Max steeled his nerves and readied his stance, just as Gerald had drilled into him many times. Miranda’s blade ignited with green necrotic energy as she readied herself. Then the beast lunged. Max assumed it would go for him, as he had the open wound. But he was surprised when it instead charged for Miranda; its fingernails growing longer until they were sharp claws.

  The beast extended his arm into a wide slash that came for Miranda’s throat. She shouted a word Max didn’t understand and extended her arm. She winced in pain as a blue field appeared in front of her. The vampire’s claws came in and Max was certain he would kill Miranda. But instead they slammed against the blue field and ricocheted off like steel on steel. The blue field dropped and Miranda lunged, cleaving up with her necrotic dagger.

  The beast howled and staggered for a moment as the blade cut him from abdomen to chest. Max was ready to jump in and give Miranda a hand. He hefted the buckler and readied his knife. But as soon as he charged forward Miranda stopped him.

  “Go!” She yelled at him. “We have to find a way out!”

  “We need to kill it!” Max responded, unwilling to abandon her.

  Miranda shoved him towards the stairs following him close. “Vampires can only be killed by silver weapons, radiant light, or necrotic energy. We only have one of those and it’s the least effective!”

  Max understood her concern and fled up the stairs, Miranda right behind him. However, she only got halfway up when something tripped her. Max looked down in horror at Miranda’s leg, a large pale hand gripping her ankle tightly. The vampire was at the base of the stairs reaching high, his smile widening as he opened his mouth. His teeth all slowly grew longer and pointed.

  “Ffffoooooood!” The vampire screamed and yanked Miranda back down the stairs. She screamed as she was pulled down to the beast. Max responded with the only thing he had. He flipped his knife once then hurled it down the staircase. He could almost hear the lecture from Gerald. Never throw your only weapon, no matter how cool you think it makes you look.

  The blade spun end over end until it reached the vampire, pommel first. The heavy steel tang of the pommel punched the vampire in the nose with more force than Max expected. It screamed and reared back letting go of Miranda’s ankle. The distraction would only last seconds at most but Miranda used it. She turned back around and dashed up the stairs. Max grabbed her arm and pulled her into the first room he saw.

  “Come on hurry!” He yelled at her. Together they fled into the room and slammed the door closed. Max quickly dragged a dresser over and placed it in front of the door just as something heavy slammed into it. The vampire’s feral scream sounded again from the staircase as he repeatedly slammed into the thin door. Cracks formed quickly along the plaster frame. “It’s not going to hold Miranda!”

  “I don’t know if I have enough energy to kill it!” Miranda shouted over the pounding on the door.

  Max didn’t have time to respond as the next moment the door burst open, the vampire sprinting inside like a mad dog. He turned straight for Miranda again and charged. But never reached her. Max dove forward tackling the beast against the wall. The vampire’s reactions were inhumanly fast and it immediately spun in his arms to face him. It unhinged its massive jaw to clamp down on Max’s arm but was met with the rusty iron of his buckler.

  Max was left with no dagger and resorted to punching the beast over and over. His fists landed on what felt like a sack of potatoes. Organic but firm, his knuckles bled. Then something flashed in the vampire’s eyes. Fear? Max could feel the vampire’s strength slipping away the longer he held onto him.

  That didn’t last long however as the vampire brought a knee up into Max’s stomach. Max let go from the force and the vampire grabbed him by the arm and tossed him into a far corner.

  Max hit hard and his eyes spotted with white dots. He heard the clang of steel and caught blurry glimpses of Miranda fighting the vampire. She desperately blocked his claws with her knife while trying to land more hits with her necrotic blade. But the vampire had learned its lesson and shored its defense. It was a back and forth parry of attacks, neither one willing to overextend. Then Miranda made eye contact with Max as he slowly stood, chasing the daze from his head.

  “Max, the window!” Miranda shouted across to him. The window? The vampire took the minute distraction to lunge forward. He got past Miranda’s defenses and swatted her dagger away. Then quicker than Max thought possible he reached up, grabbed Miranda by the arms, and bit down hard on her shoulder. She screamed in pain.

  “No!” Max thought and charged forward, then stopped. He turned to the window, a faint bit of vampire lore surfacing to his mind. The window! He raced over to the window as fast as he could and tried to pry the wood from the shutters, all fused together due to rain and time. Damn it won’t open! Max looked over at Miranda, who was now being jerked back and forth by the vampire like a mountain lion does to its prey. She desperately smacked the beast on the face with her hands to no effect.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Max turned back to the window and pulled off his buckler. He wedged its rim under a bit of wood and pressed with all his strength.

  Pop!

  The shutter broke free and clattered to the ground. Sunlight poured into the room like a wave. The vampire screamed behind Max as its flesh bubbled under the direct rays. It wasn’t killing the beast, just painfully searing its hide. Miranda shakily stood, blood pouring from her wound. She looked sickly and pale, but most of all, she looked angry. She stepped forward towards the vampire and outstretched her right hand.

