Chapter 72: Escape

“Theodore, stand there and watch while I fuck the Inquisitor.” Buðlungr, who was still bleeding from the wounds the Inquisitor had given him while trying to kill him with the silver knife, threw the barely-conscious human to the ground and dropped to his knees between her splayed legs.

“Listen, you fucker!” Theo snapped, but he couldn’t move to stop him. “You don’t wanna be bound to some arrogant Firstlander shit? Take it out on him, not—”

“And shut up,” Buðlungr said. He pulled his belt free under his robe and dropped it to one side, darkness on his face as he looked down at the groaning girl.

He’s gonna kill her, Theo thought, getting sick. In the Third Realm, it was a delight of bored queens and their courts to kill slaves by essentially fucking them to death and reaping their death-energies as they passed on. Like a fine dessert, often taken after a ten-course dinner.

The main reason, of course, why Theo had left. He had seen to many blood baths, too much carnage, too many acts of misery perpetrated by a vile, disgusting monsters who only cared about their next diversion.

Buðlungr had that look now. He’d been humiliated, bound to serve Pale Beaver until he delivered the other lord his queen, and the Inquisitor had made him lose not only the queen, but Angus, too…

…Angus, who had managed to open a portal to the Void with his paw. Theo felt like an imbecile.

“And now, my fine little Inquisitor, I fancy seeing how delicious hypocrisy tastes in its death throes.” Buðlungr casually set his belt aside and dropped his pants. On the ground, the Inquisitor was only then noticing that he knelt between her legs, her bruised and puffy eyes widening as she started to scoot backwards.

Buðlungr laughed and grabbed one of her feet and yanked her back. “I don’t think so. You owe me this one. I was literally seconds away from nabbing that queen and being able to go back home. And you stopped me.” He was smiling, but his words were not pleasant. “Now…who knows how long I’ll have to entertain myself until she makes another appearance?”

Theo, silenced and forced to keep his eyes fixed on the scene by command, nonetheless didn’t watch the rest. From his days as a queen’s thrall in the Court, he had long ago learned to distance himself from the horrors that his kind could wreak upon their slaves. He heard the grunts, the humiliated whimpers, the hateful way Buðlungr spoke to her, the moans of passion that were followed by her cries of despair, but he was somewhere else…

When Theo started hearing screams, he at first assumed that Buðlungr had finally sunk his fangs in to reap the energetic bounty of his sustained torture. It took him a moment to realize it was Buðlungr screaming.

Theo jerked, realizing the Duke was slumped atop the girl, holding the side of his head and screaming.

Theo also found he could move.

He’s lost control, he realized, suddenly. Something’s distracting him…

He took a shocked step backwards, stunned that he could. Free… If just for a second, he was free… In a haste verging on panic, he bit open his wrist and began forcing the putrid ropes of seiðr from his veins, a trick he had learned from countless battles in the Third Realm.

Drained as he was, tugging the Duke’s energy from his body almost killed him. He didn’t care. He knew it was the only way he was getting out of this with his mind intact.

He sloughed the rest of the seiðr out onto the grasses, where the greenery withered in contact with the dying, writhing black threads, and, seeing Buðlungr continued to scream, took a step backwards.

On the ground, the Duke was thrashing. Under his fingers, his skull was starting to burn away with a glowing silver edge, like an ember eating paper.

Another blood magus. Likely, by the look of it, using an öndkar. But…who? Aside from Theo and Buðlungr, he didn’t know of any others of the Old Blood in Alaska. The Inquisitors seemed to be using blood-energies, but he still couldn’t figure out who was doing it.

Whoever it is, he’s distracting Buðlungr, Theo thought. And with Buðlungr distracted… He took four steps backwards and twisted to run…

And then, in his mind’s eye, he saw the woman on the ground under Buðlungr, the Duke still inside her, crying pitifully as she failed to push the too-heavy Third Lander off of her.

Even as his body stiffened around him, Theo had a stubborn, self-preserving urge to leave her there anyway. After all, she was just a self-righteous Inquisitor bigot who wanted nothing more than to murder him and every friend he ever had, and every second he spent near the Duke was another second he could be re-enthralled. And he was barely able to stay on his feet. Weak. Dizzy…

Her whimpers cut through to his very core, like talons of rot slicing at his soul. Fuck. His mother had always said he was a softie...right before chewing on the liver of her latest victim.

