights get to put ‘Sir’ in front of their name.”

“I am.”

“Where’s your armor?” Luke wanted to know.

“And your sword?” Edgar asked.

“Do you have a horse?” Patricia added.

“Hold it,” I repeated.  “Sir Sebastian and I are trying to talk.  You guys go think about what to make giant checkers out of.  I’ll be around when we’re done.”