Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Catrin stared at me, bloody eyes wide with shock. She lifted the fingers of her left hand, the ones she'd touched me with, and studied them. They were blackened and blistered, trailing smoke.

Her true form was very different from the "girl next door" look she'd had before. Her hair looked closer to ash than chestnut, her skin corpse pale, her eyes deep vermillion in the room's dim light. Even the sclera had darkened to red, giving her a manic, starved look. The pointed ears and narrow features made her look like a gothic artist's paranoid depiction of an elf.

Her fangs had been so close to my neck. I breathed to calm my racing heart, aware of how close I'd just been to disaster.

Fool, I berated myself. You let your guard down in the enemy's own house. Fatigue is no excuse.

I expected her to attack, tensed for it. I knew she could move faster than the human eye could track, perhaps even do nastier things like assume a bestial form or become a devouring mist. There was no room for mistakes or hesitation.

She didn't do any of those things. Instead, Catrin clutched her burnt hand to her chest, wincing as a look of pure indignation crossed her transformed face.

"The fuck was that?" She asked, distress coloring her voice. "Are you some kind of fucking priest? That hurt."

The pain and disbelief in her ghoulish features were genuine enough to give me pause, despite my better sense. I frowned, watching her. Another trick? Trying to get me to let down my guard?

"Bastard!" Catrin scowled at me. "And I'm not a vampire, fucker. Rip your arms off if I was. Ow."

She shook the injured hand, wincing.

What is this? I stepped to one side, giving myself space from the bed so I could move more freely. "I've faced your kind before," I growled. "You were about to go for my neck."

Catrin's pallid features shifted into something almost petulant. "I mean, sure. I might have gone in for a sip, but I wouldn't have hurt you. Not much, anyway. I already fed tonight."

"You were in my head," I snarled. I could still hear her voice in my thoughts, drifting there like a stain of oil through water.

The rage, and the fear, struck fast and venomous as a viper. I took a step forward as amber fire boiled along the axe, smoldering within the already scarred wood of the handle. The vampire flinched away.

"It was just a trance," Catrin corrected hastily. "Not so different from being drunk, really. I wasn't reading your thoughts or anything. And you were being so vague, dodging all my questions or giving me half answers."

She patted down her dress and sat against the window, folding her arms as she took a calming breath. "I got impatient, you know? I shouldn't have gone in for the whole dark seductress act so hard. I'm sorry, alright? So can you put the axe down?"

The axe remained between us, dimly burning as I glowered at her. She caught my gaze and winced again, unable to hold it while I used my powers. Now it saw the truth of her, the light in my eyes was not gentle.

"I should kill you," I said. "You'll go right to the baron."

"I won't," Catrin insisted. She stood then. When I tensed, she lifted both of her hands in a gesture of surrender. Her vampiric form was starting to fade away, I noted, her hair darkening to its normal chestnut hue, her skin taking on a healthier pallor.

"Listen, big man, everything I said to you was true. Besides, from where I'm standing you're pretty short on friends. You want to make it out of this alive?"

She studied me a long moment, one eyebrow lifted. She finished when I kept my silence. "It's only a matter of days before his lordship hears about what happened in Vinhithe and takes the half step of logic he needs to figure out you're the same man who killed Red Leonis. If you're really here to bring him down, then I can help you… but you're going to need to put the cutter down and talk to me."

"I can't trust a word out of your mouth." I took another step toward the door. I wouldn't let her retreat to rouse the castle. She was near the window. I didn't think using a cant to stop her would be very effective.

The magic she used to lower my guard was stronger than any command I could muster, and far more subtle. Aura has many uses, even when not shaped into a distinct phantasm by Art, and using it to influence another's will is among the most common.

I could do it, to compel truth, stop aggression, and pull others from more hostile trances. My method wasn't subtle — more like taking a hammer to brittle stone. I suspected this creature had a far more insidious method.

