The Devil's Liege

  He wanted to say, “Fuck the people,” but that wasn’t right. Most of them had nothing to do with the kidnapping. The time to be nice was long gone. He looked at Vlad. “That this is what will happen to those who do not respect their king.”

  Vlad nodded.

  “Put on your coat,” Azazel said. “We might as well get started.”

  Mathias complied. The material magically adjusted itself around his wings. He was ready.

  * * * * *

  The air was brisk, and yet, not uncomfortable. Not yet. In only a month, the winter would be really bad. But, for now, it was still bearable. Granted, there was snow on the ground, but it wasn’t all that deep yet. If he rubbed his foot a few times, he could see grass.

  Mathias followed Azazel to the outer gate. The wind blew around outside the walls of the castle and soon the snow drifts would climb up the wall. The grey stone looked stark against the grayish-blue sky. It was a cold place.

  Azazel was dressed exactly as he was. On top of the coats, they had large heavy packs. They fit neatly in between their wings. The magic, however it worked, made it so the arm loops didn’t have to go over the entire wing or anything. Mathias hadn’t bothered to ask what was in them. It didn’t take a genius to guess they were full of regular camping gear and some food. If they went through their food supplies, they’d have to start hunting. Hopefully, though, it wouldn’t be that long of a trip.

  Of course, if the pain wasn’t so distracting, they could just focus on the pain link and blink themselves to where Nossy was. But Mathias needed to concentrate to do that, and, he’d never had anyone else blink him in tandem, so on foot it was. Flying had already been put out of the question. Since it had never been brought up, Mathias assumed that they all had had the same thought he’d had. That it would have been a disaster. As it was, he couldn’t see how the trip was going to go smoothly.

  “Okay. We will walk around the castle. Let me know the areas the pain is worse and I will make note of it on the map,” Azazel said.

  Mathias nodded and started trudging through the snow. As had been the norm with this spell, with every heartbeat, the pain pulsed. After a while, the extra weight of the snow on his feet made him move slower and slower. Time seemed almost at a standstill except for the scenery moving along as he passed. Nothing changed. The pain remained the same. In fact, he’d gone almost a full circuit around the castle before the pain spiked so hard that he fell to his knees.

  “I think we have a winner,” Azazel said.

  “Ya think?” Mathias asked in between gasps. It figured; the man would have to be a smart-ass.

  * * * * *

  Trudging through the snow was not fun. The wetness somehow sunk down into his shoes. Of course, it didn’t help that the snow was over two feet tall in some places. Even proper footwear could only do so much. If he hadn’t been moving, the cold would have probably hurt his feet more, but the pain kept him more distracted than anything else. For ease of travel, and since he couldn’t use them, Mathias had allowed his wings to go into his back. They folded up on themselves and then magically settled against his ribs. The skin of his back opened and covered them. After a moment, the skin sealed itself, and all that was left was a bit of a bulge on his back.

  True, the wings could have been a great buffer against the wind, but they could also get caught on brambles. He didn’t need any more injuries, no matter how minor. The woods they were going through were anything but tame.

  The pain was like a constant companion. It was the worst pulsing migraine he’d ever had, except that instead of just concentrating on his head, it radiated throughout his entire body. If he had knowledge of who had done this to Nossy, he’d make them feel the pain as badly as he was feeling it. Too bad they still didn’t know who all was involved, so he was left with dealing with it instead of using it as a tool.

  “Is this really going to work?” Mathias asked through gritted teeth. He knew how slow they were going. If they had to trudge like this the whole way, Nossy would never make it. Granted, the vampires didn’t tend to go for modern machinery. Why use a car when one could fly? But, in this instance, it would have been useful. There had to be an easier way.

  Azazel stopped. His wings settled around him. Mathias figured he just didn’t care about the brambles. That or he had some other spell to protect them that he hadn’t bothered to share. As far as Mathias was concerned, this man, being, was capable of anything.

  Azazel turned around and looked at Mathias. “The time it will take to reach Nosferatu will be long, unless we come across a road. But, we are in the forests of Siberia. Not many roads here.”

