Sister Margaret

Several hours later, we stood shivering outside a ramshackle factory while the last seconds of night ticked away. I double-checked my equipment; because Bayne would be dealing with any mortals on this day I wasn’t carrying much. A collection of sharpened wooden stakes filled the converted quiver on my back and a big mallet fit snugly into a loop on my belt. I had a pure silver dagger inside another loop, in case monsters other than Xaphan lingered inside and, of course, my mirror. The mirror was a woman’s compact had I paid a mage to enchant. Upon opening, it would cast the spell “sunlight”—light would burst forth from it, harmless to humans but powerful enough to turn even the oldest vampire into a pile of ash in mere seconds. I’d requested the mage put two charges on it, costing me all my money. I figured it would be worth it if something went wrong.

The horizon was tinged with pink when Bayne drew his sword and nodded tersely at me. “You ready?”

I nodded in return and slid my mirror out of my pocket.

“I’ll go in first and take care of the people; you stay behind me until we’re clear. Once my job is done, I’m out of there. If you really want to find the stinking leech, you’re on your own. I’ll make sure there are no people to help him out, but there ain’t no way in The Abyss I’m going anywhere near him.”

“I understand, Bayne.” I looked up at the sky and nodded. “Alright, let’s go.”

Not one to waste time with niceties, Bayne kicked down the door and went to work.

I’d heard about how good he was with his sword. Hell, I’d even seen him at work with it before. But nothing like this.

Xaphan had a lot of minions—a lot. They swarmed on Bayne like flies on shit, a living wave of fists and feet, all determined to bring him down. None of them reached him. His face, contorted by battle fury, looked every bit like a demon, all trace of humanity erased. He moved the sword as though it were an extension of himself, each movement calculated to destroy as many of his foes as possible. Within minutes, the roar of battle subsided to the whimpering of wounded, and Bayne’s once white hair was stained pink with blood and gore. An occasional cut ripped through his shirt; one or two even managed to draw blood. But in less then ten minutes, he’d reduced the vampire’s army to a pile of mangled corpses and unidentified gore.

I entered as he replaced his sword in the scabbard strapped across his back, careful to watch my step lest I slip on the blood and goo and find myself covered in things I’d rather not contemplate. From a far corner, buried in shadows mortal eyes couldn’t hope to penetrate, the distinct sound of feminine sobs could be heard. The leech had hostages after all. Good thing I’d decided against the fireball.

“You get the girls,” I said. “I’ll take care of the vampire and meet you back outside.”

Bayne nodded and delivered a sharp kick to the nose of one of his opponents who lay moaning in the sea of gore. The man’s face imploded, shattering beneath the force of Bayne’s boot, and then Bayne headed wordlessly toward the sound of the hostages.

I winced inwardly at the brutality of his action, then shrugged it off. In war, shit happens; he couldn’t be the best sword for hire in the land if he was squeamish about killing. Nor could he afford to turn his back on an enemy who still drew breath, injured or not.

I watched his back disappear into the darkness and thought about calling out to warn him to watch for traps, but then I thought better of it. Bayne was no fool; he knew what he was doing. I could trust him to get the girls out of the house safely. Now it was up to me to find the vampire and kill him.

Vampires, like most animals, are pretty predictable. And they’re paranoid. They like to put their coffins at the lowest, darkest point of the building they are sleeping in, and though they often ward the room with spells, they never let anyone else in it—not even to guard them while they sleep.

I found the stairs with no difficulty; factories, too, are notoriously predictable. Following them down into the dank belly of the building, I kept an eye out for traps. I found two wards outside one door, but they were simple enough to disarm. That’s the thing about magic: it’s difficult to create, but not tough to sabotage. I can’t cast a spell to save my life, but I can disarm a ward with only a few moments’ effort.

I was surprised to only come across two of the damn things, to tell the truth. Xaphan must be a cocky son of a bitch. Of course, if I had my way, he’d soon be a dead son of a bitch, and I thought it awfully nice of him to make my job easier.

I found his coffin in the room beyond the wards, laid right out in the middle of it as bold as you please. Most vampires make my life harder: they hide their beds, stash them away in dark corners or incredibly tight passageways. But not Xaphan. He was making this too easy. I didn’t trust it.

