Shadows of Mist, page 15
part #8 of The Vampire Gift Series
With a start, I realize how weak Beth’s strength seems. Her eyes go to mine, and I catch a secretive gleam in them.
She must have cloaked herself shortly after I agreed to allow her to come without me noticing.
“I am not putting that vile sack on,” I say. “You take me to the King as is, and if I cause any trouble, you are free to fight. But if you force me to wear it now, I will definitely fight, and in the end, only one will remain standing.”
I lock eyes with him, making him absolutely sure that I am serious.
After a few tense moments he backs down.
I guess he’s not so confident when directly facing a vampire who is his superior.
“The girl comes with me,” I announce, making good use of my temporary advantage.
“The King said only you,” the upstart vampire begins.
“You let me deal with Logan,” I growl. “You want to do your job? Then get to it, and lead the way!”
He grunts, takes a few steps back, motions at the other vampires, and starts walking.
Beth and I are flanked by the rest of the guard.
“Quite a welcome,” she notes under her breath.
“Would have gone smoother without you,” I say.
She punches me in the ribs. I grin.
We go all the way to the entrance doors of the fortress before suddenly turning down a side path.
“You’re not to be seen by the coven vampires until Logan says his piece,” their leader explains.
My lips thin in a frown, but I do not say anything.
We go around the outside of the grand facade. I glance up at the sky. It is nearing dawn.
We don’t have too much time to get inside.
He stops at an unremarkable partition in the wall. “Through here,” he tells me, and presses a stone slab that shifts easily under the pressure.
We are presented with a dark, wide, very tall tunnel.
Beth quirks an eyebrow at me. I give a small shrug. I did not know of this secret path.
Soon we are inside and marching underground. We walk for a long time in silence, until I decide to ask, “Why did Logan request to see me?”
The guard sniffs. “You think I question the orders of my King, or ask for his motivations?”
“Just wanted to see what you knew,” I reply.
We lapse back into silence and continue the walk.
Beth is looking around wide-eyed, trying to take everything in. Obviously, there’s not much to see in the tunnel, but I think she is trying to remember the exact way we’re going to get a feel for the layout of the place.
Finally, we’re presented with an unmarked door. “Through here,” the vampire barks. “The King will be made aware of your arrival.”
A sense of trepidation takes me as I push open the entrance.
“Huh.” I stop short before entering. This way leads to Beatrice’s underground chambers, the place where she conducted those vile experiments and where Riyu and I killed her creatures.
“Go on,” the vampire says. I step through, Beth close on my heels.
The door slams shut, and when I turn around, it is blended perfectly with the rock.
I give it a light push, testing it, but it doesn’t give. I grab a piece of jagged surface and try to pull it back. It doesn’t give.
“Well,” I say. “Here we are.” I glance at Beth. “Welcome to Beatrice’s experimentation rooms.”
Beth’s eyebrows go up. “She was here?”
“She basically lived here, in secret, when she wasn’t with Logan,” I say. I walk out toward the row of cells carved into the rock. “Nobody but her was ever allowed down here. Unfortunately for us, it looks like the place has been wiped clean.”
“Why did they bring us here?” she crosses her arms, suppressing a shiver. “The Currents feel… odd. They feel odd down here, Dagan, almost as if they are poisoned from within. There’s a taint in the air.” She walks to my side. “I don’t trust this place.”
“Were the Currents like that the whole time we were in The Crypts?”
“No,” she says. “Only once we stepped in here.”
“Then it’s no coincidence we were brought here,” I say. “Come on, let’s go see—”
I cut off when I hear the sound of very slow, very precise clapping come from around the corner.
I turn toward it and find Logan standing in the middle of the floor, leaning against some sort of grotesque-statue.
I’ve never laid eyes on it before.
It is two times his height and looks like the carcass of a gargoyle that’s been eroded by acid rain. The creature is frozen forever in a position of agony, skin and muscles melting under the downpour.
One look at it is enough to tell me that it is the pure embodiment of evil.
Logan pushes off. I hold an arm out behind me to tell Beth not to come any closer, not to let herself be seen.
Thankfully, for once, she complies without putting up a fight.
“Dagan, Dagan, Dagan,” Logan begins. “How it warms my heart to see you back in your coven, safe and unharmed.”
I narrow my eyes in suspicion and don’t say a word. Logan’s own eyes are absolutely clear—I do not see a speck of the miasma in them.
That throws me off guard.
“And I feel…” Logan sniffs the air, “…that you’ve brought a friend. Come out from hiding, little girl. Let me have a look at you.”
