Unchained

Chapter 8

The prince watched his subject sleep.

Long ago, when Miru-kai had walked the earth, the fey had the power to keep their human companions from aging. True, such magic was a risky alteration to the great pattern of destiny, but it was a chance the fey were willing to take to enjoy the friendship and love humans gave so freely. But the pattern sometimes had a will of its own. The magical herbs, the stones of power, and all the other spells the fey habitually used had been lost to Miru-kai when he and his band of thieves had fallen into the trap of the Castle. Fortunately for the humans among them, the Castle’s magic stopped the effects of age. It didn’t stop the effects of steel. All of Miru-kai’s human friends had perished in battle. All except Simeon.

Now, as the Castle’s magic changed and life returned to the stone walls, whatever magic kept humans young was eroding fast. It made sense. Life was change. As the Castle lived, so the cycle of birth and death began spinning again.

Just because it made sense didn’t make it bearable. Miru-kai watched Simeon and felt each passing second like a drop of his own blood leaking away. I don’t know what to do.

His own grandfather had been human, but he had passed into the Summerland with the rest of Miru- kai’s kin before the path to that magical realm had been lost. Too long ago to remember.

So this is what it means to be mortal.

The prince hadn’t seen this kind of death before, at least not for anyone he loved. How did humans stand growing old?

Simeon’s hair had not gone white. It would take time to grow out that way. Instead, it had lost all its sheen, gone brittle and dry as straw. His flesh had shrunk against his bones. The energy that had always seemed to roar from Simeon like a north wind had fallen silent, still, and all but dead. All this in a matter of weeks.

By the time Miru-kai had figured out what ailed his friend, it had almost been too late. Sheer genius alone had ushered the prince into the guardsmen’s vault. Genius, luck, and the machinations of a demon pursuing other ends. He had used the demon’s conniving to his own purpose.

Reynard and Mac had fallen into the prince’s net like oafs at a county fair. He hadn’t exactly lied to them, and that was the secret. A nudge here, an evasion there . . . Miru-kai hadn’t lost his touch. He could sell warts to goblins.

But could he fix this?

Shadows bunched on the walls as he rose from his chair, then knelt by Simeon’s bed. The old man slept, heavy breath in, heavy breath out. The mortal had been everything—his counselor, his teacher, his boon companion, the one who had bathed his wounds. If his own blood had the power to cure, Miru-kai would have opened his veins.

But no, blood was not the answer. Miru- kai rested a hand on the soft-worn sheet, feeling bones beneath. Simeon was fading fast, shrinking and shriveling even as his prince hesitated and pondered.

It was a fey’s duty to protect his humans. Is this what Simeon would want?

He picked up the urn he had taken at random from the guardsmen’s vault. There had been no chance to pick and choose, just a grab as he turned invisible and fled Reynard’s unholy wrath. The urn’s gold paint felt smooth under his fingers. The shape was elegant, a pleasing combination of curves topped by a slightly pointed knob at the top of the lid. Between the lid and the body of the urn was a seal of white wax. Inside was the life of a man.

This separation of body and soul made the guards all but immortal. Perversely, it also gave them two ways to die. If either the body or the soul was completely destroyed, both halves perished. If he broke the seal, both the soul and the body that matched this vessel would die.

Unless he used sorcery. He could steal the life from this pottery prison and give it to Simeon. He would hate this idea.

Miru-kai started to turn the vessel over to read the name on the side, but stopped. He knew many of the guards by name. Knowing whose urn it was would make using it harder. That would feel like murder.

“Kai?”

His head jerked up.

“What are you doing?” Simeon didn’t lift his head from his pillow, but peered at his prince through half-closed eyes.

“Nothing.”

“You look guilty.”

The prince bit his lip, thinking of the many times his old friend had said that, in just such a way, ever since the prince was little. After sneaking out on one of his father’s horses, for instance, or cheating at his studies.

Miru-kai took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I might have found you a cure.”

Simeon looked weary. “No cure.”

Frustration lanced through him. “I don’t accept that speech you gave about mortals needing to move on. Move on where?”

