Trading Favors

Trading Favors
By Sara King

         Felix's gaze flickered over the rooftops, searching for signs of Arius. The city was too quiet. Doors were locked tight, windows shuttered and barred, herbs and useless salts strewn across thresholds. Even the dogs--which usually fought amongst themselves for scraps of the goodwives' leavings--were huddled in their trash heaps, shaking in terror.

         Arius was killing again, just like he'd done in the peat town of Olwyth a century ago and the silver mines of Three Peaks a century before that. This time, however, he wasn't hiding his work in the bogs or under the earth. He wasn't even attempting to make the deaths look accidental. He was wandering the night, taking those he pleased and leaving their loved ones to whimper in the dark, hoping the Queen would send troops to save them.

         She wouldn't, of course. Arius had killed the rider the moment the poor soul stopped to give his lathered horse a rest. Even now, the man's dismantled, bloodless body stood on stakes at the crossroads, warning off potential visitors to this lonely mountain town. It would give Arius plenty of time to satiate himself before he disappeared for another century.

         A scream, shrill and panic-filled, ended in a muffled cry somewhere to the western edge of the town, near the lake. Felix closed his eyes and listened.

         Tiny whimpers--the kind made unconsciously when the victim has been warned not to scream--wafted from the darkness of the fishmonger's wharf. Felix lunged off the roof and landed on the cobbles, making no sound but the whish of his cloak. Yet even that made Felix tense. Drenched in the magic of live-blood, Arius's senses were better than his, his body stronger than his. Felix needed the element of surprise.

         When the tiny whimpers continued, however, it was a testament to Arius's blood-lust. Had he been free of its seductive power, he could have heard Felix's every breath, much less his cloak.

         Thanking his luck, Felix stalked between the houses, taking the narrow alleys, circling around to get a good view of the wharf.

         As he imagined, Arius was there. He had a whimpering child's hand in his mouth and was sucking it, doubtless nursing a wound he had put there while he fed off of the terror in her panicked eyes.

         Felix ducked back into the alley and took a deep breath. Arius was strong. Stronger than him. If he made one wrong move, Arius would delight in killing him as he was killing the girl. That they had once shared a table and called themselves friends would mean nothing to him. Not anymore. Steeling himself, Felix moved around the wharf, weaving between houses ablaze with candlelight, finding an approach that would give him Arius's back.

         Silently, Felix crept amongst the racks of drying fish and bundles of rolled netting, trying to get a better view of his target. As he moved, he drew a silver dagger from his belt, careful to only touch the leather grip of the enchanted blade. Thirty feet, and Arius still had yet to sense his presence. Twenty. Ten. Felix almost felt pity for him--despite the rash of deaths, Arius must have been so starved he was desperate.

         When he grew close enough, Felix slid from concealment to cross the last few feet of empty dock, holding his breath that he would not be seen before he was ready. Arius was fully caught in the blood-lust rapture, and the girl was too terrified of the monster sucking out her life's blood to notice the stranger in the shadows.

         Felix was about to plunge the silver blade into Arius's back when a raspy voice snarled, "Put down the girl, monster."

         Arius lifted his head from his prey in the bloody snarl of an animal. Not a moment later, a silver arrow lodged in his eye, setting the night afire with enchantments.

         Felix froze as his mentor collapsed in a shuddering heap over the terrified girl.

         What the hell?

         The hyperventilating victim, seeing Arius go still, crawled free of his motionless form, and, with a terrified sob, got up and ran from the dock, back into the town.

         "You there," the raspy voice said, sounding tired now. "Go home. The arrow's spells will keep the monster paralyzed for a few hours. Plenty of time for me to kill him." Now that the tenseness had left the newcomer's voice, it was quite clear that what Felix had initially taken as a 'he' was actually a 'she.'

         A girl felled Arius? A girl brought down the Dark Scholar of Hennsbrook? It was unthinkable.

         Glancing down at the vampire, Felix's eyes caught on the arrow. Its silver length was engraved in ancient symbols, symbols that set his mind reeling with the contact. A new kind of dread filled him, a wormy one that replaced his earlier fear with a depth of horror that left his guts feeling as if he had swallowed maggots.

         Euna. The slayer.