  Miranda spoke clearly, in that ancient language. This time not a single command or a whisper of a few words. But one long punctual sentence. She contorted in pain as the magic took hold, her arm wreathed in green necrotic energy. The vampire turned to snarl, but stopped the moment he saw her. For a brief moment, a semblance of his former humanity surfaced in his feral face.

  “Impossible.” He said as Miranda released a torrent of energy. The vampire screamed as the green energy poured from her hand. It was a torrent of death.

  “Death unmakes death!” She shouted as the beast fell to his knees. She walked closer, unstable but still standing. Max could see the flesh melting from his bone, the claws and fangs crumbling away into ash. Why didn’t we start with that? Then Max saw why.

  Miranda’s skin was starting to thin, becoming almost translucent. Her eyes fogged, her hand that wielded the magic becoming bony. She’s dying.

  Max remembered what she said about the side effect of some spells, necromancy having the worst as it consumed life around it. Only this time, she was fueling that cost. Her spell wasn’t just taking her energy it was taking her life.

  “Miranda stop!” Max shouted to her, but she did not listen. Her eyes were set with determination as she poured more and more energy over the vampire. He crumbled under her power, screaming for mercy. There was none for him. Max watched as the last bit of feral light evaporated from the vampire’s eyes. He watched as the corpse disintegrated into nothing but ash. Miranda had unmade the creature. Then she released her magic and collapsed.

  Max rushed over to her, propping her up against a dusty wooden beam. “Miranda? Miranda are you ok?”

  Her head lolled to the side as she mumbled a few words he couldn’t hear. He pulled back his hand, now sticky with blood. Her shoulder. He scanned the wound but couldn’t see much with her thick leather top. I have to stop the bleeding. He quickly unlaced the thick cord that kept her leather coat in place. He pulled back the leather and a bit of the cotton tunic underneath, just enough to inspect the wound. What he saw made him step back.

  It wasn’t just the wound, which was grotesquely stitching itself back together. It was what was etched into her skin that gave him a start. A hypnotic pattern of magic runes were carved into Miranda’s flesh. They hummed with life as the skin around them maintained the redness of a fresh wound. This was not some beautiful tapestry of body art, it was a cruel torture. Like the writing of a madman etched into this woman’s skin. He looked at her face as she blinked away her daze, and their eyes locked.

  Slowly she stood, on unsteady feet. She looked down in shame as she pulled her leathers back onto her shoulder and tightened the cord. Max stared at her for a long moment, unsure of what to say. What even would someone say to this? Is this how she has been casting spells without runes? She’s using her own body as a weapon.

  “What….what happened?” Max finally asked unable to think of anything more appropriate. Miranda didn’t flinch, she didn’t wince, she just stared at the floor before looking to Max with almost no emotion on her face. This was clearly a pain she had relived countless times.

  “High Magistrate Graves,” She said softly. She walked to the pile of ash the vampire had become and kicked at it, as if to make sure he was really dead. “Carving runes into….skin. Is highly taboo, even among the worst Arcanists. It’s unpredictable, and always leads to the subject’s death. Only a small handful of people are known to have survived the process. I am one of those.”

  Max looked her over and realized that this ‘process’ must not be a quick one. Something that had probably happened to her over the course of years. He shuddered at the thought of such torture. A little bit of the world died for him in that moment, it grew just a little bit darker.

  “I’m so sorry Miranda.” he said softly, knowing the words would have little meaning. She just nodded like it was something she had heard before. She cleared her throat and wiped a tear from her eye.

  “Yes well it is what it is.” She said stoically, as her cynical, analytical mask fell over her face again. “I can’t change what happened to me. I can’t make those who I called family not betray me. I can only move forward.”

  “We will bring them to justice Miranda.” Max said with as much bravado as he could muster. “We will see to it that they pay for everything they have done to you and anyone else.”

  “No Max.” Miranda said flatly. She retrieved her dagger from the floor. “We are going to kill them.”

  Max nodded quickly. The realization of what laid in front of them now fully settling in his gut. This wouldn’t be a campaign for glory and justice. It would be a hunt. Miranda would clearly not stop until everyone who had done this to her was dead. And Max, he accepted that. It scared him a little how well he accepted the idea. He felt defensive for the woman, someone he didn’t even know if he would call a friend yet. We will kill them all.

  “That just leaves us with one more issue, before we get to town.” Miranda said before walking towards the window, making sure to not stand directly in front of it. Her color had slowly returned to normal, her arm just as it had been before. “What do we do with him.”

  Max peered outside the window, to see a lone figure walking towards the guardhouse, bow in hand. Verick of Valewood.