Honor Bound Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Charming!

  They Never Learn

  Better Late Than Never

  A Chat and a Drive

  Swanky

  Nice House

  Wiping the Slate Clean

  Selling My Soul

  The Truth About Vampires

  Going Home

  Panic Stations

  Date with Trouble

  A Pit Stop

  Who Me?

  Wowzer

  A Warm Bed

  Crowded Kitchen

  Saying Goodbye

  Getting It Together

  Vicky's Plan

  No Plan

  My Plan

  No Time Like the Present

  My Gang

  Smelly and Hairy

  More Old Wizards

  The Final Piece

  Bad Choices

  And So It Begins

  A Very Long Drive

  Here We Go

  Close Encounters

  Doors Schmoors

  I Hate Him

  A Depressing Exit

  No More Fun and Games

  Welcome Home

  What Number is This?

  Not Again

  Gonna Be a Long Night

  An Understanding

  Lumpy Bed

  Questions and More Questions

  Wand of a Unicorn

  Plans

  Perfection

  Awkward Introductions

  Out On My Own

  This Will Hurt

  You Die, I Die, We All Die

  A Realization

  Time for Revenge

  Bad News

  Goodbye to Love

  Some Lists are Short

  Crushing Realizations

  Back to Work

  A House Full

  Schemes

  Normal? What's Normal

  Satan's Breath

  Resolute

  War

  The Lion's Den

  Guess Who's Back?

  One More Go

  Bit Spooky

  Laying Down the Law

  Vampire Melee

  It's Personal

  Feeling Left Out

  Almost Had It

  An Unexpected Twist

  Time to Scarper

  Time to Think

  An Aha Moment

  Uncaged

  Time to Reflect

  It All Sucks

  Equestrian Bliss

  Honor Bound

  Wildcat Wizard Book 5

  Al K. Line

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  Copyright © 2017, Al K. Line. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Charming!

  The two bloodsuckers charged.

  Even exhausted they were fast.

  But not as fast as The Hat.

  My left arm went up in a defensive block as I raised my wand in my right hand and forced what pitiful will remained into the ancient wood. Mustering little more than fumes, I nonetheless sent the magic deep into the wand and the sigils flared briefly as the vampires reached me.

  All that happened was a slight flaring of the tip, accompanied by a noise resembling a baby hippopotamus letting rip after too much curry. Trust me, I've witnessed the aftermath of such a thing, and it ain't a pretty sight. Now wasn't the time to be amused by such sounds though. Laughing at bodily functions is best done when you haven't got two pissed off, tired, and hungry vampires literally breathing down your neck.

  "Me first," hissed the older vampire, a guy in his sixties with thinning gray hair pulled back into a straggly ponytail.

  "Fine," pouted the other, much younger man, a suave kid with an expensive suit, gelled hair, and a very smackable face.

  I ducked as they grabbed for me, their eagerness making their movements uncoordinated and unprofessional, but that's exactly what these two dudes were. Unprofessional. Noobs to the vampire scene, they'd probably been made several months ago, and they brought shame to their kind. They shouldn't have been out unsupervised, they shouldn't have been made at all.

  As I ducked again to avoid a punch that would have sent my face right through the back of my head, I stepped back and caught my heel on the body of one of three vampires who'd already had a Hat special. Meaning, they were very dead, and none too happy about it. I wheeled backward, flailing as I struggled to keep my balance, feet catching on small lumps of concrete in the abandoned factory littered with glass, remnants of machinery, and the aftermath of debauched nights by kids with nowhere else to go.

  I grabbed hold of the remains of a rusted machine and used it to get some cover, moving behind it as the two vamps spread out to come at me from either side. Man, I was so tired, and if it wasn't for the adrenaline still shunting through my flaccid veins I would have just laid down, said, "Have at it," and gone to sleep as they sucked the life out of me, or whatever it was they did.

  As I tried to keep both of them in sight, I made a vow I'd made once before. To find out all I could about vampires. The time had most definitely come, as this unjust attack was uncharacteristic, not something you ever heard happen, and it was all because they were too new and unable to control their bloodlust. But nobody knew exactly how it worked, how they were made, turned, whatever it was called, how long the process took, or even what went on inside the body as you became a fully fledged vampire.

  From one brief conversation the day the One, Mikalus the head vampire, had been resurrected with a little accidental help from yours truly, I'd been led to believe that to turn you had to be bitten by a vampire, then take their blood. A two-become-one type of thing, which was cozy and kinda nice in its own way, but there was a lot more to it than that, I was sure.

  Distracted by my wandering thoughts, which I was prone to be at the most inopportune of times, I was almost too late to react as the young guy decided he'd had enough messing about and would simply bash my head in and feast on whatever remained.

  The pipe he swung swished as it came at me fast and undoubtedly hard, and I only just ducked in time. Knowing how these things went, I stabbed out behind me with my wand, a simple length of wood that was nonetheless harder than any metal ever made or mined, and smiled as I felt contact with the old guy. He grunted in pain as the wind was knocked out of him.