         "Sorry," Felix murmurred, bowing his head to hide his face with the brim of his woodsman's hat. "Thank you, mistress." He turned quickly to go, forcing himself to put his back to her, fighting every urge to break into a sprint. He had to get away. Fast.

         "Wait." Felix had made it several paces before the curt command cut him short. He winced, yet made no move to turn. Let her draw her own conclusions. It was better than letting her have a good look at his face.

         He heard boards creak as she climbed the steps to the dock to join him.

         Oh no, Felix thought. No, no, no...

         "You're a brave man," the woman said. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a bow being slung back over a shoulder and an arrow returning to its quiver. Felix's breath caught. He felt her move closer, her life's blood like a pulsing gem snaking through her body.

         This close, without her ensorcelled arrows, killing her would be easy.

         "You have a spine, at least," Euna said. "Even if that little pig-sticker of yours wouldn't have done more than make it mad, you had guts, which is more than anyone else in this pathetic backwoods shit-smudge."

         Felix hesitated. All he had to do was reach out and break her neck.

         He didn't want to break her neck. Felix turned and watched as she moved past him, bending to check on Arius. Even though he had planned to do the same thing, Felix felt sick as he watched the slayer grab his mentor by the hair and haul a serrated silver knife through his exposed neck. In less than a minute, the woman had expertly separated the vampire's head from his body and had dropped her trophy into a burlap sack she slung over her shoulder.

         It was horrifying, knowing that would be how Felix himself would someday die. Paralyzed, twitching, head tied up in a bounty-hunter's sack like a blood-sodden vegetable. His eyes caught on Arius's spasming body. I wonder how long he'll survive like that before he dies. He was filled with such morbid fascination that he forgot to lower his eyes when the slayer turned.

         Luckily, the woman wasn't looking at his face. Her eyes were on his dagger, still clutched in a white-knuckled fist. She snorted, obviously amused. "Brave, but not very smart. Daggers don't work against vampires, boy."

         "I was going to aim for the heart," Felix said, keeping the brim of his hat low so she couldn't see his eyes. "I've been told you can kill them if you hit them in the heart."

         The woman snorted again and, dropping the sack with Arius's head beside her foot, drew a pipe from a pouch on her belt, then stuffed it with herbs and lit it with a firestone. The resulting flare lit up her face, casting her many scars in eerie relief.

         As he watched, every ounce of Felix's being was caught between the urge to flee and the urge to rip off the slayer's head before she realized what she was facing.

         Dropping the firestone back into the pouch on her belt, Euna's eyes fell back to his blade as she said, "A regular dagger won't do jack against these things. You have to use silver to--"

         Felix watched her body go stiff. Oh no. His fingers tighened around the blade.

         "Where did you get that dagger?" Her words were a whisper. "That's a slayer's blade."

         "Please," Felix replied, taking a step backwards, "I don't want to fight."

         He could tell by the cruel glint in her green eyes that she wasn't of the same mindset, and that only death would convince her otherwise. Even as she was dropping her pipe, fumbling for her own dagger, Felix lunged forward and wrenched her hand away from her belt-sheath. He shoved her to the ground, slamming her head into Arius's twitching back. Forcing one arm above her head while pinning the other against her side, Felix tucked his blade up against her throat and leaned in close.

         "We were here for the same purpose, slayer. A renegade vampire, killing innocents. We both came to stop him, nothing more. I do not wish to fight you."

         Cold fury stared back at him, but Felix could feel her blood rushing beneath his touch, fear driving every heartbeat. She's terrified, he thought, a little guilty. He did not like confronting mortals like this. Their lives were too short for such terror.

         "I'm not going to kill you," Felix said. "Though we both agree I could?" He ended the last as a question, waiting for her nod.

         Her cold green eyes simply watched him in silence, fury livening her face, promising vengeance.

         Realizing her dilemma, Felix said, "I'm not trying to enthrall you. I can't--I haven't tasted your blood yet." Some vampires, like Arius, used the blood they took from their victims to put those choicest mortals in thrall with a few careful sentences--usually yes or no questions that had no real meaning other than to mentally force the victim to relinquish their own free will.

         "You will not taste my blood at all, monster," Euna said. She spat into his face, then smiled when he flinched.

         Narrowing his eyes, Felix raised his knife-hand to wipe the spittle from his cheek. Then he settled the blade back against her throat and leaned closer, pressing her further into Arius's corpse. Softly, he said, "We both know I could, right now, if I wanted to." He gently kissed her throat, and this time, he enjoyed the way her heartbeat raced as she went rigid against him.

