“Know if there are any living people nearby?”
All of the ravens flutter in a swarm before flocking closer to me. In synchrony, the feathers on their heads and necks fluff out before one of them squawks at me, tipping its head.
I stare at it before trying again. “Take me to the nearest warm place.”
Several crows take flight, winging their way to settle on telephone lines in the distance that I had missed before. They’re in disrepair, but they’ll lead me to something sooner or later.
Movinghurts, my chest keeps burning, and I feel weak as fuck as I trudge through the thigh-deep snow to follow the lines, ignoring the birds that flutter along nearby. After only a few minutes, the cold makes my hands and feet so cold they burn, so I pause to try casting a basic fire spell. I’m shit at fire spells, but at this point, I’ll take anything.
Yet the incantation I recite does nothing. I don’t even feel the strained fizzle of magic I used to get when I had nothing to fuel my death magic.
I try again in fae. Still nothing.
Maybe I need to kill something. Pausing, I study the ravens that are still fixated on me. As if they pick up on what I’m thinking, they all croak and shriek, flying away quickly.
Whatever. I can find something to kill after I track down warmth and a map. I’m shaking too damn much to try wielding my knife, anyway.
I glance up at the sky. “How about some divine providence before I freeze my ass off?”
No response.
Nice to know that divine nepotism isn’t on the table.
2
MAVEN
After nearly fifteenminutes of stumbling in the same direction as the telephone lines with cold sinking deeper into my bones, I spot a house on the lightly forested horizon. As I approach, I note that the lights inside aren’t on. Maybe it’s abandoned.
But then I see the car parked haphazardly in the front yard. Very little snow has accumulated on the top of it, so it must have been driven recently. On top of that, the house’s front door has been left open.
A couple of ravens flutter to a tree nearby, croaking ominously at me as if to say this isn’t safe.
They’re right. When I silently move closer, I sense it: fresh death sitting heavily in the air. Just before I reach the front door, chills run over my skin. My nerves tighten as each sense goes on high alert.
Somewhere in this house, danger of the Nether variety lies in wait.
How…convenient.
Ididwant to find something else to kill, after all. I just hope it’s something alive that will fuel my magic, instead of Undeador banshee or some shit. Lowering into a ready stance despite the screaming soreness lingering in my limbs, I slip soundlessly through the front door.
Bloodstains saturate the white entry carpet, with more red smeared along the wall and up the stair railings. The corpse of an older man lies crumpled at the foot of the stairs. My attention zeroes in on the puncture marks on his broken neck half a second before I register the slight squeak of a wooden door to my right.
I leap aside immediately, narrowly dodging a Nether vampire. Its fangs snap in the place my neck just was before it whirls on me again, black eyes gleaming with inhumane, predatorial thirst. My etherium knife is in my hand immediately as I dodge another attack.
It’s almost as fast as I am, which makes this an appealing combat opportunity until another vampire appears at the top of the stairs. The second one blurs down to join the fight at the exact second I plunge my knife into the first vampire’s neck.
The first vampire screeches as its throat gurgles, overflowing with blood as it collapses—and simultaneously, I shout in pain when the second vampire’s teeth sink deeply into my right shoulder. I throw my elbow back hard to knock the monster away, but Vampire Number One is still not completely dead, and I hiss again as it bites down hard into my right ankle.
The pain that explodes there is far worse than the bite wound on my shoulder.
Fucking vampires.
Still, with the pain comes adrenaline pumping through me, filling me with the usual dark thrill of a fight.
I dodge another attempt by the second vampire before plunging my hand into its chest and ripping out its heart. It drops dead. The first vampire is now twitching on the ground, blood pooling around its head. Typically, I would end a monsterquickly just for the fun of it, but that ankle bite will be annoying to deal with, so I let it suffer.
Tossing the heart aside, I check my bitten shoulder and try rolling my ankle.
