The Bloodshade Encounters & The Songspinner (Shadeborn Book 2) (8 page)

Nouvelle Novel

“Did it come from down here?” Ed asked, ripping off his jacket and throwing it onto the stage.

Ugarte raced to the edge of the platform beside him, throwing her head in all directions.

“Backstage, I think,” she replied.

Novel shot through the air like a dart, crashing straight through the heavy, velvet curtains of the stage and into the dark recesses of the backstage space. The scream came again, and it was muted but somehow near, the echo carrying upwards into the air. Novel sank down to ground level, his body lying prone as his ear came to rest gently on the filthy wooden floor. Footsteps echoed below the thick boards, and they sounded as though they were running away. Ed and Ugarte found their way through the curtains to join him, wide-eyed and alert.

“They’re underground,” Novel explained, shooting back to his feet. “Perhaps she screamed because they heard us talking above. Come on, we’ll find the entrance to the basement.”

Three shades with practised speed and grace did not take long to locate the trap door just off the main corridor. The hole in the ground floor gave way to a flight of stairs, but at the foot of it there were several tunnels leading off in different directions. Some continued even farther below the ground, whilst others formed a shallower route. Novel located the one that led beneath the stage and took off with forceful strides, a wall of flames gathering at his sides to light the way.

“Did the seller neglect to mention an underground vagabond infestation to you when you signed the contract?” Ed asked, half-breathless as he struggled to keep pace behind his determined friend. “How careless of him.”

“Curb your humour,” Novel bit back sharply. “A woman could be losing her life.”

“Pardon me,” Ed retorted, “I forget that you’re so noble nowadays.”

“Ed!” Ugarte warned from the rear of the trio, but her partner kept talking.

“We are, of course, racing to save the damsel in distress,” Ed continued, “and it’s absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you’re spoiling for a fight.”

Novel stopped dead in the cramped tunnel and Edvard walked straight into the flames surrounding him. He leapt back towards Ugarte and batted the magical fire out of his clothes, his jaw tightening as Novel turned to look him squarely in the eye. His pale blue gaze was laced with discontent.

“I don’t take your meaning,” he said, in a voice so low it was almost a growl. “Do explain,
old friend
.”

Ed made to speak but Ugarte stilled him, a slender hand on his broad shoulder. Her face was filled with compassion and her voice was far more peaceful a sound than that of Ed’s taunting ways.

“He means you’ve changed, Lemarick,” she said, almost pleading.

Novel knew exactly what they meant. He had had this conversation with his friends on more than one occasion, but he had never let them get far enough to reach the conclusion he both knew and feared was coming. They always told him that he had changed in recent years, and become more willing to fight and less inclined to flee. They told him he was snappy, unsmiling and turning into a vicious wit. They told him it all sprang from the day he got his glamour. From the day the opera house collapsed.

From the day he was bitten by Baptiste.

Another scream echoed down the tunnel, this time louder and much nearer than before. Ed started to move, but Novel stood in his way, leaning on the earthen wall of the tunnel casually.

“All right then,” he said with a mocking shrug, “Let’s not save the girl. We’ll make a pot of tea and explore the dressing rooms instead, eh?”

A pause followed. Novel surveyed his hopeless friends with satisfaction, but felt no need to break into a grin.

“As I thought,” he replied.

And with that he took off down the tunnel in a blast of air that left them both behind.

The screaming girl was an exotic beauty with dark, raven locks. She wore little more than a chemise, and was being dragged by her hair along the tunnel floor by two brutes whose breadth filled the whole space of the tunnel, leaving no indication of what lay beyond them. In the moment when Lemarick discovered them, some way in the distance, a sudden shaft of dim light cut a fine slice into the tunnel from above. In a flurry of motion the captive girl was lifted upwards and disappeared, only to be followed by the two large brutes a moment later.