         Feeling the beginnings of blood-lust tug at his veins, Felix pulled free again before it could overpower him. The sustaining magic within her pulsed just out of sight, drawing his gaze to the sensitive spot where her shoulder joined her neck. Pigs. Their blood was a dull glow, in comparison to this raging fire. How long had it been since he'd fed on a human? Four years, at least, and it had only been a small, willing exchange from a friend. Before that, it had only been criminals of the highest order. Criminals--or slayers. He couldn't imagine a human more full of hate, more bigoted, more unable to see areas of gray than a slayer. They didn't care about right and wrong--they cared about dealing death to anything inhuman, no matter how undeserved. Felix had been wronged by slayers more times than a man should be forced to endure. He'd seen good friends die to their ensorcelled blades, he'd been tortured in their hideous lairs, he'd lain awake at night too many nights to count, listening for their soft footsteps, worrying for his family.

         To have one so helpless beneath him made it hard to think.

         She deserves it, his mind raged. She deserves to know what it's like. To not have a choice. Felix didn't realize he was panting against the strain until the slayer squeezed her eyes shut against tears.

         Tears.

         At that, Felix let out a long breath and tore his eyes away from her throat. "I am not those things you hunt."

         At that, he forced her other hand up into his grip above her head and used his dagger to slice through the string of the bow strung across her back. Easing the string off of the notched hook, he brought it up and began binding her wrists.

         Then, holding her hands in place, he sheathed his dagger and began to unbuckle her belt.

         "No," she whimpered, her body betraying her fear. She began to buck and strain beneath him, growing terror brightening her emerald eyes.

         "Quiet, slayer. I'm disarming you, nothing more." Taking the belt--with all of its weapons, spells, and poisons--in a fist, Felix flung it as hard as he could into the lake. He did the same for the arrows, launching them one at a time into the hungry black waters, which swallowed them with an enchanted glimmer. Then, once he was sure he had removed her most dangerous weapons, he took a moment to think.

         If he let her live, Felix knew she would be back. Now that she had his scent, she would hunt him down until he was but another head in her bag.

         If he killed her, however, Felix would not forgive himself. Even if she was a slayer. He had come here to mete out justice on a renegade, not murder a mortal.

         Beneath him, the slayer trembled, her eyes still squeezed shut. She obviously still believed he was going to make use of her helpless state--in one way or another.

         And why not? a rebellious part of him thought. He could feed without killing her. Further, the link it created between them would make her think twice before returning to hunt him down.

         And then again, his rational side argued, it might just make her try to hunt him down all the faster.

         Rebelliousness won out. "Consider this a precautionary measure, nothing more." Felix grabbed her bound wrists and brought her forearm to his mouth. "I drink, then a wise slayer would stay the hell away from me, lest I decide to exert that control we spoke of earlier."

         Her eyes went wide and horror made her voice ragged. "No. Please no. No!" She tried to tug her wrists loose, but Felix held them easily.

         "Shhh," Felix whispered, over her skin. "Just a taste. Nothing more. I swear it."

         She thrashed like a wild thing, slamming her head back against Arius's corpse in her throes. "You filthy beast, no!" There was a quality to her cries that left him thinking of a snared wolf. Cornered, fighting for its life, willing to chew off its own foot to escape.

         Her vehemence was almost enough to change his mind. He had never encountered such deep-seated anger in a slayer before. He had expected fear, maybe a bit of mute complacence and even gratitude for the simple trade, but not this unutterable fury.

         Felix hesitated over her wrist, able to feel the blood coursing beneath his lips. The slayer was crying now, shaking her head in denial, chest heaving beneath him, tears wetting her scarred cheeks.

         "Fine," Felix whispered. He kissed her wrist, felt the magic buried beneath tingle upon his lips, and then released her. "Fine." He got up and helped her to her feet. The slayer got up shakily, her face filled with wariness and confusion.

         "Don't follow me," Felix said. He turned to go.

         Behind him, the slayer said, "You didn't--"

         "No," Felix said, glancing over his shoulder. "Like I said. I'm not those things you hunt." When she could only stare at him, he nudged his hat at her and strode away, his boots ringing hollowly against the dried wood of the dock.

