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Sorrow lifted the glass pipette, carefully filling it with pool acid. When the clear greenish liquid reached the top, he inserted the tiny cork and laid it carefully next to the others on the heavy oak travel chest. The chest had a thick layer of dust, which clung to the pipettes from the moisture of his fingers and the wax he had used to stopper the sharp ends. That was something he would have been concerned about if he were going to insert the glass into a human’s body, but in a few days his victim would be beyond anything as inconvenient as sepsis. Vampires could survive so much more torture than a mere human.
Though not given to smiling, Sorrow found the edges of his mouth pulled up in an unfamiliar expression. Humans had that lovely saying, that revenge was a dish best served cold. Witchcraft could bend reality to suit ones needs, but it took so many years of witchcraft to align reality into a fortuitous pattern. And yet, when it worked, it was so beautifully synchronous. His own former student, Holzhausen, the master of Yseulta’s familiar. It was the sort of luck one could not expect without the aid of dark magic.
Sorrow opened the case of surgical knives, mentally planning the order in which he would use them. Such a pity that Crispin had died. Crispin was truly an artist when it came to inflicting the most pain with the least damage. Sorrow himself was never as tidy when removing skin. He always seemed to make some cut or tear so it didn’t come off in one piece. But then, since Crispin was not here, there was no one to criticize his efforts. A weak and hungry new vampire, a mine already retrofitted for torture. A few weeks of privacy for their “lessons.” Sorrow’s smile turned into a grin. He truly was a lucky man.
His pleasant reverie was interrupted by a pounding at the door. Sorrow took a moment to set aside his implements before opening the door. His host had an inconvenient fondness for the little fey girl and might come up with annoying questions if he saw the torture implements.
Yet, it wasn’t Fain at the door, but that dark-eyed fledgling who was in love with him. What was her name? Morena? Medina. She looked panicked, and Sorrow could tell something was wrong even before she started blabbering.
“Fain is out cold, maybe dead, we don’t know what’s wrong with him and Kit’s gone. She did something to him and we don’t know what happened but she just disappeared, but we saw him leave only now he’s there and we don’t know where she is and I’m worried she killed him even though Kaltenbach says he’s not dead but it’s magic can you help?”
“She fled?” Sorrow grabbed the fledgling by the shoulders and shook her. “How did this happen? Didn’t you post guards?”
“Yes, but she ... we don’t know how she got out. Fain left, but Fain is there and no one saw him come back in—”
“Show me.”
Sorrow had been put in a musty bedroom on the ground floor, and as soon as he stepped into the hallway, he could hear the nervous susurrations of the blood herd in the basement. The house smelled of them, and of the other vampires who had been there—Fain’s enemy and Crispin and Crispin’s thrall. Crispin’s thrall stood guard outside the room where they had imprisoned Yseulta’s senndil, a useless gesture now that she had fled, but the creature wasn’t going to be much use to anyone anyway. Crispin’s soothsaying had been as skilled as anyone he’d ever seen, but the fellow’s ensorcellment was as brutal and clumsy as doing brain surgery with a sledgehammer. It would take her years to recover unless someone skilled with sorcery took pity on her and unpicked the snarls of the cords that bound her. Fain should have dawned her out of mercy.
The bolt had been left unlatched, and Medina tugged on it. The heavy door swung open with a loud creak and then a clang as the iron latch fell against the wooden planks. She stepped back, allowing Sorrow to enter first. Sorrow could still smell the tainted fey-human reek in the room, though the room was filled with people. La Patrona sat by the bed, taking Fain’s pulse, with her two feral fledglings flanking her on either side. The Spider texted something into her phone.
“Medina, fetch your laptop,” La Patrona ordered.
Medina obeyed without question, which dampened Sorrow’s faint hope of taking over now that Fain lay seemingly dead on the bed. La Patrona stood to face him, a smooth fluid motion as if facing an opponent. He’d met people like her before. There was no point in ensorcelling them; any enchantment would slough off like cheap paint off an oilcloth. Better to kill her if it came to it, though if they didn’t have Yseulta’s senndil anymore there was no point in him being here.
“Sorcery,” La Patrona said. “Can you undo it?”
Sorrow was certain he could undo whatever weak hedge magic Holzhausen’s pet human had cribbed together, if it was magic, but he suspected she did something more pedestrian. She’d only studied under Holzhausen for a handful of years. Even Holzhausen couldn’t cast a spell that would make a vampire unconscious for more than a day. “My price was not paid. Where is Melbourne?”
“She’s gone. Are you capable of undoing this spell?”
Sorrow turned an impassive gaze to La Patrona. “And what price will you pay for me to do this? All I asked in return for bringing her here was to turn her into a vampire that I might teach her sorcery. And you let her slip away.”
