The Blood Thief of Whitten Hall (A Magic & Machinery Novel Book 2) (23 page)

The lines of sunlight on the ground lengthened as the sun began to set. They crept toward Luthor accusingly, as though each inch crept forward was another reminder of their impending doom.

Mattie had still offered not a single word of solace to Luthor since her recapture, nor had Simon awoken from his earlier beating. Though Mattie had ensured him that Simon was not seriously injured, Luthor was beginning to have his doubts. He considered casting a spell to heal Simon, but he didn’t see the point. Simon’s tactical wisdom was unsurpassed, but there was little chance of escape from their current confines, at least not in time to escape the vampires once they’d fully awoken.

He sighed as he glanced toward the redhead. “I’m sorry, Mattie. I should have trusted you and followed your lead.”

She didn’t offer a reply and kept her back to him.

“The sun’s setting,” he added. “Chancellor Whitten and his ilk will be here soon afterward.”

He felt foolish for merely stating the obvious, but he was struggling to find a conversation piece that seemed worthy of his obvious betrayal of her trust. As he anticipated, she offered no reply, not so much as a shrug of her shoulders to acknowledge that he had even spoken.

The light beyond the far wall slowly faded into oblivion, casting the broom closet into inky darkness. Simon didn’t stir to wakefulness, nor did Mattie offer much in the way of conversation. The silence in the room only added to the air of anticipation.

Shortly after the sun set, a myriad of footsteps were heard in the hallway beyond the closet door. Luthor set his jaw as he quickly sketched a rune down the length of the unwound rope. As quickly as it had fallen away, the rope wound around his wrists, albeit significantly looser than it had been when originally tied. He knew he could slip free from the knots if needed, though he had no idea where he would go once free.

The door opened, spilling light into their room. Luthor fought the instinct to raise his hands to his eyes, to block the glaring electric light. Instead, he sat in the room, trying not to look too defiant as Chancellor Whitten stepped inside.

Even before he spoke, Luthor could tell the chancellor’s demeanor was significantly different than the cordial man they had met earlier in their visit. Gone was the faint hunch in his shoulders. Likewise, the soft expression of his face was hardened with a combination of power and confidence. As he noticed Luthor’s intensive stare, Martelus smiled, exposing the elongated vampiric fangs.

“Mister Strong,” the chancellor said as he knelt beside the seated apothecary. “It’s good to see you again, though, if I were to be completely honest, I would have hoped you would have been aboard the train and long gone from Whitten Hall by now.”

“It’s never too late for us to leave,” Luthor offered.

“On the contrary, I believe we’re well past that point now, don’t you?”

Martelus glanced toward Simon’s unconscious form and shook his head wistfully. “That’s such a shame, you know? I had truly hoped that Royal Inquisitor Whitlock would be awake by the time I arrived. My men are eager to please me, as I’m sure you can imagine. They get overzealous sometimes. I’ll certainly have to reprimand them later.”

Luthor spat on the ground, his spittle striking the edge of the chancellor’s polished shoe. “They’re eager to please you because they’re fools. They think you’ll turn them into one of you, a vampire.”

Martelus arched an eyebrow as he glanced back to the apothecary. Luthor mistook his expression for one of surprise as he continued.

“We know what you are and what you’ve done here. You’re going to suffer for killing all those people.”

The chancellor smiled, exposing his long canines in a more threatening manner. “I’ve already suffered far more than you could imagine, and I’m sure one day I’ll be brought to bear for the crimes I’ve committed. That time, however, isn’t now, and you are most certainly not the one who will judge me.”

Martelus pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the spittle from his shoe. “You and your friends had your chance to leave Whitten Hall well enough alone, yet you chose to pry. Sadly, those poor decisions are the exact reason none of you will leave here alive.”

Luthor looked quickly to Mattie, but the redhead hadn’t moved. He wasn’t sure if she was feigning sleep or still harboring her resentment toward him, but in either instance, Luthor decided not to address her until well after Martelus had departed.

