Karhi Emelyn

“Do you have any idea of who could be behind this?” Karhi asked, following Hazel to Cyly’s study.

“Well, we have enough of an idea to know who to watch.  These sudden attacks by original vampires are uncommon.”

Karhi didn’t have a lot of experience with original vampires, but the vampire courts had strict regulations on them.  Original vampires were tireless juggernauts, especially in their early years.  They generally had no control of themselves in their first years as vampires.  And they didn’t have any personality beyond “need blood” and “need to make more vampires”.  Deadly creatures whose only modes were “eat, sire, or fuck”, as Lunette had once said.

But as they got older, they gained intelligence beyond baser instincts.  And they became fucking terrifying because, as far as Karhi knew, they didn’t gain any sort of compassion or care for other creatures.

“More powerful players, then,” Karhi said.

“All of the powerful original vampires have been accounted for,” Hazel said.  They re-entered the Royal Wing.  “We’ve been in agreement with Dracula, his sire Eretica, and her sire Moroi for centuries.  Individually, they would not make a move like this.  There are no other powerful leaders that are currently ‘on the radar’, so to speak, that could mobilize original vampires to work like this.”

He understood the subtext.  “Meaning that they’re probably all in it together.”

Dracula, Eretica, and Moroi stayed fairly quiet and didn’t really involve themselves with other vampires. 

“At the very least, Moroi knows something he’s not telling,” Hazel agreed.

That was . . . dangerous.  Moroi was one of the oldest vampires in existence, pushing at least two-and-a-half-thousand years.  He was one of the few vampires who had managed to stay alive during the crucifixion. 

Moroi had sired hundreds of vampires over the years.  His biggest successes were Eretica, Nelapsi, and Mara, otherwise known as Dracula’s wives, though Eretica had actually been the one to sire Dracula.

If Moroi had something to do with this, then things were very, very serious.

They entered Cyly’s study to find Faren and Mira.  They were talking when Hazel and Karhi interrupted.

“My queen,” Faren said, bowing to Hazel.  “We have just finished.  We have no new information.”

“Yes, but we may,” Hazel said.

She explained what they had learned and what Hazel was doing to quietly mobilize forces, just in case.  When she was done, Faren was unfazed.  He just nodded, and said, “I will mobilize the succubae and incubi discretely.”

“Thank you, General Faren,” Hazel said.

The door burst open, and Savita came in.  She stumbled to a stop when she saw Hazel.  “My queen, oh, thank the gods.  My queen, we have a serious problem.”  She looked at Mira.  A silent exchange seemed to go between the two of them.  Then Savita moved forward and took Mira’s hand.  She pulled Mira to the  queen and had Mira take one of her hands. 

The room disappeared from around Karhi and he went spinning through an upheaval of sensations and sights.  Memories and thoughts brushed him, threatening to overtake him.  He fought to right himself but it was hard when there was no up or down. 

He took in a deep breath, focusing on the way his chest expanded.  He needed to centre himself.  He had been through this before.  He knew what to do.

Finally, his vision cleared.

He heard Savita’s voice.  This is the eye I have on the walls surrounding the castle, my queen and king.

Vampires.  Hordes of vampires, original and human, and shifters.  Shifters of all shapes and sizes.  They were swarming the entrance of the castle, all originating from the forest that surrounded them.  Men and women, animals and beasts, all waiting at the castle gates. 

The sky was still light, but the sun had set behind the mountains.  Original vampires were safe even if there was still a little light in the sky. 

Karhi tumbled out of the vision and landed back in reality. Mira seemed on the verge of vomiting.  Hazel and Faren’s faces were equally impassive.

Hazel didn’t even ask questions.  She said, “Savita and Mira will go to the war room.  The whole castle can be viewed from there.  I want reports on what is happening as often as you can give them.”

Savita nodded.  “With Mira’s power, I can project much better.”

“No shit,” Faren muttered.  “Threw all of us into that vision, didn’t she?”

Hazel’s head snapped to Faren.  “She did?”

“Yeah,” Karhi said.  “I also saw it.”

Hazel nodded grimly.  “In that case, you all know the stakes.  Savita and Mira, war room.  If you can give me direct telepathic reports, please do.  Same with my husband.  Otherwise, call.”  She looked at Faren.  “Faren, I don’t care about discretion anymore.  Please mobilize the ‘bae.”

“Yes, my queen,” Faren and Savita said at the same time.