         Behind him, he heard a ragged sob of relief.

         You fool, he thought, anxiety already clawing at his nerves. Only idiots let them live.

#

         "So where have you been stashing your victims, pigfarmer?" Another blow took Felix by surprise, setting his solar plexus afire, making it hard to breathe.

         "I haven't...killed...in years." Felix gasped out the words, the combination of the light dancing across his chest from the open shade and the poisons they'd fed him leaving him dizzy and weak. Only after he said it did Felix realize it was the wrong thing to say. With slayers, any killing was irrefutable proof he was evil. It didn't matter who he killed, or how often. Once was enough.

         One of his tormentors punched him again, then laughed. "A lie. Bloodsuckers can't go thirty minutes without killing someone. Where have you been hiding the bodies?"

         Another man kicked him, a blow that sent arcs of pain across his shattered ribs. "We checked your home. You keep a pretty clean place. Normal, even. Well, except for the crypt in the basement." Two more of his tormentors laughed at this, chuckling to themselves as the pungent smell of mead stank off of their breath.

         They were enjoying this. Enjoying watching him die.

         And this time, none of Felix's friends were going to help him, because his friends were dead. The slayers had killed everyone, and hauled Felix home for their own amusement. Now they had all day to watch the sun work the magic out of his bones, leaving nothing but cold ashes by nightfall.

         Right now, though, Felix would have given anything to already be cold ashes and to skip the next six hours. The fiery, blinding pain coursing through his veins, picked up by where the sunlight touched his skin, tainting and negating the night-magics that flowed within him, left him feeling like he were being slow-roasted over the furnaces of Hell.

         The slayers obviously understood this. Every once in awhile, they would turn him where he dangled from the ceiling, allowing the sun to hit his back, laughing amongst themselves like they were roasting a boar over a spit.

         "Scream, piggie," they laughed. They alternated in shoving him back and forth until he swung crossways in the sunbeam, feeling the hot ray like acid as it crossed his skin time and again.

         Felix gritted his teeth and bore it, though he knew it would only be a matter of time until he gave them what they sought.

         The creak of a door interrupted their games, and Felix, though the wadded rag they'd wrapped over his eyes had locked him in darkness, caught a familiar smell.

         Euna.

         Immediately, he stiffened. Of all of them, she had the most reason to make him suffer. These men he didn't know. Euna, however, had suffered terror and humiliation at his hand. The men tormented him out of professional loathing. With Euna, it would be personal.

         "What do we have here?" the newcomer asked, her voice rough and raspy. Euna, he thought, his heart clenching at the confirmation. Though time had aged her, it was her.

         "We caught this bloodsucker moonlighting as the town swineherd," one of the men said, shoving Felix roughly in the broken ribs. It was actually a relief, however, because for that moment, the man stepped in front of the sunbeam and blocked out the light that was raking across his chest. "He claims he was draining the pigs. Can you believe it?"

         "Pigs," Euna said.

         "Yeah. We're trying to get him to tell us where he's been putting the bodies."

         "Has anyone gone missing?"

         "Not from this town," the man said. Then he quickly amended, "But what kind of bird shits in its own nest, eh? He probably moved a couple towns over to do the dirty."

         "I see," Euna said. "Let me see what I can get out of him. Alone."

         "Alone?" one of his tormentors asked. "Are you sure?"

         "He and I have unfinished business."

         The men chuckled. "We'll be outside." Felix gasped as the man in front of him once more moved out of the sunbeam, allowing its heat to once more slam into his skin, shattering the night magics that sustained him. Behind him, Felix heard a door close and then silence. He swallowed, knowing that he was alone with the slayer he had once spared on a dock.

         Only idiots let them live, he thought, unhappily.

         He heard her footsteps first, crossing the room. Then, surprisingly, he heard the sound of shutters. It took Felix a moment to realize that instead of widening the slats, however, she had closed them entirely.

         "What is your name?" Euna asked.

         Felix hesitated. To give a name to a sorcerer could mean trouble in the future, when the sorcerer decided to bespell it. Euna was definitely a sorcerer. One of the best.

         "I can open the window again," she warned.

         "Felix," he said, despite himself. The threat of the window was too much for him to stand.

         "Is that the truth?"

         "Yes."

         For a long moment, Euna was quiet. Then, softly, she said, "Felix, do you remember a night on a dock, eleven years ago?"