The chancellor stood and turned toward his entourage. “Bring the Inquisitor with us. I believe he’ll make an exceptional meal for the Original. Let his blood be a source for more of the tribe.”

A vampire behind him gestured toward Luthor. “What of the other two, sir?”

Martelus glanced over his shoulder and smiled maliciously. “Leave them both. We’ll dine on them ourselves.”

Vampires stepped into the room and grasped the limp Inquisitor. Luthor kicked toward them, but he received a vicious backhand to his cheek for his efforts. Within seconds, the vampires had pulled Simon away and the door slammed shut on them once more.

The vampires carried Simon between them. The disease in their blood carried them far quicker than a normal human could move and within moments, they arrived at the perimeter of the mining quarry. Led by Martelus, they stepped over the edge of the cliff and fluttered effortlessly to the rocky pit floor.

Simon was dropped awkwardly into a mining cart. The vampires didn’t bother with a tarp to conceal his frame as they pushed him into the consuming darkness of the mineshaft.

Through twists and turns, the chancellor led his night tribe unerringly deeper into the mine. Eventually, the cart struck the barrier built at the end of the laid tracks. Beyond the cart, the door into the underground barracks was thrown wide. At the late hour, the barracks were once again empty, aside from the vampires who now entered their halls, dragging the sluggish Inquisitor between them.

Simon felt his feet bumping along the stone floor as awareness crept back into the edges of his mind. His first thought was one of pain and anguish. His mind reeled from sparks of agony radiating from the back of his head and from his battered face.

He tried to force his eyes open, but only one responded. His left eye slid open slightly. For the briefest of moments, he feared he had gone blind during his assault. As panic threatened to overwhelm his thoughts, he forced the emotion into the background and focused his other senses.

His dress shoes rattled on the slightly uneven stone floor. The humidity was lessened but still omnipresent. Voices echoed off nearby walls as his kidnappers talked amongst themselves.

He knew he was in the mines. It wasn’t blindness that had overcome him, but rather an impenetrable darkness. Simon tried to regain his composure, but firm hands held his arms out to each side as he was dragged along. The vampires had him captive, of that he was sure. They had little need to use lights within the mines. Though he wasn’t nearly as keen on mythology as Luthor, he was certain seeing in the darkness was one of their supernatural abilities.

“He’s coming to,” one of the vampires said to an unseen leader, though Simon had little doubt who they addressed.

“It matters not,” Martelus replied, confirming Simon’s suspicions. “He’s far too weak for it to make any difference now.”

As they entered a new chamber, the sound of the echoes changed drastically. Sound seemed far more muffled, as though the walls were much more distal than they had been shortly before. His mind remembered the chamber of discarded debris and the corpses of those unfortunate souls who had come before.

In the distance, the darkness was penetrated by flickering torchlight. As they approached, Simon was able to drape his head backward and see the ornately carved walls of the ancient chamber in which they had met the elder vampire.

Panic finally did settle into Simon’s chest. He had no doubt of their intent as they approached the tall, limestone doors that separated the square room beyond from the rest of the mine. The Inquisitor struggled against his captors, but to no avail. His limbs still lacked the energy to fight against the vampires, though even at the peak of his might, he doubted he could singlehandedly break free from a pair of vampire assailants.

Martelus pushed open the double doors. Simon squinted against the series of torches lining the walls of the chamber beyond. The acrid scent of confined smoke filled his nostrils, forcing a choking cough from deep in his bruised chest. Ribs that were either bruised or broken screamed in protest to the sudden coughing, only adding to Simon’s great discomfort.

On the raised dais, the archaic vampire sat chained to his stone throne. Tubes ran from his arms to jars that were no longer filled. Though the rubber tubing was stained red from previous blood flow, nothing drained from the needles pressed into the veins of his arms.

“Why have you come again, blood thief?” the ancient vampire asked with an exasperated whisper. “I have nothing left to offer.”

Martelus smiled, though he clearly disliked the wizened creature on the throne. “You misunderstand. It’s not something that I want from you but rather what I offer.”

