Page 8 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

“I was planning on making the rounds tonight,” I admitted. As the heir of the De Montclair line, I didn’t have to deal with being put on the patrol rotation, but these meetings always left me with the desperate urge to do something practical and, ideally, solitary.

Damien tilted his head toward one of the discreet side doors. “Go on. I’ll cover for you.”

After stopping at home to change out of my stuffy court clothes, I headed for the woods that curled around the city’s border, and walked through the pines, the thick layer of pine needles rendering my already-quiet steps completely soundless. It was a cool, cloudy night, with the promise of rain lurking in the air. I took a deep breath, just for the pleasure of having the clean fresh air in my lungs.

A twig broke loudly, and my head snapped toward the sound. Through the trees in the distance, I could make out a large shape. It was an elk, nosing curiously at the leaves of a sapling. I could smell it from here, the gamey scent of it. How long had it been since I’d eaten properly? Too long, I was sure. I tended to lose myself in my work and get too distracted to eat.

I wove silently between the trees, my eyes never leaving the elk, but as I got closer, I smelled a tinge of dried blood. I reached out with my mind, wrapping soft, comforting clouds around the elk’s nervous prey thoughts. It huffed out a breath through its nose and settled onto the forest floor, folding ungainly legs beneath itself. When I crouched in front of it, it looked up at me with wide, docile eyes. Its antlers were streaked red, a few fuzzy strips of brown clinging to them.

“Shedding your velvet, huh, my friend?” I said softly. “Nearly mating season already, I suppose.” I reached out and eased some of the brown strips away, leaving blood-streaked antler visible.

It was a good thing I’d bothered to bring a handkerchief, and I used it to wipe away the worst of the grime until the beast’s antlers were bone-white. Rocking back on my heels, I inspected my work, satisfied.

“This won’t hurt,” I said in a soothing tone before I curled a few more bits of comforting nonsense around the elk’s mind, then bent down and drank from it. Elk blood was an acquired taste, gamey and strong, but I didn’t mind it.

I licked the blood from my lips as I sat back.

“I’ll be right back,” I told the elk. It wouldn’t understand me, of course, but I felt like talking to it was somehow more polite. I walked a little ways away, keeping my eyes on the ground. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for, and I pulled up a few fistfuls of leaves before heading back.

“Here,” I said, holding the leaves near the creature’s nose. “Burdock and dandelion greens. They’re both very rich in iron. Eat up and you’ll be back to normal in no time.”

The elk looked at me blankly but began to lap up the leaves from my hand. It tickled.

I stroked the elk’s strong neck as it ate, feeling some of my stress ebb away. Out here, in the quiet, it was easier to feel the energies that flowed through the land. Magical creatures tended to gather in the places where the background magic was strongest. Long ago, Eldoria had been founded on the intersection of several ley lines, and the amount of magic it released had only grown as time went on. If I cleared my mind and tuned into the ley lines, I could feel disturbances nearby the same way a spider might feel a fly land on its web.

As I focused on the tangled streams of magic around me, I felt a knot of dark magic nearby moving fast. My eyes flew open. There were plenty of reasons why dark magic might be out in the woods at this time of night, and very few of them were good. I stood, brushing pine needles and elk-spit-covered fragments of dandelion leaves off my pants.

“Time for me to go, my friend,” I said, stroking the elk one last time between the ears. It snorted out a happy breath. “Thank you for a lovely meal. Stay safe.”

The bitter aniseed tang of the dark magic wasn’t far, and with my vampiric speed the distance was negligible. I barely needed to tap into the ley lines at all. Once I got close enough, the yelling was easy to follow.

There were five of them—two humans and three vampires. The humans were barely out of their teens, clearly terrified, backed up against a thick tree and surrounded by the vampires. All three of their attackers were clearly out of it, with one swaying visibly on his feet while the other two had that glassy, unfocused look of the truly plastered.

“This isn’t how we do things,” I said, pouring disappointed authority into my voice. “If the three of you are hungry, we can get you something to eat without attacking the helpless.”

One of the vampires snarled at me. He had a scar on one cheek that followed the line of his cheekbone, like an old-fashioned dueling scar. “This isn’t dinner,” he slurred. “This is dessert. Now, fuck off, this is our hunt.”

I sighed. “I was really hoping you’d just back off.”

“Tough luck,” said the swaying vampire.

The three of them had all turned their attention to me now, and I made eye contact with one of the humans. He mouthed a “thank you” and grabbed his companion, pushing him toward the faint lights of the city barely visible in the distance.

One of the vampires was sober enough that he must have heard them move. He stiffened, his head swinging toward the couple, and I threw a brutal punch to the jaw that made him stagger back. Cheek Scar and his friend dashed toward me, but I dodged their clumsy attacks easily. I was old and very, very powerful. They were sloppy and drunk. It wasn’t a fair fight, but, unfortunately, it seemed to be a necessary one.

Cheek Scar lunged for me again, and I grabbed him by the neck and threw him away from me. His back hit a tree with a thud, and he groaned. The vampire I’d attacked first was recovering from the hit, and he leaped toward me, fangs bared. I stepped to the side, letting him crash into his friend, who’d been preparing to attack me from behind. The two went down in a tangle of flailing limbs. I felt less like I was in a proper brawl and more like I’d wandered into an improv troupe’s first attempt at slapstick.

The vampire I’d thrown against the tree heaved himself to his feet, retched, and staggered toward me. Suddenly, a blast of white-gold light hit him in the side, and he was flung to the forest floor. The punch of magic smelled of vanilla and jasmine, with a bit of old paper. Oh no.

Sure enough, the witch came prowling into the clearing, her fingers still trailing light like smoke from the barrel of a gunslinger’s pistol.

“Elegant,” I said dryly. “But unnecessary. I’m fairly sure I had that handled.”

Evangeline stopped short when she saw me. “You,” she said, pointing a glowing finger at me.

“Me,” I said. “Would you mind not pointing that at me?”

“What? Oh.” She looked down at her hand and shook the residual magic off. “Sorry. What the hell are you doing out here?”

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