Warrior Rising Read online

  “I should’ve been stronger,” she said. “I should’ve told Sorin to go fuck himself when he kidnapped me and put me to work on breaking the spell. I should’ve stood up to him and given him the finger. Yeah, he would’ve killed me, probably. Likely, anyway. Okay, he definitely would’ve killed me.” Six foot plus, no telling how old though he’d always look thirty-ish, all muscle and fangs, long blond hair like some kind of Viking, he was one scary dude. He was fond of black leather and massive swords Nevada couldn’t lift with both hands. Even now, when he was on the right side… scary.

  “He is on our side now,” Rurik said. How could he stay so calm?

  Our side was the only thing that gave Nevada real hope. This mansion which had once been quiet as a tomb was now teeming with, well, people, for lack of a better word. People of all sorts. Humans who knew what was going on and wanted to stop it as well as vampires who liked the status quo and didn’t want to see that sick bitch Regina take over the world. Marie, her true name was, not Regina. She looked like a pretty teenage girl, but she was an ancient sociopath with fangs, and somehow she’d decided she was supposed to take over the world. D.C., at least. D.C. to start.

  And then there were the Warriors. Immortal Warriors, like Rurik. They looked human, but then so did the vampires, most of the time. Their existence had been as much of a shock to Nevada as the truth about vamps. When a room was full of these Warriors, it was like a history book exploded and the pages came to life. From every age, from every country, they’d been called to battle. The way Nevada understood it they had once been human, but they’d all been soldiers, fighters, protectors. After death, they waited in another world, an alternate universe of some kind. They waited to be called by blood descendants. Conduits, those descendants were called. The Warriors waited for a fight like this one. They’d been here before for smaller battles. Some of them, anyway. Rurik seemed to know a lot about this world. Indie — which is what most of the humans called Indikaiya — seemed much more not of this world. She was older than Sorin, probably. Hard to tell, since she didn’t talk much.

  In so many ways, the Warriors were more of a mystery than the vamps.

  “You look very tired,” Rurik said. “Have you been traveling?”

  “Traveling?” It took a moment, but Nevada soon realized what he was asking. “Oh, no. Remote viewing takes too much energy, and I need every ounce I’ve got to get this spell fixed.” She’d used the newly found gift to check on her family when they’d been held in the large, dungeon-like basement of this mansion. Rurik had first seen her that way. Humans and vamps couldn’t see her when she traveled, but Warriors were another matter. Something about traveling between worlds.

  She did not want to talk about herself. It was easy enough to change the subject.

  “I’ve heard about people who don’t understand how they survived a particularly hairy situation. Like, maybe they were invisible to their enemies, or they thought they were going to be hit by a bus or a bullet and then they weren’t. Was that you?”

  Rurik raised a hand to his chest. “Me?”

  “Well, Warriors. Do you… pop in often?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes not.” There was that smile again. It was so heartbreakingly real. “I would gladly return to this world to end your enemies.”

  Nevada shook her head. Was this his way of flirting with her? “Why? Why are you being nice to me? I’m such a colossal screwup!”

  “No. You are a fighter, as we all are. You are a brave and noble woman.”

  Brave? Noble? Something inside Nevada snapped, and she could see clearly once again. “I’m a wimp. The vampires threatened my family, they held me hostage, they forced me to cancel the sanctuary spell. And I did it. I should’ve let them kill me and my family. I should’ve sacrificed us all to save the world.” The words spilled out. “I didn’t. Sacrifice sounds noble, in theory. You know what? It’s damn hard. Besides, maybe I have the right to sacrifice my own life, but my parents? My brother and my sister? I don’t see nobility there, not at all.”

  “You did what you could. You were willing to die…”

  “I still am,” she whispered.

  Rurik’s expression was suddenly both angry and sad. Even he knew there might be no other choice. “They will have to come through me,” he said, his words a solemn promise.

  The spell she’d cast to end the sanctuary spell was connected to her heartbeat. She’d been so certain she would die as soon as it was done! With her family away from this prison, and the original spell once more in place, they would be safe. Everyone would be safe.

