Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 25: First-Day Jitters

The relentless nightmares chased me awake a full two hours before my alarm. Behind my lids, impossibly large, red-eyed Nosferatu lunged at Keel with knives and swords and an assortment of other edged weapons. They kept coming and coming, as ghoulish and single-minded as horror movie zombies. I fought off one wave, two, five, fourteen, until I had no magical energy left to protect Keel and myself from their onslaught and I screamed myself back to consciousness. 

Still unable to shake the rattled feeling ten minutes later, I climbed into the shower and cranked the dial until the water was as hot as I could stand it, as if it was possible to scald the images from my brain. Blood, teeth, rent flesh, Keel's limp body hanging in my arms, yelling at him with my mouth and the bond and getting nothing in return, and then an cacophonous internal explosion that rocked my every bone, muscle, cell, organ – an unimaginable cry of the body and soul that left a vast chasm of emptiness in its wake, and the horrifying realization that bond was gone - no pull, no spark, no rightness, no Keel. The body I was holding was not just unconscious but...

None of it was real, I told myself, but a fresh set of violent shivers tore through me nonetheless. In the dream, the hollowness had been more painful than the Nosferatu tearing at me. That was life without Keel. An unwanted nocturnal preview. And then death. Either way, death. Was that a premonition? Was that something sorcerers could do?

I sank to my knees so I wouldn't fall down and crack my head off the tiles. Get a hold of yourself, Mills, I thought as I thumped in the tap, cutting the water. It was just a dream. Another nightmare like the hundreds of others you've had since finding out vampires exist. This one is just first-day jitters. That's all.

So why didn't I believe it?

Fuelled by a desperate but irrational and all consuming need to know the waking world was indeed the real one and that I still shared it with the king, I prodded the bond. It found Keel above me, calm, probably still asleep. See, I told myself.  Nevertheless the tendrils of panic stuck with me as I towelled off and strode back into the bedroom.

I pulled a fresh pair of socks and underwear from those that had been recovered from my backpack, and yanked a black T-shirt over my head. My old bra and undies, the threadbare ones I'd been washing in the sink every day for months, went straight into the trash. Then I set about climbing into my tactical suit with its copious zippers and buckles. Once suited up, further examination in the mirror was warranted, and I liked what I saw. The garment hugged my torso and limbs, but the abundance of pockets and padding made my narrow frame broader and more muscular looking. I crouched, then stood and slipped into a couple combat stances. Not bad. Despite the weight of suit, it didn't impede my movement too much. I returned to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth and fastened my hair in a tight ponytail, and then declared myself done.

A glance at the living room wall clock informed me I still had more than an hour before I was due upstairs, and I knew exactly what I was going to do with that time.

After retrieving Keel's gifts from the bookshelf two at a time, I spread them out on the desk and took a seat. I picked up the one directly in front of me and opened the cover. SORCERY: A HISTORY, the first page proclaimed in blocky, ornate letters. Flipping through the first few pages, I saw that not only had Keel had the book translated, but all the artwork and diagrams had also been painstakingly reproduced - by hand. I closed Sorcery: A History and opened the one beside it. SORCERY: KNOWN SPELLS AND INCANTATIONS, this one announced. It had been created with a similar amount of care and I didn't doubt that if I held it up beside its counterpart in the museum it would be identical except for the language and some slight differences in the penmanship and illustration techniques of the artist.