Chapter 13 Asher
ASHER
I adjust my coat, leaning against the trunk of the biggest oak tree on the top of this hill as I pull up the nanny cam app on my phone.
It's an hour past sunset, and the night mode on the nanny cam is complete ass, but after a bit of squinting, I decide Dev's fangs still haven't budged in Jada's backyard.
Damn it.
Why is it taking so long for him to respawn?
Eight months? I swear he's just taking his time to piss me off now.
The acrid sensation of necromantic magic nearby makes me pocket my phone and focus.
Ducking under more trees, I move to crouch at the edge of the hill.
This elevated spot at the edge of the surrounding woods gives me a great view of the old, remote estate nestled in this Northern California valley, complete with a big, showy mansion.
Parked in the circular driveway is the kind of gleaming black car that rich people can't seem to resist.
Rich people who are paying a shit-ton of money for whatever this necromancer is offering.
I sense when my mark stops casting. Several moments later, I watch a well-dressed young couple leave through the grand double-door entry of the estate. I can't make out their faces from here, since I didn't bother bringing binoculars. I don't have my rifle with me to peer through the scope, either.
I haven't carried that around ever since I got back to work.
What can I say? Something about getting shot in the back of the head with a nine millimeter really makes a guy stop and reconsider if firearms are worth the trouble.
When I said something along those lines the last time I was around the Amato quintet a month or so ago, their demigoddess keeper agreed that guns are inelegant, boring weapons and recommended that I look into getting myself a mace.
As if I'm going to take advice from a freak who names her weapons like they're pets.
Nowadays, I use good old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat, a knife, and magic. So far, it's served me well enough that every bounty hunter pal who ribbed me about losing my fire in that coma has been eating their words for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
I'm about to show them up again, because this target is one everyone is after.
The Reformed Legacy Human Netherborn Association—the RLHNA that has become the new international government powerhouse—put one hell of a bounty on this guy's head with a long rap sheet that I didn't bother reading.
All I know is, he's a healer-turned-necromancer who's been wanted since before the Upheaval.
Honestly, I'm doing all this more for a distraction than for profit. Better to get off my ass and make some money than to sit around waiting for another eight months.
Fuck. It better not take another eight months for me to get my hound back.
I observe as the well-dressed couple drives away.
This mansion and much of the surrounding rural community look like they were left mostly untouched during the Upheaval, or, if they weren't, they've done a hell of a job patching them up.
Thanks to the Legacy Curse being broken, all incubi receiving a Limbo mark, the Nether being contained, legacies and humans finding common ground, the changes in government, and the settling of the Netherborn humans…
The world has fixed itself.
I'm out for four months and wake up to no curse, no Upheaval, and no shadow fiends seeping into the mortal world. Even growing equality for legacies, for fuck's sake.
And all it took was me getting an extended time-out from a bullet to the brain.
Go fucking figure.
As soon as the wealthy couple's car is out of sight, I recheck my surroundings and move silently toward the bottom of the hill, creeping through more trees.
I'll have to book it once I lose this cover and vault over the perimeter fence.
I'm sure there are dozens of protective wards placed on that fence–but thanks to Arati's blessing, I can usually slip through shit like that without tripping anything.
I brace myself, about to launch into action, but I pause when I hear the low croak of a raven to my left. Turning my head slowly, I spot the glossy black fowl perched in the branches of a nearby oak tree, watching me.
Damn that demigoddess.
"Fuck off," I whisper at the evil chicken.
It squawks again, tipping its head to get a better look at me from its other eye. Something about the way it examines me seems out of bounds for normal animal behavior.
"Fly back to your creepy-ass master. I'm working," I tell it, giving it my own bird for good measure before turning back to the job. I hear it flutter away a second later.
I want to wrap this up quickly and silently so I can go back to staring at the charred dirt in my friend Jada's backyard like the sad sack I've become ever since I woke up without my furry friend.
The dimness around me lightens briefly as my eyes glow green, another acrid pull of the sorcerer's magic drawing my attention.