“I fought in the Crusades. Use your imagination.”

Miru-kai swore under his breath. They had always argued philosophy—the fey pattern versus the human interpretations of fate and free will. “Surely death cannot be better than life.”

Simeon’s eyes drifted shut, then dragged open again. “If I can manage it, I’ll come back and let you know what I find out.”

“No!”

“As you wish.”

“No. I don’t need a pronouncement from the beyond. I need you here.” Miru- kai ducked his head, unable to meet Simeon’s eyes a moment longer.

He rolled the urn over, read the name, and froze. Bran. Oh, no. He’d seen that evil guardsman die in the wars last autumn. That meant the urn was empty.

Oberon’s hairy balls!

He was the most cunning thief of the fey, and yet his haste had spoiled everything. He’d been too eager to snatch one of the guardsmen’s souls and get away. There would never be another chance—at least, not in time for Simeon.

If I’d only taken my time, read the names, sacrificed a bit of stealth and done a proper job.

“Kai?”

I have killed him with my failure. “What?”

The answer came slowly, softly. “Don’t worry so much.”

“Don’t you dare go!” Miru-kai’s voice broke to pieces, sounding small, and young and afraid despite his long, long years of life.

There was no answer.

He felt the blossoming void when Simeon left him, that horrible blankness where once a mortal soul had been. He reached out, touched the weathered face, but no one was there. Simeon’s thread in the pattern was done. Miru-kai was alone in the room.

The harsh breathing stopped a minute or two later, but it was merely the lights burning down in an empty feast hall.

For the rest of the night, Miru-kai held Simeon’s hand in his. The fey didn’t weep. They weren’t capable of it. They did not break their hearts over the death of a fragile human.

The prince, grandson of a mortal tribesman, did both.

Friday, April 3, 7:30 p.m.

North Central Shopping Mall

I’m so screwed.

Two hours later, Ashe gathered up her coat and purse from the staff room. It was seven thirty and she was starving and unemployed. She hoped those two conditions were temporary.

As soon as the security guard had gathered his wits, he’d called the cops. Ashe had phoned her boss. The head librarian had arrived at the same time as the police.

They’d all had a lot to say: You didn’t just stake patrons. You! Fine! Them! Suspension. Union rep. News media. Nonhuman-rights cases. Blah, blah. Vampire dust hard to clean out of carpet. Blah, blah.

How were the police supposed to confirm identification? Did he have any distinguishing features? What? Like the fangs? Look, lady, don’t need the attitude. Blah, blah-de-blah.

Ashe produced the wallet card with her international hunting license. That calmed them down.

Reynard produced a government-issued nonhuman ID card. Apparently Mac, once a detective with the local police, had made all the guardsmen get them. It worked almost as well as the license, once Mac’s name was mentioned. The demon ex-cop still had allies on the force.

Fortunately, Mrs. F. and Gina stuck around and gave their accounts. Both painted Ashe and Reynard as a cross between archangels and superheroes. The young student the vampire had grabbed was identified and tracked down by phone. She’d give a statement tomorrow, but right then she was too afraid to leave her house. Daylight was better.

Grudgingly, the cop in charge let Ashe go if she promised to show up at the station and make a formal statement. Hunters got away with murder as long as they signed the right forms.

Her boss was less easily assuaged. Since vampicide wasn’t covered in the Fairview Library’s “Interdepartmental Manual of Standards”—fondly referred to as the FLIMSy—Ashe was suspended without pay pending review by the board of directors. She was advised to call her shop steward in the morning.

By that point, she didn’t care anymore. She’d care after she’d had something to eat and hugged her daughter.

“Where are you going?” Reynard asked. He stood in the staff room doorway, arms crossed, a bandage around one wrist to cover the vampire bite. He wasn’t quite slouching—his posture was relentlessly upright—but the casual clothes made him look more relaxed. Or maybe that was just the buzz from a touch of after-stake snogging.

Ashe didn’t reply at once, but kept stuffing all the junk she’d left in the staff room over the last couple of months in a plastic bag. If it turned out she was fired, she didn’t want to have to come back to claim a bunch of plastic food containers and old magazines she’d claimed from the discard pile.

