Strange Brew

I held my left hand out in front of me and a surge of power hit the woman with the force of a battering ram, sending her flying across the room. Hearing movement behind me I whirled around, magic in one hand and the great claymore in the other, just in time for the wizard to hit me squarely in the face with a handful of his pink powder.

The look of satisfaction on his hawkish features was the last thing I saw before the world went black.

The droning hum of voices pulled me back into consciousness and I found a stone floor, cold and damp, under my cheek. Groaning, I rolled onto my back and pushed my dark red hair from my face. What had I been doing? What time was it? What day? I blinked, and stared up at the ceiling. There seemed to be a netting of black lace above me. That wasn't right. I frowned, trying to get my bearings through the fog that clouded my head and dragged at my body.

And then it all came rushing back.

I sat up so quickly that the room spun and I had to brace my hands on the floor and close my eyes to keep from blacking out. When I finally opened them again, I found myself in a large rectangular stone chamber. Torches and numerous large candelabra, such as you would find in a church sanctuary, illuminated the windowless room and cast flickering shadows over the wizard's black-robed coven, gathered at one end of the hall.

A quick assessment of my surroundings revealed that the only way out was the heavy wooden door behind me. It was a massive thing studded with iron bolts and flanked by two cloaked and hooded figures. The one to the left of the door raised her head as I struggled to my feet. The witch with the steel-gray hair glared at me, her eyes blazing with hatred, but the monotonous repetition of the spell the two of them were chanting never wavered. I braced myself for the impact of their magic but when nothing happened the tension in my body eased slightly and I allowed myself to turn my back to them and survey the rest of the room more closely. What I saw made my stomach tighten in fear.

Against the wall to my left was a heavily carved stone altar, perhaps four feet high and ten feet long. Laid out of top of it was Devlin, the leader of our group, looking much the same as Michael had back at the palazzo. He looked as though he was asleep, but I could detect no rise and fall of his chest, no movement of any kind from him. He was a huge man, well over six feet tall, and every inch of him was thickly muscled. His massive chest was bare, but he still wore breeches and boots.

I turned to my right to see Justine, his consort and my dearest friend, laid out on a similar altar against the opposite wall. She was stark naked. Justine was a former courtesan, and a very practical Frenchwoman. Unlike Devlin, she would have gone for her weapons before her clothing. At least our attackers had given her some semblance of dignity by draping her long, silver-blonde hair over her bare breasts. It still made me angry to see her there like that, naked and helpless. She was Justine, the Devil's Justice, and she deserved better than that.

I swung around to face the phalanx of robed figures at the far end of the chamber. There were ten of them, all garbed in black robes with hoods raised to hide their faces. They chanted in low voices, perhaps in Latin, in perfect unison with the other two witches behind me. Some were women and some were men, but the man I was searching for exuded so much evil that I could have easily found him in a crowd of a hundred, let alone ten. The wizard stepped forward and pushed his hood back to reveal his blond hair, graying at the temples, and his cold, dark eyes.

"Where is Michael?" I demanded in English, hoping he would understand.

I was frightened and angry, and the smattering of Italian I knew had deserted me. There were undoubtedly other questions I should have asked, but this was the most important one. Michael was my world; without him, nothing else mattered.

The man looked a bit surprised and then stepped aside, waving a hand to the other robed figures who parted to reveal yet another stone altar. There was blood on this one, but it was old blood, human blood. None of it belonged to the man who was laid out on top of it.

"Michael," I whispered, and surged forward.

Too late I remembered the strange black netting. I hit it with the full force of my body, and it popped and sizzled as it burned me. I staggered back, one singed hand reaching up to touch my face. The wizard laughed. It was a ward, and a particularly nasty one at that. I called up my magic, summoned it from that place where it lives deep inside me, and pushed it out through my hands, visualizing it moving through my body and into the ward. The netting wavered, like cobwebs in a breeze, but held fast. I tried again, hoping that I had weakened it. The steady hum of the coven's voices grew louder as I gathered all the magic I could call and threw it at the ward. Whatever spell they were chanting strengthened the binding and my magic bounced off the barrier and flew back at me, hit me squarely in the chest and knocked me to the floor.

"They said you were a powerful witch, and yet you ca

I glared at him. It was close enough to the truth, but I wouldn't let him see that he'd hurt my pride, even a little bit.

"I'll kill you for this, wizard," I spat.

He leaned in close to the ward, his dark eyes mocking me with cool disdain. "You can threaten me all you want, vampire, but nothing on this earthly plane frightens me, especially not an inept witch caught in my web."

I smiled. "Oh, you'll fear me before this is over. I promise you, you'll die screaming for my mercy."

Sometimes bravado is all you have.

His arrogance faltered just a bit, and then he recovered and inclined his head, returning my smile. "We shall see, vampire. We shall see."

"What do you want?" I asked. "Who are you?"

"My name is Edmund Gage, and what I want is vengeance."

As I watched him circle the ward, I tried to recall ever having seen the man before, let alone having done anything to him that would require this level of retribution.

"I don't believe I've ever wronged you, Mr. Gage," I stated.

"Oh, not you, vampire, not you. It's that bastard Marco I'll have my vengeance on."

Marco was the Regent of Venice, the local master vampire. I'd met him when we'd arrived in town, since it was proper protocol to present ourselves at the local court whenever we entered a new city.

"If you seek to harm Marco through us, then you've chosen the wrong vampires, wizard. We do not belong to him."

He shrugged. "You will do for my purposes all the same."

"Do you have any idea who we are?" I asked.

He inclined his head again. "You are The Righteous—judge, jury, and executioner in the world of the vampires."

He was correct. We constantly traveled throughout Western Europe, and it was our duty to deal with anything the local Wardens couldn't handle. We had no allegiance to Marco, though, or to any Regent. Unfortunately that also meant that with all four of us trapped here, it was unlikely anyone would notice we were missing for quite some time.

"If you know so much about us, Gage, then you should know that we do not belong to Marco. We are the High King's subjects alone, and if you kill any of us, you will bring down his wrath upon you. Trust me when I tell you that you really do not want that."