Faren, Savita, and Mira left. 

“We need to—” Hazel started but Karhi’s phone went off in his pocket.  He pulled it out to find Cyly’s name on the front and showed it to Hazel.  She nodded and he answered, putting it on speaker.  “Your highness.  Your mother is here, too.”

“Karhi.  Lavender is here to move us.  Where is Sloane?”

Karhi’s eyebrows rose.  “What?  I dropped her off by the infirmary over an hour ago.”

“She’s not come in.  Hold on.”  A moment passed before Cyly spoke again.  “I checked outside the infirmary, both in the castle and outside.  She’s not in either place.”

“That’s not right . . .”  Karhi had felt Sloane’s intentions.  She was planning on going in the infirmary to speak with Cyly and then wait outside of it for when she was needed.

“I . . . have also been waiting for my sister for quite some time.”

Karhi’s head snapped up to look at Hazel.  She looked grim. 

Faolan had said earlier that he was looking for Cailean.  That had been right after Karhi dropped Sloane off.

Hazel held out her hand for Karhi’s phone.  Karhi handed it without a word.

“Cyly,” Hazel said shortly.  “The panic room is designed for 48 hours, correct?”

“Correct.”  Cyly sounded as grim as his mother looked.  “What’s going on?”

Hazel explained quickly what they had seen and finished with, “I need you to go to the panic room.  I hope that I will be the one to release you from there, instead of it unlocking automatically.  I love you.  Be safe.”  She hung up before Cyly could say anything.

She handed Karhi’s phone back to him.  “Karhi, I imagine you want to look for your fledgling.” 

“Yes.”

“I need her in that panic room.  The only people with access are my children, Matadi, myself, Amara, Aoife, and Savita.  You’ll need to find one of us to bring her in when she is found.”

Karhi nodded.

“Once she’s inside, it’s not possible to leave the panic room for 48 hours.  There’s a supply of blood and food for up to ten vampires and ten humans.  I would prefer that you not go in the panic room.”

“If Sloane is to sire, and Aoife isn’t in there, will there be anyone else in there who can help her?”

She paused and then shook her head.  “Good point.  I would not like to lose a valuable resource like you, but you are right.  We need to make sure that my daugh—my son’s fiancée has the best chance of surviving turning.”

Karhi didn’t say anything about how Hazel had cut herself off from calling Alice her daughter.

“If you have any weapons you prefer to work with, I would recommend going to the armoury to pick something up.”

“Thank you,” he said, turning from her.

“And Karhi?”

He glanced back at her.

“Be careful.”

“You, as well, your majesty.”

They parted ways.

Instead of heading to the armoury, Karhi went back to his room.  Most of the time, when Karhi left home, he brought a kit with him.  Clothes, money, and a bolo sword called a pira. 

He had learned a regional variation of Kali when he lived in a Filipino settlement in Louisiana in the 1700s.  Over the years, Karhi used to sell his services to communities that knew he was a vampire.  Protection, strength, whatever.  Anything to break up the monotony.  For that particular community, he had helped with dangerous animals (namely gators and cougars), and worked as a farmhand. 

He had learned to work with a couple different weapons, but his favourite was a pira—it was about the length of his forearm, more of a long knife than a real sword, and it was heavier than most weapons its size.  Most of the time, if he fought against something, it was a creature that could heal quickly.  So nine times out of ten, he would need to cut off a limb or a head.

The weapon had a wider head with a pointed tip and was only bladed on one side.  The handle was extra long, with the intent of being supported by the arm.  It had good stability and could cleave through things stronger than they should be—namely, in this case, vampires and shapeshifters.

He left his room with sword in hand, wearing more practical boots, in case he fought in snow and ice, and closed plugs in his ears.  No reason someone needed to be able to hook into his earrings and tear his lobes.

His first stop was where he had left Sloane.  There was no sign of her and no clue to tell him where to start searching.  He doubted she had left of her own volition.  She had been determined to see Alice through.

Karhi went on the curtain wall next to the front gates.  From up there, he could get a better view of Sloane if she was somewhere nearby. 

There were some living vampires watching the hoard outside of the gates, but there wasn’t any sort of force on the wall yet.

The horde outside had doubled in size.  The bulk of the mass was original vampires, a sea of grey skin glistening in the moonlight.  There were groups of shifters at the forefront, huddled masses separate from the original vampires.  There was a human vampire here and there.

