Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

I’m not sure how long I stood there, but voices at the end of the hall, from the room with the statues, drew me forward. Beating down the growing sense of panic, I picked a long, sharp sliver of wood, which might once have been part of a door, out of the red muck, and stalked toward the rectangle of light at the far end.

Once I reached the doorway, I sagged in relief and dropped my gore-covered, makeshift weapon with a clatter. Arnold looked up from where he was wrapping a bandage around someone’s leg, and Sara rose from comforting a pale, shaking woman to wrap me in a fierce hug. Returning the gesture, I peered over her shoulder, taking stock of the survivors.

There were only two vampires standing, both looking distant and pale. I wasn’t totally thrilled that Fane was one of them. Kimberly was crouched by one of the statues, her head bowed and arms wrapped around her knees. Over a dozen people in shredded, red-spattered white robes huddled together, including an elf with a black eye and some kind of Other with patches of tawny fur that kept sprouting and disappearing on various parts of his body as I watched.

“Is everyone okay?”

Sara briefly tightened her grip, then pulled back and shook her head. She was a bit shaky, and there were a few tight lines of pain around her eyes, but there was a hard edge to her voice that spoke of her determination and courage.

“Max killed half our people before he rushed off. We’ve been patching up the survivors. Where did you go? Where’s Gideon and that woman?”

“Gideon’s waiting upstairs.” I moved inside, addressing everybody this time. “Max is dead. We need to get out of here. Come with us, we’ll help you.”

Most of them looked up at me, even Kimberly. A few huddled deeper into themselves, and one or two of the people in robes started sobbing in relief. I shifted in place, uncomfortable with the wave of thanks and grateful hugs and touches some of them gave me as they worked up the courage to approach.

One of them jabbered something in a language I didn’t recognize. German, maybe? She sounded scared and a little angry, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. Neither was anyone else, judging by the blank looks all around. She complied when the others gestured for her to follow us out, even though she was obviously wary and kept as much distance between herself and the vampires as possible.

I led the way back up, Fane making his way to the front of the crowd to walk beside me. His sharp features had gone stony and drawn, and he didn’t say anything, though he radiated tension. Whether from the battle or fear or hunger or something else, I couldn’t tell.

When we rounded the stairs, Gideon braced himself against the wall and struggled to his feet, relief etched across his face. The vampire stilled beside me, then was nothing but a blur.

Half a second later, he was holding the necromancer against the wall by the throat and the wrist of his tattooed hand.

“Fane, don’t!”

The vampire’s fangs were bared, eyes gleaming crimson as he hissed up at the squirming mage, whose face was going purple from lack of air. “You have no idea what this is. It can’t be suffered to live.”

I pounded up the stairs after him, tackling him around the waist before he could choke the life out of Gideon. The three of us fell with a heavy thump outside the hole in the wall. Something sharp sliced across my upper arm as we fell, and I was pretty sure the other two hadn’t made it through unscathed, but it had the desired effect of startling Fane into letting the necromancer go.

Gideon clawed at the runner, trying to drag himself out from under us, but all he managed to do was pull the strip of carpet closer. The vampire snarled and struggled to grab at the necromancer again, but I straddled his back, putting all my weight into him, and whacked him as hard as I could on the back of the head.

“Leave him alone! He’s not a danger to you!”

“Like hell,” Gideon panted, then yelped as the vampire’s hand came down on his shoulder. The yelp quickly turned into an agonized shriek as Fane’s fingers bit into his skin, sinking deep into the muscle.

Somewhere on the stairwell, Sara gave an answering cry of pain.

I didn’t have the strength to pull Fane back, and he was still hell-bent on the kill. I did the only thing I could think of.

“For fuck’s sake, somebody help us! Get him off!”

The Other with the fur was the only one who bothered to help. He rushed forward, baring a mouthful of fangs at Fane as the vampire fought to keep his grip on the necromancer. Fingers tipped with wickedly curved black talons closed around Fane’s wrist, dislodging his grip with a sickening sucking sound from Gideon’s shoulder.

I traded places with the Were or whatever he was. The guy did a much better job than I had at keeping Fane pinned. The vampire stared at Gideon’s limp frame with raw lust in his eyes, but stopped fighting to reach for him when he realized he was at a disadvantage.

Shuffling forward on hands and knees, I gingerly touched Gideon’s back, relieved when he cursed and flailed. He couldn’t be too badly hurt if he was still fighting. “Stop that, I’m checking the wound.”

“Son of a motherfucking whoremaster, that hurts,” Gideon replied, and with feeling.

Yeah. He would be just fine.

Arnold shouted my name. I gritted my teeth and gave Gideon a light smack on the small of his back, far from the seeping divots in his shoulder. He flinched anyway. “Don’t move. I’ll see what Arnold needs. Maybe he can do something about that.”

He cursed at me again, and I managed a weak grin, relieved. Except when I turned around, the other vampire had Sara in his arms, Arnold holding her hand. She had gone paler than before, pain twisting her features into an unrecognizable mask. With a gasp, I dashed to her side, putting a hand to her cheek.

Her skin was cold, and there was a faint, reddish light glowing on her arms in the shape of the runes that Gideon had supposedly removed. Even as I watched, they faded away, leaving her arms unblemished. I whirled, only to see he was sitting up, rubbing his bad shoulder with an apologetic expression.

“Sorry. I tried not to,” he said.

Arnold made an inarticulate sound in his throat, his free hand lifting like he was thinking about hurling some kind of magic—but held back only by the thought of what it might do to Sara. His fist clenched, tightening until his knuckles cracked. Gideon had the grace to redden.

“I’m sorry, I can’t undo it. The siphon or the bond. The minute I do, I’m a dead man. Don’t deny it. I see it in your eyes.”

Arnold gave him a grim, humorless smile, all teeth. “You’re already dead. The minute I figure out how to fix this, I’ll hunt you down and end you.”

I stepped between them, hands up, though I was suppressing the umpteenth urge to throttle Gideon myself. “Look, we need to keep him safe for now, and he needs to come with us back to New York. We’ll figure out a way to undo it and keep everyone alive and well in the process, got it?”

Gideon gave me a tentative nod, but Arnold didn’t answer. I turned my attention to the mage, giving him a significant look, one eyebrow arching. His glare shifted from Gideon to me, lights flickering in his green eyes like lightning flashes in a thundercloud.

It was the first time I ever felt anything close to genuine fear of Arnold.

His stare stayed on me for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then he turned away without answering to focus on Sara, whispering something to her too softly for me to hear.

It wasn’t a promise not to hurt Gideon once the spell binding Sara to him was broken, but for now it would have to do.