Blood Requiem Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Christopher Husberg

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I: Never a Right Choice

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Part II: From Fire, by Fire

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Interlude: Broken Things

  Part III: We Die With the Dying

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  Part IV: It’s Always Blood

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Also by Christopher Husberg

  Duskfall

  Dark Immolation

  THE CHAOS QUEEN QUINTET

  CHRISTOPHER

  HUSBERG

  TITAN BOOKS

  Blood Requiem

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783299195

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299201

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: June 2018

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Christopher Husberg. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  FOR JASON

  PROLOGUE

  172nd Year of the People’s Age, Turandel

  ASTRID WOVE IN AND out of the shadows of Turandel’s tower-houses silently. It was past midnight, and the Fingers—the five main streets of Turandel—were dark and quiet. Her eyes smoldered, and not just with her normal vampiric green glow.

  She was out for vengeance.

  Trave waited for her in an alley near Olin Cabral’s tower-house, one eye glowing red, the other covered by a crude gray eyepatch. Astrid approached the vampire cautiously. Astrid had not seen Trave since he had helped her escape Cabral’s cruelty months before. Despite his help then, she did not trust him. Not after all he had done.

  But his proposal of revenge, of taking down Cabral’s Fangs and releasing his slaves, was too tempting to pass up. She had been traveling south with the Odenites anyway—the new Church of Canta, as they called themselves now—and had figured she might as well see if Trave meant business.

  The moment she saw him in the alleyway, jaw set, his eye glowing an angry red, she knew he did. And, behind his eye, the same obscure emotion she had noticed months ago. Fear, and… something else. She could not quite tell what.

  “We’re really going to do this, then?” she said without preamble.

  “Cabral is not here. It should be easy enough.”

  Astrid stopped. “What do you mean Cabral isn’t here? What is the point of this attack if we don’t kill Cabral?” She couldn’t believe he hadn’t told her this. Of course, it’d be difficult to convey such news via messenger—Astrid hadn’t exactly been stationary the past few weeks. Still.

  “You really think the two of us could take on Cabral? Let alone with all of his Fangs?”

  Astrid danced with impatience on the cobbled road. “We might,” she said, knowing it wasn’t true. Cabral had been a vampire longer than Astrid and Trave combined. He was not a simple foe.

  Trave grunted. “I’ll get us in. The Fangs are probably half-drunk by now.”

  Astrid followed him into the night.

  * * *

  Trave led the way into Olin Cabral’s tower-house, using a jagged iron key to open the immense black double doors.

  “Austere as ever, our Cabral,” Astrid whispered as she observed the plain stone walls and flooring. Nary a rug, painting, or tapestry to be seen.

  “Makes for easy upkeep, if nothing else,” Trave said.

  Cabral had a habit of accumulating art, only to destroy it, claiming it gave him power. Vampirism in another form.

  “He expends more effort to procure the art and destroy it than he would if he simply cared for it,” Astrid said. She was about to argue the point further when she heard footsteps approaching.

  A young servant girl, fifteen summers at most, walked around the corner. She looked at them both, eyes stopping on Trave, and then she curtsied.

  “Master Trave,” the girl said. “I hope you found good fortune on your travels.”

  More than anything, Astrid wanted to reach out to the girl and lift her head, meet her eyes, offer a comforting touch. But Astrid was still a vampire, and the girl would see nothing but pain and peril.

  Astrid recognized this one immediately as the same girl who had greeted her when she’d met with Cabral months ago. The girl’s low-cut dress left little to the imagination both in terms of the skin and the scars it concealed with varying degrees of success. Raw bite marks and cuts covered rough scabs, which in turn covered multiple scars, some new and pink, others older, crisscrossing the girl’s neck and chest.

  Hot shame unexpectedly gushed through Astrid’s body. Her earlier annoyance at Cabral’s absence meant nothing. At least this time, she could do something to help.

  “Do not be afraid,” Astrid said. She could hardly hold in her anticipation, the breathless feeling of striking back against Cabral, against Astrid’s own past. “Gather the rest of the servants. Go somewhere safe. This will be the last night of your captivity.”

  The young girl stared at her, wide-eyed. Then she shook her head. “I can take you both to the great hall, if you wish.”

  She must think this a trick. Astrid couldn’t blame her; she’d been in this girl’s shoes, once, and would have been equally suspicious. She turned to Trave.

  “She needs to hear it from you.”

  Trave looked from Astrid to the servant girl, a sigh rasping through his throat. “I command you, girl. Gather the servants together and go back to your quarters. Wait for us there.”

  The girl curtsied. “Of course, Master Trave.” She took a backwards step, but hesitated.

  “Go,” Trave rasped.

  The girl scampered off down the hallway.

