Natural Consequences (27 page)

“
Ah. Beef. How appropriate. Tell me, would your mortal courts recognize the self-defense plea of a cow after it had gored its butcher? I think not.”

“…what?”

“You are mortal,” Wentworth said. “You exist as servants and food. Chattel. If the Lady sought to give you to another, it was your place to be given. To be clear,” Wentworth added with a shrug, “I explain more for the benefit of my associates than for you or your friends. Mortals are entitled to no explanations.”

Alex let that process. His scowl remained. “Well, fuck you, clown.”

“The wit of modern youth,” spat Cornelius.

“Step up, Cornholio. I’ll give you some modern wit right up your ass.”

The remark caused an obvious stir among the vampires. “You challenge me?” Cornelius laughed.

“It is no formal challenge,
my lord,” Wentworth noted.

“His meaning is plain!”

“He is
mortal
. We should no sooner honor a challenge laid by a pig.”

“It seems clear to me, Lord Wentworth,” said
the blond Nordic vampire. “Do not complicate the matter. We are here to see Lady Anastacia avenged, one way or another.”

“But we should do so properly, Bjorn,” pressed Wentworth, “and without dignifying this mortal trash with a trial by combat or
a duel.”

“Oh, just look at him, Wentworth!” snarled Cornelius. “What skill in combat do you think him to have?”

“We could ask those who were with Lady Anastacia,” spoke up a short, pale Japanese woman in old, formal silks. “Perhaps a séance to speak with the dead? We might learn how many the boy has struck down.”

“
Other supernaturals were involved,” Wentworth replied with a dismissive wave. “We know Lady Anastacia had trouble with mongrels in the area, and we know of her entanglements with sorcerers. Let’s not jump to conclusions about this boy’s relevance.” Others murmured in agreement.

“
No, no, no, I’m game.” Alex piped up. He didn’t understand vampire politics, but he recognized the opportunity. “I challenge. Sure. Whatever you call it. Me and Cornholio—“

“Stop saying that!” Cornelius seethed.

“—one on one. I take him out, you let us go.”

“Alex,” hissed Amber, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Fuck if I know,” he grunted, lowering his voice. “Stalling mostly.”

“For what?”

“The cavalry,” Jason murmured. Amber turned to him with a questioning look. “It’ll come,” he assured her. “Just gotta hang in there.”

Wentworth’s brow furrowed and a sneer curled up on his lip. “You are here to be executed, Mr. Carlisle,” he explained. “There is no trial. You have no rights. You will die tonight.”

“Lord Mayor Wentworth,” said Cornelius, “you have acted as our voice tonight, but as the eldest here, I claim the right to act as our society’s hand. I need no proper challenge to justify myself in silencing this brat.”

The Nordic vampires
grunted in agreement. So did many of the others. No one seemed able to come up with a viable objection. Wentworth stiffened. “Very well, Lord Cornelius,” he said. “As you say, he has no right to challenge, but no right to mercy or his impudence, either.”

“Excellent,” Cornelius growled. He stepped forward with his blade drawn.

Alex rose to his feet. Neither of the vampires at his side stopped him. Instead, they withdrew. “Wait, I don’t get a weapon?” Alex asked. “What kinda crap is this?”

“It is your death, brat,” answered Cornelius.

“You have no rights in our society,” shrugged Wentworth.

“I call bullshit,” Alex argued.

“Tell it to your carpenter god,” Cornelius sneered, “after I’ve taken your head and drained your corpse of your blood.”

Amber and Jason looked on as Alex began to shake. His hands remained balled up into fists, with his knuckles now running white. Neither knew how to stop this or how to interrupt. Jason thought to go down fighting with his friend if he could get up quickly enough.

“Oh, you fucking
wuss
,” Alex snarled. “You’re that afraid of a stand-up fight?”

Bjorn’s bearded companion spat in disgust. “Would you cower from this mortal boy?” he asked Cornelius.

“No
vampire
has dared challenged me in centuries,” Cornelius countered, his eyes narrowing. “I fear no one. You know this well.”