Novel hung back in the depths of the underground, waiting for Ed and Ugarte to catch him up before informing them about the tunnel’s hidden exit. A trap door, like the one at the Imaginique, loomed above their heads. Ugarte touched it gently with her fingertips, shifting its weight slightly. The farther underground she and Ed had come, the smaller they seemed, as if their shoulders were shrunken and curved warily against the earth all around them. Ugarte’s lip trembled a little.

“There could be fifty of those beasts up there,” she whispered.

Novel made a little scoffing sound. Fifty humans would hardly be an issue for a shade of his standing. Ed caught him with another judging look.

“And we’re not looking for a fight, are we?” he chided.

“Shame on me for being confident in my skills,” Novel replied bitterly.

“Look,” Ed said, raising a finger, “Just because you
can
move the Eiffel Tower a little to the left, doesn’t mean you
should
.”

Novel gave a tut, rolling his eyes.

“I did that
once
,” he retaliated.

“What he’s trying to say,” Ugarte added softly, her hand coming to rest on Novel’s arm, “is that you’re our friend, our brother even. We don’t want to see you put yourself at risk.”

Lemarick Novel truly did appreciate his friends’ care and affection, really he did. But when a loud thump sounded above their heads and the dark-haired damsel screamed again, he didn’t spare a moment thinking of the risks as he blasted up through the trap door.

The Siren

Ugarte’s musings on fifty opponents above the surface had set Novel’s heart racing, so when he only beheld six gruff-looking men to dispatch, his heart sank a little. He found himself in a room where cigar smoke collected at ceiling height and a stylish glass table was laid out for playing cards. The trap door had led up into the back room of some sort of social club, a place with shamrock green walls and gaslights in the shape of tulips. The six assailants were on their feet by the time Novel, Ed and Ugarte had all reached the surface, but neither party moved a muscle as they scoped one another carefully.

“Please sir!” the girl cried from her place behind the wall of burly men. “Please any of you, help me!”

“Shut it, witch,” barked one of the men, smacking her hard with the back of his hand. His knuckles made a loud crack against the young beauty’s jaw and Novel felt his magic burning in his veins.

“Witch?” he repeated, eyeing up the brute. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Two of the thugs began to raise their clenched fists, whilst others sought out knives and blunt weapons from their pockets. The pretty girl behind them held her face as she sobbed, but her deep, dark eyes met Novel’s across the room.

“Be careful Mister,” she shrieked. “They’re not human!”

Sparks of blue lightning grew in Novel’s palms.

“Neither am I,” he answered with glee.

His attacks were so precise that not one stray spark went near the gaslights, which could have seen the whole room go up in flames. Edvard and Ugarte were more interested in defending and containing the six-man threat, but Novel unleashed his full brutality, beating all sense from two attackers at once as he worked to fathom what they were. After a few severe punches to the gut, one such brute revealed his lengthy teeth, and another had fresh scarring on his neck that ruptured when Novel took him by it and threw him the length of the room.

“Vampires,” he grunted in the midst of the fray, “Using my new theatre as a come-as-you-please? I think not.”

Novel did not lack mercy, so when the half-dozen bloodsuckers were bruised and ready to surrender, he and Ed gathered them into a corner and stood watch whilst Ugarte tended to the girl. Novel closed in on the beast who had smacked her with the back of his hand, his pale eyes focused viciously on the foul creature.

“What were you planning on doing with this young lady?” he demanded.

“She’s a gift,” the vampire stammered.

“For whom?” Novel replied.

No-one seemed keen to give him an answer, so he lifted the creature that had spoken into the air, his gravity closing like a vice grip on the beast’s throat. The vampire struggled violently against his invisible bonds as Novel surveyed him carefully.

“Stop that,” Ed said. Now that the fight was won, his earlier irritation had returned.

“What?” Novel answered. “It’s not as though he needs to breathe.”

The other vampires were watching the exchange with fearful interest.

“You might break his neck,” Ed breathed.

A single white eyebrow rose on Novel’s pale face.

“That never used to bother you when it came to this particular species.”

Ed swallowed hard, his eyes shining with indignation.

“I’ve seen the folly of that path,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Lucky you,” Novel answered dryly.