  The kid swung again, this time with me crouched down, and I had nowhere to go. As the pipe descended toward my head, there was no tunnel of light, no life flashing before my eyes, no thinking about all the things I'd do differently if I had another chance. I was merely annoyed, as he looked so fucking smug, and no way was I going out staring at a smart-ass kid with a stupid hairstyle and a suit that cost more than some cars.

  So I let him smack me over the head.

  The vibration rang down my spine, nothing more than a rather gentle and pleasant tingling, but he couldn't say the same. Grace, my hat, always had magic stored in her for just such occasions, and she wasn't even dented by the unwarranted assault. The young man reeled back, dropped the pipe, and held his arm as he screamed, eyes wide in shock and maybe fright. Things like this aren't meant to happen, and never would have in the world of citizens he came from mere months ago. I removed my hat, checked she was okay, then replaced her with a grunt as I stood and kicked out at the old guy behind me who thought he was sneaking up on me but was actually just wait
ing for a kick in the bollocks.

  I obliged.

  As he doubled over, I grabbed the pipe, swung at his head, and split his skull wide open. He dropped sideways, smacked against the lump of a machine, then crashed to the broken concrete floor, kicking up a cloud of dust that made me sneeze and would probably bring on my allergies. Brain oozed out of the long gash in his head.

  My arm dropped as the pipe was seriously heavy and I had no energy left. I was remiss in doing so, no matter how tired I was, as, too late, I sensed the stale breath of the youngster right behind me.

  Before I could turn, he bit down, and I wondered if vampires had to obey their masters. As if I had to do what this fucker told me, I was in for one seriously crap eternity.

  Hi, I'm Arthur "The Hat" Salzman. Gangster. Wizard. A bit sleepy.

  They Never Learn

  "It's leather, you fuckwit," I mumbled as I reached behind, grabbed hold of the guy's jacket, and yanked him around in front of me.

  Something snapped as I hauled his skinny body close and his hands went to his mouth as blood trickled down his weak chin. I smiled at the chipped tooth shining in the weak early morning light streaming in through the open factory doors and smashed sky lights.

  "Hell, you are such a noob. Just because your teeth are sharp, or were, doesn't mean you can bite down through leather and suck me dry.

  "Yum gomma pay," the guy mumbled, sounding like he had a mouthful of toffee.

  "I'm sure I will pay, for something, some time, but you aren't gonna be around to see it."

  Too tired to drag this out any longer, as I'd already been fighting this rogue group for half an hour, I stabbed out with my wand right at his Adam's apple. The wood slid in three inches deep like a spoon into jelly. He gasped and clutched at his throat, mouth forgotten, then fell over, making weird sounds and thrashing his legs about as he fitted. I watched, unmoved, as he died in a decrepit warehouse in the abandoned outskirts of a dying city in a poisoned world. The whole sorry debacle just made me sad.

  These guys would have been bad people when citizens, their whole demeanor screamed trouble, being turned had just given them the power to play out their fantasies. The true vampires, the old ones, the responsible ones, like Mikalus and Ivan, those in charge, they should have known better than to ever bring such scum into their fold.

  I wasn't their bloody Cleaner, I shouldn't be dealing with this crap. It shouldn't have happened and this was not how they usually acted. I'd only come to see Ivan about the new ridiculous mansion Vicky was now ensconced in, wanted a chat about it and a few other things, but I'd found Ivan's temporary headquarters abandoned. Not that he'd ever done more than set up a desk and his goons somewhere suitably ghetto to make the right impression on the lowlifes.

  But he'd gone, and all I found were disgruntled vamps searching for Ivan, and maybe a little sport. He had to answer for this, explain himself. But I needed to know how this all worked, what was happening, and why these dudes had gone off the rails.

  I should have called first. I could have saved myself a lot of hassle, and now I'd have to do it anyway.

  Shattered, annoyed, covered in blood and gore, and wondering if vampires were comfortable enough to lie on, as I was close to sleep, I nonetheless pulled out my phone and called Ivan.

  "Arthur, I was just thinking about you," said Ivan.

  "And I was thinking about you. I came to the factory, but you weren't here."

  "Obviously," he said, amused. "I'm here."

  "Yeah, very funny. Some of your people, vampires, attacked me. Newbies, Ivan, out for blood. You losing control?"

  There was a long pause, several deep breaths, until Ivan said, "I apologize. There have been incidents. I thought we'd taken care of it all. Were there six? That should be the last of them."

  "Six? Um, hang on." I counted up the bodies, just in case I'd miscounted the first time. "Nope, just five of the fu—"

  Something hammered into my back and the phone went flying as I slammed into the massive machine part. I whacked my head and bounced back, feeling the lump already hard like a boiled egg on my forehead. Ivan shouted my name down the phone but it was out of reach, and then a woman with wild long blond hair and a face only a mother could love, mainly because part of it was missing, screamed manically. She switched to cackling as she stomped on the phone then launched herself at me.

  Her hard nails aimed right for my eyes, so I ducked down just as her claws hit my hat. The nails splintered and she shrieked in rage then began tearing at my hat and neck, gouging lines of flesh away.