Vampires are proto-fiends — not quite demons, but most of halfway there. Damned souls fashioned in the world rather than in the boiling darkness of the Abyss, hungering for blood, undead, vicious. They came in many variety, and I'd faced my share of the creatures. I had learned to hate them.

They were repelled by sanctified aura same as demons too, which was a fine thing to me. My magic had been cultivated through long, dark centuries by knights of old to fight such creatures. I showed the intruder that power.

"You chose the wrong man to try to make your thrall," I growled. "I'll send you back into the Dark."

Catrin rolled her red eyes. "Alright, I'm certain of it now. You're some kind of knight, aren't you? Warrior priest, maybe? Had my suspicions about it. Should I call you milord?"

She dipped into a mocking curtsy, and in the same motion stepped back into the shadows. And vanished, sinking into the wall itself.

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I waited, expecting her to emerge from another shadow and go for my throat.

"If I wanted you dead," Catrin said from right behind me, "I could make it happen."

I spun, swinging my axe with a single hand. It trailed a golden blur as it went. I cut nothing but air.

My vision went dizzy. Still too injured, too low on blood. The aureflame helped heal injuries faster than natural, but not instantly. It would be days before I fully recovered.

"You're hurt," the hemophage's disembodied voice said from everywhere and nowhere, drifting out of the shadows in a strange echo. "I'm not some dread badass, big man, but I think I could take you right now. The fact I'm not should tell you something."

"It only tells me you want something other than my death," I shot back, searching the darkness. The aura in my eyes illuminated patches of it as they drifted across the room's corners, but I found no sign of her. How did this trick work?

"Of course I don't want your death!" The voice snapped back, annoyed. "I want an ally. I'm just as isolated in all this as you, and in just as much danger."

A long pause. Then, "You ready to talk?"

Frustrated, my hand clenched tightly around the oaken branch of my weapon. "If you mean to get into my head again, it won't be so easy. I know you can probably do it through conversation, but not now that I'm wise to it."

I wasn't so sure. With my energies diminished and my mind foggy with blood loss, I might not be able to push her out if she made a real effort again.

Catrin's voice drifted from the shadows. "I won't try that again, trust me. Didn't realize you were hallowed."

There was a thoughtful pause before she continued. "My employer wants to see Orson Falconer's faction undone before it's properly formed. And I…"

Here she hesitated, her disembodied voice fading into a weighty hush.

"I want revenge."

"Revenge?" I asked.

"Preoster Micah was a good man," Catrin said. "A kind man. One of the few priests I've ever met who wasn't a right cunt. It was the Baron who gave the order to have him killed."

"How do you know this?" I asked, turning a slow circle to try and pinpoint the source of the fell presence she exuded.

"He told me," she said.

I paused, taken back. I almost sensed a sad smile from the unseen vampire. I could feel her presence filling the shadows, one with them. Was that why I couldn't find her even with aura? Had she gone somewhere beyond this room?

If so, her power was far more potent than a mere glamour.

"I spoke to his ghost a few weeks back," she continued. "That witch, Lillian, kept his soul from departing. I guess the Baron was worried his plans might get out that way."

Very possible. Orson meant to challenge the ancient spirits who governed the land's natural order. Even in death, it could be difficult to keep secrets from such powers.

Catrin waited for me to absorb all of that before speaking again. "And that's all I know. Really. I was sent to observe and report, nothing more, but I can't leave things as they are. I owe Falconer a bit of payback, and you're the only one here who I think might be willing and able to help me. So will you put the damn axe down already?"

I bared my teeth, jaw clenching, fighting to keep hold of the anger in me. Anger at having my thoughts and will tampered with, mostly. I couldn't trust her, not if she could affect my mind.

And yet, I sensed no deceit in her words. I didn't use powers for it, just my own intuition. And if she told the truth…

The baron himself had said it. There was no room to look a gift chimera in the mouth. But working with a Thing of Darkness… the idea made my stomach churn.

