1: Battle Cry

Darby    

“Oh, here it is.” At the annoyed grumble in my voice, Tessa raises herself awkwardly and slowly limps the few steps to my side. She sets her head gently on my lap, and I stroke the white stripe that runs from the tip of her nose to just behind her pricked ears, her tail swishing softly on the red oak floor. I continue to read from the rough yellowing page of an ancient text, this time out loud so she can hear.

“The natural state of the universe constantly tumbles towards lowest energy and chaos, a benefit to dark magick practitioners similar to that which assists a demon’s unholy magick, and unlike other magick types with foundations in the order of specific creation.”

“Well, that’s obnoxious. Why should they have it easier?”

Under the guise of getting more comfortable, Tessa lifts her chin, then nestles her head in my lap again, diverting my attention to petting her. I look down and smile, seeing the gray-white hairs of age in the shiny black fur around her eyes and mouth, the milky murky white that’s slowly stealing her sight from her gentle brown eyes. It makes me sad and unbidden tears well in my eyes—I love Tessa dearly and it broke my heart to lose her sister a few years ago.

“What will I do without your help on these projects, little lady?” Her tail swishes faster, her chin pressing harder—the distraction is her way of offering comfort. With a weak smile, I dry my eyes on the cuff of my shirt, then concentrate on the text again.

“While this gives dark magick, like unholy magick, an advantage in rate of casting and acceleration or amplification of the associated magickal turbulence, it provides a significant disadvantage over time. Specifically, dark magick, once cast, hastens towards its target, similar to an avalanche. While powerful and growing, it is nevertheless imprecise, inaccurate, and self-limiting, with the lowest energy state requiring more magick for sustained use and exhausting the user at an exponentially faster rate.

Thus, it is rare to find dark magick influences in effect at elementary levels, or in anything less magickally organized than the environment surrounding an organism or individual.”

“There you have it, Tessa. I need to put a finer point on the wards around the valley so they can’t find us using them. Still doesn’t tell me how they were able to do it when they’ve never been able to before, the rat bastards.”

Leaning against the chair back distractedly, I draw idle elemental air to close the book and return it to its place on the library shelf, contemplating my magical options. I pat Tessa’s shoulder. “Come along, old girl. I’m going to need breakfast before I get started.”

There are sixteen concentric wards or barriers of varying magickal focus around my valley, not counting the fold that hides it from the surface. About three decades ago give or take a few months, a vampire unwittingly stumbled upon the outer one. Since then, his coven has launched regular attacks against the magical shields, using the weaker vampire members as guinea pigs, and determinedly testing my sanctuary's perimeter, looking for vulnerabilities.

This in itself wouldn’t worry me—though undead and also possessing accelerated regenerative or restorative abilities like most other supernaturals, vampires aren’t immortal and are highly susceptible to elemental fire, the use of which is a skill I’ve perfected beyond my innate magical mastery over my forty-four plus some change hundred years in existence—but in recent years, these attacks are more and more frequently assisted by dark magic, which is not inherent to vampire kind.

Which means, annoyingly, there’s a bloody witch in the mix as well.

Swirling thoughts fill my head, slowly coalescing into deliberate design as I pour myself a generous glass of nectar and grab two red plums from the pantry. “Would you like some carrots?” I ask Tessa, as she limps to a halt alongside me, and when her tail starts swishing, drop a handful of baby carrots on the floor for her, knowing her sense of smell will allow her to find all the treats, even if her eyesight is failing.

I’m struck in that instant. The white shepherd’s lantern at the tip of Tessa’s tail, a hallmark of her border collie breed, is tracing a dimly glowing infinity sigil in the air as she crunches away at her carrots.

One puzzle at a time, I remind myself, before I start down the rabbit hole contemplating what Tessa’s first manifestation of prophetic magic might mean.

The nectar is cool, sweet and heady when I raise the glass to my lips and it’s refreshing beyond measure after my long night spent in the library. When it’s gone, I make quick work of the plums, then start out to the west garden in the final hour of darkness before the pearling fingers of Aine streak across the morning sky, with Tessa trailing dutifully in my wake.

Taking a seat in the middle of the cultivated lawn amid the dandelions and grass, I close my eyes and draw grounded earth magic, or green magic, from my grove. A white horizonal line slices through the black against my eyelids, slowly expands until my inner sight shows me my secreted valley from above and the spherical rings of magical wardings protecting it.

