Alec could have kicked himself, quite possibly to death. It certainly would have saved the First Response team the trouble.

He considered just denying it flatly but the moment of hesitation had already cost him the time needed to make his protests convincing.

It occurred to the teenager that he was, in fact, an idiot. Of course his description had been passed along by Janiah, hells possibly even by Lutan as well, and he’d never even considered it. All his efforts had amounted to nothing more than handing Erebus’ pursuers a hostage.

Alec wracked his brains on how best to help his missing mentor, eventually settling upon telling the truth. “He’s not here, hasn’t been for days.”

“I see. Any reason I should believe you?” His captor asked politely. “You’re listed as an accomplice.”

“Accomplice in what?” Alec protested, not quite stamping his foot.

“The slaughter of Mori’s Respite, attempted murder of a Lord Protector, murder of a fae lord and the attempted murder of the Lord of Autumn.” The pyromancer replied, stepping back sharply as Alec actually took a swing at him.

“That lying, scum-sucking, duplicitous, murdering jackass!” The teenager roared, going for a second swing as the others managed to grab hold of his arms, fury giving him strength enough they had to struggle slightly to do it.

“That’s a hell of an accusation.” The third man commented, revealing himself to be one of the two paladins attached to the squad. A broad-shouldered and rather towering auburn haired gentleman with a five o’clock shadow doing nothing to soften his tanned features.

“Lutan tried to kill me!” He yelled back, “He used null manacles on Holly! He kidnapped Von Mori!”

“Unlikely.” The young paladin replied, “What you’re describing would be unconscionable and borderline impossible besides, a creature of Von Mori’s strength could not be suborned by a mortal man.”

“So the question becomes what do we do with the kid?” The pyromancer shook his head despairingly. It was Alec had to admit an important question, for himself especially.

The necromancer shrugged, “Simplify the situation.” He replied as he drew a finger across his throat theatrically.

The paladin winced, “I would prefer if no innocent blood were spilled.”

“That ship has already sailed.” The other paladin, a middle-aged woman who could very well have been Janiah’s twin, stated frankly.

“A hostage could be useful.” The remaining mage suggested sweetly, the woman who’s pale green robe Alec had been unable to identify. “Erebus has a reputation for sentiment.”

It occurred to Alec it was probably a good idea to agree with that. It also occurred to him that as the hostage in question his opinion was essentially meaningless. Fortunately the younger paladin was quick to second his green robed ally, “Even the most hard hearted of fiends would hesitate when a child’s life is at stake.” The side-eye he was giving his more violent colleagues made it quite clear he didn’t just mean Erebus.

“How do we handle this then? We’ve no way of knowing when or even if Erebus will return, if he’s even absent in the first place.” The pyromancer mused.

“We can be fairly certain he’s not here at the moment or he’d have attacked the moment Cal suggested killing the boy. Hells he’d never have allowed him to approach us in the first place.” The green mage pointed out.

“We need somewhere to hole up then. Somewhere defensible.” The necromancer, Cal, pointed out. “I’d suggest the infirmary, it’s larger and there’s only one entrance or exit.”

Alec managed to swallow his wince, the worst case scenario continuing to unfold before him. The candle of hope still burned brightly in his chest however, if they were going to move him to the infirmary then Amara would certainly get a chance to strike and they hadn’t even thought him enough of a threat to even disarm him.

For all that it was galling to be seen as little more than a child playing dress up, it at least gave him a chance. If he was right about Amara, and it was a big if, she’d try to take out at least two of them in the opening attack and it wouldn’t be whoever was assigned to keep him under control.

Fire, even under the control of a master pyromancer, was still fire. Or so he’d been told. Alec had his doubts about that, he’d seen both Erebus and Amara do things with magical flames that defied his understanding, but the point was that heat had a tendency to bloom and the energy needed to kill a person in an instant would certainly give him flash burns from being too close.

The pyromancer came to a conclusion, “Arkos, keep the boy prisoner. We’ll fortify the infirmary and wait a week, if he’s not back by then we were never here. Keep your shields up, just because Erebus isn’t here doesn’t mean the mages that sprung him aren’t. Everyone understand?”

There were murmurs of agreement, though the man-mountain of Arkos didn’t seem happy about it. Nevertheless he did his duty, clamping a gauntleted grip on Alec’s shoulder. “I do not wish to hurt you but if you run then I will.” The words as regretful as morning rain, and, in Alec’s mind, meaning about as little. As unhappy as the paladin was about it, he was still following the orders.

