Law of Shadows Page 2

  You take just a little time off in the woods and before you know it, you are some strange hermit who can’t deal with life. The world is changing too fast.

  “A sword? Really? Why don’t you tell me why you wish to see the local magic users? Surely you have heard that they are a secluded bunch. Especially in this territory. And aren’t you worried that they prefer killing to talking?”

  “I have certain financial assets to persuade them, but that’s none of your business. So just tell me where to find them and save me the disgrace of having to talk to diluted offspring.”

  I clench my teeth and squint my eyes at her. The Old Ones are the ancestors of almost all supernatural races. They are beings of pure magic. The old tales called us mages, demons or gods.

  Elementals are their rare offspring, which resulted from mixing with humans. They have only a part of their ancestor’s magic, which most often manifests in control over a single magical element or field. Hence they are called elementals.

  But fae are no better in that regard. They may have inherited a really strong trait, but they are nonetheless the bastard offspring of my race. So she is using the magic of will to freeze this store. The people aren’t really frozen in time, nor is anything else. A fae can cast any spell as long as the caster’s will is stronger than the one of those who observe the spell. It’s a tricky kind of magic. Much like with the question of Schrödinger’s cat. The cat is decidedly both, dead and alive, but just as long as nobody takes a close look at the facts.

  And there is also the problem of the feud. The fae are a weakening race because they aren’t much more than donkeys. Almost sterile, they can’t breed true, so they are often abducting children of other supernaturals and replace them with their inbred fakes. They particularly like it to get their hands on a true mage or witch-child, whatever one decides to call us.

  I like to go by the term of Old One. It has something mysterious and emphasizes the point that we aren’t human. We may look like them, but only as long as we choose to do so. I am actually not sure if some of our forefathers still remember our true form. I do not, but I am relatively young and I have a feeling that it’s nothing pretty.

  “Hey, I am talking to you!”

  Suddenly the fae waves the tip of her sword in front of my face and I react on instinct. Flicking my wrist, I throw the dice which is acting as my life-counter at her. She parries it out of reflex, slicing it cleanly in two. But that just triggers the spell matrix which was hidden inside the dice. A blinding flash of light stuns both of us and interrupts her defensive wards.

  I have my pistol out and unload in her general direction as I throw myself backwards. Not a second too late, because I feel the ‘swish’ of parted air as her blade passes through the spot where my head has been.

  Even on the ground I keep shooting, covering all the possible angles she could have moved to. Fae are fast and I am not keen on dying here. When the magazine is empty, I eject it and reload with trained, mechanical motions even though I still can’t see a thing.

  When my vision finally clears, I find her crumbled against the far wall. Her wild eyes tell me that she is still alive and very keen on running her sword through me. She doesn’t move though, and green blood is gathering under her, so I assume that I’ve hit something important.

  I place two more bullets in her forehead and unload the rest of the magazine into her chest. One might find that excessive, but when fighting supernaturals you don't do half jobs. You either make sure that they are down and stay down, or you are just asking to get your head chomped off sooner or later. And I have a dislike for fae because of the aforementioned reasons.

  I’ve no problem with half-breeds, but the fae-method of ensuring their kind’s survival is creepy.

  Once she stops twitching, I edge closer and carefully edge the sword away from her. Fae are tough bastards and their healing abilities are almost as strong as ours. I wouldn’t dare to come too close to myself if I were in her place. After a few more moments I finally dare to bend down and pick up the sword. Without hesitation, I swipe it across her neck, decapitating her even as the first bullets are pushed back out of her forehead.

  With that done, I finally relax. Even a lich needs a while to come back from that. And for most others it’s a death sentence. Growling, I look around the damaged room. To my luck the people are still frozen and it seems like I don’t have to take care of any more corpses. Just the poor Fred got a little nicked by her blade. Blood is dripping down his cheek.

  I step closer to inspect his hand. So he had a ‘Wrath of God’! Bastard. And then I realize that the new advertisement stickers on the shop-window are pretty good mirrors. Hah! That’s how he anticipated my every move! I just knew it! Reaching down, I break his finger just to make a point, bending it backwards until it touches his wrist.

  With such an injury he won’t play for quite some time. Cheating is okay, I even encourage it. But not if you are caught. I’ll not kill him because he expertly used the new environment against me.

  Feeling satisfied, I contemplate my next steps. Mercenaries are one thing, but fae inside my territory? Didn’t they learn anything from their last incursion ten years ago? But first things first. I have to find someone to break the spell on my shop and clean everything up. After a few moments of going through the possibilities, I decide to stick to the only real option.

  I reach into my pocket and get out my mobile phone. After a few rings the other side picks up and introduces himself with a few gurgles.

  “Paul! Yesterday you left without saying goodbye! Why don’t you visit me at my shop and we have good, nice time between men. What do you think?”

  “...”

  “This isn’t about our agreement?”

  I snort. “No. What are you thinking? I just thought about breaking the ice. I am a real ass sometimes and wanted to pay you back for putting up with me. Just come to Ringstreet 16. It’s already dark, but it’s almost impossible to miss the shop with all the lights and advertisements.”