Cautiously, Beth steps out from around the corner. I wait for the obvious spark of recognition to come into his eyes.
But as he looks her over… it never comes.
“My, aren’t you a pretty one,” he says. “Where did you find her, Dagan? No matter. She is a much better sidekick for you than Riyu.”
He turns his back to both of us and regards the horrible statue. My instincts scream that something is terribly wrong.
I cannot put my finger on what it is.
“By the way, Dagan,” Logan says. “I must congratulate you on your great success. I’ll be honest—at the start, I doubted you had the gall to do it. I assumed you had turned soft. But—” he runs a hand over the creature’s outstretched arm, “—I am very glad that you were able to prove me wrong.”
I narrow my eyes, still not moving, sensing a trap. “What are you talking about?”
“Your murder of my bastard son, of course,” he gloats. “I felt the exact moment you snuffed out Riyu’s life. Very well done.”
I keep my face stone still, kept my body frozen in place, not daring to betray a single ounce of emotion.
Riyu is dead?
“I presume you came back to bask in your success,” Logan continues. “I assume you came here to bask in your glory.” Suddenly he spins back, and his eyes bore into me. “Isn’t that right, Dagan?”
I stiffen my back. “I never seek glory, and you know that. I live only to serve.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Logan says dismissively, fluttering his hand. “I know you don’t seek it, but, nonetheless, you expect a reward. Well, I have it here for you.”
He pulls out a small sealed vial, with a few drops of The Ancient’s blood inside.
Without warning he tosses it in the air. It arcs toward me. I snatch it.
“You must decide who will be granted the precious gift, of course,” he says. “After all, I cannot let you get away with absolutely no accountability for what you did to me when we met in the other dimension.”
“I—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Logan says. “Spare me. I don’t need your explanations. I just need to ensure that you are still the warrior I first appointed my Lieutenant. Are you that vampire, Dagan?”
Without letting me answer, he spins his hand, and a sudden portal is created in midair. Deep hatred of Blood Magic runs through me, chilling me to the bone.
“My pet here,” he says, touching the statue again, “will help ensure the suitability of your… character. If you survive the encounter, all is forgiven. And if you don’t—” now the miasma is clear, storming in his eyes, “—if you don’t, my demon here will have no problem devouring you and the girl. Good luck.”
And just like that, he steps through the portal.
...and the statue starts to move.
Chapter Nineteen
Eleira
Beneath The Haven.
I stand frozen in place, watched by those awful screechers.
I feel wholly helpless. Somehow, Rebecca’s dried herb was able to repel all the currents from reaching me. Without my connection to them, I cannot access even the other well of magic given to me by the Forsaken Sisters.
With the screechers watching my every move, I cannot make use of my vampire gifts, either.
I feel totally trapped, worse than when I was bound against the wall by Morgan and being tortured. Here, all of my powers have been taken away.
Even worse, my ability to protect the vampires of The Haven has been taken away.
The clock ticks by. The Tentoria watch me silently from outside the cave. The bodies of their slain kin lie scattered around me. None of the still-living ones show any sort of response to that.
I wonder how alive any of them really are.
Carefully, slowly, I put one foot forward. The screechers do not react. I take a step to them. They do not react.
Slightly emboldened, I walk very slowly to the exit.
Only when I’m a few feet away do the ones in the first row tense and open their mouths as if to scream.
I stop immediately and step away. They relax.
At the very least I’m allowed to move around in here.
I glance back at the one woman trapped by the invisible walls. Something tugs at my memory again when I look upon her shape… but I cannot quite grasp it.
Very slowly, trying to show them I’m not afraid, I turn my back to the screechers and walk to the woman’s prison.
The rubble is piled high on top of it. The runes in the stone slab are active. I don’t understand how they can operate on magic given the fact none of the Currents reach inside.
Perhaps it is connected to the outside world through some sort of conduit in the floor beneath, I don’t know.
All I know is that such luxury is not afforded to me.
Again, very, very slowly, I reach up and start to pick the pieces of stone and rock off. The screechers don’t seem to mind me uncovering the prison. That gives me a small bit of confidence and a little bit of hope.
As I work, my mind drifts to Riyu, to the sad shape of his empty body, to his corpse being dragged away.
I failed him. I failed him in the worst possible way, after I promised him my protection.
My eyes moisten. Angrily, I swipe at them. I will not let Rebecca reduce me to tears!
That bolt of anger makes me more determined to unearth the old woman’s prison. Rebecca did not say anything against it, and it seems that as long as I remain in the room I am free to do what I want.