Slowly the group left the Guardian’s office, Arkos keeping Alec in front as a shield. The teenager didn’t tense, not only would it have given away that he was expecting something but it would make breaking away from the paladin knight much harder. Quietly Alec resolved that if he survived this he was going to buy Saiko a beer.

The attack came the moment the door closed on Ilvere’s office. A cerulean lance of fire that made Cal more or less explode as the blood in his body boiled instantly into steam, the beam piercing straight through the necromancer’s skin-tight shield as if it were no more than a soap bubble. Behind Cal the office’s outer wall caught fire, a particularly concerning development given it had been built from stone.

A second lance splashed off an invisible bubble shield around the team leader, the pyromancer going so far as the drop the shield and redirect the flames with his own magic, sending it right back at Amara.

It was a good call. The vampire’s fire had a mana-devouring component and few shields could hold out against it.

Alec took that as his cue, not pulling away from Arkos but moving inwards in that moment of surprise, grabbing the wrist of the paladin’s grip and turning sharply to send the armoured behemoth over his hip, ass over teakettle.

The rest of the First Response team reacted swiftly, the green robed mage stepping up to support her leader. It turned out the pale green robe denoted an aeromancer, a master of air magic, who proved equally a problem for Amara as she summoned a harsh wind at their backs, making any flames much harder for Amara to push through the gap between them and easier for their leader.

It was a clever solution, and also standard practice, which meant Amara was prepared for it. The vampire had leapt over the lance of redirected flame, bounded off a wall and had already closed half the distance bounding on all fours like some form of hairless wolf or perhaps large hunting cat.

That at least made it clear why she’d taken the time to strip down, she’d never have been able to move like that in a heavy robe without tripping over it.

Against just mages, even veteran ones, that would likely have been the end of it. A vampire in close quarters was one of Reath’s deadlier threats, but there was still one member of the team unaccounted for.

The weathered paladin stepped forwards to meet Amara even as their leader let out a loud cry of “Vampire!”

The swordswoman wasn’t as fast as Amara, not even close, nor as strong, but her armour stopped the glowing mage from simply pulling an arm off or clawing chunks out of her chest and the reach provided by her sword kept the monster at bay.

A second use for Amara’s near-nudity revealed itself. The barely restrained ignition where the vampire was being exposed to direct sunlight was turning her into a veritable beacon, it made aiming spells at her a lot harder and keeping track of her arms a hell of a lot harder.

Alec saw little of this, too consumed by his own problems. He might have successfully thrown Arkos but that hadn’t gotten him free and clear. The paladin was a professional fighter and he’d rolled to his feet almost instantly, drawing his longsword.

The teenager had drawn out his spatha, unclipping the sheathe in a practiced motion and letting it run parallel to his forearm. The two men stared at each other, daring the other to make the first move.

Alec very slowly and carefully unclasped his cloak, not letting his gaze wander from Arkos as it spooled down around his feet, the teenager kicking it aside, sure it revealed his body armour and the bandoleer of phials on his chest but having freedom to move properly was a vital part of not getting stabbed in a vital part.

“Someone trained you well.” The paladin observed calmly, “But you must see you are outmatched. Surrender and I won’t have to hurt you.”

It was a fair point. The spatha was not a very long blade, and Arkos had over a foot of height on him and full body armour compared to his lone vest. Saiko could probably have won, but it was a distant prospect that Alec could beat the paladin in a sword fight. As in from here to the sun levels of distant. Which was why Alec had no intention of getting into a sword fight with him.

“Someone trained you well.” Alec echoed, trying to channel his inner Erebus, “But you must see you are outmatched. Surrender and I won’t have to hurt you.”

Arkos laughed, a deep bass rumble of genuine mirth, “Very well.”

Fights are seldom long affairs, especially when naked steel was involved. Genuine masters like Saiko and the Swordsman might be capable of an extended duel but most swordfights lasted little more than a few moments.

The paladin led with a heavy overhead strike, holding his blade in two hands. There was no way Alec would be able to block it, at least not with the spatha. The scabbard instead rose to catch the blade, the sword biting deep into it but not slicing through. It ruined Arkos’ intended follow up, having to yank the blade back to try and free it.

It didn’t work, Alec releasing the sheathe instead as he brought his own blade down on the paladin’s swordarm. It didn’t achieve much, just bouncing off the armour but it kept Arkos’ sword arm out of play for a few moments as Alec selected a phial from Sato’s bandoleer at random and threw it at the paladin, diving away and to the ground for good measure.

There was no explosion, no thundercrack or other blast of terrible power. For a moment Alec feared he’d accidentally grabbed some kind of healing potion, or possibly even cleaning agent – Sato hadn’t been kind enough to label his things – but then Arkos began to scream.