"You tried to make me your thrall," I said to the shadows. "Whatever your reasons, that's a damned sour way to start an alliance."

Another pause. "You're right. It's just…"

I heard the rustling of cloth at my back and turned. Catrin stood there, fully human again. She took a long, shuddering breath. "I'm not going to pretend like I don't make impulsive decisions sometimes."

"You're a blood drinker," I said darkly. "You're driven by impulse."

Anger hardened the malleable edges of Catrin's face. "I'm a dhampir, you cockwart. I was born this way. Now do you want my help or not?"

That gave me pause. Dhampir. A type of changeling. That was a difference from what I'd assumed.

Changeling is a catch-all term for any variety of creature with nonspecific origin. They might be a Sidhe switched out with a human child in the cradle, or a half breed born of mixed ancestry. Sometimes a darker entity could corrupt a seed in the womb, giving birth to something terrible, a parasite with unknowing human parents who became little more than haunted victims to the demon babe.

That last tended to have a different name. If Catrin was that, it might explain the itch in my scars. Or it might just be this accursed place. I hated this, not being able to trust anything around me, or anyone.

Regardless of the kind, changelings are often preternaturally strong, driven by unnatural hungers, and difficult to destroy. Their most dangerous ability, however, is their predilection for creating a masque — a nearly perfect human disguise. They tend to learn the trick in infancy in order to survive and get better at it as they age.

And they are not all wholly evil. Not always, anyway. Unlike true vampires, who are little more than hateful souls bound inside a corpse, changelings are misbegotten children tossed into the world.

There'd been one in the woods near the village I'd grown up in. Old, mad, and harmless as a leaf.

Catrin was not harmless. Even if everything she said was true, she'd still tried to subdue my will with her own. She'd tried to taste my blood.

When I still hesitated, she let out a contemptuous scoff and turned back toward the shadows.

I grit my teeth. "Wait."

She stopped and half turned to glare at me.

"Do you have some kind of plan?"

The smile that touched the corners of Catrin's lips was sharp as razors, revealing teeth sharper still. "Maybe. If you're still alive by sundown tomorrow, we'll talk again. Keep your head until then, big man."

Then, before I could stop her, she walked into the wall and vanished into a patch of darkness. I took a step forward, lifting a hand as though to grab her shoulder, but it was too late.

"Shit," I said aloud. My eyes went to my axe, which still dimly burned with amber flames. I quenched the flow of power and let them fade, then set it down against the wall by the bed. I sat myself. I took a few minutes to calm myself and think, twisting the ring on my right forefinger in idle habit.

Had I just made a devil's bargain? Because Catrin was certainly a kind of devil, and very dangerous.

I would have to keep my guard up, and hope I hadn't just been duped.

You're in a house of devils, I told myself. Maybe this is the least of all available evils.

I was far from certain. Sometimes the most insidious evils can seem fair to the eyes.

I waited for a long while, suspicious she might lurking in the room's shadows still, waiting for me to let down my guard. As I stood there, my breath came shorter and shorter. My shoulder burned with agony, and I felt hot.

A fever. Had those chimera had venomed talons?

I had some resistance to poisons, and little fear of disease, but I'd been injured many times recently in quick succession. Enough for a lethal toxin to do me in?

The room swam around me. I took a step toward the bed, stumbled, and caught myself on the post. My skin ran with sweat. It dripped onto the floor beneath me. I focused on those tiny droplets, trying to use them to center myself.

I lost time. Lost thought. All I could think was that I shouldn't rest, couldn't afford to, that I was in danger…

I had a dim memory of throwing a blanket over the mirror, and curtaining the windows. I latched the door, managed to drag a chair over to use as an extra barrier. It all went in a blur, one action swimming into the other, the time between each scene gone.

I think I vomited. I had little in my stomach, so it mostly came as spittle and dry heaves.

I fought against the encroaching darkness.

There are some wars that can't be won, no matter how hard you struggle.

The dark took me.