The Devil's Liege (The Mathias Saga Book 2) (18 page)

Mathias took a deep breath. The air smelled so clean. He felt almost like himself again. It had been a while since he felt this good.

“Come back,” he heard a voice whisper.

Mathias rolled his eyes. “No fucking way.”

He leapt off the crest and felt his wings burst forth from his back. It felt so good to have the air rush over them again. His wing fur sent impulses to his brain about wind direction and intensity. He listened and adjusted his flight. Now, he just had to hope that Nossy was going to be all right. If not, well, he would go back to the castle, just not in the way the Snow Queen hoped.

* * * * *

Vlad moved so fast through the castle that Stuart could hardly keep up. This was the second time today and he wasn’t exactly known for being slow. Vlad must care more than he realized. It wasn’t that Stuart wasn’t excited, but waiting around the courtyard wasn’t going to make Mathias come any faster. Still, he had to admit. It was kind of cute. Almost like the proud papa waiting to welcome his son back from war.

Finally, they got out to the courtyard. The air was crisp and cold in the way that any January knows. Stuart wished Vlad would see sense. They could just as easily wait inside the castle doors and watch from the peephole, but Vlad making sense didn’t seem like it was going to happen any time soon.

Stuart blinked a coat onto his body. Vlad didn’t seem to notice the cold. Good for him. The elder vampire kept looking around the yard. But nothing was there. Stuart bit his tongue. He didn’t need to speak what he was thinking. That perhaps the alarm had been wrong, but he didn’t say it.

When he tasted blood, he smiled. The blood tasted salty and coppery. It was a good distraction. Nothing was going to work if they got into another fight. Besides, if this wasn’t Mathias, Vlad was going to be crushed. He was going to have to be ready to pick up the pieces.

He flapped his wings a few times to get the blood circulating a bit. It being this cold made him feel sluggish. He really preferred to be back inside, but he wasn’t about to leave Vlad alone to his own devices.

Suddenly, there was a loud pop and where there once was nothing, now there were two horses, Azazel, and what looked like a pile of rags on the back of one of the horses.

“Don’t just stand there. Come and get him,” Azazel yelled.

Stuart felt his stomach curl on itself. The pile of rags. No Mathias. This didn’t bode well.

Vlad rushed over and unleashed the body from the horse. “Stuart, stop daydreaming and come help me.”

Stuart walked over. Nosferatu was basically mummified. No wonder Vlad asked for help. They could break him if they weren’t careful. He helped the elder vampire untie the lashes.

“Tell the infirmary we’re coming,” Vlad called to the crowd that had gathered on the steps.

Several vampires disappeared. Stuart and Vlad carefully carried Nossy into the castle.

“Is he still alive?” Stuart asked. This was the thing he’d feared ever since Mathias had discovered the kidnapping. He couldn’t imagine life without Nosferatu in it. They were all going to be extremely bored.

“Barely,” Vlad said.

Stuart grunted.

* * * * *

Mathias watched the hills disappear underneath him. The trees moved below him in a grey blur. The lack of pain still felt weird. In his own way, he’d gotten used to having it. He supposed you could get used to anything if you tried hard enough. He remembered Azazel saying as much. He forced all thoughts of the Snow Queen from his mind.

He darted amongst the clouds, sometimes narrowly avoiding birds. He felt at home up there. He shook himself and focused. Now was not the time to leisurely play in the air. He needed to get to the castle and make sure Nossy was okay.

But, the weirdest thing of all, without the pain, his mind seemed at peace. Things weren’t overlapping anymore. He felt solid and real. Whole. The past was now just more memories, not stuff layered on top of each other in a bizarre mess. He’d finally come into himself.

The frigid air made the small hairs on his body stand on end. It was a warning almost. That winter had killed a lot of people. And maybe, it had taken Nossy. He just didn’t know yet. The Snow Queen had killed a lot of people over the years; of that Mathias was sure of.