  But they hadn’t killed her, even though Regina, self-proclaimed queen, had ordered Sorin to do it. Nevada had made Sorin remember his past, his time as a human, and he’d let her live.

  She should’ve left well enough alone, but it was too late for should’ves and might’ves.

  “Do you need anything of me?” Rurik asked.

  She shook her head, then turned to business. “I’m making progress on the new spell.” She wanted someone to know. Anyone. “I’m still days away from finishing it but… but…” Her voice broke, a little. “I have to fix this! I unleashed hell on the world, and even if I can reinstate the original spell or come up with an entirely new one, nothing will be the same again. Nothing. Too many people know now. Too many people have seen.”

  Rurik seemed unconcerned. “They will forget.”

  “How?” Her hands fisted. She wished she could forget!

  “Dark days come and they go. Life continues on, and people believe what they wish to believe.”

  “You make it sound so simple. Everything has changed. Everything! You will eventually go back to wherever it is you came from, but for humans, for people like me, death and destruction is knocking on the door.” That was not entirely true. Thanks to her, death no longer needed to knock.

  Rurik knew that as well as anyone.

  “As I said, if you need anything I will be near.” He gave her a kind of formal and old fashioned bow, a gesture so out of place, so unnecessary, that she laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh, but was more of a short-lived hysterical cackle.

  Rurik left the room, closing the door behind him. In a weird way his visit had revived her. She felt a rush of energy, and was no longer seeing double. Anger and desperation were as good as caffeine, maybe.

  Nevada turned her mind to her work. Nothing else mattered, not even a hunky man from another world, a protector with a Russian accent and a killer smile. A man who winked at her in the midst of chaos.

  She could do this. She figured vamps didn’t have a newsletter or a phone tree, so the news that they could now enter any home uninvited couldn’t have spread far and wide. Not yet. It would. Soon. In her head she could see a map of the country, of the world, where reports of violent deaths grew and grew and spread outward like something out of a movie about a world-ending epidemic. The movies had it wrong. The world wouldn’t end thanks to a virus or a nuclear bomb. Humanity didn’t need to worry about an alien invasion. Life as humans knew it would end when the vampires took over, the way some of them had wanted to do for a very long time. If they were to win, they’d probably keep some people alive, enough to produce blood for feeding, and be servants and produce the luxuries that they enjoyed. But most would die.

  Nevada wondered how many people would ever know that this all happened because a naive college girl who didn’t realize she was a witch by blood was willing to sacrifice the world in order to save her family. A family now no more safe than anyone else, so it had been a stupid thing to do. She wondered where her family was, if they were safe. Sorin said he’d find them, but even though he’d spared her she still didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust anyone, not entirely.

  Nevada almost lovingly touched the two books on her worktable, readying to dive back in, ready to try to make sense of words that all too often meant nothing to her. She whispered to herself, “If I were like Indie, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. If I was strong and determin
ed and knew how to carry a sword like it was a part of me, Sorin never would’ve taken me in the first place, and the world would still be safe.” But would it be, really? Vampires had been around for a very long time, and they hadn’t been getting by on tomato juice and beer. No, humans had been their food source for hundreds — thousands — of years.

  Nevada knew she needed to be as strong as Indie, in her own way. She had to find a way to reinstate the spell that gave humans a refuge. That alone wouldn’t stop the sick bitch from trying to take over the world, but it would be a start.

  She would allow herself a few more days to get it done. If she couldn’t recast the spell, if she couldn’t make things right, then she would have to die.

  CHAPTER TWO

  By day the vampires slept, or else huddled in the dark below stairs. Luca could withstand daylight better than most but Chloe could not, and the blood born never strayed far from his woman. There were only five vampires in their army, at least so far. That included Chloe, who was so new as to be worthless when it came to war.Warriors and humans spent the day above stairs, preparing for the battles that would soon come. Swords were sharpened; ammunition was stockpiled. Guns and rifles were cleaned and loaded. Indikaiya herself preferred the sword. It was the weapon she had fought with in her human life, the one that felt most natural in her hands. She was also quite talented with a bow and arrow, but she preferred steel. She could and would kill a lot of vampires with that sword when the time came. The time was near.