The chancellor stepped aside, revealing Simon dangling from between the two vampire guards. Simon’s chest still faced the ceiling as his shoe’s heels were pulled along the stone floor. His head, however, listed backward so that he viewed the world upside down. His awkward position, however, also exposed his neck to the elder vampire.

The ancient man licked his dry lips lustfully as he spied Simon’s exposed neck. The Inquisitor struggled to cover his throat, but he barely had the strength to lift his head, much less dissuade the hungry monster.

“Bring… bring him to me,” the ancient vampire stammered. “Bring him to me, please.”

“He’s yours to dine upon,” Martelus explained, “but do not forget our agreement. We will return for your blood once it flows again.”

The Original closed his eyes even as he waved dismissively toward the chancellor. “Can you not hear that, blood thief? Can you not hear the strength of his heart? Can you not smell the sweet aroma of his fear saturating the air?”

The ancient vampire opened his eyes and glared with disdain toward Martelus. “Of course you cannot. You’re a charlatan, a mockery of the true vampires of old. Your senses are dulled by your delusion of power. You feed because you’re hungry, but you cannot take a moment to savor the meal before you.”

The chancellor glanced in frustration toward his men. “Yes, yes, old man. At the end of the night, we shall return—”

“For my blood,” the ancient vampire interrupted. “Yes, I’m well aware of what you desire, blood thief. I would deny you your prize if I could.”

Martelus gestured toward his men, who dragged Simon to the base of the dais. The elder vampire raised his hand, signaling for the nubile vampires to pause before their assent.

“A moment, if you will,” the white-haired vampire demanded. “A meal should be savored, you savages.” He breathed deeply once more before gesturing for them to approach.

Simon felt the fear pounding through his veins, which, he was certain, only heightened the vampire’s desire for his blood. The Inquisitor tried to calm himself, to control the raging emotions and eclectically pounding heartbeat, but it was for naught; he was consumed with the horror of being fed upon by the abomination before him.

In hindsight, he wished only that he had listened to Luthor and destroyed the vampire when they had the chance. He had feared premature discovery by Martelus and his night tribe but clearly, their best efforts had not deceived the vampires for very long.

The vampire guards climbed the pair of stairs to the foot of the throne. With little effort, they lifted Simon from his feet and draped him across the Original’s lap. The ancient vampire licked his lips in anticipation.

Martelus shook his head and gestured for the guards to follow. “I have no desire to see him feed; it disgusts me to watch.”

The guards quickly retreated as the weathered creature closed its boney hands around Simon. Despite its frailty, it mustered the strength to pull Simon toward its awaiting maw.

Simon yearned to break from the vampire’s grasp, but his efforts were feeble. The beating he had taken left him without the strength or ability to resist, even as he saw the elder vampire open its mouth wider, revealing the pointed fangs within.

Martelus glanced over his shoulder as he and his men reached the door, just as the Original closed its mouth over Simon’s neck.

Luthor sat on his hands, the rope still loosely tied around his wrists. They had taken Simon minutes earlier, whisking him away to the wizened vampire trapped within the mine. Despite Simon’s multitude of skills, escaping a den of vampires was hardly amongst his forte. The apothecary saw no feasible way that Simon alone, weakened as he was, could be free of the vampires without being drained of his blood or worse, turned. The thought of a Royal Inquisitor vampire was terrifying. He needed help and the only people available to save him were the two people trapped within the broom closet, one of whom still hadn’t turned to face Luthor since her recapture.

He glanced around the room, at least as much as was visible in the dim light filtering through the back slats and under the doorway. Mattie was still facedown on the floor, her hands and feet tied awkwardly behind her. Luthor had seen livestock similarly bound and doubted she was any more comfortable than the pigs had appeared to be. At first, he had assumed she remained in her predicament to spite Luthor, out of anger for his apparent unwillingness to use his magic to save them. Now, he wondered if she could escape at all. Even her lycanthropic powers might be limited by her ability to gain leverage.

“Can you break free of your rope bindings?” Luthor asked.