The process of revising the wards is slow and complex. While the use of elemental magic is second nature to me, resetting the wards with deliberate and careful intention so that they're still powerfully effective but not so indiscriminate as to be detectable from the outside takes consideration and awareness.

I’m to the eighth concentric ward when Tessa’s bark cuts through my concentration. My eyes pop open, and as I leap to my feet, I feel the impact as the sixth barrier is breached without the vampire crossing the first five.

“Why you clever little bastards!” I hiss through clenched teeth, launching myself in a blurred transparent streak with sylphide agility and speed toward the northern end of my valley and the location of the uninvited undead.

“Tessa! Get inside!” I shout, passing her in the front garden near the moon gate.

A few seconds later, I glide to an abrupt halt about a quarter mile from my stone cottage in the meadow surrounding it. There are more assaults against the barriers visible on the surrounding ridges. Many of them and from multiple angles flash in white-hot bursts of light or sickening splatters to an accompanying soundtrack of death shrieks, but aside from this single vampire, no others have made it so deeply inside.

Like all vampires, he’s thin and bony looking, gray shadows of death sinking into the bags beneath his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks. This one sports large gauges in his ears and multiple festering piercings on his face, a sign of his recent making from human stock and a hint at his relative age and weakness.

He seems confused, his back to me as he searches the evergreens and mixed deciduous trees at the outskirts of the meadow for some lost thing, startling at the destructive sparks and pops of his compatriots against my wardings before turning my direction. My stone cottage inside its walled garden he clearly recognizes, his icy blue-white eyes going wide as he sees it. Then I materialize from elemental air and his gaze shifts to me.

A greasy malevolent smile spreads over his twisted face. “Well, well, well, this is an unexpected bonus,” he sneers. His eyes flash red briefly as the coven master, drawn by this vampire’s comment, joins his consciousness and sees me in this guinea pig’s vision.

Fuck. Tactical error. I should have known better than to reveal myself. 

Advancing, he opens his clawed hands outward, shoulder level at the reach of his arms as if offering a hug, then angry purple-red dark magic coalesces in his palms.

Oh for fuck's sake. And with witch magic too.

Laughing manically, he launches the dark fire at me. As the book said, the dark magic rolls forward like an avalanche, the advancing edge spreading out like a fan, indiscriminately injuring everything in its path.

Palms open towards him, I summon countermagic and cross my wrists before my face. Seeing it as a weakness, he laughs harder, assuming success before it belongs to him. Imbecile. Though I don’t have to, I whisper-call green magic in the Old Tongue, not on my side of his dark magic, but on his side.

A thick cloud of dust filled with small clumps of earth rises around him as razor sharp stones of agate and jasper erupt from the earth in a constricting circle, piercing his body and thrusting through his head. As the ice blue of his eyes fades to ash gray, his dark magic dissolves before it gets close enough to hit me. Still, the scorch of its use mars the meadow and the injury to the earth sears like a burn over my skin.

My eyes scan the ridge above me, searching for the next attacker, but there are none at the north end of the valley. While the battle continues to rage, with my layered wardings inadvertently aiding the vampires’ enemy, I understand my valley wasn’t the intended target. As the vampire I just destroyed said, finding me was a happy coincidence.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I swear, wishing I’d been a bit more subtle before revealing myself and hoping they can’t afford an assault on two fronts. That’s when Tessa begins barking again.

Of course I couldn’t be that lucky, I think and whirl, facing the cottage, as two more vampires appear within the eighth circle of protection, clearly intent on reaching my otherwise unguarded home.

Raging now in elemental fire, I engulf the first before he reaches the seventh shield. His piercing shrieks hurt my ears as he burns, but nothing pains me as much as feeling the magic ebb from the faery he fed upon before coming here.

So this is how they’ve gotten so far inside—by consuming the innate magic of another species like the nasty little parasites they are. Inside the fire, I rage hotter. 

The second vampire rushes towards my garden wall, not to attack but to flee. Having seen his compatriot’s demise in elemental fire, he’s afraid.

And with good reason.

His worried glances over his bony shoulder in my direction slow his progress and distract him from the two slabs of solid granite lifting before and behind him until it’s too late. I hear the awful sucking noise begin as he tries to teleport himself to safety, but it’s cut short as the stones crash together, squashing him into a foul-smelling oozing black smear.

Releasing the fire, I resume my own form just in time to feel a white-hot stab of pain in my chest. My body seizes up around and against it, collapsing me to my knees. Cutting through the haze of mental pain, Tessa’s frantic barking alerts me to the location of another vampire I hadn’t detected with my wardings.

