Free Carnage (Remastered) by Vladimir Duran Page B

distinct traces. There was no
way to remove them or he'd have done it already.
    But if they didn't
find him they
might assume he'd moved on. They would consider the city just a
temporary hunting ground. The Broken Bolts would look for him
elsewhere. For that to have a chance to work, however, he would
have to leave everything behind. Anything that made the city seem
like something other than a temporary place to sleep painted a
target on it.
    Staying and hiding was out of the question.
Finding and killing people like Vlad was what Knight Hunters did.
Eventually, they would sniff him out. And, if not him, those traces
would lead them to people who knew him. The Hunters would hurt them
to get to him. That was how they worked.
    Shit! They might do it even if he did run.
They'd tear the city apart looking for clues to where he might have
run off to. Why hadn't he thought of this before?
    No, there was only one way for this to work
out so he could keep his life. Make it seem as if they'd been
deliberately lured here as part of a trap. Anything the Hunters
found after that would be written off as part of the trap. They
would investigate of course but they'd start out with bad
assumptions. Everything they found would looked like it was just
there the make the bait more genuine. Of course, you didn't set a
trap in your own home. You did it somewhere far away. Somewhere you
didn't care about. But, for the lie to work, the trap would have to
appear to be successful. He would have to kill more of them. Kill
them all.
    Or he could walk away right now and he
wouldn't have to take another life this night. All he had to do was
leave everything and everyone he cared about behind and run.
    He took a breath, slowed his racing thoughts
and focused on what mattered.
    All his life he'd heard that life was
precious and that killing was wrong. But there was one simple truth
that no amount of sanctimonious bullshit could wash away. The lives
of all these Knights Hunters combined were not as valuable to him
as his own. He thought of Whit and the feeling he got when she
kissed him, her lips hungry against his. Ethan, with whom he argued
incessantly and who'd taught him everything about what it meant to
be a wizard. Kat, who teased and mocked him constantly, his first
in many ways but chiefly his first real friend. His mother, who
never threw the sacrifices she'd made for him in his face, no
matter how much be bickered with her.
    Vlad knew what it was to be alone, truly
alone. Alone not because of an absence of people but alone because
you couldn't connect to them. Becoming a wizard, a Knight had saved
him form that. He'd fought it, fought the connections. But they'd
dragged him kicking and screaming into being a real boy. And now he
was scared to go back. Without them in his life he just know that's
what would happen.
    In that moment Vlad had the power to choose
between the lives of these soldiers and his. So he chose. He would
not walk away. These people had chosen to make their living off the
pain and suffering of others. Looking down at the man he had just
killed he expected to feel sadness or pity or something like
regret. He was supposed to. You were supposed to regret killing…but
he didn't. All he felt, was contempt for someone who whored
themselves to the council.
    He took another breath and focused on his
absolute conviction that he was doing the right thing. The world
became firm under his feet again as brought himself back into the
Knight State. There were formal names for it but he didn't use
them. When he was focused, he shed his identity as Vlad, son of a
human woman and became the Knight, son of battle.
    All Knights were born for war, but most were
forced to suppress their abilities around other wizard in order to
hide from the Hunters. Without training those abilities atrophied
and would come only as imperfect shadows of their full
capabilities. But Vlad didn't live among other wizards, and humans
didn't have the context to understand