Mattie shifted in the darkness, the first sign of life she’d shown since Simon was taken. He saw her struggle against the knots, all of which held firm. “Simon is dead, if not now, then soon.”

Luthor frowned, despite her words echoing his own concerns. “I don’t believe that, and neither do you.”

“You’re wrong,” she replied bluntly. “You saw his state when they carried him away. He wasn’t conscious, though I doubted he would have offered much resistance even if he had been in full control of his faculties. They took him to that monster in the mine. It’ll kill him when they arrive.”

Luthor sighed in the darkness and leaned heavily against the wall behind him. “Believe what you will, but I don’t believe he’s dead yet.”

Mattie turned her face toward him, though he couldn’t see her expression in the gloom. “What difference does it make, Luthor? Alive or dead seems to be of little consequence. If Simon, by some not-so-small miracle is still alive, what good does it do us? Will he march into a city of vampires and their human cohorts in an attempt to save us? By chance, if he did survive thus far, he would certainly know that returning to Whitten Hall is suicide.”

“You don’t know him as I do.”

“Perhaps, or perhaps he doesn’t know you as well as he thinks he does.”

Luthor furrowed his brow and pursed his lips. “What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”

Mattie rolled over onto her side, though it clearly took a great effort. “You’ve lied to him about your magic. If he knew the real you, the man with the runes carved into his skin, would he still be so accepting of your friendship?”

She didn’t offer him a chance to reply before continuing to berate him. “How do you think he would respond if he knew you had a chance to save him, but you didn’t because you placed your own safety higher than his life?”

They sat in silence, despite the palpable tension in the narrow room. Luthor wanted to reply, to defend his actions in some way, but he couldn’t find the proper words. Despite the sting of her accusations, he knew she wasn’t entirely wrong. He couldn’t be certain that using his magic would have been the difference between confinement or escape from Whitten Hall; she had a much higher expectation of his magical abilities than he did. Yet the fact that he couldn’t predict the outcome only further eroded his resolve.

“I’m not a terrible person, despite what you might believe,” Luthor said softly.

Mattie sighed in the darkness. “I’ve never, until this moment, thought of you as anything but a selfless man. Yet you betrayed our trust, both Simon’s and mine. How can you suddenly ask forgiveness?”

Luthor shook his head. “I’m not going to ask for forgiveness. I’m going to earn it, the way I should have earlier. I’ve spent so long hiding what I am from Simon, thinking that at some point I would find the right moment to reveal the truth, that even when that moment is staring me in the face, I refuse to act. We’re going to save Simon and, by my word, I won’t let you die here.”

“I don’t think that’s your decision to make,” Mattie retorted. “A tribe of vampires sits just beyond that door. What can two people do against that?”

“Two people?” Luthor asked. “Not much, to be sure. Luckily for the both of us, neither of us are right and proper people, are we?”

“So now you intend to use your magic?”

“Desperate times, desperate measures, and whatnot.”

Luthor stood, and the ropes fell harmlessly from him. He traced a familiar rune into the air above Mattie, and her ropes began to unwind. In the silvery light of the glowing rune, he could see the red burns on her wrists and ankles from where the ropes had been pulled painfully tight. His heart ached for her pain, but she seemed to ignore her personal discomfort as she stood.

She rubbed her wrist distractedly as she stood nearly nose to nose with Luthor. “You’ve set me free, so be it. How can I be sure that this isn’t further proof that you will only use your magic to be self-serving?”

“You can’t,” Luthor replied, “at least not until we find and rescue Simon. I’ll use every spell at my disposal to ensure his and your safety; I give you my word as a Strong and a gentleman.”

“How, pray tell, will we accomplish that?”

Luthor smiled. “We show these vampires that they aren’t the only abomination in Whitten Hall, and a far cry from the most dangerous.”

He kicked outward, striking the wall with the toe of his shoe. The sound reverberated through the small room.

The vampire guard beyond the door paused as a dull thud sounded from within the broom closet. He held a finger to his lips, requesting silence from the other vampire, who leaned calmly against the far wall. The three humans who had been positioned further down the hallway stood cautiously as the vampire nearest the door tilted his head to listen.

