NOTE: So I got a few complaints with regard to chapter 12, how Number One seemed too infatuated with a seven-year-old girl that it seemed offensive. So I took that part out, changing it so that Number One was now under the impression that Isabelle might be one of his lost crib mates, and that hopeful thought, that one of them actually found a new home, was what fueled his successful enchantment and not the infatuation thing. You guys can reread the edited version here on RR. Thanks for the feedback. It helps.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Blood Trail

Things didn’t just disappear into thin air. Everything was explainable. And in the case of the disappearing fiend, the answer we were looking for was right below us all along. Specifically, the manhole that was located three feet away from where the dead man’s corpse lay.

None of us had seen the manhole at first because there had been so much blood over it. But as soon as the local constable carried the corpse away, I became aware of the circular outline on the ground and pointed it out to Major Wolf.

“It might have gone down there, master.”

Our one witness was the middle-aged blonde woman we found sobbing over the man. In-between bouts of hysteria, she confirmed my suspicions, although her words were pretty incoherent that getting just that was quite the challenge.

“I-it… it… it…” The blonde bawled on Lieutenant Spiers’ shoulder — an act that would have earned anyone else a hip throw onto the hard ground — and it took several pats to calm her before the blonde could continue. “I-it d-dove… d-down there…”

Dove was a strange choice of words, so I had to clarify, “You mean it opened the manhole cover first or just went through it?”

For just a moment, her hysteria vanished. Replaced instead by the wide-eyed incredulity of an adult surprised by the appearance of me in my military schoolboy outfit — which I think she would have gushed over if she wasn’t so out of it.

“N-no,” she said with a shake of her head. “The, the t-thing… p-passed t-through the g-gaps… l-like it was a g-ghost!”

Tears began streaming down the blonde’s reddened cheeks as if she could no longer control her emotions. And that’s when Number Three walked over to her and hugged her.

“It’s okay,” Number Three cooed. “Let it out.”

The blonde gave in. She threw her head into Number Three’s shoulders and cried her heart out. It was heart-wrenching to watch, the child comforting the broken adult.

“Sleep,” Number Three whispered as she patted the back of her head.

Soon enough, the woman fell into Number Three and was immediately caught by Lieutenant Spiers’ who’d been sitting beside them. She took the blonde out of Number Three’s hands and let her drift off into what I hoped was a dreamless slumber on the bench.

Number Three turned to me with a sad look on her face. “Brain Freeze.”

That’s what Major Wolf called her spell to lower someone’s temperature enough that she could lull them into unconsciousness. I imagined it was kind of like inducing hypothermia but in a controlled state that was non-fatal. So far.

I patted her on the back and gave Number Three a reassuring smile. “You did good.”

Then my eyes drifted toward the manhole cover. There was barely any space to insert a knife blade into the gap much less the body of what I assumed must have been a large beast.

So, it’s non-corporeal when it wants to be? Fuck, that’s going to make it difficult to catch.

“Allers, get me a map of the sewers,” Major Wolf barked.

Luckily for us, one of the local constables who’d remained to guard the crime scene had such a map stashed in the bag hanging from his horse’s saddle. He handed it to Corporal Allers who quickly spread it out on the ground for my master to inspect.

“Too many pathways, sir,” Lieutenant Spiers said as she looked over his shoulder. “We’d get lost in them very quickly.”

She was right. With all its diverging pathways, the sewer was a freaking labyrinth, which I guess one should have expected in a medium-sized town like Drenken.

“Making us easy pickings for the fiend stalking the sewers,” Major Wolf finished. “Unless—”

“One can do it,” Number Three piped up, finishing the thought I knew our master was thinking too.

Major Wolf glanced over his shoulder at me. “Can you?”

The image of the dead bodies we’d encountered flashed across my mind. They would have left me shivering in fright if I hadn’t also seen the blonde’s sorrowful face. And now, all I wanted to do was avenge her and make it so that she’d never have to feel that devastated again.

“I’d need its blood, master.”

I know, I know. I sounded like an eight-year-old vampire, but there was no helping it. Because blood had become the catalyst for the more unique spells in my repertoire.

“B-blood?” Wolf Squad’s short, pixie-haired medic, Jana Jensen, muttered.

I could feel the squad’s wary gazes on my back, and I tried hard not to take it personally as they’d never seen me in action before. Still, it stung to sense doubt and fear directed at me. I’d learned to cope, though, because the previous year was proof enough that even the most well-trained soldiers freaked out over the blood thing.

“Allers?” Major Wolf called.

Corporal Allers dropped a small vial of dark red liquid into my palm.

After explaining that he’d taken it from the trail of blood we’d followed to Drenken, he said, “Do your thing, wunderkind.”

He didn’t know it, but teasing me made me feel loads better. It helped me remember that there was at least one adult besides my master who still treated me like a kid.

“Um, I gazed down at the vial in my palm, “are we sure this belongs to the fiend?”

“You ever seen blood as dark as that before?” Corporal Allers challenged.

Okay, he had a point. The blood swishing inside the vial was dark enough to almost pass for ink.

“Give it a try, Number One.” Major Wolf placed a hand on my shoulder, “I know it’s a gamble, but it’s the only one we’ve got right now.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “Let me get ready.”

I pulled out a needle from the pouch clipped to my belt and pricked my thumb with it to draw out that bead of blood I needed for the enchantment.

Think happy thoughts, Number One.

That was a tall order considering what I’d witnessed so far today, but I guess the unease of this unknown enemy was enough to get the ball rolling on my spell casting.

I felt the tug of the spark in my gut and then my magic surged forward, pooling into that bead of blood to enhance the bit of iron in it right before I dropped the bead into the vial of dark blood.