  Astrid and Trave climbed the stairs and found themselves in the same dark corridor Astrid remembered from last time, the light from the scattered torches absorbed by the black-painted stone walls and floor.

  The moment Astrid walked into the great hall of Cabral’s tower-house and saw five pairs of glowing red eyes staring at her, she knew something was wrong.

  Had Trave betrayed her a
fter all? Had all of this—his letting her go, luring her back here—been some elaborate game? Only two of Cabral’s Fangs had fully transitioned through the curse when she’d last been here months ago. There were five vampires here, and four others in transition—their eyes yellow, their skin pale and clammy. Cabral had been busy, and his followers were growing in number. That could not be a good thing.

  “What’s the girl doing here, Trave?”

  Astrid recognized the speaker as Grendine, a woman who had been in transition when Astrid had last visited Turandel. She was in transition no longer. A full vampire now, her eyes gleamed red in the dim light of the hall.

  “I brought her back,” Trave rasped, glaring at the Fangs.

  “Trave,” Astrid whispered, gripping his wrist. She was ready to break it with a twist of her arm, or at least attempt it, and run.

  Trave looked down at her. Astrid wished she could read his expression.

  “Cabral will be pleased,” one of the other vampires said. “He has been worried about her.”

  “He won’t have to worry anymore,” Trave rasped. Just as Astrid was about to make a run for it, Trave flashed across the great hall, his glowing red eyes a blur as he collided with the vampire who had just spoken.

  “Shit,” Astrid muttered, but she sprang into action herself, going straight for Grendine. The woman’s glowing red eyes widened, but she reacted quickly, attempting to sidestep. Astrid twisted in the air and crashed into the woman’s shoulder, digging her claws into Grendine’s arm.

  “Trave,” one of the other vampires shouted, “what in Oblivion—”

  There was a smash, and the speaker was silenced.

  “Trave, did you know?” Astrid shouted above Grendine’s scream. The woman turned on Astrid, claws ready, but Grendine was a new vampire, and thankfully past her bloodlust phase. New vampires always made the mistake of relying on their newfound strength, and forgot how quickly they could actually move. Grendine swung at Astrid with enough force to punch a hole in the stone wall, but Astrid used the claws embedded in Grendine’s other arm as leverage and scrambled around to her other side, running along the wall. She twisted Grendine’s head around her neck with enough force to make it turn almost full circle.

  “Know what?” Trave shouted back, voice hoarse, from across the hall.

  “That there would bloody be five of them!” A broken neck was never enough to stop a vampire. Grendine was already beginning to regain consciousness, her head slowly twisting back into place.

  “We can handle five,” Trave said, and when Astrid glanced at him and saw he was taking on three vampires at once, she realized he was probably right. Astrid had learned a great deal about fighting vampires in the three-hundred-plus years she’d been around, but she had nothing on Trave.

  Trave wielded two wooden stakes, one in each hand. Sharpened wood could be far more effective than claws against vampires. While a stake couldn’t quite kill a vampire, it could incapacitate it enough to make the killing possible. The three vampires had surrounded Trave, but he moved too quickly for them all, and soon had impaled one of his stakes in a vampire’s neck. The vampire spluttered, his movement slowing substantially.

  Astrid shivered. While Trave was no longer the monster who had tortured her, he was just as terrifying a fighter as he’d always been.

  She turned back to Grendine, who let out a sudden gasp and sat up.

  The fifth vampire crept along the wall behind her. She had watched him out of the corner of her eye since she had taken Grendine down. He, too, was clearly new to this. Stealth was good, but it was a terribly human tactic. Speed—at least the type of speed a vampire could summon—was far more effective than stealth.

  When Astrid turned on the vampire behind her, plunging her long claws into his neck, the look of surprise on the man’s face was palpable.

  Astrid flexed the claws on her other hand, then wrapped them around the vampire’s neck, plunging the needle-sharp points into his flesh. Vampire flesh was hard, stone-like at night, but another vampire’s claws could reliably pierce through.

  Now she squeezed, tearing through the vampire’s neck, until her hand wrapped around his spine. Astrid gripped the bone with both hands and crushed it. She pulled back, her arms bloody to the elbows, and the vampire’s head toppled to the floor.

  While vampires could be wounded during the day, they healed quickly. Wooden stakes could incapacitate a vampire, but not kill. Sun and fire could burn a vampire to a senseless, nerveless, but still-conscious husk given enough time. But the only thing that could truly kill a vampire was decapitation.

  Grendine stood shakily. Astrid did not give her the time to recover. She leapt from the table onto the woman’s shoulders, wrapping her legs around Grendine’s neck. She clamped both hands around Grendine’s head, gripping her jaw, and pulled. It took a moment of effort, one of pure, screaming terror from Grendine, before she tore Grendine’s head from her body. Astrid and the head tumbled to the ground.