The noise sounded again, as though someone were breaking through the wooden walls of the closet.

“They’re escaping,” the vampire said as he drew a pistol from his waistband.

He grasped the door and threw it wide, ready to pursue their escaping prisoners.

Brilliant red light flashed from within the room, and the vampire paused in midstride. His mind reeled at what he had just seen, an angry red symbol hovering in the air before his chest. It was only when the vampire behind him howled in agony that the one at the door realized something was amiss. He glanced downward and noticed the gaping hole in his chest. The flesh, bone, and organs had all vaporized, and the edges of the wound glowed red like smoldering coals. Black ichor dripped from the wound, despite its cauterization.

The vampire pitched forward, permanently deceased. The vampire behind him clutched the smoldering stump where his right arm had once hung. Luthor stepped aside at the sight of the vampire, and a massive, fur-covered beast charged from the room.

Mattie drove the vampire into the wall, breaking bones with her sheer size. As the vampire tried to escape, she clamped her maw over his head and shook him violently from side to side until she heard the satisfying snap of his neck.

The humans at the end of the hall raised their weapons, but a shimmering wall appeared between them and the escaping prisoners. At the pull of the trigger, lead bullets ricocheted harmlessly from Luthor’s protective barrier.

As quickly as it had appeared, the wall evaporated. The werewolf hurtled herself down the length of the hall while the men reloaded their flintlock rifles. She bounded into their midst, using her considerable bulk to manhandle the human guards. Luthor approached cautiously, carrying her discarded attire, as Mattie flung one of the men into the hallway wall. The man crumpled to the floor, and Luthor doubted quite seriously that he would rise again.

With the guards dispatched, Mattie stood on her hind legs and shook her long, white mane. “Others would have heard the gunshots and the scuffle. More vampires will be here soon.”

“Quite right you are, which is why we won’t be.”

Luthor took her by her wrist, despite the fact that she towered over him in this form and outweighed him by several stone. They hurried down the hall and entered the bedroom he had been occupying during their stay. Luthor slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. As an added precaution, he placed a chair under the door handle. Though he doubted it would keep a vampire at bay for long, he only needed a momentary delay.

They hurried to the far window and pulled it open. The cool night’s breeze entered the bedroom, a comforting wind compared to the stifling heat of their makeshift prison cell.

“Forgive me, my dear, but you’ll have to be in human form once more for us to escape through so narrow a window.”

Despite her limited canine facial expressions, Luthor could clearly see her disapproval. She gestured with her great white paws for him to turn about. As he turned his back to her, she shed the werewolf skin, revealing the naked human beneath.

She dressed quickly as they heard the first footsteps hurrying up the stairwell from the tavern below. Luthor offered Mattie his hand as she slipped through the open window, but she brushed it aside. Grasping the windowsill with her fingertips, Mattie hung as far as possible before releasing her grip. She fell gracefully to the ground, landing in a practiced crouch.

Luthor followed suit, slipping his legs out the window and resting his stomach on the window ledge. He wasn’t afraid of heights, exactly, but he preferred viewing them from the safety of a zeppelin cabin, rather than experiencing them firsthand as he dropped from a second-story window.

The door shook as someone attempted to enter the room. The handle jiggled from side to side, though the lock remained firmly in place. Luthor lowered himself further out the window until his arms rested on the windowsill and only his head remained visible. The door splintered open as a vampire drove his fist through the wood. Its hand searched erratically for the locking mechanism.

As the vampire’s hand closed over the handle, Luthor lowered himself out of the window and dropped to the ground below. He landed in a heap, crashing through a bush. Hands closed over him, and he struggled momentarily before recognizing Mattie’s face. Relaxing, he accepted her assistance as he stood.

Above them, the bedroom door creaked open and booted feet hurried toward the window. Luthor and Mattie scrambled away from the inn and ran toward the woods as the first of the vampires peered out the open window. Hissing angrily, they dropped gracefully to the ground and hurried in pursuit.