  “It would be easier if we could just blink there,” Mathias said. He knew it wasn’t a possibility, but he could wish as much as he liked.

  Azazel stomped his feet, knocking away the collected snow off his boots. “To blink there, we would need to know where our destination was. Since we do not, this is our only option.”

  Mathias didn’t buy it. “You could fly us.”

  Azazel raised an eyebrow. “Hardly. If you were kid-sized, sure. But, you aren’t exactly the size of a Chihuahua.”

  Mathias laughed. He had a point. “Okay. This just seems so pointless.”

  “Stay here,” Azazel said suddenly and disappeared.

  Mathias kept moving around so he would stay warm. “Where the fuck did he go?”

  Mathias leaned up against a tree to wait. He felt in his pocket for his cell phone then pulled his hand away. Of course there was nothing there. His phone was sitting in his room at the castle. No sense in taking it when there would be no reception. Too bad someone hadn’t thought to put a tower in the woods of Siberia. If he remembered, he would mention something about it to Vlad when he got back. If he left him here to freeze to death, Mathias was going to lose it. Fuck all of this shit. He’d been trying not to get angry, but there was only so far he could go.

  * * * * *

  “Wake-up, sleepy head,” Azazel said.

  Mathias smelled something … animal. He forced himself to be awake, be alive. The pain did not matter. As his dad used to say, “Pain is just fear leaving your body.” Of course his dad had always said that he’d been one scared son of a bitch back when he was in the Gulf War. He’d been a Marine and still spouted a lot of military sayings and culture.

  Mathias missed his dad. He opened his eyes. There were two horses standing a few yards away. He took a deep breath. Part of him was relieved. At least Azazel hadn’t let him down. This time anyway.

  Mathias glared at Azazel. “Wait. You can blink horses here, but you can’t blink us to Nosferatu?”

  It didn’t make much sense. Horses outweighed him by hundreds of pounds.

  Azazel reached up and rapped him on the head. “I knew where you were, remember?”

  So, all the stuff about blinking and flying because he was so big was a bunch of bullshit? Great. Just great. “That still doesn’t explain the flying.”

  Azazel smiled, and then went over to the horses.

  Mathias couldn’t tell if Azazel was trying to be endearing or what, but it wasn’t working. There were things you could joke about and things you couldn’t, and this wasn’t one of them.

  He wasn’t used to thinking like this. It was bad enough that Azazel had stopped treating him with reverence. Granted, he didn’t really care about being king, but he at least deserved some respect. Then, he needed to start acting like a king, somehow. The sooner he embraced it, the sooner the people would listen. At least until he could get Nossy back.

  Mathias walked over to the large black horse. It was black all over except for a white star on its forehead. Beautiful thing. Reminded him of a kid’s book about a horse he’d seen a long time ago.

  He almost jumped back when the horse put its head to Mathias’ chest and nuzzled it. “Hey, boy,” he said. It was nice to know that animals still liked him. He couldn’t be all that bad if they did.

  The horse whinnied.

  “That,” Azazel s
aid, “is Stormy. He might seem like a pussy cat now, but he’s bucked some of our best riders.”

  Mathias nodded. Figures, the cantankerous one would like him. He’d never ridden a horse in this body. Back before, when he was a vampire a long time ago, horses were the mode of travel. Now, though, he could only hope for the best. Mathias just hoped he wouldn’t do something to piss off the horse.

  He pulled on his old memories, put his foot in the stirrup closest to him on the saddle, and hauled himself into the seat. The pain of force he needed to haul himself into the saddle almost took him out, but he made himself calm down. He adjusted himself on the horse. The saddle was a little hard, but not bad. The cold probably didn’t help.

  “Whatever you do, don’t split the reins,” Azazel said as he hauled himself up on his own horse. “He doesn’t like that.”

  Mathias looked down at the strips of leather draped over the saddle horn, gently picked them up, and made sure they were even.

  “Ready?” Azazel asked.

  “Let’s go,” Mathias replied.