“Wait, is this Kit you’re talking about? You were going to turn her against her will?” One of Kaltenbach’s fledglings, the elder of the two men Crispin had tortured, squared his shoulders as if to pick a fight, though he looked gaunt and unblooded and weak as a human.
“Fain believed he could talk her into it,” La Patrona said, glancing up to see Medina enter the room with her laptop. “It appears he failed to persuade her.”
“A lover’s spat, perhaps,” Sorrow said, and smiled at Medina’s expression.
“I’ll kill her,” Medina said. “She did this to him.”
“What will you give me to save your master?” Sorrow asked her. “If it is indeed sorcery, which I doubt.”
“Anything,” Medina said breathlessly.
Ah, young love. Was there anything easier to exploit? And what a convenient coincidence that this young vampire hated the same woman Sorrow wanted to hurt. “But how? We don’t even know where she is. And how did this happen? How did your master manage to get himself bested by a mere human, in a locked room, with guards outside?”
Had she poisoned him? How much poison would it take to incapacitate a vampire of Fain’s age? How had she done it? Had she convinced La Patrona’s feral starved fledgling to let her pass?
When Medina showed the camera footage, Sorrow was even more mystified. The footage showed Fain entering the room, and the young feral remained guarding for several hours. After a time, the door opened and Fain stepped out. He said something to the guard and walked off.
“What did he say to you?” Sorrow asked.
“He told me to guard her, and not to let anyone in.” He sat with his face in his hands, the posture of a schoolboy who knows he has failed at a simple task.
“What did she do to him?” Medina asked him, with pleading eyes. “Is he gonna be okay?”
Sorrow sat on the bed next to Fain, though at this point he cared only from a point of professional curiosity. Fain didn’t seem to have any marks on him. In fact, if he had to guess, he’d say that he was deep in a coma, almost like the death-like state a vampire fell into when first turned. When he caught Melbourne, he might ask her how she did it before he cut her tongue out.
“She’s not going to get that far without money,” The Spider said. “We took her wallet and phone.”
La Patrona shook her head at the semi-nude man on the bed. “No, she’s taken Fain’s phone and wallet. And his clothes. That must have been her we saw on the camera.”
They watched as Medina replayed the camera footage over and over. It seemed to be Fain. The man looked like Fain, acted like Fain, was wearing Fain’s clothes.
“It was El Patron,” the feral fledgling protested, lifting his face towards La Patrona. “It was him; I swear it was him. He smelled like him.”
“It looked like him,” La Patrona agreed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “She must have somehow disguised herself.”
“If she took his phone. I can find her.” Medina sprung up from the uncomfortable-looking metal bistro chair and pulled her laptop off the table, frantically typing it in.
“It could be dangerous,” the Spider mused, with her sultry voice “For one who looked like Fain to enter the city of Seabingen. I know some who might care to know this information.”
Sorrow repressed a sigh of disappointment. A quick death by a bullet or two was not the end he wanted for his enemy’s pet, but then, there was always her replacement. Yseulta would eventually choose another familiar when this one died. He could bide his time, if he must.
“And what of El Patron?” La Patrona asked. “Will he die?”
Sorrow lifted the limp body and pried open an eyelid to look into Fain’s unfocused eyes. Seeing with his second sight, he saw nothing, which made him once again suspect poison. But then, on second glance, he saw faint traces of ensorcellment. Going deeper within the slumbering psyche, he saw that no, these were not faint, this spell ran deep, but laid so carefully the entangled skein barely impinged upon Fain’s own aura. Rather ingenious; it was as though she had brought up one of his own memories and fixed it upon him, like a quilt so cunningly repaired that one could not see where the original weft ended and the replacement threads began. For a brief moment, Sorrow wondered if maybe this human were indeed worth training, if he had missed his chance at a truly talented apprentice who one day might surpass him.
But no, she was only human, and humans were nothing but food. Everyone knew that.
“Only the one who did this could undo it, though from what I know, this mage—if you can call her that—is a squeamish human and likely meant this spell to end on its own.”
“Can’t we get her back?” Medina clutched her laptop so hard the plastic creaked. Her eyes were moist with tears. “We can find her and bring her back.”
“How?” The Spider asked
“We will not waste any time on this,” La Patrona said. “She’s gone and good riddance. Fain will recover or he will not. Wait and see.”
“She’ll run along home to her master,” Sorrow said. “You have an airfield on the property? I’ll ask an associate to fly here to pick me up. As soon as dusk falls, I will meet her in Seabingen.”
“What if she doesn’t go home?” the Spider said. “She’s flying commercial. Can anyone get into Fain’s credit card statement and see her flight details?”
“I’m already looking it up,” Medina said. “It’s not a direct flight. She has layovers.”
“Oh?” Sorrow says. “Even better. I have associates in many cities.”
“The boss said we’re not gonna waste any time on finding her,” the feral fledgling said. He bent down and picked something up off the ground, flinched, and wrapped it in the cloth that lay next to it. He showed it to La Patrona, whose expression grew dark.