  The Warriors didn’t need as much sleep as the humans, though they did rest when their bodies demanded it. Indikaiya had grabbed a few hours of sleep in the late night and early morning hours. She preferred nighttime for that rest. Not because her body was set to sleep while it was dark, as the humans’ were, but because that was when the vampires among them were most active. During the day, humans and Warriors had to be on guard, on the lookout for the more powerful vamps that were able to travel at any hour, those who could withstand some degree of sunlight as Luca could. Sorin? She could not be sure. So far he had not exposed himself to daylight, but that didn’t mean he was incapable. But at least at night she could trust Luca and the rest to guard.

  During the day, the humans among them took some delight in playing popular music on small devices. That music was unlike any Indikaiya had ever heard. Some of it was jarringly unpleasant, but on occasion someone would play a song that appealed to her. She found she was particularly fond of songs the youngest among them called “oldies.” She’d asked Jimmy about a couple of the songs that most appealed to her. He had laughed at her and said it made sense that she liked Joan Jett and Aretha Franklin. They were powerful women. She wondered if she’d be in this world long enough to get herself one of those devices, then dismissed the silly idea. She was here to fight, not to enjoy herself.

  She’d cleaned her leather shift and had gladly disposed of the shirt that smelled like the vampire Sorin. The boots, she kept. They were a little large, but they were also sturdy and more suited for battle than bare feet or the insubstantial sandals she’d been wearing when she’d been called in.

  Indikaiya kept her distance from the vampires, as much as was possible. She did not wish to see her blood relative, Chloe, adjusting to her new body, her new vampiric demands. Sorin was simply irritating. Luca was disturbing in many ways. It was a particular annoyance that the humans kept forgetting him. Only the elder vampires and the Warriors — and Chloe, of course — remembered Luca when they turned away from him. She supposed that talent, if it could be called such, came in handy during ordinary times, when it might be convenient for a bloodsucker to be forgotten as soon as he was out of sight, but when one was planning a war it was damned inconvenient.

  Exploring the second floor, Indikaiya found Rurik standing guard outside the witch’s door. Warriors did not fight one another; it simply was not done. But she suspected Rurik would take on his own to protect the girl, if he had to. Rurik would be a fearsome adversary. He was as tall as the vampire Sorin, all muscle and sinew, a strong man who, like she and many others among them, preferred a blade to more modern weaponry. Rurik was not as handsome as Sorin, his smile was not so annoyingly charming.

  Not that she should be comparing one man to another. Sorin did not even deserve a sliver of her attention, though he was a man — no, a vampire — who could definitely capture and hold a woman’s attention in this or any age. Why was she thinking about him at all? Had he put a vampiric spell of one kind or another on her? As a Warrior who was not of this world, she should be immune to his trickery, as she was immune to Luca’s.

  “I need to see the witch,” she said.

  Rurik’s eyes narrowed. “I will allow no one to do her harm.”

  “I give you my word, I will not harm her on this day.” She would give no promises beyond this day, and he would not expect it of her.

  He nodded, then knocked on the door and opened it slowly. “Her name is Nevada,” he said in a lowered voice. “Nevada Sheldon. Not the witch.”

  Indikaiya had never had much time or any sympathy for witches, but she felt sympathy for this one as she stepped into the large bedchamber. The girl stood before a long table which was worn with age, and on that table massively thick, ancient books lay scattered about. Some were open, revealing brittle yellowed pages; others were closed, perhaps already discarded, perhaps yet to be explored. There were small piles of stones in a variety of sizes and colors, as well as vials of powders. Some dull, others disturbingly sparkling. Nevada’s face was pale, her clothes misshapen, her red hair mussed.