Forcing myself to my feet, I stagger into a run, unable to assume an elemental form. Inside my throbbing chest, the piercing agony is intensifying, growing worse as I near its source.

By the time I reach the edge of my orchard grove, the apricot tree at its outer limit is engulfed and burning in dark magic. It shudders, fighting to hold itself against this assault on the sixth ward, and crisping leaves rise in the red-black smoke and consuming flames, become blackened filigree outlines, then ash and vanish in the heat.

Enraged, my hands burst into elemental fire and I stream it towards the vampire, stunned as it breaks, surrounding her, but does her no harm.

Fuck. This one’s going to be an exercise in irritation.

“Bye-bye, garden!” she laughs, taunting me.

Beg pardon, I was mistaken. She’s just a petty bitch.

“You know what’s different about how you’re going to die from how I killed your poxy friends?" My wind-carried words breeze across the distance between us in a shushing gust. "I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

I feel the green magic begin to pulse in widening ripples from where I stand, even over the roar of the dark magic fire. The snapping and crackling of dead branches in the surrounding forest is audible, a great rumble as the trees give their dead limbs to aid their living sibling. Stakes and splinters of wood from every direction fly on elemental air toward the cheeky vermin still cackling at me beyond my burning tree. Sickening pops, from whisper quiet to loud bursts, are the only warning as the wood pierces through her, then she crumples to the ground and explodes in a repulsive oily splotch.

The dark magic fire on my tree fades and dies immediately, but the damage is evident. Its corrupted faery magic enhancements have opened a deep wound at the base of the tree, and the cracked trunk oozes a foul-smelling sludge. Doubtless, it’s some kind of poison that if unhalted will deprave the entire grove.

Though I know it must have pained her terribly to come so far from the cottage, Tessa hobbles up beside me, looking up as I look down.

“Are there any others?”

Obediently, she scents the air, opening her mouth slightly so she can taste it against the specialized scent-taste organ in the roof of her mouth. My eyes scan the ridge, the movement synchronized with hers, and find no other visible attacks. When Tessa sits and wags her tail, I know her sensitive nose detects nothing either.

“Wait here. With the tree.” I dash for my potting shed, returning a moment later with black salt and a paper wrap for the tree. Creating a protected circle around its base, I summon elemental water inside to wash the dark magic taint away.

I step in, kneeling at the oozing wound in the trunk and sprinkle more black salt into the unnatural dark blood seeping out—stark contrast to the pale honey gold of healthy sap. It hisses and spits as the magically augmented salt counters the vampire’s poison, then changes color, becoming the clear, golden resin shade of wellness. Wrapping it quickly, I release the circle.

“That’s going to take more work to heal.” Elemental air cradles Tessa and lifts her beside me as we head towards the cottage. “But after my all-nighter in the library, I’m going to have to rest before I try it and clean up the mess in the meadow. What an irksome pain in the ass those bloodsuckers are.”

**

Ian    

It’s still dark when my alarm goes off, but nearly all mornings start early in the ranch-style Candlewood pack house. Rolling to my feet, I stretch and yawn, then make my way to my closet for some clothes before Jack inevitably starts pounding on my door, here to collect me for our morning run.

Bang! Bang! Bang! his large fist falls heavy and loud against the trembling wood. “Let’s go, lazy bones!” Jack, my adopted brother and a Second triumvir in my pack, shouts through the door. “Even Ivan’s fat ass is out here before you.”

I fling it open, pulling a thin hoodie over my head, then give Jack a withering glare. “Nobody needs your shit first thing Monday morning.”

Jack rolls his eyes, bright sky blue even in the gloom, then heads for the packhouse door. “Yeah, whatever, you big baby,” he mumbles under his breath.

Ivan, the other of my Second triumvirs in the Candlewood triumvirate, falls into step alongside me as we follow Jack out into the brisk mountain air and towards the automated fence surrounding the packhouse grounds. “G’morning, Ian.”

“Morning, Ivan. How’s Kasey this morning?” I ask as, just past the fence, we break into a jog to warm up, trailing several strides behind Jack but matching his brisk pace.

“Her usual charming self when she’s pregnant. I left her a note to say I was leaving, rather than risk being bitten if I wake her up.”

Kasey is Ivan’s mate and pregnant with their third pup. Though it’s still early days, she’s crabby in the morning in general, and pregnancy makes that worse. She’s a hell of a Second female for our pack though, especially considering she's managing the job alone. Ivan loves her with all of his heart, especially when she’s pregnant, despite what he may say.