Besides, it gave her an excuse not to look at him. She wasn’t embarrassed by the kiss, but it raised some questions she wasn’t ready to deal with at the moment. Such as, maybe she was more ready to move on from Roberto than she had fully realized. The embrace had jolted something in her awake. Something she didn’t even want to go back to sleep.

Mixed up with confusion and worry and stress, it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. Still, the kiss had been . . . wow.

“It was the venom,” Reynard said. “I apologize.”

He sounded more satisfied than sorry.

“Yeah, okay.” Ashe opened the fridge, checked the shelves for comfort food worth stealing. “The venom made you do it.”

Goddess! Ashe couldn’t keep on thinking about that kiss on an empty stomach. The memory made her dizzy enough as it was. It was taking all her resolve not to throw him on the staff room table and repeat the error of their ways—common sense, motherhood, and sanity be damned. And he had the gall to apologize, like he’d dinged her bumper. Ooh, bad metaphor.

“Is there a different apology that would please you better?” Sarcastic, this time.

“No woman likes to hear she was kissed due to a lapse of judgment.”

“Blast it, Ashe!” Reynard was suddenly next to her. He grabbed her wrist, his casual strength nearly enough to lift her off her feet. “Listen to me.”

Ashe stared into his eyes, letting her anger show. No one handled her like that and kept his fingers. “What?”

He bared his teeth, a gesture between a grimace and a snarl. “Don’t you see? If I felt the venom, I’m losing the powers that being a guardsman give me. I’m separated from my life force. I’m starting to fade.”

She expected to see fear in his storm-colored eyes, but instead there was furious defiance. She knew what that rage felt like. It had been riding her when she staked her first vampire.

“Then you don’t have much time left,” she said, fear filling her mouth with a sour, metallic tang.

“I don’t have much life left.” He let go of her wrist, stepped back. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, but I bloody enjoyed it.”

That sounded honest. She shut the fridge. “Forgiven.”

He held her gaze intently, as if he were willing her to understand. “I have to work fast, before I decide to hell with spending eternity in a dungeon. I am far too tempted to live while I can. It’s a poor choice between death and eternal darkness.”

The starkness of his words took her breath away. Her tongue went thick and dry. “I said I’d help you. You’re going to live if I have to take you back to Mac drunk in a wheelbarrow with your urn strapped to your forehead.”

“That’s a charming image.”

“I play rough.”

He gave her a smoking look that said the venom story was only half-true. Captain Reynard knew what he liked, and there was only a thin sliver of civilization holding him back. Had he played too long with monsters, or had he been born with that wild streak? She could nearly taste it, a trace of the savage in the air. He could change his mind in a moment, and she would be the one on the table. Yowza.

Ashe felt a low, sweet burning in her belly, but it was wounded by sadness. The mix of desire and sorrow reminded her too much of her husband and his senseless end. Ashe looked away, swallowing down a sudden ache in her throat. Back to business. She knew the head librarian was waiting outside, ready to show her the door.

“I have to pick up my daughter. The after-school care was good enough to take her to my grandmother’s.”

Guilt felt like a fine dust coating her skin, so ingrained it merely smudged when she tried to brush it away. Good mothers didn’t miss pickup time because they were explaining themselves to the cops. Goddess, what happens if I lose my job for good?

Reynard seemed to read her face. A furrow of concern formed between his eyebrows, and he brushed warm fingertips down her cheek. She stiffened, but didn’t pull away. The touch was caring, not intrusive. She just wasn’t used to having a man around anymore.

“Do you want me to go?” he asked.

“No. Come with me. We need to talk. You came to me for help. I haven’t forgotten that, and we can’t waste any more time.” Abruptly, she started for the door.

He fell into step beside her. “Where are we going?”

“To Grandma’s house.”

He gave her a sidelong look. “According to the old tales, isn’t there a wolf at Grandmother’s house?”

Ashe smiled sweetly. “So you’ve met Grandma.”