“Then show us why,” Unferth nodded, gesturing to Alex. “He has challenged.”

“He has no rights—“ Wentworth repeated.

Unferth held up his hand to cut Wentworth off. “We will not be called cowards by anyone, vampire or even mortal. It is not about him.” Unferth jerked his broadsword from his belt and tossed it to Alex’s feet. He looked at Cornelius. “It is about you. We would see you fight, Lord Cornelius. Even if only against a mortal stripling.”

Debate ceased as Alex leaned over to take up the blade. He struck a ridiculous image, clad in pajamas and a bathrobe and holding a broadsword.

“Do you even know how to hold a blade?” Cornelius taunted.

“I played Dungeons & Dragons a few times,” Alex deadpanned.

“You always played the wizard,” muttered Jason.

“Whatever.” Alex hefted the sword, swung it around, and gave no particular impression of having any real skill. It was balanced like a real blade, unlike the shiny pieces of crap offered in knife shops in the mall. The grip felt familiar, even if the metal seemed different. It felt like modern steel in an old, trustworthy shape. They’d given him a real weapon, not a showpiece.

The voices and memories in his head quieted in the face of imminent battle. Experience and training took over. He watched Cornelius laugh, turn to his fellows an offer a salute—a gladiator’s salute. He didn’t know Cornelius at all, but he knew his type. He’d seen this sort of thing before. Cornelius didn’t take Alex seriously as a threat; he wanted to put on a display for his people. A long fight wouldn’t suit his purpose. He’d want to end this quickly, and he’d want to make a show of it.

Alex set his stance and waited. Cornelius laughed, posed, and then gave an animalistic snarl, baring his fangs at Alex to frighten him before rushing in. Given the vampire’s unnatural speed, Alex might not have been able to track him, but for the fact that Cornelius made exactly the move the young man’s memories warned would be coming.

Cornelius crossed the distance between himself and Alex with startling speed. He made a playful yet frighteningly quick lunge for the young man’s shoulder, thinking to hew straight through his body with a single mighty blow. Alex ducked and deflected the sword with a parry that took full advantage of the strength Cornelius put behind his swing.

The impact of the parry gave Alex’s blade a boost of momentum. He spun in place with it, bringing his longer sword up and over in a wide arc that he buried forcefully into the back of the vampire’s neck.

In the blink of an eye, Cornelius went from confidence and power to shock and helplessness as he wound up on his knees with a sword embedded halfway through his neck. Though most of his flesh died millennia ago, he still needed a working spine to carry the commands of his brain to his limbs. For all his speed and might, he’d been arrogant and even flamboyant—and his opponent made him pay for it with stunning skill. The fight began and ended in a single breath.

Astonished vampires looked on in complete silence as Alex jerked his sword free. Cornelius fell forward, his hands out onto the floor to keep him from falling onto his face. It seemed all he could make his body do. His head hung low, exposing a wound that gushed a steady stream of blood.

Completely given over to memories of battle, Alex didn’t hesitate to follow through. He swung the blade down on the gap with a loud, bloodthirsty cry. Murderous anger flared in his eyes as he chopped deeply into his foe’s flesh, yanked his blade free and did it once more.

Amber watched in utter shock. She only barely tracked the start and finish of the fight, but she saw Alex finish his opponent. The head of her task force’s most wanted suspect rolled across the floor in front of Amber and immediately began to crumble to ash.

Alex turned back to the semicircle of vampires and loudly demanded something of them in a language Amber couldn’t understand. Some blinked in shock, and others in surprised recognition.

None showed greater understanding of the young man’s words than the two Nordic vampires, who looked to one another with amazement. Unferth replied in the same language; Alex responded with obvious contempt and spat at his feet. Bjorn stepped forward, drawing a sword from his belt.

“
Fuck me, I was right,” breathed Jason.

“Jason!” Amber hissed. “Jason, what’s happening?”

Alex kept shouting, pointing at one vampire and then another in what was obviously a series of challenges despite the foreign words and spittle that flew from his mouth. His whole body shook with anger.