“Have Townsend make cherry turnovers for her for breakfast,” I suggest, yawning despite the cold and exercise.

Ivan’s eyes grow distant as he reaches out to Townsend, the wolf in charge of the packhouse staffing, through our telepathic wolf link—an innate capability shared by all canine species, but strongest in wolves— and makes the request. “Good idea, thanks.”

“If you girls are done gossiping, can we get on with the run?” Jack antagonizes over his shoulder, then gestures to the main street shops and boutiques as we pass along the dimly lit and quiet sidewalks of Candlewood's city center, its park and pavillion. “Unless you want to do some shopping now too.”

“Ima kill him,” Ivan grumbles.

“Not if I get to him first.” The words bite out in a low growl.

“You have to catch me first, fat boys,” Jack taunts in a laugh, hearing it.

Up ahead, he increases the pace and a few moments later, we’re winding past the ruins of the old homestead, the first packhouse established in Candlewood when the ancestral pack moved west a couple hundred years ago. It’s a protected historical site now.

I’m not going to lie. I love this place. I love having these roots and knowing that in a few short generations after immigrating to this country from Ireland, our pack has surged from one hundred seventy-five members to over three-thousand, and the community of Candlewood, though small compared to some human cities nearby, continues to thrive.

Most of that credit goes to these two men with me.

Though I may grumble, with Jack as a Second triumvir, Candlewood and the surrounding mountains, valleys and even nearby human communities that are part of our territory are the safest overall in the country. Crime in Candlewood itself is nearly non-existent, and under Jack’s guidance and with trackers he trained, search and rescue has never failed to bring home lost campers and hikers that frequent the surrounding forests. And of course, since he oversees that program as well, our community is one of the physically healthiest and cleanest in the western US.

Like Jack, Ivan is an innovator as a triumvir. But where Jack tends to excel in brawny and hands-on pursuits, the quiet and thoughtful Ivan uses his brain. It’s his exacting research into our history and his foresight in science, technology and economics that have given Gallagher Industries and its subsidiary companies their edge among the modern businesses of a human dominated world.

I’m proud of and thankful for them both. As integral parts of my pack. As leaders. And as my best friends.

You know, Ian, maybe if you were in better shape, your mate might reveal herself.

The irksome taunt comes from Jack through the wolf link and annoyed, I extend my stride, surging forward past Ivan and rapidly closing the distance between me and my younger brother.

Jack grins over his shoulder and kicks the pace up another notch.

You’ll never have the stamina to make alpha babies if you don’t get the lead out of your tail, Ian. Good thing you have me around to pick up that slack too. He pumps his hips like he’s having sex.

A Second can’t make alpha babies, Jack. And the kind of whore-dog you are, you’ll be lucky if your mate doesn’t reject you on the spot the minute she finds out who you are. A stride behind him, I reach out and grab the back of his hoodie, pulling him into a headlock and we roughhouse among the snow-dappled evergreen forest around us as Ivan speeds past, continuing the run.

Come on, guys! It’s too early to start this crap! I’ve got a shitton of work I have to get done this morning. Let’s go!

That’s when we all hear it—the sucking gurgle and subsequent pop as vampires ‘port into the forest around us.

Ivan!

It’s a needless summons. As soon as he hears it, Ivan stops dead, backing defensively against Jack and me, his eyes scanning the dark trunks and canopy of the trees.

Where the hell are they?

Beside me, Jack has already shifted into his wolf form to the tune of shredding fabric and soft popping as his bones align in the lupine form. The massive gray wolf isn’t quite as large as mine but with plenty of muscle and similar speed. His canine lips draw back in a snarl and his hackles lift. But like the rest of us, though we can hear and now smell their rotting bloodsucker stench, none of us can see the vampires surrounding us.

Who’s got eyes on them? Jack demands.

In my periphery, I see a smoky flash launch itself from the trees at Ivan, its lips pulled back and dinky pathetic fangs bared. My clothes shred as my monstrous wolf half emerges, black as the night and lightning fast, long snarling fangs and crushing jaws opened. Ivan ducks behind me, starting his shift as my jaws close on the vampire’s head, severing it from his body.

I forget how bad these things taste. I spit the head to the ground, looking around for the next challenger.

As if they’ve been waiting for all three of us to shift, the vamps launch themselves from the trees in a massive wave.

What the fuck is this? There’s got to be over a hundred of them!