         "I never intended to fight you," Felix said. It had haunted him for many years, making him feel ill whenever he thought of it. "Truly. I was only there to stop Arius."

         "Do you know what I can do with your name, Felix?"

         He hung his head, simply grateful the sun wasn't hitting him. "Yes."

         "Then know I will do so, if you ever try to take advantage of what I am about to give you." At that, he felt the chains holding him up slacken, allowing him to slump to the ground. He heard someone kneel beside him, as well as the sound of a sleeve being pushed up.

         Something warm touched Felix's lips, and instantly he could feel the night energies thudding within reach. He froze, and it was all he could do to fight off the blood-lust as he tried to gather his wits and figure out this newest game.

         A moment later, the slayer tugged the rag from his face. His eyes met hers and she nodded at her forearm where it touched his face. "Drink," Euna said. "Whatever you need to flee this place."

         Still, Felix hesitated, the magic pulsing within reach of his fangs. It was a trick. It had to be.

         "You'll have my blood, vampire," the slayer said. "And I'll have your name."

         A trade? She was offering a trade?

         "Why?" he whispered.

         "Back on the dock, when you said you weren't the things I hunted. I believe you." She gave him a grim smile. "Now drink. Before my friends come to investigate why you aren't screaming." She pressed her forearm tighter against his lips.

         Felix tentatively took her forearm in his hands. When she did not pull back, he opened his mouth and, as the blood-lust took took sudden, painful hold, sank his fangs into her arm.

         She winced, but let him drink.

         The magic of darkness coursed through him, returning strength to his battered limbs, restoring life to his tortured body.

         The feel of his vitality returning felt so good, it was all he could do not to bite her deeper. Take it all a part of him chanted. Drink it all, take it all! His jaws tightened on her arm, and he heard her gasp. In that animal frenzy, the sound excited him, made him consider shifting his position. Her throat would work better than her arm. Her throat would sate him. He shifted his grip to drag her down with him, the animal bloodlust pounding at his brain.

         No. Gasping, Felix broke the hold and clambored away from her, panting with live-blood rapture.

         Only once he'd taken a few moments to regain his senses did he see the ensorcelled dagger in her other hand, her fingers tight upon the leather grip. He had the distinct feeling that, should he have given in to his blood-lust, he would be dead now.

         "Just a precaution," she muttered, seeing what had caught his eye. Euna tucked the dagger away and wrapped the rag around her arm to staunch the flow of blood from the four fang-marks near her wrist. "You're sated?"

         Even then, her blood was working its way through his system like an alchemist's brew. Felix hadn't realized how weakened he had been until he began to see clearer, hear clearer, smell clearer, think clearer. "I'm...better," he managed. He eyed her wrist again, the animal side of him screaming for more. He had her blood, now. He could feel it coursing within him, spreading soothing darkness where the sun had shattered it. Even then, she was visibly weakened, her skin pale, sweat-covered. He could overpower her, if he wanted to.

         His eyes met hers, and for a moment, they both said nothing, the silence between them saying everything.

         "Good," she said, once he did not press his advantage and finish his meal. She threw him a cloak. "Then get out of here, vampire."

         Felix glanced at the door. "How?"

         Euna gestured at the window as she pulled off her gloves. "Cloak yourself. Put these on--" she tossed him her gloves, "--and take my horse. It's picketed right outside the window."

         "You want me to travel by daylight?"

         "The alternative is to stay here and die," she said.

         Felix glanced at the shuttered window and sank his teeth into his lip at the thought of going outside. Even the smallest burn would hurt like Hell itself. Then again, if he stayed, he'd be facing a lot worse than a few accidental slips of his clothes now and again.

         "Thank you," he said as he threw her cloak around him and tugged on her gloves.

         "Your hat," she offered him, ducking to retrieve it from the corner where his captors had thrown it.

         "Thank you," Felix said again.

         "Keep eating pigs," was her reply. Then she smiled. "Do that, and you are safe from me."

         Felix nodded and, wrapping the cloth as tightly around his body as he could make it, threw open the shutters. Already feeling the uncomfortable burn where tiny pinpricks worked their way through the weave, he nevertheless climbed through the window and toward a new chance at life.

-Sara King
http://www.kingfiction.com
Proud Graduate of Odyssey '08