  I wriggled and bucked and finally managed to roll aside but she was lost to utter madness, teeth gnashing, eyes dark and distant. She was hardly human, more animal, and all she wanted was my blood. As I scrambled backward she came at me again, arms flailing, screeching and utterly beyond salvation, but strong with an animal's wild nature when in the throes of the hunt.

  As she hurled herself at me, I rolled once more, and when she landed I grabbed her arm and whacked her hand down hard against a chunk of concrete. Her wrist snapped and she keened with primitive rage but I didn't pause for a moment and was on my feet and backpedaling just to catch my breath.

  With her arm hanging limp, then twitching as the vampire nature repaired the damage, she got up and shambled toward me, determined. Then she was running and I was running away, but slowly, so she'd catch me. As she readied to tackle me to the ground and feast on delicious Hat blood, I spun then jabbed my wand right into her angry eye, popping the delicate orb that spurted fluid halfway up my arm. The wood penetrated her brain and before she hit concrete she was dead and my wand was very sticky.

  I fell back on my bony ass and sighed.

  "I hate fucking vampires."

  Better Late Than Never

  As I sat leaning against a graffiti-covered concrete pillar in the abandoned factory, nostrils full of the stench of foul bodily fluids oozing from corpses, I had a serious look at my life.

  It was awesome.

  Magic and fights and dangerous artifacts and tapping into the secrets of the universe, who could ask for more? But that wasn't what buoyed my spirits even as my head dropped and I fell asleep, it was the excitement I felt because I had another date with Candy this evening and I was going to go all out to impress. So it was with a smile on my face that I slept soundly amid the carnage of mangled bodies, twisted machinery, broken glass, and the decay of commerce long ago abandoned to the seedy underbelly of the city. To the criminals, the junkies, the desperate, and the lonely.

  It suited me just fine. I was at home down in the gutter, because I understood, unlike most people, that this was where we belonged and life was real. Pretense was stripped away, and you got a sense of what was really happening in the world.

  All the shiny buildings, the repetitive trudging through the rain to work every day, the commute, the money, the nice house, the car, apartments, it was all a veneer that could crack all too easily. I'd seen both sides of the divide, and most of what lay in between, and it was all the same when you got right down to it. If you were in the gutter, you wanted to get out, if you were out, you worried about falling in. Stress either way was the result.

  I smiled as I dozed because none of that could touch me any more. I was the goddamn Hat and I'd waded through the filth and the scum and forged my own path. And now things were about as good as they'd ever been. Or as they'd ever get. I had my daughter, I had my home, I even owned my own hat. Plus I had a date. It was like Santa had been holding out on me and had finally decided to give me all my gifts at this late stage.

  I awoke and glanced at my watch, feeling exhausted and unrested. No wonder, I'd had exactly seven minutes of sleep. Wearily, I clambered to my feet and stood waiting for the approaching car to pull up outside the factory doors.

  With a final glance around, I wandered out into the bright sunshine of a brave new world. As I took in the cracked concrete and the skeletons of crumbling warehouses, and as the weeds blew in a gentle breeze and my
hair tickled my neck where it hung long past my hat, I lifted my head and let the sun warm my face.

  It was going to be a beautiful day. The sun was rising with a promise of heat and purity, washing away the last of the night terrors, and I had a whole day to get ready for the evening, even try to get some sleep.

  First, I just had to have a chat with a vampire.

  A Chat and a Drive

  Ivan stepped out of the vehicle, but only after two goons had checked the area first. They were vampires, large ones, and I knew they were fairly new to the world of the undead. For one, they were mostly memorable in as much as goons can be memorable. Two, they were fine out in the daylight. I knew that the longer you were a vamp the harder it was to function during the day, especially when it was as sunny as this. Sure, it would take many years before you were truly forgettable, your features, your presence, everything about you fading from the memory of others, almost like a ghost to citizens or those who didn't know you well, and the same went for the sun thing. Ivan was struggling already, preferred the dark, but he could still cope. Just.

  He still used an umbrella, although he wasn't so far gone down the rabbit hole that he made a goon hold it for him. Ivan was from the rough end of the criminal life, same as me, and there were certain things he would never do, feeling like a betrayal of his roots.

  "What's going on, Ivan?" I asked as he approached and the goons stared at me from behind dark glasses.

  "That's exactly what I'd like to know. You said you were coming to see me?" Ivan stepped close, and I caught a whiff of the scent that became stronger every month. A sweetness, a mustiness, the essence of the earth and the night. Of how freshly dug ground smells after a shower on a summer's day.

  "Yeah, I thought you were still operating from here. Guess not."

  "I moved last week, thought you knew?"

  "Nope. In case you've forgotten, we haven't been in contact lately."

  "How could I forget? Please, ride with me?"

  "I've got my own car."

  "I'll have it brought along." Ivan spoke quietly to a goon and he nodded. Reluctantly, but not wanting to have an argument as we hadn't seen each other more than once or twice since an incident with a book that saw me abruptly stop obtaining artifacts for the vamps, I handed my keys to the goon.