The three of us are snarling ferocious blurs of snapping teeth and slashing claws, cutting through the filthy vamp ranks like flames through dry grass. The soft bed of pine needles underfoot is littered and becomes treacherous footing with stinking, mangled carcasses and still they come.

Ian, there’re more porting in!

They’ve got crossbows! Everybody move!

This way! Jack surges past as I cover our retreat and once Ivan’s on the move with him, I turn and follow.

Thwack! Thump! Sssss-pah! Sssss-pah!

Short red-fletched silver-tipped arrows hiss through the air around us, lodging in trees, bouncing off rocks, and sticking up out of the ground, and still the porting sounds continue. We swivel and swerve evasively, leaping rocks and downed trees, following the path as Jack leads.

I’m gaining on Ivan’s wolf when off to the left, there’s a crackling sound and an eardrum shattering shriek as a vamp, trying to get a clear shot at us, ports into something and bursts into greasy spatter, its crossbow falling, clattering to the ground.

What the fuck?!? Ivan's confused question cuts across the wolf link.

I don’t know, just move! I reply, no less confused. Jack, veer left! There’s some kind of barrier to the right!

More howling shrieks and exploding vamps, only now they’re on both sides of us and I realize whatever it is, this barrier isn’t hurting, it’s helping us. Which is good because we’ve managed to veer directly into it instead of away.

I’m plunging through the woods hot on Jack’s heels, hissing arrows still flying around us. As I overtake Ivan, I recognize the dull thud and squelch as an arrow catches him in the side and curse. He stumbles with a pained grunt, crashing into me and I duck my shoulder and lean in, bracing him to keep him on his feet.

I gotcha! Hang on!

The porting sounds around us have slowed and fallen behind, giving way to other equally disturbing sounds as vampires still trying it encounter other barriers, burst into magnesium-white spitting balls of flame and burn out before they can even scream. As we charge onward through the trees violent rumbling begins under our feet and the canopy wavers overhead. Then choking dust rolls through the forest, stinging our eyes and clogging our lungs before it too passes.

Ivan’s panting heavily against me and he’s starting to slow, the silver wedged inside him causing massive amounts of damage and pain. I stay with him, watching our course.

Jack, we need to double back and get to Candlewood! Ivan’s hit!

To our left, the trees light up, illuminated by something beyond, their trunks black two-dimensional shadows against the floodlight brightness behind them, a deep angry glowing like the kind with an immense forest fire.

Oh fuck! What now? A sharp stab of anxiety lances through me. We can outrun vamps, even vamps with were-killing arrows, but we can't outrun a forest fire.

The licking flames surge higher, visible above even the treetops, and the air rings with the sounds of agonized screaming. Pushing against Ivan, I guide us further from the glowing fire, hoping against hope we're not about to die.

Then a few seconds later, the massive blaze is completely gone and another deep rumble like an earthquake begins under our feet. It’s followed by a colossal boom that sounds like a rockslide. Or an ICBM making target.

Falling back, Jack presses along Ivan’s other side, supporting him between us. What the fuck is going on? Did we fall into a volcano or something?

No idea but make the most of it while the vamps are distracted. Where the hell are we?

I don’t know anymore, Jack replies, scenting the air and slowing to Ivan's pace. None of this smells like the forests around Candlewood and I don’t recognize the landscape.

Neither do I, Ivan confirms.

Make a wide U-turn and go back the way we came. With any luck, we’ll avoid the vamps and come across our phones.

We wander through the woods, slower and slower as Ivan succumbs to the exhausting pain of his wound, and still nothing looks or smells familiar. As the sun rises, a low red seam creeping in at the base of the trees, we eventually come across part of the killing field, encountering among the arrow-riddled landscape the crisped balls and slimy reeking splatters of vampires that hit whatever invisible barrier was in place earlier during our run.

I have to stop, Ivan pants, then coughs and foamy flecks of blood spray over the ground at his feet.

There’s a boulder over there. I’ll leave you against it and go look for our phones. We have to be close if we came across what’s left of the vamps.

Jack, don’t be long. I don’t want us split up.

Got it, Alpha. Be right back.

Jack lopes away, but true to his word, he’s back in a few minutes. No love on the phones. But the terrain slopes down about forty feet beyond this rock.

What’s over there?

Don’t know, I came back like you said. But I smelled water. And a female. In heat.

The water at least is good. Help me get Ivan up. And Jack, do me a favor and think with your brain not your dick until we get out of this.