He let the burly vampire drop back to the ground and the creature landed in a mournful heap, scrambling back to his kin. Novel rounded on them again, pressing his fingertips together thoughtfully.

“Have you gentlemen, perchance, heard of the name Novel?”

One of the smaller men in the half-dozen twitched rather violently at the sound. Some others nodded their heads and some were still too afraid or heavily beaten to move.

“I thought as much,” Novel replied with a nod. “So, we’ll try that simple question once more, shall we? Who were you intending to deliver this poor girl to?”

“They call him The Abomination,” one of the vampires replied. “He pays a high price for us to leave the creatures here for him, in this room.”

“Creatures?” Novel said, glancing over his shoulder at the girl once more. She stood wrapped in Ugarte’s long coat, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Novel.

“That wretch,” the vampire added, “she’s a siren.”

The girl stepped forward, flashing a catlike smile despite her quivering frame.

“Today of all days I find out that my powers only work on humans,” she said with a shrug. “My name is Dharma Khan, and you have my thanks.”

Novel turned back to the vampires without giving her an answer.

“Did you say this Abomination fellow would come here to collect the girl?” he asked them.

Several nodded their heads. Novel turned sharply and approached the girl, taking her by the elbow in a hard grip.

“Don’t thank me yet, Miss Khan,” he said musingly. “Your freedom’s just been slightly delayed.”

The Abomination

The room they were in belonged to a seedy social club by the name of Guttersnipes. It was a gentlemen-only facility that seemed to be largely populated by lowlife humans and the most uncouth vampires Novel had ever seen. A quick scan of the surrounding club told him that the Abomination would have to enter by public access at the front entrance, and the vampires he’d interrogated assured him that the mysterious benefactor never arrived until nightfall. The pack of six were rather keen on the idea of Novel tackling the Abomination, for he seemed to be a creature that made them altogether uneasy, and one that they’d be grateful to be rid of. Novel was too fascinated by the creature in question to care about the vampires’ motives for supporting him.

Employing Ed with the duty of keeping watch in the main room of the club, Novel and Ugarte lay in wait in the back room with Dharma acting the part of ‘live bait’. Nightfall was a few hours away and soon Ugarte fell asleep where she lay across three chairs. Novel sat on the floor with his legs across the trap door that led back to the tunnels, throwing a ball of lightning back and forth between his palms. Dharma lay on her stomach on the ground opposite him, one hand holding up her chin.

“Are you married, Monsieur Novel?” she asked.

“No,” he answered sternly, “and nor should I like to be. There are far more important pursuits in life than seeking matrimony.”

“Hmm,” Dharma purred, decidedly more relaxed now that the vampires had vacated the room, “and I thought that shades were familial people. You know, bloodlines and houses and good matches?”

Novel shrugged. “They are, I suppose.”

“Then perhaps you are not like other shades, Monsieur?”

Dharma’s words struck a chord deep in Novel’s chest, the same place where Ed and Ugarte’s concerns for his wellbeing lay buried. Setting a trap and waiting for a victim was not becoming behaviour for one of the shadeborn, even if the Abomination did sound like an enemy that ought to be seen off. Novel let the lightning fade from his hands, gathering up his knees with them instead. He wasn’t like the other shades he knew, not any more. In his younger days he could always blame his behaviour on the influence of Mother, but he knew full-well that this current quest for a violent fray was entirely his own doing.

“What were you doing at the theatre when those beasts took you?” Novel asked, shaking away his doubts with a shift of topic.

“Collecting some of my costumes,” Dharma answered. “I was a dancer at the music hall right up until its closure.”

“Were you skilled?” Novel replied.

One of Dharma’s dark brows lifted, her face growing childlike and mischievous.

“I do tend to draw the eye,” she said with a giggle. “Did I hear you say that you are the new proprietor of the Imaginique, Monsieur?”

“You did,” Novel answered.

