Faerie Empire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Vampire's Bane Book 2) Read online

  Faerie Empire

  Vampire’s Bane Book 2

  Marian Maxwell

  Blackwater Press

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgments

  Huge thanks to Writing Excuses, Rocking Self Publishing, 20B50K, Ryk Brown, Hugh Howey, Lindsay Buroker, and to all the authors who blazed the trail. Love to my beta readers, family, and friends. This story would never have happened without you.

  Foreword

  Thank you for picking up Faerie Empire!

  The Vampire’s Bane series:

  Faerie Mage: Vampire’s Bane Book 1

  Faerie Empire: Vampire’s Bane Book 2

  Faerie Queen: Vampire’s Bane Book 3

  Happy reading!

  1

  “What do you mean they’re gone?” Logan rubbed his large, well-groomed beard and looked at the empty graves. The cemetery was a mess. Dirt that should have covered over a hundred graves lay strewn across the grass.

  Maggie wore a frown. She held her hands clasped in front of her. “I’m just as upset as you are,” she said. “It’s my cemetery, after all. To think that a necromancer could come here and do this…” She shook her head. “I was lax in my duties.”

  Logan moved from the steps of Maggie’s cathedral onto the grass of the cemetery. He walked between the graves, looking down into each pit. They held scraps of broken wood—the aftermath of dead bodies coming back to life, smashing through their coffins and climbing to the surface. It was another disaster in a month of disasters. He shouldn’t have been surprised that it was another bad day. Experience told him that they usually were, but he preferred optimism. Even if it often left him disappointed.

  “I’ll check the graves,” said Logan. “We need to know how many are missing.”

  “Raised as ghouls,” said Maggie. Her voice was sorrowful, full of regret.

  Logan scratched his ear. Reached for a cigarette, before remembering that Maggie had a strict no-smoking policy. He put his hand in his jacket pocket. Fiddled with his lighter.

  “Sixty-three,” Maggie continued, after a pause. There were lines on her face from lack of sleep. Dark circles under her eyes. Even still, Logan couldn’t keep his gaze on Maggie long without feeling like he was doing something wrong.

  He wasn’t married. Didn’t even have a girlfriend. Logan had lied to Suri about that, simply to get off the topic. It hadn’t been any of her business, anyways. So by all rights it should have been fine to go down the path of temptation. But every time he looked at Maggie, he couldn’t help but remember all the evils he had done, and would yet perform. And how, if Maggie knew, she would turn those eyes of fury on him and cast him from her church.

  They only knew each other in passing, Logan coming to the cathedral once or twice a year, usually with a partner, to follow up on some supernatural deviance. This was their first time alone together. When Maggie had called him early that morning, this was not the news Logan had expected. His heart had jumped a little to hear her voice, although he would never admit it. It was an easier let down to pretend he wasn’t interested in the first place, and to stay bitter and sad about the passing of his wife.

  “Sixty-three ghouls running around San Francisco,” said Maggie, filling the empty silence. She looked at Logan expectedly, but he was lost in thought. Other than the occasional passing trunk and honking horn, the click of the lid of Logan’s lighter opening and closing was the only sound.

  “Well,” he said, finally, “I’m glad you called. I can’t say how soon we’ll get them back to you.” He came back to the cathedral steps. His brown boots were scruffy, faded, scratched, and now dirty from the cemetery. Neither seemed to care as he followed Maggie back to the front door. “We’ve got a lot on our hands at the moment. I’ll be in touch.”

  “What do you mean?” Maggie asked.

  “I’ll keep you updated as the investigation moves forward,” said Logan, a line he’d repeated hundreds, if not thousands of times.

  “I meant, what are the enforcers so busy with that they don’t have the time to find the ghouls?”

  “The Academy,” said Logan. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  Maggie nodded. “I’ve heard, yes. I’d like details.”

  “It’s a war zone. All of our men are fighting there, around the clock. Damn near every mage in North America has been called in to fight. I’m surprised no one contacted you.”

  “I see. You lack the manpower.”

  Logan nodded. “Finding those ghouls in a city this big ain’t gonna be easy,” he said, not noticing the country accent he usually tried to hide slip back into his speech. It had been fifteen years since he left Arkansas, and still the slips and slurs came back. Possessing him once in a while. A ghost of his past.

  Logan rubbed his neck. Maggie’s gaze briefly looked at where he was rubbing. Logan quickly took his hand away and pulled up the collar of his jacket. Hiding his Mark, as always.

  “The others,” said Maggie. She stared off into nowhere, then furrowed her brow and turned back to Logan. “They don’t see me as a real mage. And they’re right. I’m not one of them. Wait here.”

  Maggie left Logan in the front lobby of the cathedral. She walked quickly to her private quarters, a small room at the back of the building. The walls and floor were made of the same grey stone as the rest of the cathedral. There was no carpet on the floor. Not even next to her bed, where each night she knelt in prayer.