Karhi had never seen this many original vampires.  There had to be maybe three hundred.  And they were just standing there, waiting.  Whomever was in control of them . . . Karhi found himself thinking that Moroi indeed had to be involved.  He was the only one who could command armies like this.

There was a disturbance in the mass below.  He couldn’t make out who it was, just a parting and jostling of the crowd.

Two people emerged and Karhi blanched.

The first was a teenager, barely seventeen years old.  She wore black jeans and a tight red sweater that spoke of someone kidnapped during a night out clubbing.  Dark make-up smudged her face where it had run from tears.  She had a blonde mess of curly bloodstained hair that hadn’t been washed in days.  She was bruised and bitten.  She wasn’t a blood whore or a human paid by the courts to give blood to vampires—she was a young girl who had been taken from her home.  A blood slave.

The figure holding her looked like something dead resurrected.  Skin as white as the snow around her, with hair as dark as ink.  Veins broke up the paleness of her skin like violet spiderwebs.  Her eyes were darker than anything Karhi had ever seen. 

She wore dark clothes, black pants and a black shirt.  Where Karhi could see flesh, he also saw bone just barely concealed by skin.  Her fingers were knobby, her wrists jutting out from her arms.  She looked sharp in every sense of the word.

She was terrifying.

Movement caught Karhi’s attention. 

Living vampires poured out onto the wall, lining up along the parapet.  The parapets were panelled, with openings to allow for gunners and archers.  But the vampires weren’t bothering to use them for cover because of the shield around the castle.  Instead, they stood over it, assault rifles with elongated magazines in their hands.

A man with caramel-coloured hair stood behind them, two hundred yards down from Karhi.  He was Karhi’s age, though he had been turned in his fifties.  Lieutenant General Moore.  He worked directly under Aoife.

He shouted something in Irish, and the living vampires raised their guns, levelling them on their shoulders.

He shouted again and the vampires opened fire.

The bullets passed easily through the barrier and hit the crowd below.  Screams echoed and puffs of dust plumed from the crowd.  Karhi saw the shapeshifters scatter from their groups.

Karhi had seen this before.  The living vampires were using semi-automatic rifles with bullets that fragmented on impact.  They aimed each time they shot because an original vampire could be killed by a bullet to the head that exploded just enough to render its brain useless and unable to heal.  The same went for the shifters.

The bullets didn’t hit the figure and the girl.  Purple lights flashed in a dome around them—a barrier stopping the bullets.

For the first time, Karhi noticed another figure, standing next to the skeletal woman, also untouched by bullets.  He was shorter than the woman, maybe five and a half feet tall, wearing a suit.  He looked Slavic, with high cheek bones and dark hair. 

Karhi was soon distracted as the skeletal woman, towering over the girl, raised her by her arm.  The girl screamed, drowned out by the roar of gunfire around Karhi.  He saw her shoulder pop out of its socket.

And then, a silver knife flashed and the girl couldn’t scream anymore, bright red blood spraying from her neck. 

The girl was dead before the woman dropped her to the ground.  Bright red blood soaked the snow and steam wafted up from the heat of the blood in the freezing temperatures.

But then the steam started to darken.  Pale white mist turned to grey smoke, hovering over the ground before turning to shadows writhing in the air. 

The shadows encircled the skeletal woman, wreathing her.  The man in the suit took a step back.

There was a sudden silence, the tension in the air thickening.  The gunfire had stopped.  Lieutenant General Moore shouted in the sudden silence.  The gunners dropped their guns and pulled sabres, cutlasses, and other swords from their hips.

The woman flicked one hand, and the shadows flew to the castle.  They hit the barrier and blue light flashed above the wall.  Light crackled where the shadows hit the barrier.

Karhi didn’t know a lot about magic, but he knew that shadowmancy was so named because it looked like literal shadows.  And it was the most corrupt form of magic possible.  Its only purpose was destruction.

The man who had been standing next to the shadowmancer was watching the proceedings with detachment.  He was waiting for the walls to fall.

His red eyes told Karhi that he was an original vampire.  One old enough to maintain a human form with little trouble.

The shadowmancer paired with that original vampire—this was not going to be fucking good.

Karhi.

Karhi started, spinning around to locate the source of the voice he heard.  A few vampires around him gave him a strange look, but otherwise didn’t react.

It’s Mira.

He looked around him.  Where was she?