“If blood is the life, then all its secrets are mine to see,” I whispered.

This enchantment — which I thought up on my own, FYI — worked a little like psychometry. That psychic ability to glean relevant information from physical contact with an object. Although I believed my spell was a level above simple psychometry because I used blood to initiate that psychic bond between me and my prey. And blood, as anyone who’d ever read a horror novel knew, was a strong catalyst. Some would even say that my virgin blood — yeah, yeah, I’m a virgin again — meant double the effects.

I shut my eyes and drifted into that strange misty plane that sometimes appeared in my mind. Waiting, waiting, just waiting for that strum of a heartbeat that only I could hear.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

In my mind’s eye, I saw a path that was dark and dank, the kind of place you’d imagine a monster would be lurking in. I heard the sound of running water. Sniffed that familiar horrid stink of human excrement, and as usual, tasted the blood on the tip of my tongue.

Then I saw it crawling low to the ground like some bloated, monstrous spider. Although the vision had been too blurry for me to make out its features apart from the surprisingly human-looking blue eyes that gazed back at me from beyond the gloom.

My heartbeat was racing. I blinked back to consciousness.

Sonofabitch, I think it saw me.

As the old saying went, stare into the abyss long enough and the abyss stares back. Yeah, the thought gave me the shivers, although I repressed it quickly as I didn’t want the other members of Wolf Squad thinking I was afraid.

“I saw it…”

Major Wolf’s ears pricked up. “What did it look like?”

“It was too dark for me to tell, but I don’t think it was human.”

“Can you trace it?”

For an answer, I poured some of the vial’s contents onto the center of the sewer map. And we all watched as the pool of blood formed a thin red line that cut a path across the intricate web of pathways until it stopped at a dead-end section I assumed must have been that place in my vision.

“That’s disturbing,” Corporal Allers whistled. “What do you call your spell?”

“Blood dowsing,” Major Wolf and I said together.

“I thought up the name,” my master said smugly.

“But I thought up the spell,” I countered quickly.

Yeah, we had a bit of a rivalry going on when it came to spell naming, and I’d lost this one because of a bet.

“Is it reliable?” Lieutenant Spiers asked.

Major Wolf chuckled. “Most of the time.”

“The last one didn’t count,” I grumbled.

Blood Dowsing had a pretty high success rate which we’d tested on rabbits a few months back. I’d found three out of the four we’d let loose in Evergreen Forest. I’d boasted I could find them all, but a snake had gotten to the last rabbit before I could, and that mistake caused me the dumb name I’d been saddled with. Seriously, Blood Magnet would have been much cooler in my opinion.

Major Wolf ruffled my hair in an almost placating gesture. “I knew you could do it, kid.”

I grinned. I couldn’t help it. Although I tried not to look happy that he praised me. Besides, Number Three, who looked as proud of me as if she’d cast the spell herself, was enthusiastic enough for the both of us.

It also warmed me up once I noticed that the other members of Wolf Squad — enchantment virgins, every single one of them — couldn’t quite keep the shock and awe from their faces. That lifted my spirits even more so that I was first up after the major to jump down into the manhole like the future action star that I hoped to become.

We landed onto mossy ground that stretched out into the gloom on our left and right. We were in an arched brick tunnel that had walkways on either side of a small canal filled with murky gray water.

“Seven hells, it stinks in here,” Corporal Allers said.

“Smells like Seven’s farts,” Number Three whispered.

I snorted. “Yeah.”

With me and my master taking the lead, Wolf Squad moved in pairs of twos across the labyrinthian maze that was Drenken’s sewers, and we really would have gotten lost if it wasn’t for my enchantment.

Every dark corner was a threat until it wasn’t. And every shadow was an enemy until they vanished. It was a pretty nerve-wracking trek. Eventually, though, we arrived in a circular room that was exactly like I’d seen it in my mind’s eye. Only it smelled worse like the stink of a clogged-up toilet right after taking a huge dump. And it wasn’t actually a dead end.

“These routes weren’t on the map,” I said, confused.

“It might not be part of the sewer system,” Lieutenant Spiers’ reasoned.

There were three diverging pathways ahead of us. All of them were blocked by iron rail gates.

“Should we split up, sir?” Lieutenant Spiers asked.

I wanted to yell “No!” because you never split up the party. That’s how people died. But I didn’t. That was my master’s choice to make, and since he agreed with the lieutenant, I assumed he weighed the risk with our squad’s high skill level.

“You take Number Three, Jensen, and Frost with you down the right,” Major Wolf ordered. “I’ll take Haas, Horn, and Brandt with me toward the middle.”

He glanced sideways at me. “Number One, you’re with Allers, Jenkins, and Sargent Jager.”

Splitting up the arcanists into the three fire teams was a good plan. We were dealing with a fiend, after all. I only hoped it was the right choice.

I glanced over at Number Three who gave me the thumbs up. She looked excited which was pretty much her default mode. I guessed I didn’t need to worry about her too much.

“Stay frosty,” I said.

She frowned. “That’s my line.”

I grinned.

Our fire teams gathered next to our gates while we waited for the major to give us the go-ahead.

“Find and contain the threat,” Major Wolf ordered. “And if you can’t, then haul your asses back here and get the rest of us to gang up on it.”

He spent a second giving each of us the wolf-stare.

“No one dies today,” he growled. “Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” we all answered.

And there was not a single soldier there that didn’t believe it. Our spirits were high, our resolves hardened. Sadly, there was more to this hunt than we could have imagined. And not a single one of us realized it then. The fact that not all of us would make it.