Barb Hendee: Thief of Lives

"Call him off," Lila repeated. "They're just hungry boys."

"Chap, that's enough," Magiere said. "Leave him be."

The dog snarled once more and pulled back next to Magiere. The boy whimpered softly, rolled to his feet, and started running.

"Wait, take this," Lila called out. She held out a loaf of bread from the fallen basket.

The boy never looked back and disappeared down a side street.

Magiere stared at Lila's swollen jaw. It would be black and purple tomorrow. "You're trying to feed the thief who attacked you?"

Lila's expression grew sad, so sad that Magiere fell silent.

"They're just children, and they're hungry," Lila said softly. "There's not even enough work for their parents, if they have any, so how can they feed themselves?"

Magiere had no response. The knot in her stomach tightened as she escorted Lila safely home. Turning away, she headed back toward the south end of town, Chap beside her.

The Sea Lion was nestled at the base of a small, forested peninsula forming the southern side of the bay. Stout and cleanly cut plank walls, freshly whitewashed shutters, and an ornate sign depicting a sea lion riding an ocean wave greeted her as she stood outside her reborn establishment. The front door was shaped from solid oak this time, with iron bars and locks that Leesil had requested. Enough fair-grade glass panes had been found for the upper-floor windows, and shutters were in place on the ground floor. The whole of the place was at least half again as long as its previous incarnation and shone like a new copper coin in the sunlight. Even in hard times, people spent what little they could afford for the comfort of ale in good company by a warm hearth. The Sea Lion fairly burst with promise of laughter and profit. But at the moment, Magiere did not feel like laughing.

Chap scurried to the front door and sat waiting, but Magiere held back.

Somewhere inside, old Caleb, the caretaker they'd inherited, was likely putting things in order. Little Rose, his granddaughter, would be playing in her new bedroom, probably waiting for Chap, her favorite "pull-toy."

This day already weighed too heavily upon Magiere. She could imagine the activity that would grow through the afternoon, until the place opened for business.

The last time she'd taken on the role of bartender, both Miiska's desperate townsfolk and the vampires they feared had found her too easily. The memory, as well as the revelations about herself that had emerged, still haunted her. In facing the truth behind her life of deception and lies, Magiere had also faced more of herself than she'd ever wanted to know. In the presence of vampires, rage and strength filled her until she began to change, manifesting attributes only vampires themselves possessed… canines elongating to fangs amid sharpening teeth… healing herself by drinking mortal blood. It terrified her, even though it became necessary both to her own survival and to protect Leesil. And they had grown closer during the crisis.

Magiere felt suddenly cold and exposed.

In the aftermath, Leesil was so badly injured that all she could do was care for him until he could walk again. During that time, they didn't speak much of their experience together, because she decided it was best to put it all behind them.

He began slipping away by himself each morning. Perhaps that was best. Her cool manner was obviously troubling him, but his life had been endangered because of his connection to her, and a certain distance was for his own good. A lonely thought, but true.

Magiere looked southward across the coastal road out of town and up to the forested hills that lay inland. Leesil was late.

"Advance," Chane instructed, trying not to yawn from tedium, "and again. No, master, keep your blade level and then settle your weight back. Do not lean into your front leg." He lazily parried but did not take advantage of the blatant opening his opponent had left again-and again.

Toret, his pupil in swordplay and his master in all else, halted in frustration.

"My sword is straight!" he snapped. His voice echoed off the walls of the enlarged cellar cleared for their use in training and other clandestine pursuits. "Why do you keep repeating that?"

Their three-story stone house resided in the upper-class quarters of Bela, the kingdom capital of Belaski and its major port of call. Acceptable and perhaps extravagant by middle-class standards, it was not what Chane had been used to in life. The city's population was-so diverse almost anyone could fit in. However, since he'd risen from death, Chane felt nothing but out of place in his master's company.

A recent Noble Dead, or vampire specifically, Chane still understood the walls between classes. In mortal life, he had been a minor noble of an outlying barony, familiar with the politics and social strategies customary among the gentry. And now-as in most of his conscious moments-he assisted his creator, his master, in elevating himself. That contradiction, as well as the contrast between them, was so beyond comic it struck Chane as absurd rather than amusing.

Chane was tall, with thick auburn hair cut just below his ears. Dark ginger breeches and a midnight-blue tunic were tailor-cut for him, framing broad shoulders over a long torso. Fluent in four languages, with a noble's education and self-schooled in less acknowledged arts, he handled a long sword as if born to it.

Herein lay the contemptible irony of this new existence with his master .

Toret was thin-armed, seeming a youth no more than seventeen years, and small for the age. Even scrubbed clean, his skin was tinted as though covered in a constant layer of filth. His dirt-brown hair stuck out in tufts and cowlicks. He bore scars on one wrist and his cheek. He conversed well enough in Belaskian, the common language throughout most of the region, and seemed to speak the vulgar tongue of the Suman Empire across the ocean and far to the south. But despite this, so far, he could barely read or write any language, regardless of tutelage. His expensive burgundy brocade tunic made him look like a houseboy playing dress-up while the manor lord was away.

But Toret had trapped and turned Chane, pulled him from death into servitude. Now Chane could not refuse the smaller undead's most menial whim. Once created, a vampire could not refuse its master. Chane was a slave.

"No, master," he said with forced politeness. "Your blade is not straight, and you throw your weight too far. Observe me."

Chane stepped precisely through three connected advances but did not believe for a moment that Toret would catch the finer details.

"Well, I think you're doing… splendidly!" came a high-pitched voice from across the cellar.

Both Toret's and Chane's attention shifted toward the voice. Chane suppressed a sneer of disgust as their household's third member forced her presence into his awareness. Toret smiled, exposing straight but lightly stained teeth.

"My sweet," Toret said with relish. "Have you been shopping?"

Flouncing toward them was another painful reality of Chane's new existence: Sapphire.

Some would find her alluring or desirable, in a vulgar way, but to Chane she was the most repulsive creature to invade his existence, before or after his death.

Sapphire wore a low-cut satin gown so startlingly pink it might be called magenta, and dark blond curls sculpted into sausage ringlets framed her round and often pouting face. Red-stained lips stood out between her smooth, pale cheeks, while gaudy ruby earrings that could feed a large village dangled from her earlobes. No matter how much money Toret heaped upon her for clothing and jewelry, she retained the appearance of a well-paid but tasteless prostitute. Her only untainted feature was a set of bright sapphire eyes, and hence the name Toret had given her.