  She took off her priest’s robe and stole and lay them on her bed. Normally, at the end of each day she hangs them up for easy access, like a coat in a closet. I’m not going to be wearing those for a while, Maggie thought. She reached under her bed until her fingers touched the iron ring of a large wooden chest. She grasped it, pulled on it hard and it slid across the grey stone floor. Two more tugs and it was poking out from beneath the sheet hanging over the edge of her mattress. One more tug and it was halfway out, then she turned it, tugged it a little more, and it was fully in the open.

  The chest was stout. It had been crafted over a century ago, when metal had been heavier and wood taken straight from the tree. It took both hands for Maggie to open the large, iron-banded lid. At its apex, the lid slid back on a hinge and stopped in an open position, like a wide open jaw.

  Inside was a thick, wool blanket. Maggie pulled it out, revealing the weapons and armor hidden beneath.

  They had sat dormant for so long that Maggie had worried about their condition. She hadn’t worn the armor, or held the battle mace in nearly fifty years. But there they were, polished, hard, promising the pain they had always dealt.

  Forgive me, Father.

  Maggie took out the armor, mace and Old English bible, and lay them on the floor. She put her regular priest robes and other garments inside, covered them with the
wool blanket, closed the lid and pushed the chest back under the bed.

  Maggie looked after Old Saint Mary’s Cathedral in place of the bishop. It had been a long time since bishop Julia had returned. A letter resting on Maggie’s night table, received the day before, told that Julia was already making the journey back to the West Coast. Having heard, no doubt, about the recent chaos.

  Logan was out on the front step, sneaking a smoke when Maggie joined him and closed the massive cathedral door. It shut with a tremendous sound of finality, like the closing of a tomb. She took a thick, metal ring from her pocket that held a dozen keys, each as long as her index finger. As Logan watched, she picked one out, pushed it deep inside the door’s lock and gave it a sharp twist. A groan seemed to sound from the door, and then the entire cathedral.

  Activating powerful wards. Logan hurriedly pinched out his cigarette and shoved it in his pocket. What is she up to?

  Maggie wore a black, hooded cloak. It must have been hemmed to fit her body, because it fell all the way to an inch above the ground. With the hood up, it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman under the cloth.

  “Going somewhere?” Logan asked.

  Maggie posted a large piece of paper on the front door, then walked down to where Logan was standing at the bottom of the steps. “Of course,” she said. “Did you really think I would let ghouls rampage through my city? I’m going to find them. And you’re coming with me.”

  It was spoken with the conviction of someone connected to the divine. Logan wasn’t a religious man, but the words gave him an uncomfortable shiver. He stretched his back and considered Maggie in a new light. There’s more to her than I thought.

  “Love to,” said Logan, “but the boss wants me back at the Academy.” He looked at his cell phone. “About an hour ago,” he added.

  “Take me to him,” said Maggie, walked past Logan to his old, beat up car.

  Logan took in a sharp breath. Stroked his beard, and realized he smelled like tobacco.

  Is Maggie the rock, or the hard place?

  Logan pondered the question as his car came to a rattling start and he pulled away from the cathedral. Somewhere out in the city there was a necromancer with sixty-three ghouls. And no one goes through the pain of that much black magic if they don’t have a plan. San Francisco was in deep trouble. But with the Academy under attack, there might not be a city to save for much longer. Or a California. Or a West Coast.

  Logan glanced at Maggie as he drove them to the enforcer HQ. Her hood was up, hands hidden inside her cloak. She sat still on the Duct Tape of the passenger seat’s ruined cushion. A small figure about half the weight of Logan. There was a heavy aura around her, a grim determination. Logan rubbed his wedding ring. Old memories came unbidden to his mind. The Mark etched into his flesh began to itch.

  Not much longer, he thought.

  2

  Kelendril Orioma, Master of the 11th Academy, was in trouble. A score of demons flew in circles far in the sky above his head. They took turns launching fireballs at him and swooping down to skewer him with their long tridents.

  “Rabble,” Kelendril snarled. And they were just that: minor demons unworthy of his spells. The problem was that their master, an arch demon, had covered their armor with protective runes. An expensive project that must have cost an untold amount of gold, and thousands of hours in preparation. It meant that their vile lives would be extended for another half-hour, until Kelendril figured out how to kill then. Normally, he wouldn’t have cared. Slaying demons was a nice distraction from ogling the first year girls. A change in pace.

  But there are no more first year girls. Kelendril sighed and dodged the thrust of a spear. A moment later, a fireball exploded around the psionic shield protecting him from aerial attacks. They all left through the way gate. Leaving me and the demons.

  Kelendril’s Academic paradise, so sweet while it lasted, had ended. Unthinkable as it might be, the Academy itself was in danger. All because of one, stupid test. One stupid girl.

  Another demon swooped, its metal trident a flash aiming for his chest. Kelendril let raw magic pour into his body, snatched the demon as it came down, cracked its spine and threw it to the ground. He could do that to every one of them, but the sky was black with dozens of flapping wings.