  The fluff-fluff of the horses’ hooves pressing through the snow was almost relaxing. Being on horseback was so much easier. His feet weren’t nearly as cold. Every so often, he’d blink his clothes dry and blink the snow off the horse’s hooves. He was careful to time it in between heartbeats. It seemed to work that way. Chances were, if Azazel knew he was doing it, he’d be in deep shit. But, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. It wasn’t like he was blinking something for Azazel.

  Technically, he knew he shouldn’t be risking it, but it was damn cold out there. And, if he could make himself feel better, why not help out Stormy too? Besides, if he blinked during the wrong moment, he couldn’t really imagine anything bad happing. At least not on this part of the journey.

  His brain was in an odd place with the pain. The extra magic, the pain, it was almost like something was guiding him, forcing him to act a certain way. He just didn’t know if it was the spell or something more sinister.

  * * * * *

  “Will they make it?” Vlad asked Stuart. He didn’t like leaving Mathias in pain. His only comfort was that at least Mathias wasn’t alone. He hadn’t felt Nossy die, but this was starting to feel more like a recovery than a rescue.

  They were in Stuart’s living room. Vlad’s rooms just seemed so empty now without Mathias there. He’d gotten used to all of the extra sounds. Now, there was only him and it was depressing.

  “This is Azazel we are talking about,” Stuart said. “He is going to do his best to see that Mathias is safe.”

  Vlad grunted. The boy was not safe. He was king for Father’s sake. If that stupid spell didn’t become the end of him, it was only a matter of time before the “loyal” subjects figured out the king was on a rescue mission. And, with the king away, the mice will play.

  “Who else do you think is involved?” Vlad asked.

  Stuart tapped the arm of his chair. “Some of the guard, probably. Maybe some of the messengers.”

  Vlad stood up. Enough with all of the talking. It was time to be proactive. “All right. I am not going to sit around and wait for something else to happen. You call all of the messengers. I’ll call all of the guard back.”

  Stuart blinked. “And where will we put them?” he asked.

  Vlad smiled. “The Ring of Immortality. Those that submit to the worthiness testing are likely loyal. Those that won’t, probably aren’t.” Granted the place didn’t hold great memories for either of them. It was there that Lilith had tried to kill Mathias, but the room did have its purposes, and this was a big one.

  Stuart paused. “That’s an interesting idea, but how can we be sure they won’t be lying?”

  Vlad tapped his temple with his finger. “We will put one through the test as an example. That way, they will know that we are serious.”

  “And who will be doing the testing?” Stuart asked.

  Vlad grinned. “You, of course.”

  Chapter Eight

  They had stopped for the night in an abandoned cave. At least, the farther back into the cave you went, the less the wind blew in. The lack of wind didn’t make him feel as cold. Azazel had guided Mathias and they had placed the horses just at the mouth of the cave; tied to a couple of bushes. Azazel had blinked thick blankets on the horses.

  A blanket didn’t seem like a whole lot of protection.

  “Are you sure they won’t freeze to death?” Mathias asked. Granted the cave wasn’t all that big, but he wouldn’t want to be the reason the horse died either. Especially since his horse actually liked him. He needed something that cared out here. Azazel and his smart ass wasn’t enough.

  Azazel chuckled. He had made a fire inside the small cave. Mathias still felt odd watching things pull themselves out of nowhere, but he was getting used to it.

  “With the fire there, they should be fine. The mountain is shielding us from a lot of the wind,” Azazel said.

  Mathias nodded. He couldn’t remember a horse ever dying by cold. Several, he’d seen die on the battlefield a long time ago, but he didn’t really remember doing much with them. Just feeding and brushing once in a while. If a hoof was injured, someone was paid to fix it. He hated being ignorant. Plus, it didn’t help that his brain had felt weird after the book experiment. He really couldn’t explain it more than it didn’t feel quite like everything was put back where it was supposed to be. The next time he wanted to download a book, he’d use a computer like a normal person.