  “Okay… Just give me ten minutes.”

  I hang up and put the phone away. Extreme times call for extreme measures. Now I just have to hold the line for ten minutes and hope that nobody else wants to play games at seven in the evening.

  Twenty minutes later I am inside my car and on my way to the outskirts of the city, leaving the brooding toad to his job. I am sure that I’ll never again be able to pull off such a stunt with him since he is a fast learner. I suppose it was necessary. Otherwise he would have never showed up without some ‘special compensation’.

  I stop where the industrial area merges with the city and shake out a cigarette. It’s clear that I overdid it a little with the fae, so I want hold back on my next meeting.

  This place is a prime location for everyone who is providing ‘special services’. I get out of the car and walk a few more feet to the house with the extravagant gate. In the upper windows are a few red hearts, blinking. The big neon-sign at the roof removes any doubt about this establishment.

  The red Eve.

  Sure enough I find Eva, the owner, at her usual spot right in front of her nest, watching over the parking area. “Eva! Already had your fill today?”

  The busty brunette smiles and makes an extra effort of showing off her magnificent assets, angling them just right for me to take a peek down the V of her neckline. “I have, but I am always ready for someone who performs with as much vigour as you. Do you want to have another round of my special services?”

  Nope, even though I am in the mood! With my cigarettes I am too calm to risk it with a vampire. My blood is still needed tonight. Though I admit that I humped her once, just to see those two monsters jingle. And it was excellent. Too bad that there is no spark between us. She isn’t setting off my instincts for whatever reason.

  I smile. “Not tonight. I just had an encounter with a fae. She spoke of her job, using the plural. Heard anything about them establishing a base in my territory?”

  Eva stops smiling and reveals a set of long, sharp canines. There is a good reason that the fae set her off. The vampires are another high priority target for abduction. Or at least their neophytes. The human legends got a lot of things wrong about vamps. Not without a certain amount of misdirection from their side. They don’t like their real life-cycle to be known since it reveals certain weaknesses.

  First, Vampires aren’t made but born. It runs in the family. They live an entirely human life in their neophyte stage. They go to school and party, age and marry… the whole, enjoyable, blissful thing. They even get kids as all other humans do and they are by no means special. The trick comes when they die for the first time and move from their neophyte stage to actual vampirism. They can’t change anyone.

  From then on, they are pretty much the bloodsuckers of legend, just that they don’t go ‘poof’ in sunlight. It’s too bright for them though. And they are allergic to silver, but that has nothing to do with religion. And there is this urge to protect their bloodline at all costs without giving in even an inch. They are sterile as vampires, so they have to protect the children they had in life, or other relatives.

  If they lose their relatives, they lose their reason for existence. With other words, Eva is someone I can absolutely trust in this matter. She and her nest are the last supernaturals who would collaborate with fae.

  She presses her kissable lips together. “My nest would never have dealings with fae. To even imply such a thing!”

  Oh, my. Good thing that I am smoking. Otherwise I would have her bend over that car to relieve some stress. Pushing up that skimpy skirt wouldn’t be any effort. I cough. “Of course I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought that you and your nest are the ones who probably have an eye on every good hideout in the city. If someone
can take a reasonable guess on where to start looking, then it’s you.”

  She takes a more relaxed stance and contemplates the possibilities. “The old warehouse over at the hardware store.”

  “I know the place. It stood empty for a while after the disco inside it went bankrupt.”

  “Good. So, here is the deal. A few days ago, someone bought the entire thing. They put a high fence around it in a single night and plastered everything with construction signs and advertisements. One can’t even get a look inside. Yet, a lot of people are walking in and out at nightly hours. And there are guards. We stayed away up until now, but if the new owners are fae-”

  “Then they are probably growing a new tree for their reality marble,” I finish the thought. Reality marbles, or dimensional pockets, are the most powerful ability the fae inherited from us.

  A few hundred years ago, during the times of what the humans call the black death, we fought a large war with the fae. They managed to piss off the Old Ones enough to unite against them. Something without precedent in known history. Old ones don’t get along very well, so we stick to small, clan-sized family groups. Everyone fiercely protecting their territory against outsiders.

  I am no different. The veil around these mountain valleys lets through the weaker supernaturals, but everyone with enough power to rival an Old One gets a pretty unpleasant zap. It’s hard to get in and even harder to get out, but at least I’ll immediately know that someone dangerous is coming.

  Returning to the war. From what history tells me, we gave them hell. They even started to fear that we will wipe them out to the last child. I suppose we would have done it. When it comes to children my kind is even worse than vamps to their neophytes.

  In the end the fae took a last gamble to save themselves. Their most powerful individuals worked together to split off a part of this world to create a save haven for them. It even worked and now an unknown number of them is hiding out in Fairy, as they call their pocket dimension.

  Individually we are more powerful than fae, but there are fewer of us. So the fact that we united against them was the only reason that we managed to win at all.

  My people returned to the old ways and everything went back to normal until the fae returned via their stupid trees and fairy rings to steal children for their breeding program. Now we burn their little hideouts wherever they try to establish themselves. Annoyingly, it seems that we are never fast enough to make such undertakings uneconomical for them.