  Kelendril had left the front line with two other Masters to close the rift that the demons were coming through. On the way, their invisibility spells had been pierced, and they had become separated. Kelendril had no idea where the other Masters were, or if they were alive. All the attacking forces were hellbent on obtaining the seed. Once they realized that there were Masters stranded out in the open, in the battlefield’s no man’s land, they would direct their forces to swarm them. And then Kelendril would have no choice but to cause…significant damage to the entire area. End the day with a bang. Send the arch demon limping back to whence it came. But also destroy a large part of the Academy, and injure his allies and friends. In fact, he hadn’t made up his mind yet if he would in fact ‘let loose.’ Kelendril wasn’t sure if he could control magic of such magnitude, so that the blast area would fall short of the defensive line.

  Take the gamble, or fall valiantly in battle?

  A few days ago, he never would have imagined making such a decision. And at the Academy? Absurd. His little apprentice had changed all of that. Ended Kelendril’s comfortable life of leisure. All because she didn’t know not to accept strange gifts from fae!

  Kelendril roared in anger, blinked forty feet into the air, summoned a dagger of swirling fire and stabbed it through the neck of the nearest demon. The other demons reacted faster than he expected. They chanted in their infernal tongue and lit him up with fireballs.

  The magical barrage temporarily overcame Kelendril’s psionic barrier. Flames licked his arm, instantly blackening the skin and drying it to a crisp. His mind filled with pain, ruining his plan to instantly blink back to the ground. He plummeted through the air, twisted barely in time to avoid a trident, which tore a hold through his robe and set him spinning.

  Kelendril lashed out wildly, cutting the passing demon in several places with his summoned dagger. He remembered his training, stifled the pain in his mind and blinked across the Academy grounds.

  The day before, his telepathic connection with Mona had been severed. Not even the Demon Hunters had been able to find her. It was the consensus of the Demon Hunters and the Magi Council that she had been found by an enemy faction and taken away from the Academy. Which made it all the more important for them to hold on to the behelit seed.

  The faerie delegation had left the moment they found out that Mona was missing. They thought, of course, that Kelendril and the others were lying. Trying to fool the fae and keep the power of the seed for themselves. There was no doubt in Kelendril’s mind that they were readying for total war.

  I have to find Mona.

  The other Masters considered her dead. The Demon Hunters had their hands full defending the Academy. Even the enforcers, usually safe on the streets of San Francisco, were now on the battle line. Woefully unprepared, wide-eyed as they came face-to-face with fresh, new horrors.

  Kelendril looked around, reached out telepathically to connect with the two other Masters he had set out with. Neither responded, either dead or too busy fighting.

  As the flock of demons closed in on Kelendril’s position, to once again trap him and renew their assault, he considered his options.

  The magi council controlled the Academy’s way gate, and would never allow him to go off, alone, looking for his apprentice. The situation was so sensitive, and himself at the center of the blame, that the very suggestion could have him put in chains. They would think he was part of a grand scheme to take the seed for himself. Far from the truth. Although, like anyone else, Kelendril wondered what he might do if given the chance…If Mona happened to die, and he was in the right place, at the right time…

  Kelendril shook away the daydream and fired a missile at a flying d
emon. The spell hit its chest, and disintegrated. He couldn’t see it, but Kelendril knew how the protective runes functioned. One of the hundreds of lines making up the runes on the demon’s armor had disappeared the moment Kelendril’s spell hit its target.

  The Academy was in a dire situation, but not, perhaps, as dire as some might think. The attacking factions were already beginning to turn on each other, diverting their focus from the human alliance. They would survive without Kelendril.

  And what better way to slip off than alone, in the middle of the battlefield?

  The demon rift gurgled and bubbled a hundred paces across the Academy grounds. The grass around it was dead from the vile, black liquid sloshing out from the other side. The demon realm.

  There was no chance of closing it, not alone. It would take three Masters to do the deed, and their mission had been botched long ago. Kelendril wasn’t even sure how long he had been out on the battlefield. The passing of time becomes an odd thing when you are both old, and fighting for your life. Hours? A day? Kelendril couldn’t be sure. What did know was that the demon rift was his best shot at leaving the Academy, under the guise of death.

  Let them wonder, he thought, as he ran for the rift. The other Masters might abandon one of their students, but not Kelendril. Mona was his apprentice. You don’t leave your apprentice to torture and death inside a demon’s dungeon. Besides, he had put a hell of a lot of work into making her a contender for the Demon Hunter’s Guild. She was one of the Academy’s rising stars. It wouldn’t do to lose her. Not one bit.

  Kelendril spun, tore the trident from the grasp of a demon who had been soaring for his unprotected back. He kicked it in the chest, breaking its ribs and armor and sending it flying across the grass. The trident he threw into the air like an Olympic javelin thrower, catching another demon in the leg.