Oh screw it, what the hell, let’s roll the goddamn dice! Theo thought, jumping in to kick Buðlungr away from the girl, then kick him a few more times right in the gaping hole in his head. He grabbed the girl by the hand to pull her to her feet and was starting to turn and run when she yanked him in the opposite direction, towards the café.

“Oh nonono,” Theo said, tugging her the opposite direction. “Another vamp that way. Not good mojo. Come on.”

“Release me!” she snapped, punching at his arm with enough effort to leave bruises.

Theo squinted at her, but let go.

She wasn’t, he realized, running away from Buðlungr, as he had first assumed. She was running to her knife. That silver knife she’d tried to use on him.

…wasting precious seconds.

Again, Theo had the urge to leave her there to stab at the Duke with an ineffective silver blade until the Duke woke up and strangled her again. How was she to know that the Duke and most other high-ranking members of the Court had immunized themselves against most effects of silver in the Silfr Líkami?

He glanced again at the Duke, who had cut the strands that were burning his mind and even then regaining some of his cognizance. A few feet away, the Inquisitor was bending to pluck the knife from the ground…

Theo rushed her, grabbed her, and kept running, careful to keep the Inquisitor’s arms crushed against his chest so she couldn’t use the silver on him, instead.

He, unlike the Duke, hadn’t gone through the Silfr Líkami and he was to the point in his life where he liked to avoid the shit on principal.

“Release me, vampire!” the Inquisitor screamed, twisting and struggling to kick him.

“Shhh!” Theo snapped, “you want him to follow us?!”

That seemed to mollify her slightly, because she went still in his arms, still gripping that knife. That damned fucking knife that he knew she was going to use on him the moment he let her down. And he was already dizzy and weak and…

And yet again, Baron Hjörr, you find yourself risking your life to save a woman who wants to kill you. Mother would be so proud.

Weaving, stumbling, Theodore crossed the Seward Highway, planning on the rushing of cars to help hide his passage, then, because he was tired and the girl was kicking him, he grabbed the back of a passing semi trailer, the speed of which whipped him forward off his feet, and used the momentum to swing the Inquisitor up onto the back of the box.

Then, exhausted beyond words, he climbed up behind her, looking forward to passing out.

He had just gotten his head and shoulders above the container when he was met by a sharp, pointy object aimed at his eye. The blade trembled as it hovered there overhead, buffeted by the sixty-mile-per-hour winds.

Theo swallowed at the knife. When it didn’t close the distance, he slowly looked up at the tawny Frenchwoman’s face, instead.

He watched the Inquisitor struggle with indecision as she loomed over him. It took centuries, and in the process, Theo felt his muscles losing strength. He started to slide back down the trailer as his arms started to release, unable to keep his balance.

Just when he thought he was going to fall, she lowered the knife and crab-crawled towards the front of the trailer, scowling at him like she’d just personally witnessed him butcher a baby.

Oh thank the gods, Theo thought, having mentally prepared himself to lose his grip and simply hit the asphalt in a pounding, rolling hammer of hurt. He used the last of his strength to crawl up the rest of the way and slumped to the top of the container. Buðlungr had drained most of the remnants of the yatagarasu from his blood, so the daylight was starting to hurt…

Thank Odin’s hairy asshole for clouds. Feeling the exhaustion overtaking him, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to stay awake much longer but not knowing how long he would be unconscious, Theo did what he could to position his exposed skin away from the sun. Only then did he chance a look at the Inquisitor.

She was hunkered down low against the wind, beaten to shit, scowling at him from across the length of the transport container like a pissed-off spider.

At least she’s still alive, Theo thought. Though, judging by the curses she had been throwing at him before the Duke showed up, she probably would have preferred death.

Before either of them had a chance to speak, Theo felt the rest of his strength leave him, buffeted away by the cold wind whipping past his face. His last thought before succumbing to the comfortable darkness of oblivion was, I wonder if she’ll stab me while I sleep.