Looking up from his groundhog impression Alec watched in horror as the paladin simply began to melt, enchanted armour and all. Thankfully for Alec’s sanity the screaming didn’t last long, flesh shouldn’t melt but it was managing it anyway and once the phial’s effect got deep into Arkos’ chest the sound turned into a wretched gurgle and then merciful silence.

The teenager stared in horrified disbelief at the puddle of paladin, his blade falling numbly from trembling fingers. He knew he should be trying to help Amara, but right now it was all he could do not to throw up. Scratch that, it wasn’t something he could do and a gratuitously large pool of vomit began to mingle with what was left of Arkos.

Amara’s fight wasn’t going half so well. She might have been stronger, faster and better at magic, but it was very hard to be all three of those things at once. If she tried to back off and blast them with spellwork the paladin would harry and harass her. If she tried to overbear and overpower the paladin she’d be cut apart by the mages’ spells and as wonderful as superior speed was it so far wasn’t allowing her to bring to bear the power, magical or physical, needed to kill them.

The situation was worse than that, the blinding effect of ‘vampire trying not to catch fire’ was damn useful and had certainly saved her life several times in the last half-minute but she was beginning to blister and sizzle audibly and the spell was getting harder to maintain as her concentration wavered and waned.

They would whittle her down like this. The mages weren’t even bothering with shields anymore, not only could Amara destroy them but it was simply easier to redirect her flames and the paladin was making sure she couldn’t close with them. They’d obviously done this particular song and dance before, perhaps not pyromancer and vampire at once but certainly separately.

Amara had had enough. The vampire flipped back over an invisible blade of air that had been intended to bisect her at the waist, making distance before she pointed an index finger at the paladin then closed her eyes. There was a flash of actinic light, lighting up Amara’s vision even through her dark eyelids.

Opening her eyes again she saw the two mages reeling, temporarily blinded though they at least had sense enough to summon their shields and send more spells in her general direction to try and keep her off their backs.

The paladin hadn’t been so lucky. The fire spell Amara had used didn’t rely on foolish things like conduction or convection, air meant nothing to it. A beam of hideous radiation, heat in its purest form, no thicker than finger and totally invisible, had taken her in the chest, pierced the protective runes and vaporized the metal and had done the same to the back of her gleaming mail for good measure.

The armour fell down in several pieces, not from any damage done to it by Amara but because the owner was now nothing more than a pile of glowing ashes pooling in the greaves. It was perhaps a testament to the runesmith’s skill that the armour had held up as well as it had but it was little solace for the paladin’s comrades.

They were facing a vampire, and their best defence was dead.

What followed was as inevitable as it was swift. Amara slaking her thirst from a defiant pyromancer who even now was trying to put punches into her short ribs, her magic locked down by the much stronger mage.

Amara ignored the punches as she stared in bemusement at the hand she’d used to fire the spell. Her index finger was gone. Simply gone. At the point where finger met hand there was a perfect circle of scorched flesh, rapidly healing. The finger remained gone.

Vampires could, in theory, heal from lost limbs, given enough blood and enough time, but Amara suspected she wasn’t going to be using her writing hand for several decades at least. Fire was the best weapon against vampires for a reason, the wounds had a nasty habit of sticking around well past their welcome.

It had been necessary. In a single moment she’d pulled back the spell protecting her from catching fire and instead accelerated the process, all the energy of burning the digit to less than ash, and vampires burned very energetically, all channelled into a single moment, amplified by one of the finest pyromancers the Academy Vulcanus could lay claim to, and then projected at her foe.

Finishing her meal Amara put her robe back on, putting the hood up for good measure. Even with a mage’s worth of vitae she was exhausted and not in the mood for having to fend off the sun’s rays for a good long while.

It was only then she walked over to poor Alec, the teenager still dry-heaving onto the worn cobbles.

“Nasty way to go.” She noted, staring at the puddle that had been Arkos. “You did well. Better than I expected.” She sought the words to try and ease his heart. She didn’t find any.

Slowly she helped him to his feet instead, Alec unsteady in his queasiness. The young man had seen death before, up close, but he’d never been the one to do the deed before. The horror of the kill had been an unwelcome bonus.

“H-Holly’s in the infirmary.” He managed, gulping down air before cautiously pulling away from her.

That wasn’t a meeting he was particularly looking forwards to either. Holly’s descriptions of what she was going to do to him were getting both increasingly graphic and anatomically unlikely.

That at least was comforting. It was nice to see the tree spirit had maintained the prickly nature of her namesake.