I’m working with Savita.  I’m in the war room.  Between the magic of the castle and Savita, I can talk to anyone with whom I have previously had a mental link.

Holy shit.

Yeah.  Look, I found Sloane.

Found Sloane?

Yeah.  She’s back in the dungeons.  It looks like she and Cailean were knocked out and taken there.  They’re trapped.  You were the first person I could find to tell.  Can you go free her?

Karhi had known she wouldn’t back out with Cyly.  She had been in a good place when he left her.  Of course.  Do you know anything about the situation down there?

No.  She hasn’t fully degraded the magic in the cell, so I couldn’t get too much before the magic kicked me out.    I think the only reason it worked was because we’re so close.  Do you know where the dungeons are?

No.

And just like that, an internal map of the castle was burned into his brain.  It didn’t quite hurt, but it was an uncomfortable pressure that made him sway dangerously.  He blinked several times, shaking his head.  What the fuck?

Fastest way, Mira replied.  Thank Savita later.

Karhi shook his head.  He definitely would not be thanking Savita.  I’ll go get her.

Thanks.

With the map of the castle burned into his brain, Karhi didn’t have any problems finding the dungeons. 

It was at the foot of the stairs into the dungeons that he caught trouble in the form of two human vampires heading towards the stairs.

They were both on the short side, bulky with dark hair.  Brothers, maybe.  One carried a mace, the other a sword.

Karhi knew there weren’t any human vampires in the castle besides Sloane and Karhi and one of Alice Costa’s friends.  But even if he hadn’t known, the shout of surprise when they saw him was enough. 

The one carrying a mace charged Karhi.

Karhi surged forward, ducking the mace and moving inside of the man’s range.  Before he could react, Karhi made eye contact and searched for the man’s focus.  It wasn’t all that tightly wound. 

Karhi picked at the focus, and the man’s face turned from determined to confused.  It gave Karhi enough hesitation in the man’s movements to shove his blade into the man and completely disembowel him.

It wasn’t enough to kill a vampire, but it was enough to distract one with pain and the overpowering urge to scream.  And scream, he did.  The mace fell to the ground and Karhi stepped back, pivoting on the balls of his feet to slice clean through the man’s neck, decapitating him. 

Karhi didn’t stop in his movement, darting into the next man’s space.  Karhi parried away the man’s sword, but the man dodged before Karhi could do anything. 

That was fine.  Karhi turned his movement into a turn that took his blade across the backs of the man’s thighs, severing his hamstrings.  Again, not enough to kill a vampire, but enough to incapacitate one.

He screamed, dropping to his knees.  Karhi cleaved off his head, too.  He fell to the side, and Karhi wiped the blood off on the dead vampire’s pants before continuing on.

They hadn’t been particularly interesting fighters.  Mercenaries-for-hire, as he had suspected.  The shifters would likely all be hired, too.

Karhi had to wonder, what incentive was so good that they would go on a fool’s errand like trying to take down the living vampires?  What promise could they have been given that would make human vampires and shifters alike come out here?  Money was always a powerful motivator . . . but was it powerful enough to throw caution to the wind and come out here like this?

Karhi continued through the dungeons.  The map in his head told him where Sloane had been held before.  It had been an unpleasant experience, but having the map burned in was proving very useful. 

When he got to the cell, he found why the two vampires had been leaving the dungeons.

The door lay on the floor next to the doorway.  Inside, Karhi saw a broken bed, but otherwise nothing else.

Sloane wasn’t here.  And Karhi knew, from experience, that he would know if Sloane was dead.  She had escaped.  As usual, he was a few steps behind her.

He stopped.  He had worked with enough mindreaders in the past that he knew a bit about projecting his thoughts.  And if Mira could hear the castle . . . 

Mira.  He waited a moment.  Mira.  Another moment.  MIRA.

What?  He felt her annoyance.

Sloane’s out.  By herself.  Can you find her?

Please hold.

Karhi picked up the door and leaned it against the wall.  He looked it over and saw that the door around the locked was blackened.  As if someone had burned a circle around the lock.  It reminded him of what he had seen back in October, where Corvine had broken wards.

Sloane had broken the wards.

“God damn,” he whistled.

Alright, Mira said, popping back into his head.  She and Cailean are on their way to the panic room.

Karhi took a second to consult his map and found the panic room.  It was in the Royal Wing.  He started back toward the stairs.  Tell her I’ll be there.

Will do.