Mark Nerrow stood on the front steps of his home, two fire elementals beside him on either side. Darla was behind him, her head turned upward as her eyes scanned the roof of the house above them. She must have played the decoy like Tiny did for me, Will realized. Looks like she did a better job of it, though.
The childlike vampire stood by the gate to the Nerrow house, her body out of view, hidden from the baron by the stone pillar that flanked the gate. As Will looked on, she lifted her chin and uttered a shrill, high-pitched cry. It was almost too high for him hear, and it shifted and changed as he listened, as though she was shrieking words in an impossibly high tone. Is she talking to the others?
A second later, two figures jumped down from the top of the Nerrow house, while five others came from another building across the street to Will’s right. An intense wall of flame sprang up in front of the baron, but the two that had dropped down were already within it. Darla engaged one, but the second was directly behind Will’s father.
Will was already running, and he could hear Tiny’s heavy boots pounding the street beside him, but they wouldn’t get there in time. They were still thirty yards away, with an iron fence to somehow cross before they could reach the besieged Lord Nerrow. Will’s eyes locked on the scene, and he did the only thing he could.
The vampire reached for Mark Nerrow’s head, but a force-shield blocked its hand. It reached again, its arms blurring with speed, but every attack was stopped cold. Seconds ticked by, and then Lord Nerrow turned, having finished incinerating those who had made the foolhardy frontal assault. Furious, he lifted one hand and the monster desperately trying to reach him was wreathed in flames.
Meanwhile, Will fought to stay on his feet. He had stopped just short of the iron fence, and only Tiny’s large hand kept him from falling. Force spells required more turyn when used at a distance, and while the point-defense spell normally took very little, at that range the cost of using several dozen shields in rapid succession had taken its toll on him. Tiny dragged him to the gate pillar and put his body between Will and the street.
“Are you all right?” asked the big man worriedly.
“I used too much magic. Give me a minute and I’ll be fine.” Will was already drawing turyn in as rapidly as he could to replace his depleted stores. As he did, he saw a small form walk toward them. It was the child vampire.
Her eyes were on his, even though her view was largely blocked by the bulk of Tiny’s body. Will edged to one side so he could see her better. She was somewhere just under five feet in height, with dark brown hair and eyes that seemed to swallow the light. Tiny edged farther to the right, blocking his view again, so Will sidled to the left instead.
“You can’t have him,” said the big man protectively.
“Damn it, Tiny, let me see!” cursed Will.
The vampire stopped at a distance of thirty feet, and as Will edged back in to view, she addressed him, “I’ve got my eyes on you, human. Your days are numbered, as are theirs.” She jerked her head to indicate the Nerrow household.
Her features reminded him of his cousin Sammy, or at least as she had been a few years previously, when she was younger. Who could do that to a child? “Nice to meet you,” he quipped, letting his mouth run without giving his brain time to think. It had more important things to do anyway. “My name is Will. What’s yours?”
A quizzical look crossed the vampire’s face, and then she laughed. “Alexa. The next time we meet will be your—” Her words cut off in a shriek of pain and shock as the force-lance Will had been quietly constructing took her in the hip, shattering her pelvis and nearly amputating her left leg.
“Don’t let it get away,” Will instructed firmly as he began readying another spell. “It will be useful if we can capture it mostly intact.” His words were underscored by the fact that the vampire was already up and scrabbling to get away, using her good leg and two arms to move like some grotesque crab. Tiny leapt forward, sword in hand and shield ready to defend if the creature changed from flight to attack.
And even with two good legs he was too slow. The vampire was definitely hampered by the loss of her leg, but she galloped away on her three good limbs at a pace that rivaled a healthy dog. Her damaged leg left a black smear as it bumped and banged on the ground behind her, still connected by skin and a few tendons.
Will was lining up his shot when he heard the sound of breaking glass behind him, followed by the sound of flames billowing to life. That wasn’t a spell. Spinning around, he saw an expanding ring of white fire that seemed to stick to the wall on one side of the entrance to the Nerrow home. Although he’d never made it himself, he recognized it immediately—alchemical fire.
“She’s too fast, Will,” yelled Tiny.
“Forget her, they’re trying to burn the house,” Will responded. The front gate was still intact, so he used the force-lance he had constructed to destroy the lock, then pushed it open. Tiny rejoined him as they stepped into the yard where the baron was using his fire elementals to control and contain the spread of the fire.
Will couldn’t help but admire the man’s quick thinking. Water would have made things worse, and wind would have been a disaster. The door opened, and Agnes poked her head out, “What’s happening?”
“Damn it! I told you to keep the door shut!” yelled her husband.
Will moved closer, waving at Agnes to go back in, while Darla glanced at him for a split second, disapproval in her gaze. She didn’t spare much attention, though; her eyes were still scanning for new threats.
He was almost to the porch when he heard an odd clunk, as though a rock had hit the walkway. Looking down, he saw a large, heavy glass vial beside his one bare foot, with a thin strip of rune-inscribed paper around its neck.
The enchantment was familiar to him, for he’d used it in the past, though this one appeared to be acting according to a timer rather than a command word. It’s an alchemical bomb. The sentence rolled through his head casually as Darla’s eyes widened and she began to run.
Without time to escape or flee, Will did the only thing he could. With one hand he touched the vial, and with a thought he stored it inside the limnthal. When he straightened up again, he saw both Darla and his father watching him warily, waiting to see if he would burst into flames. He ignored their looks; he was too busy doing math in his head. Arrogan said time in the realm within the limnthal runs a thousand times slower, so if the enchantment was going to explode in say, one second then I have… He lost his place once and had to start over, but eventually he was sure it was somewhere just over fifteen minutes. Or more if it had more than a second left, he reminded himself.
If it went off while stored in the limnthal, he wasn’t sure what would happen, but his best guess was that everything he had stored within the limnthal’s extradimensional space would be burnt to cinders. His gold was in there, along with his weapons and other sundries, but he worried most about the expensive cuts of beef and lamb. Losing so much valuable meat would be devastating. He held up a hand as though asking the others to wait. “I’ll be right back.”