  Indikaiya had never cared much for pampering herself. Her clothing was chosen for comfort and freedom of movement. She wore her long pale hair in a braid because it was easiest. Nevada could do with a neat braid at this moment.

  As if such matters were of any consequence.

  “I need your assistance.”

  Nevada turned tired — no, desperate and exhausted — eyes on Indikaiya, and it was easy to see that the young girl was on the verge of surrender. The fear there was an indication that she wondered if the Warrior in her chamber had come to kill her.

  “I’m trying, truly I am…”

  Indikaiya stepped toward the table and the girl. “You need to turn your attentions elsewhere, for a time.”

  Nevada slammed a massive tome shut. Her expression was fearsome, for one so small, or would have been if the dust that rose up from the old book didn’t make her sneeze. Twice.

  “I can’t afford to turn my attentions elsewhere,” Nevada argued as she swiped at her nose. “I can’t sleep, or shower, or eat…” Tears filled her eyes.

  “You have been at this for three days,” Indikaiya said.

  “I know, I’m sorry… God help me, I’m almost there but I can’t see the end. It’s there… it’s right there!” She swiped out a hand that knocked a few stones from the table. Those stones flew through the air, catching the light and glimmering.

  “Have Rurik and Sorin and the human Jimmy seen you this way?” Indikaiya snapped.

  “What way?” Nevada sighed and turned away, dipping down to gather the displaced stones from the floor.

  “Never mind.” Indikaiya opened the door and snapped at Rurik. “Soup and bread, quickly. Ale, if it is available.” She slammed the door hard, and looked at Nevada. “Men of every age and species are fools. Have you clean clothes?”

  “Yes.” Nevada stood with the stones in her hand, glancing down and back, toward her bed and the closet beyond, searching for stones she might’ve missed. “I just don’t have the time to worry about…” Her words, and her thoughts, faded away, as she spotted an errant stone and scrambled to collect it.

  It was no wonder Nevada had not finished her task. Her brain could not possibly be functioning at anywhere near full capacity. “You will bathe, you will eat, and you will sleep,” Indikaiya ordered in her most commanding voice.

  Nevada carefully placed the retrieved stones on the table. “I can’t…”

  “
You will do all of those things, and you will also turn your mind and powers to another problem.”

  Nevada’s hands curled into fists and her mouth thinned before she snapped, “Dammit, Indie, I can’t handle this problem! How do you expect me to take on another?”

  “Indie?”

  Nevada shrugged tiredly. “Sorry. It’s what Jimmy and some of the others call you. I think they’re afraid they can’t pronounce your name correctly. I hope it’s okay.” She unclenched her fist and rearranged the stones on her worktable, taking a moment to make sure they were correctly positioned. Perhaps checking to make sure they were all there.

  “I do not care.” Indie was what Chloe had called her, as she’d tried to capture and hold onto the name Indikaiya. The shortened name would suffice, for the remainder of this journey into the world she fought for. A name was… unimportant, insignificant. Until it was time to be called by a conduit. Then a name — the correct name — took on greater meaning.

  “The brain is a complicated and miraculous organ,” Indikaiya said, getting back to business. “It is capable of doing many things at once. You have allowed a large portion of your brain to shut down, to all but quit working. Exhaustion and fear have taken their toll. Take care of yourself, think of other things, tap into other parts of your brain, and you may awaken what has been sleeping.”

  “What if the part of the brain I need is not just sleeping but is… gone.”

  “I refuse to believe that. You have much power inside you, Nevada. You must find and use it.”

  Soup and bread arrived, delivered to the second floor by a conduit who had decided to remain with this new army, then carried into this chamber by an overly protective Rurik. The ale — a can of light beer — was accompanied by two bottles of water. Nevada sat on the edge of her bed and ate. She drank all the water but left the beer sitting on the nearby night table. As she ate, the color in her face improved. Her eyes took on a sparkle that had been missing. Perhaps her brain engaged another gear. Fed, Nevada rose from her bed, collected clothing from the closet, and headed for the attached bath.