  He looked over at Azazel. In the flickering firelight, his features shifted back and forth between the man he knew, and something a lot more diabolical with bushier eyebrows and a harder looking face. Mathias wasn’t sure if his mind was playing tricks on him or what. It could be exhaustion, or it could be Azazel’s true face.

  “You need to eat,” Azazel said.

  As soon as the man said it, Mathias’ stomach growled. His brain was feeling foggy, like someone had slipped something in his drink. “Huh?”

  Mathias looked up to see Azazel holding out a piece of jerky. He took it and bit off a chunk. He didn’t even think to ask about the feeling. He just ate because it was mindless.

  “I think your little escapade affected you a lot more than you are letting on,” Azazel said.

  “When I said I’d do anything to help Nossy, I meant it.” Mathias stared into the fire again. The more he talked about it, the more he couldn’t shake the feeling that Azazel was trying to do something to him.

  “Apparently so,” Azazel said.

  Mathias bit off another chunk of jerky. It was salty and had an almost buttery taste to it. There was nothing weird about it. In fact, it was amazing, almost like the most intense bacon he had ever tasted. “What is this?”

  Azazel smiled across the fire. “You may not want to know.”

  Mathias pulled the jerky away from his mouth. His mind ran images of severed limbs skinned and smoked. But, it didn’t smell human. His diet was so different now. There wasn’t much that could make him back away. It was too big of a piece to be a rat or anything gross like that. “I’m serious. What is it?”

  The flames in the fire flickered again, revealing the almost evil face of Azazel. “It is hell boar.”

  Mathias’ arm dropped. He sat frozen for a minute. Maybe there was a real reason Azazel was called a Prince of Hell. He’d suspected before, but that left him wondering why a Prince of Hell was working for vampires. The cloudiness in his mind wouldn’t go away. Mathias lifted the jerky back up to his mouth and took another bite. It tasted the same. Better even.

  “You aren’t a vampire, are you?” Mathias asked.

  Azazel shrugged. “Well, it’s more complicated than that. Might be easier to say that I’m vampire-like. A cousin, kind of.”

  Well, that answered a question. He doubted the man had ever even been human. Mathias nodded. “So, you’re the Prince of Hell?”

  Azazel smiled. “One of them. Hell isn’t what you think it is. Have you ever read any of the o
ld Greek and Roman myths?”

  Mathias shook his head. “No, not really.”

  Azazel sighed. “Okay, think of this, where we are right now is the middle world. There is an upper world and an underworld.”

  “Okay.” This was starting to sound like the plot of this weird vampire movie he’d seen a while ago, but whatever. Mathias popped the last of his piece of jerky into his mouth. He’d been the one that asked the question after all.

  “The underworld is… not unlike the scenery of Arizona,” Azazel said. “It is dry, arid. A lot of caves. In the outer lands that is.”

  Mathias paused. He was starting to have trouble making sense of everything. “Wait, hell is Arizona?”

  Azazel rolled his eyes. “No. Hell is like Arizona in scenery. It’s desert. Lots of rock.”

  “Okay.” That still didn’t explain why he was working for the vampires. But, with the pain and the way his head was now feeling, he didn’t know if he should care about that or not.

  “When souls that … well … aren’t good get released through death, they come to me or one of my brothers. We imprison them.”

  Azazel seemed to be glowing slightly red now. The more his true nature was explained, the more it made itself apparent.

  “For how long?” Mathias asked.

  Azazel shrugged. “It depends. Some get repaired. Others, well, those are taken care of.”

  “You mean you eat them?” Mathias asked. He remembered doing it to Nic, the evil wizard that had caused him to end up a vampire. Well, loosely. When he’d been on the streets, Nic was someone he could go to for some extra money. But, Nic was also dangerous. It was the fact that Nic had asked for a vampire skull right before Mathias had set out on his assigned task, and then gunned down by a gang.

  Vlad then found him and crossed him. After Lilith had died when Nossy had killed her in the middle of their battle, Mathias had gone to visit Nic and gotten his revenge. Eating his soul had just sort of happened. It hadn’t been all that hard to do. The indigestion was a bitch though.

  Azazel blinked. “How do you know about that?”