“Medina, you and the Spider were meant to frisk Melbourne and remove her weapons,” La Patrona said.”
“We did,” the Spider said.
“Then what’s this?” La Patrona held up a sock in which was a wooden stake about as long as her hand.
La Patrona gave Medina a hard look, as though she could see right through her soul. Sorrow almost smiled. So, she wanted Melbourne dead even before this happened. Medina looked shocked and guilty, and tried to hide it.
Sorrow stood. “If you don’t mind, Patrona, I’d like to convene with Medina elsewhere while you hold vigil. Perhaps we can reach Melbourne by phone and ask her how to undo whatever she’s done.”
Sorrow and Medina did not call Fain and plead with their fugitive human. But Melbourne had been foolish enough to leave the phone turned on and Medina got to work tracking it. She had passed through Dallas, though sadly too late for him to call in favors and was passing through Los Angeles, where he held no sway. But he was on such good terms with the Guild Leader of Seabingen. How delightful if Melbourne returned to what she thought was safety only to find her doom waiting for her.
Holzhausen was kind enough to answer the phone, despite the fact that it was already morning. He answered sounding like a person who had just been awoken from sleep.
“My dear friend,” Sorrow said, oozing charm and sympathy. “I’m afraid I have some unhappy news to relay.” He closed the door behind himself and latched it, then turned on the ceiling fan to help mask their conversation.
“Did Melbourne falter entering the ward?”
“Oh, no. She performed admirably. I had no idea it could be done, but she succeeded. She entered the ward and slipped inside. But Crispin, as you know was quite a haruspex. I hear he learned of her being there and led her on a merry chase.” Sorrow rummaged in the bottom of his suitcase for his book on anatomy and his notebook. “She eluded Crispin and his fledglings for several hours.”
“Did he kill her?” Holzhausen asked softly, as if bracing for horrible news.
“No, surprisingly. She has some quite deadly stakes. Did you know about those? I thought they were a myth, but Fain confirmed it.” Sorrow flipped open the section on female anatomy. Fain had let slip that Melbourne was pregnant. He might kill the child first, though he’d have to be quick if vampirism didn’t do the job for him. Break the body, break the spirit, was the saying, but emotional pain was more fun to inflict sometimes. “She even managed to stake Crispin, or had someone do it for her. Quite ingenious. I’m not sure how it was accomplished. You must have trained her very well.”
“I’m pleased she impressed you,” Holzhausen said cautiously.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that, but I might still consider taking her as an apprentice. However, she is a bit over emotional. I said a few things in Vargel, but she must have misunderstood, because she seems to believe I’ve threatened her.” Sorrow rummaged in his suitcase again, but it seemed he’d neglected to pack the wood burner. That meant heating metal individually over a fire, which meant gloves, which he also hadn’t packed. But perhaps he could order one online and have it sent to Seabingen. It wasn’t like she’d die from the acid right away. A long weekend to turn her and then a semester of extended lessons in vengeance. Once she was a vampire, he’d have plenty of time to get creative. “I merely told her that I preferred to have vampires as my students, and that Fain had offered to turn her. I expressed hope that she’d reconsider his offer.”
“I see,” Holzhausen said. Was that a hint of skepticism?
“What has she told you?”
“She hasn’t contacted me since before she met you.”
Sorrow relaxed. With no story to countermand, he could lay the foundation of his own version of events. “I tried to explain that no one was going to force vampirism on her, but she didn’t want to stay the night. She grew hysterical and had to be physically restrained. Fain had his people lock her up until he could convince her see reason.”
“Did he turn her?” Holzhausen sounded icy now.
“It seems your apprentice was able to best him,” Sorrow said, and gave a laudatory description of the human mage’s escape. By the murmurs of surprise, Holzhausen seemed pleased at both his pet’s success and his rival’s defeat. “But now I’m afraid she assumes I had something to do with Fain’s treachery. I’d like you to convince her of my innocence. The teacher and student relationship, as you know, is founded on trust, and I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot. I’m sure if I could speak with her alone, I could convince her I mean her no harm.”
“Of course,” Holzhausen said. “I’m sure it was nothing but a misunderstanding.”
“I’m so pleased you understand.”
Holzhausen, bless his heart, had no reason to disbelieve Sorrow, a man he had known and respected for ninety-three years. Of course, he would not rescind his welcome. Of course, Sorrow should come back and plead with her to reconsider.
Sorrow felt his mouth twist into a smile again. A flight, a conversation and enough privacy to ensorcell her into the compliance he needed to convince Holzhausen she had reconsidered her earlier foolishness. And then, a few weeks away in a private location, for their “lessons.” Surely Holzhausen would allow him such, for his new apprentice? All those private bonding sessions they needed to have between teacher and student. He had so much to teach her about pain and vengeance.