There's no one stationed outside the mansion.
Not even security cameras, from what I can tell.
This guy really must think he pulled one over on the RLHNA by leaving a false trail in Minnesota.
Pretty sure that threw the other bounty hunters off, too.
Amateurs.
Taking off, I bolt across the open lawn.
When I reach the fence, I leap as high as I can, grasping the arched points of the fence and slinging myself over in one silent move.
Dropping to a low crouch with a sharp exhale, I stay alert for any sign of danger until I reach a set of dark cellar doors.
One test pull tells me they're only locked—but there's no chains, no additional magic protection. Nada.
"Cocky fucking idiot," I mutter before casting an unlock charm.
Creeping soundlessly down the cellar stairs, I reach the bottom and will my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they do, I frown, trying to understand what I'm seeing.
Seven large shipping crates, roughly the size of coffins, line the edges of the room.
A large cauldron sits in the center of the room, surrounded by bone-white magic symbols.
I peek into the cauldron and make a face at the dark sludge congealed inside, nearly black from however long it's been sitting.
Blood. A lot of it.
I pull out my phone, taking a few silent pictures of the cauldron and the runes all over the ground for documentation to send to the RLHNA, along with my target.
Most of the symbols are unique to necromantic rituals, but others are blood magic markings.
Whatever dark shit this necromancer has been selling, he's clearly got someone else using blood magic for him.
I saw a setup like this a couple of years ago while hunting a legacy crime lord in Spain. If my suspicions are correct…
Checking to make sure no one has come down from the mansion into the cellar, I gently pry the lid away from one of the shipping crates.
Bingo. Decrepit vampire.
If a vampire doesn't feed often enough, they get weak and decrepit.
If they go more than a couple of weeks without blood, they start to ossify—getting progressively weaker, corpse-like, and gaunt until they can't move at all.
Any special abilities they might have, like hypnosis, stop working.
A couple more weeks of that, and they're goners.
The fact that there are seven of them in here confirms my suspicions.
"Thralls," I mutter, taking another picture.
Thralls are extremely rare. They have to start out as born vampires—either as legacies or the offspring of a vampyr and a human.
To create a thrall that will obey their every command, a vampyr must find a born vampire, kill them, and turn them the same way they would turn a mortal—by injecting their vampyrish blood into the vampire's newly-dead body.
If the vampire is lucky and survives the transition, they come back even stronger, but as a thrall.
Unluckily for them, they can't act or even speak for themselves until their vampyr master is murdered—something thralls are literally incapable of thinking about, let alone carrying out.
Which means that somewhere in this house, there's a Nether vampyr lying in wait.
Yippee for me.
As quietly and efficiently as I can, I use common magic to remove the tops of the other crates, taking pictures to give the RLHNA a head start identifying the thralls.
It's not my business how the new government body will handle these vamps if they turn out to be missing persons.
Depending on how long they've been enslaved, thralls can be tough as hell to deprogram, once their master is dead.
I get to the last box, remove the lid, and blink down at the unconscious thrall inside.
I've seen this face before, when Everett Frost sent me out on several failed tracking missions during the Upheaval. Never could find this guy, but getting enslaved as a thrall definitely explains why the poor fuck disappeared without a trace for over a year.
"Ian," I whisper, to see if it will rouse him. "Ian Boone, right?"
This good-looking vamp was well-groomed and grinning confidently in all the pictures Frost gave me for reference a year ago, but now he's a fucking mess.
He's in a simple gray T-shirt and jeans, but they're badly ripped and stained with old blood.
His dirt-streaked face is gaunt, there are dark circles under his eyes, and he looks as lifeless as the other decrepit vampires in this creepy-ass cellar.
I should probably text Everett to let him know his friend's still alive.
But on the other hand… Boone's a thrall now. Only the gods know what he's been forced to do under the command of his master and how that's changed him as a person. If the RLHNA decides they can't deprogram him, maybe it's better to spare Frost that bit of pain.