  I don't give a shit if they steal a few humans. They aren’t worth much except for breeding quickly. The problem is that once they are going for humans, its a short way to other races. The hatred for fae was bred deeply into me.

  “Do you need assistance?” Eva asks me after a while and I realize that I've been staring at the sky since a few minutes ago.

  “No. I’ll gear up first. Grenades, poisonous bullets, wards. If I have to give them a beating, then I’ll visit the party prepared. But I suppose it would be nice if you guys are ready to stand guard to keep the humans from noticing. Just tell them that people are working.” I drop the cigarette and step on it.

  She purses her lips. “Yeah, sure. Explosions and gunshots, high pitched screams… normal sounds for a construction site.”

  I shrug. “There was an accident. Stay away until professional help arrives. Just don’t mention that we have people at the call-centre who won’t react.”

  3. ~Crash the party~

  “And they roamed the earth in those days, keeping watch over their weaker brethren.”

  A memory of the Old Ones.

  Carinthia

  “Shit, I mean… how does something like that get past the city’s legislation? Did they buy a few officials? The more of this comes to light, the more work I get.” I gesture at the fake building site while I dangle my feet from the roof. After I armed up at my apartment I drove right to the warehouse where I met with Eva and her nest. To be on the safe side we decided to observe the warehouse from a neighbouring building.

  “I suppose they have at least one official in their pockets. And I think it’s the troll. Ah, this glamour of yours is cool by the way. They really can’t see or hear us from down there?” Eva chuckles from right next to me and leans herself back.

  “Hrm… why do you think that?” I grumble and squint my eyes at the scene.

  She points at the guards who are protecting the door. “See those two big hunks of a man? They are trolls. They stink and I smell them against the wind. Trolls do nothing without the permission of their tribe’s leader. The troll-chieftain is the city’s minister of transport.”

  So the trolls? I already wondered when I have to give them the next demonstration. But this time they earned themselves a special reward.

  “Please tell me you aren’t going to wipe out the whole tribe.”

  “Just the families of those guards and of the minister’s… twice removed.” I already try to remember the exact location of their cave system. “But you are right. I could drop some mustard gas down their cave entrance. I still have some from world-war two. That would be less trouble.”

  Eva sighs. “You see. That’s why nobody likes you and calls you the demon lord. They are afraid because you always punish many for the mistakes of one. You have to cool down and manage your territory a little more leniently.”

  I point at the warehouse. “Do you see that? That’s what I get for being lenient! I am just one person and I have a whole territory to watch. More than nine thousand square kilometres of mountains and valleys! I have to rule with an iron fist. And not everyone is afraid of me.”

  She shows me her teeth in a brilliant smile. “Tell me who.”

  I stutter and start counting on one hand. “Well, there is you, the toad, that old lady at the bus stop, the people at my shop. Fred...” I continue by giving her their names.

  She holds up a hand. “I don’t count because I knew you since before your family died. I am reasonably sure that you won’t harm me on your good days. The toad doesn’t count either, because he is a hermit who doesn’t concern himself with much more than his lake. And the lady at the bus stop is a ten thousand year old nymph with serious dementia. She probably doesn’t even know who she is talking to half the time. Finally we have your human pets, playmates, who don’t even know who you are.”

  I hiss at her version of the situation. “So what should I do? It’s hard enough for me to tolerate other supernaturals. You have no idea how hard it is not to rip out the throats of all those idiots. All I want is to have a quiet territory.”

  She circles her hand. “Find a mate? Invade some other territories and steal yourself a few women to start a new family. I am sure a few more helping hands would ease the workload.”

  I tilt my head and look at her as if she has a few screws loose.

  Eva raises both hands, giving up. “Or make some mating calls. I’ve no idea how you Old Ones do it. It can’t be healthy for a guy in his prime to be cut off from the rest of his species. Oh, I know! I have a twentytwelfth-generation granddaughter, neophyte! You could take her as-”

  I blanch and search for my cigarettes. “How did that idea enter your head? You know yourself that the result of such a union wouldn’t be a vampire. The child would be… something. No idea what.”

  “Let me explain. She is shy, a wallflower and a prude.”

  “I thought you are trying to sell your goods. That doesn’t sound convincing.”

  “Exactly! She is one of those girls who think that they don’t need children. But she needs to have children. For my sake. The more bloodkin to protect, the better. The girl simply doesn’t know what she will feel once she bites the dust. I can’t leave all the work to her siblings. So I thought that you might want to seduce her and give her a good boning! Just to introduce her to the wicked ways of us supernaturals. No problem if you get her with child as long as she develops a taste for it. Women can have a whole football team of younglings. Back in my days, I-”

  “Just stop!” I bite my inner cheek and raise a hand. Eva already lived back in the dark ages. The women back then knew only two states, being pregnant, or recovering from pregnancy. That’s why she doesn’t understand that someone might not want to have a big family. She is from another era in that aspect. I bet she had fourteen kids and died, a.k.a. became a vampire, while pushing out the fifteenth.