Finally, he saw the outer wall. Home. He drifted over the wall and looked down. There was a lone figure standing in the courtyard.

Mathias touched down gently and walked toward Azazel. It was good to see him there. Even better not to see any sign of Nossy.

“News?” Mathias asked.

Azazel shook his head. “Nothing yet. I was waiting for you.”

Mathias nodded. “Let’s go.”

* * * * *

It had been a while since Mathias had been inside the infirmary, but the smells were still the same—antiseptic and illness. The last time had been a short trip. It seemed like eons ago that Vlad was forcing him to get checked out because he’d scrambled his brain. Mathias stopped at what looked like a nurse’s desk. Really, it was more of a countertop, but whatever. The vampire behind the desk looked like someone’s mom. She had curly blonde hair and an infectious smile.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m checking on Nosferatu,” Mathias said.

Her smile faded a little. “Master Mathias, I haven’t really heard.”

It was still weird meeting people who knew him by sight alone. But, her expression wasn’t good. He could tell she wasn’t lying, but the news still sucked. He tapped the desk for a minute.

“What would you like to do?” Azazel asked.

Mathias looked at him, and then looked back at the nurse. “We’ll wait here. Is that okay?”

She smiled sweetly at him. Almost like she wanted to pat him on the head. “Honey, you’re the king. You can do whatever you want.”

Mathias laughed. If things weren’t so crazy, he would definitely use that to his advantage. “What’s your name?”

She bowed her head. “Alice, sire.”

He held out his hand and she took it. “I’ll remember you.”

She beamed again and then let go of his hand.

“Where can we wait, Alice?” Mathias asked. He rubbed his foot against his calf for a minute. He didn’t see a waiting area like at a normal hospital.

“Just a sec.” She got up and walked into another room. When she came out again, she was rolling two office chairs across the floor. “Will these work?”

“Those are perfect,” Mathias said. He took one from her and Azazel grabbed the other. They arranged them right against the opposite wall out of the way.

Alice went back to her duties behind the desk.

“Why were you so nice to her?” Azazel asked.

Mathias shrugged. What was so wrong with being nice? “My mom was a secretary. If you want anything done, be nice to the help.”

Azazel grunted.

Mathias raised an eyebrow. “You don’t agree with me?”

Azazel looked down at the floor. “We are from different worlds. Where I come from, if the help does not do what they have been directed to do, punishment is swift.”

Mathias leaned back in the chair as far back as it was safe to do. He kept forgetting. Azazel wasn’t exactly a vampire. He was a demon prince. How he came to work for the vampires, he still didn’t know. Azazel liked to speak in too many riddles. And, well, right now, the why didn’t matter at all.

Finally, a weary Vlad shuffled down the hallway. He seemed rumpled, completely unlike how Mathias remembered him. Mathias got up out of his chair. “Is he going to be okay?”

Vlad looked up, walked over, and grabbed Mathias into a bear hug. After a moment, he let Mathias go. Mathias had missed that.

“We are giving him as much blood as we can,” Vlad said. “His body has been without it for so long, his tissues have to absorb it like a sponge.”

“So, we’re still waiting,” Mathias said. He knew logically that there was no way that Nossy was magically going to be better, but he had hoped for something better than this.

Vlad nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Who’s sitting with him now?” Azazel asked.

Vlad looked over. “Stuart.”

Azazel nodded and got up from his chair. “I’ll go check on the dungeon,” Azazel said. He nodded once then turned away.

Mathias was kind of sad to see him go, but he understood too. Azazel didn’t feel comfortable in this setting. Mathias could tell that by their conversation. The creature was too formal almost here. Azazel had been himself out in that cave. He’d seen what Azazel had been capable of and Mathias wasn’t sure if he should be scared of him or not. Either way, the man hadn’t done anything but do what he’d said he was going to do. That probably made him a good person to have around.

Azazel didn’t even look back as he exited the infirmary.

“He’s an unusual one,” Vlad said.