“Shit’s about to get crazy,”
Jason warned.

“
About
to?”

“Alex is havin’ a freak-out,” Jason said. “I dunno—aw, no,” he groaned
. Bjorn leveled his sword at Alex in a salute or a challenge. He came forward with less speed and more wariness shown by Cornelius, but with the same obvious intent to kill.

Again, Alex read the first swing almost before it came. His blade came up in time with the vampire’s, only lower, and what initially looked like a badly misjudged parry smash
ed straight through two of Bjorn’s fingers. The blade fell from his grasp in a bloody mess, but the vampire swiftly retaliated with a broad sweep of his other arm that sent Alex tumbling away.

Alex kept hold of his weapon as he hit the concrete. His vision had gone red with anger; rage and memory
guided his movements and his thoughts. He owed this man a debt of blood. They went home and told Halla he was dead. She found another husband, who cast her out when Alex—no, Skorri—returned from the Danelands…

He had no time to sort through his identity. He couldn’t think about what
was Alex and what was another man. He needed that muscle memory, that skill and that rage, or he’d never live through this.

The vampire had to
switch his left hand to wield his sword. He brought it down with such force that it bit a half-inch gouge into the concrete.

Alex kept rolling
away. The sword came down again, this time closer to his head. He raised his own blade as he sat up to get out of the way. It was a weak parry against a vastly stronger opponent. The dodge saved Alex’s life, but the parry cost him the sword as the force of Bjorn’s blow tore it from his hand.

Alex spun on his hip then, hooking the vampire’s shin with his right leg and then slamming his left foot hard on the side of his knee just like they’d taught him
in basic, before ‘Nam. The vampire stumbled and fell to the floor. Alex scrambled up again and rushed to the ashen remains of Cornelius.

Jason jumped forward.
The men guarding him were too distracted by the spectacle to catch their prisoner. Jason snatched up the gladius beside the empty toga and tossed it to his friend, pommel first.

Bjorn’s weapon slashed
overhead again as Alex caught the gladius, fell forward and rolled. Unused to fighting with his left arm, Bjorn hadn’t quite brought his sword back in time to defend against his opponent’s retaliatory lunge. Alex stabbed the gladius directly through Bjorn’s neck.

Painfully strong hands caught Jason’s shoulders and arms. He was yanked back and spun by two pale men, one with thin ‘80s
New Wave sunglasses and a ridiculous Mohawk, the other with a do-rag and an oversized, buttoned-down but untucked blue flannel shirt. Jason heard a loud boom behind him, but couldn’t look to see what happened. All he saw were the fangs of his captors and hands reaching for his neck.

Then blood, bone and gore exploded out one side of
the New Waver’s head with a loud boom. Another boom went off half a second later, identical to the first except for the ringing in Jason’s ears. More of the vampire’s skull flew off to the side.

More booms split the air.
Jason felt the hands gripping his arms fall away. The last hands on him, clutching his shoulders, released him with a soft, almost distant “splutch.” Jason turned and saw Alex yank his sword out of the side of the man’s neck. He wound up and cut loose with another swing to behead the staggered foe while Jason ducked and scrambled out of the way.

To Jason’s left, Amber stood in a controlled, measured Weaver stance just like he’d been taught in his NRA classes. The vampire who’d held her in place lay at her feet, staring off at the ceiling with a confused gaze and a bullet hole in his forehead. She held his pistol in her hands.

“Holy shit,” Jason blurted, “how did you—?”

“Jason,” she barked, “get behind me!”

“Gun!” someone shouted, and then others joined the cacophony of warning. “She’s got a gun!”

“Kill her!”

“Calm down. It’s just a gun, you stupid cow!”

Jason looked right and saw the vampires in a confused crowd. Some drew weapons. Others shrank back. One pulled her bloody hand away from her dress, now with a large hole in it, and hissed with her fangs showing.
A vampire needed a working brain, spine and heart; other organs weren’t so vital.