I took my time looking around the room, searching for any wards I might have missed, trying to find the trap. No vampire was this bold, this stupid. All I found was a piece of material with an elongated diamond stitched onto it, a diamond that served as Rakkir’s holy symbol. Half- buried in the dirt floor, I almost missed it. Though it made my stomach lurch to see it there, it wasn’t booby-trapped. After one more lingering look around, I decided that if humans could be so cocky they got stupid, surely vampires could too. I resolved to make his lack of security the last mistake this particular bloodsucker ever made.

I strolled over to his coffin and took a few deep breaths to steady my nerves. This was the part I hated most: opening the lid. When vampires are sleeping, nothing will wake them until nightfall. There could be an earthquake—the whole building could come down on top of them—and they wouldn’t know it until night. Of course, knowing this never made me any more relaxed about lifting the lid. What if this one vampire was a light sleeper? What then? He would have the upper hand and I would soon find myself a corpse or, worse yet, turned.

So I took a deep breath, then another, building up the courage to do what I knew I must. Holding my compact out in front of me and toward the coffin, I steadied my nerves. Flipping the lid of the coffin open with one hand, I used the other to open the compact.

The dank little basement room, so dreary and dark moments before, now filled with sunlight that poured from the compact. As the beams flooded the coffin’s interior with their light, an unearthly scream resounded from within the box. Xaphan bolted out of it, flying straight up until he met the ceiling. His clothing was burning as though I’d doused him in ethanol and lit a match. His skin charred, obscene goo dripping off his face and fingers. He writhed there, up against the roof, screaming out his agony in an unholy voice. A drop of his oozing flesh fell upon my hand, making me jump. I kept the compact open, pointing it directly at him, watching dispassionately while he performed his grotesque dance of death upon the ceiling.

Only after the wailing stopped, when he was reduced to a pile of ash that rained down all around me and a revolting smell, did I close the compact. I pulled a bag out of my back pocket and scooped as much of his remains as I could into it. Vampires can’t cross running water so I’d toss what was left of this one into the river on my way back to see Charmaine, just in case.

As I emerged from the factory, I blinked several times to clear my vision, squinting in the bright sunlight after the shadows. Looking around, I was surprised that I didn’t see Bayne or the girls. Then again, knowing him, he was busy accepting tokens of their gratitude. I guess he really was half-incubus. I’d catch up with him at Llewellyn’s later; right now, I needed to go see Charmaine and let her know the job was done.

My boots rang hollow on the stones as I crossed the floor, and I wondered, for the umpteenth time, if all temple designers feared being snuck up on. If not, why did they always have to make each step announce your presence so resoundingly?

She came from around the corner, moving so smoothly she seemed to be floating above the ground rather than walking upon it. A wide smile danced upon her lips as she saw me, standing in the middle of the great chamber in her temple of lies. Her eyes seemed to glow, maybe with delight or relief. I gazed into her eyes, mesmerized by them. If I live a hundred years, I’ll never see another pair of eyes like hers.

“So you did it,” she cooed, coming to within a hair’s breadth of me.

“Yes. You don’t need to worry about Xaphan anymore.”

It felt pretty damn good to say those words, to feel as though I’d finally made up for my betrayal twenty years ago. Yeah, I was feeling pretty good, until I happened to glance down at her robe.

Where the symbol of Rakkir was usually pinned, there was ripped fabric.

Damn it!

It all made sense now. The girls hiding in the shadows, the ease with which I’d entered Xaphan’s chamber, the Rakkirian symbol lying in the dirt within it. It all made sense. I looked up into Charmaine’s eyes, not wanting to believe what I knew to be true.

“You’ve been turned.”

The girls weren’t hostages; they were whores playing at being held captive. No doubt they had disabled many of the traps in the factory. Charmaine didn’t need me to destroy Xaphan because he threatened her girls; she needed me to get rid of competition. I’d been used, taken in, and set up using my own guilt.

I wondered, as I reached for my compact, about Bayne. Would the girls try to attack him? He could take care of himself, even taken by surprise he would outmatch them. But how many would he be forced to slay? And how long ago had Charmaine become a vampire? Had she really been saving girls from the street all this time, or merely making them work for her? A priestess of Rakkir—who better to be a vampiric pimp than she? Surely her God was proud of her.

All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I fumbled around in my pocket, extracting the compact I thought I’d no longer needed. As I opened it, flooding the room with sunlight, only one thought remained.

Hell of a way to treat a friend.