Chapter 15

The three of them stood for a long moment under the darkening sky before Snow let out a breath and pulled his sword back from Titus’s neck. He gave the man one last glare before turning to Lia.

“Might I know the names of my rescuers?” She asked and for the first time there was a glimmer of a smile on her half-burnt face now smeared with Waldron’s fresh blood.

Snow admitted that it was a wise choice in that tense moment to return them both to the civility of introductions that were neglected in the storm from this ill-conceived scheme. Anything to keep this moment from sliding down the slope of suspicion and into another round between the two of them.

“My name is Korvinian Snow, and this,” Snow paused to give Titus one more glare, “is Titus Helm… or so he says.” Snow said, letting his voice dip a little with the accusation. Titus scowled at it briefly before giving a courteous nod to Lia.

“Thank you both,” Lia replied.

“It’s not over yet. We need to get that collar off,” Snow added. He then glanced back at zombie-Waldron. He had half a mind to march the dead hunter back into town and make his corpse a slave to the villagers’ whims. Surely, they could use some extra hands after the death and injury the hunter had brought to them. But Snow knew that gently resurrecting a loved one was already at the borders of their acceptance. Walking a zombie into their town could easily cross the line.

He turned to Waldron one last time. “Walk off into the woods,” he ordered him. Like a puppet pulled by invisible strings, Waldron got to his wobbly feet and turned towards the oak wood in the distance.

“What are you going to do with him?” Titus asked.

“I’m going to give him an hour to get good and far from here before ending the magic. No need to make the nearby farmer have to deal with his corpse.” Snow sheathed his sword and then started back.

Despite having a sword at his throat just a moment ago, Titus graciously stepped back to let Snow and Lia walk past him through the half-crushed stalks back to the empty road. Again, Titus followed at a distance and didn’t say a word until they had reached the borders of the village.

“I doubt we’re going to find a smith willing to help us,” he said as he cautiously stepped closer to Lia.

“We only need the use of his cutters,” Snow replied as he led the way to a forge he knew on the south end of the town. Unfortunately, the forge was locked up tight against the cold and when Snow knocked, he found a woman with tears still lining her face. She told him that her husband was a victim at the gallows and was quick to slam the door in their face.

Snow huffed and looked back at Lia. The vampire had tugged his jacket close to hide her half-naked form against the scrutiny of villagers who would wonder at the sight. She didn’t want them to take a closer look and see the blood or silver collar.

For a moment, Snow considered breaking in and simply taking the cutters, but an unusual pang of guilt would not let him. This little village had lost so much in the last few days. He could not bring himself to take more from them and risk creating more drama that might follow him to the next stop.

“We’ll head back to the stable at the inn,” Snow replied grimly before leading the way.

“What about the collar?” Titus asked.

“I’ll remove it.”

✵✵✵

The stable was quiet until the three of them entered. While Snow’s dappled mare was happy to see him, Titus’s stallion stamped at the sight of Lia until Titus could calm him down. He was still stroking him when Snow led Lia to bare corner and crouched with her on the packed earth. They had brought a lantern with them from the inn and he now set it down at their knees to cast tall foreboding shadows on the wooden walls.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’m sorry, but I will first need to remove the coat,” Snow said as he started to collect her brittle hair to one side, twisting it into a rope before bringing her hand up to hold it.

“What are you going to do?” Lia asked as he trusted him to take hold of the silver ring and gently slide his coat collar out from against her neck. Even in the dim light, Snow could see the black flakes of burn skin littering the inside of his coat. Her body was starting to heal, but it would never fully recover unless the silver was removed. At such proximity, it was like the sun baking human skin on a hot summer day… only many times worse.

“I can’t promise this won’t hurt. I’m going to heat it until it’s soft enough to break. I will try to keep it from touching your skin.”

“Isn’t that thing magical? Can you just melt it?” Titus spoke up.

“There’s no ward on it or I wouldn’t be able to touch it at all.”

Titus grew quiet as Snow took the ring-like collar with both hands and held it in such a way that no edge touched the vampire’s neck.

It wasn’t hard to call the fire; to have it ignite in his hands and burn with the ferocity of his anger. The ring began to glow red in his hands and shadows on the wall trembled with the new light. The focused fire erupting in small flames from between his knuckles soon went from orange to blue. Heat quickly swelled and easily reached Titus as he stood at his horse’s stall. Any wayward strand of Lia’s hair burned instantly against it. As the radiant heat grew, Titus immediately worried if doing this in the stable was a bright idea.

Just as the vampire started to whimper from the searing temperature against her already damaged skin, Snow wrenched his hands. Steam erupted from his grip and there was a loud, metallic snap.

Fearing something went wrong, Titus quickly closed the distance and waved the sudden mist away to find Snow wrenching the glowing circle open. It took Titus a second to realize that Snow had called water to his hands, or more precisely ice, to shock the hot metal into snapping. And now that he had bent it out of shape, he was cooling it before gently slipping it off her.

It looked so effortless that he was surprised to find Snow falling back from his crouched position to catch his breath. The magician still had the deformed collar in his hands and was looking it over as he wiped perspiration from his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

“You made that look easy,” Titus commented with a touch of disbelief.

“It wasn’t. This wasn’t meant to simply pop off. It was put on her hot from the forge. I’m surprised it didn’t kill her.”

It was then that the men noticed Lia was sinking to the ground in a sobbing mess. The sound was a mixture of sadness and relief. Snow was ready to pull himself back on to his knees when Titus went down to lay a gentle hand on a rare undamaged patch of her back.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he said. She trembled under his touch a moment before lifting herself enough to cling to him.

Snow sat watching Lia sob bloody tears into Titus’s clothes for a long moment before wiping the rest away and steadying herself.

“Lia,” Snow spoke up as he came to his feet again. “You’re free to go.”

“I don’t know where to go,” she confessed as she continued to subdue the last of her sobs. “I thought I wanted my freedom,” she continued, “but I have no plans for it – not like this. Not alone with no safe refuge to return to.”

Snow did not know what to do either. He could not take a vampire on the road with him. Though traveling by night was not as dangerous for him, he could not risk the image. His trade was already a dark and mysterious subject which he countered by arriving during broad daylight, acting like just another merchant selling wares at the local inn. And who knew what attention Lia might attract on her own, even with her gentle nature. A vampire was still a vampire.

A little voice inside his head was quick to echo, and a monster is still a monster.

“Do you know anywhere she could go?” Titus’s gentle question interrupted his thoughts. Snow found the two of them looking to him for an answer. Titus’s brow was knitted in concern and Lia’s was covered in partially wiped streaks of bloody tears that almost gave a rosy hue to her pale face.

“I’ll need to think on it,” Snow said at length, he then addressed Lia, “you should rest for a day. We can discuss this again tomorrow night when you’ve had more time to heal.”

“Where is she going to sleep?” Titus asked. He raised his hand against the open stable that wouldn’t easily shelter a vampire come sunrise.

“My room only has one window to close. She can stay with me. I will make sure no one bothers her.”