Dharma drew herself up a little from her place on the ground, turning onto her side in her most curvaceous pose. She was a strange sort of beauty, with or without her siren powers, and she possessed a dark humour and intellect about her that Novel seldom saw in women outside of the shadeborn.

“Perhaps I could audition for you one day?” she asked with a flutter of lashes.

Novel found that he had to look away from her lascivious grin.

“If you can help me find a way to prevent unwanted parties from entering the catacombs of my theatre, the job’s yours,” he replied.

Dharma talked incessantly of her various proficiencies in dance. It transpired that her siren blood kept her young and beautiful despite the fact that she had walked the earth for almost forty years so far. Indeed her mother, of whom she kept a picture secluded in her undergarments, close to her heart, was a striking creature who passed away at a two-hundred and fifty, still full of the joys of youth. She was exactly the sort of rarity that Novel was intending to stock his theatre with. He fancied that, if he could withstand her endless conversation, he might offer her a job whether she could solve his infestation problem or not.

When the brightening of the gaslights indicated the arrival of nightfall, however, Dharma fell silent as the grave, her fears returning. Novel woke Ugarte and the two of them levitated up towards the ceiling, lying with their backs to it so that they were staring down into the room. Dharma sat in the room’s centre, now apparently alone, pulling at her nails and trying her best not to keep glancing up at her protectors.

The door handle turned with a single click, but it was several long seconds before it swung open. In a flash of practised grace, the Abomination arrived with short, clumsy strides, hobbling forward and throwing a handful of silver-blue dust straight into Dharma’s face before she could so much as scream. She dropped out of her chair and landed on the floor with a hard thump. Novel held his breath until the powder dissipated, presuming it to be some sort of sleeping magic, the kind that might be conjured by a potioneer.

The Abomination was not at all what Novel had expected. The fellow was barely even a boy, small and thickset with a mop of greasy brown hair that was in dire need of attention. He wore an unseasonably heavy cloak, which he pulled aside to reveal a satchel that looked fit to burst. As he knelt by Dharma’s side, his pudgy hands ferretted in the bag, clanking goods into each other as he searched for something with a huff. Dharma lay helpless, her beautiful face slack with sudden, impenetrable sleep.

Ugarte reached across the ceiling and tapped Novel on the shoulder. She made a little nodding motion with her eyes, but he shook his head slowly. Not yet. He wanted to see what the strange young man was up to.

“Blast it,” the boy mumbled, his words slurred and filled with venom. “Aha!”

From his bag, he pulled a large syringe, adorning it with a long needle that he didn’t seem interested in sterilising. Beside Dharma, the boy laid out four long glass vials before attaching a fifth one to the syringe and ensuring it was secure. He started feeling around at Dharma’s proud neck, pressing two fingers deep against her skin, as one would to take a pulse. Novel’s lip curled with curiosity. He was going to take her blood, but what for? The shade knew of no useful purpose for siren blood in the magic-making community, yet this young lad was readying the needle at Dharma’s neck.

Novel dropped with his full weight and landed squarely on the boy’s head, grabbing him around the torso and wrestling the syringe from his grip. Ugarte was right behind him, moving to Dharma to drag the poor limp thing away from the scuffle, but when she beheld the young man’s face, couldn’t suppress her sudden gasp of disgust. Novel turned the boy sharply so that they were eye to eye, and even he had to hold back the lump in his throat.

“Please don’t hurt me,” the boy cried, “I’m only doing as I’m told!”

His face was hideous: a filthy mass of unmatched features that no amount of grooming could ever have rectified. His small eyes shone out through the wreckage, filled with fear, and telling Novel that he was perhaps even younger than his hefty frame suggested. The shade tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulders.

“You’re not the Abomination?” he demanded.

The youngster shook his head.

“They think I am out there, because I bring the money,” he stammered, “but I just work for him, honest! I just drain the blood!”

“Your name, creature,” Novel ordered with a shake.

“Belnerg, sir,” the boy answered, “Belnerg Perkins.”

“And tell me Belnerg,” Novel continued, “can you show me where it is you’re supposed to deliver this blood to?”