  Trave had staked another vampire, now facing the one who had spoken to him. This one was clearly a veteran. They moved quickly around one another, striking and rapidly retreating, looking for weaknesses.

  Astrid was tempted not to interfere. She could let this play out, and then kill whoever emerged victorious. Trave deserved to die. He’d murdered hundreds, perhaps more. He’d been Astrid’s personal torturer.

  And yet, at least now, he was doing something good. He was helping Astrid, and, more importantly, he was helping the people trapped here in Cabral’s tower-house. Trave’s actions had to be worth something.

  Astrid rushed at the remaining vampire, slamming into him from the side. He turned to her, growling, but Astrid let go and darted away just in time for Trave to leap onto the man with a stake in each hand. One plunged through the man’s shoulder, the other through his heart. He struggled on the ground for a moment, before Trave finally showed him the mercy of decapitation. He and Astrid provided the same courtesy to the other two newer vampires Trave had been fighting.

  “We need to get the servants out of here,” Trave rasped.

  Astrid’s gaze rested on the fire burning in the hearth at the head of the great hall. The flames mesmerized her, reminding her of a time from long ago, and a promise of a time yet to come. She dreamt she was on a ship, and she dreamt of redemption.

  Royal Palace, Mavenil, Maven Kol

  King Gainil Destrinar-Kol observed the growing crowd of commoners in the Great Hall, his face grim. Today was an adjudication day, in which the royal family invited the commonfolk of Maven Kol to air their grievances, and receive judgment or counsel. Adjudication day occurred thrice each year, but until recently attendance had been poor. Gainil made it a point to offer obscure and unhelpful advice for expressly that purpose.

  Today proved his efforts had been for naught.

  Gainil stood, and immediately everyone else in the Great Hall—most of them commoners, hunkered down on the floor—stood with him.

  He turned to Barain Seco, his friend and counselor. “Tell them we are convening to discuss the problem from which they apparently all suffer. When you’ve pacified them, meet me in the Decision Room. Bring your wife.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Barain bowed. He turned to address the crowd of confused commoners, while Gainil swept out of the room.

  Moments later, he stood in the Decision Room, at the head of the great square table. A map of Maven Kol was etched onto the surface. The busts of the past kings of Maven Kol looked down on him in silent judgment. A fire burned merrily in the hearth, but even so, and despite his fur cloak, Gainil couldn’t stop himself from shivering. It was cold for a spring day in Mavenil.

  Captain Fedrick of Gainil’s personal guard, the Scarabs, stood at the doorway to the Decision Room. Barain and his wife Jaila entered the room, their daughter Taira trailing behind them. The girl had grown into something quite beautiful; if she wasn’t already betrothed to Gainil’s son, he’d have thought about courting her himself.
/>   His son, Alain, had also been summoned to the room, and arrived late, as usual. His son’s presence was more of a formality. Gainil had all but lost hope that Alain could lead anything, let alone a nation. The boy was too nervous and soft-spoken. Despite being a man of nineteen years, he still seemed a child, afraid of everything.

  Gainil only missed one person in the gathering, and that was Lailana, the woman he’d recently begun courting. She was from a minor noble house established on the southern edge of Maven Kol, and a woman of great cunning and beauty. Gainil saw no reason he would not marry her within the year. But Alain would probably see the courtship as an affront to his mother, dead now for sixteen years.

  Gainil wiped his brow. Was he sweating? He could swear it had been cold in this room not a moment ago. “Canta’s bloody bones, it’s good to get out of that room. Now, what in Oblivion are we going to do about this madness everyone is going on about? It seems to be an epidemic.”

  “The reports continue to increase, Your Majesty,” Jaila said. “And we’re starting to get verifiable reports from noble families. We can no longer consider this a phenomenon fabricated by the deranged low-born; we must acknowledge its existence among our peers.”

  Peers. Normally Gainil would criticize such a term in his presence, but he let it go. He wanted to get to the bottom of this.

  “Verifiable reports among the nobility? Specify, Lady Jaila.”

  “The Wastriders sent word of their daughter. She… she is the woman who attempted to take her own life a year ago, but was found just in time.”

  “Goddess,” Gainil muttered. He’d almost forgotten about that. The girl had attempted to hang herself from her bedframe, but the servants found her before she could do the deed. “That was more than a year ago. What does that have to do with the current situation?”

  “In addition to her depression significantly worsening,” Jaila said, “she has also reportedly manifested some… some interesting side effects.”

  “Surely not more of this flooding nonsense.”

  “No,” Jaila said slowly, “they say she can… she can manipulate earth and rock, Your Majesty.”

  Gainil laughed out loud. “Earth and rock? We should employ her in the sandstone quarry. Make some money off the madwoman.”