“Yeah.” And Mathias found himself missing him already.

“Want to see Nossy?” Vlad asked.

Mathias nodded.

Chapter Thirteen

Mathias sat in a chair next to Nossy’s bed. It was strange to not be in a bed in this place for once. There were various beeps coming from the machinery monitoring Nossy’s condition. He was still skeletal, still mummified. The only difference was that a human would have needed a ventilator, well if they weren’t mummified that is. No human could survive that. Because Nossy didn’t need to breathe, there wasn’t a need for one anyway.

He reached out and took a hold of Nossy’s hand. Gently, of course. He didn’t want to break it. “I’ll be here when you wake up. Everything is going to be okay now.”

Mathias looked over at Stuart. Stuart nodded once, vacated the chair, and ducked out of the room.

Mathias almost expected for Nossy to come back with some sort of smart assed remark, but there was nothing but the sound of the machines. He missed his friend. He was missing a lot of people now. People he’d become attached to.

Slowly, Mathias’ eyes drifted downward. The stress of everything weighed on him. He leaned back in the chair. It was time to get some rest.

* * * * *

The next morning, Mathias woke to hearing a cart crashing into the wall outside Nossy’s room. Then, he heard someone say, “Oops.” Technically, they were supposed to be careful in here, but he didn’t want to risk waking Nossy or scaring him just because he wanted to blow his ass seeing the orderly had woke him up.

He got up and poked his head outside the room. He looked down one side of the hallway and saw nothing. On the other side, however, an orderly was already heading down the hall. It wasn’t worth the trouble to say anything about it. He needed to check on Nossy anyway.

Mathias walked back into Nossy’s room and picked up his chart hanging from the end of the hospital bed. He wasn’t sure what he’d find, but maybe he’d missed something while he was asleep. Well, if he could read the doctor’s handwriting anyway.

He looked down at the paper. The entries were made in a spidery hand. Some of it he could make out and some of it he couldn’t. One thing he could read was the date, but something was wrong. He took a closer look. The chart was dated January 27, 2014.

“Oh, shit.”

Mathias’ brain faded back to the valley and the Snow Queen. The stutter steps down the mountain. The weight and the pain pulling on him. It wasn’t a mistake. Azazel had said time was weird there.
Weird my ass.
He’d lost over a year. She’d stolen a year of his life.

“Fuck me,” Mathias said while setting the chart back into the holder on the end of the bed.

“Not likely. You aren’t my type,” a gravelly voice said.

Mathias looked down at the bed. A pair of blue orbs were looking at him from amidst wrinkly skin. Nossy’s mummified face wasn’t so dry anymore and it was smiling.

Mathias rushed over to the bedside. “You’re awake.”

“Looks that way,” Nossy said. He flexed his hands. The skin was starting to peel and come off in flakes.

“That’s fucking gross,” Mathias said.

Nossy shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

Nossy kept moving his hands about so more of the dead skin would come off.

“Who?” Mathias asked. He couldn’t remember having heard the other vampires talk about it. Not to mention, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, but curiosity had taken hold of him.

Nossy glared at him.

“Uh, yeah.” Whoops. Of course, he couldn’t be expected to remember his own death all that well. He remembered snatches here and there, but of course he had no idea what he’d looked like. It wasn’t as if there was a mirror staring at him in the rose garden.

Nossy sat up. “Go fetch the worry-wart. I need to talk to him.”

“Uh. Okay.” Who knew what this was about? There must be something important, maybe about the kidnapping. Mathias didn’t question it. He’d do whatever Nossy wanted. In his eyes, Nossy was the true king.

Mathias left the room and headed toward Vlad’s chambers. He figured that Vlad was probably there instead of his office. It was still pretty early. He was most likely eating breakfast. Too bad he hadn’t even made it to his room last night, otherwise he could have just texted Vlad, after he charged his phone that is. No way it would still have a charge when he’d been gone so long.