It takes a long time to finish. The whole way through I expect to be interrupted by Rebecca’s return.
That does not happen. Eventually I reach the bottom of the pile and scrub the last bits of dust off.
I get my first look at the woman’s face and gasp.
It… can’t be. No!
But yes, there she is: Cassandra.
Of course, it is a Cassandra many years aged… but the resemblance is unmistakable.
Suddenly, all the pieces fall into place. Cassandra was taken down here by the Tentoria. She was pulled away from Raul while unconscious but without being killed. And Rebecca, who was the first vampire to have her soul severed from her body, has somehow survived here all these years…
A soft laugh comes from behind me. I stiffen but do not turn around.
Don’t let her see you nervous.
“Do you like it?” Rebecca asks, walking into the room and stopping by my side. For the first time I get a flickering sort of sense of her presence. It’s strange. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it before. There are long moments when I don’t feel anything, and then suddenly there’s a small burst, and I feel her acutely… but not for long enough to judge her strength.
That on its own confounds me. Instinctively, I’ve always been able to instantly understand a vampire’s place in the hierarchy compared to me. Obviously, she is weaker, but the presence of all her underlings makes the situation very, very tricky.
“It took me many, many years to manage it. Many years of trial and desperate error. Many years of working to get back what my cousin stole from me. And finally, now, I achieved it… but it seems a trifle too late.”
She plucks at my sleeve. “I needed Morgan to have the crown, to give me the satisfaction of ripping it off her head. To have the glory of being the one to wipe that vile smirk off her face, and to see her damned, damned as she damned me.” She gives a light, little laugh. “Unfortunate for you that you were the one to take her place. I am disappointed, I must say, by how easy it was to neutralize you. I would have expected the Queen of The Haven to put up more of a fight.”
She’s goading me, I know, and I absolutely refuse to rise to the bait.
“It’s a simple thing, this little torrial,” she tells me. “It is a device capable of transfusing the soul of one into another. Not the full thing, of course, and not the essence that makes somebody themselves. But souls are mutable, and when their ethereal substance is transferred from one vessel to another, it takes on the full characteristics of that body. Lucky for me, Morgan left enough of my soul in this body for me to survive.”
“You’re a witch,” I say softly, accusingly.
She giggles. “Dear child, what gave it away? Magic is strong in my family’s lineage. I was not granted very much of the gift, but I had enough to make something of myself. Enough to be able to do this.”
She motions from herself to Cassandra’s crippled body.
“She will be kept alive through it all, don’t you fret,” Rebecca continues. “It is the final manifestation of her duty to me. How lucky that this particular vampire was made with Royal Blood. That was key to the entire transmutation.”
“That’s horrible,” I say. “You are no better than Morgan, for what you did to her.”
“I did this out of necessity,” she sneers. “Morgan damned me out of spite. I think she thought that I, with my meager magical ability, was the one of the prophecy. Of course, that was her ridiculous paranoia.”
She turns to me. “So, no, I am not like her. Not in the least. And if you make that accusation again, I promise you, it is the last one you’ll ever make.”
She snaps her fingers, and two of her screechers run inside, each carrying a pair of silver cuffs. One for my wrists and one for my ankles.
“You’ll have to put those on,” she says. “We are going above ground.”
I look at her with deep suspicion. If we leave this room I will have my access to the Currents back. What is she playing at?
I hold out my arms, and the cuffs are latched on. The other vile creature bends down to put them around my ankles.
“Comfortable?” Rebecca asks, a triumphant gleam in her eye. “Drink this.”
She pulls out a small purple vial, about the length of a finger. It is half-full with some sort of liquid.
“What is it?”
“Doesn’t matter what it is. You will drink it, or my Tentoria will kill you.”
I tense. She must sense the threat—I can still easily destroy her and take my chances facing her horde outside where I’ll have access to the Currents. Quickly, she adds, “It’s a tincture made of the same herbs that repel magic here. As long as it’s in your blood, you won’t be able to use the Elemental Forces.”
“You expect me to simply lie down and castrate myself for you?”
She puts the vial in my palm and closes both of her hands over it.
“If you want to do what’s good for you and your precious coven, you will do as I say. The effects will wear off soon enough. I’d ask you to remember that my grievance is not with you, but with your predecessor.”
I shift my gaze to the exit. If I’m quick, I can get out of this room before the screechers have a chance to emit their screams, and then, from outside, call upon the Elemental Forces to break free from these chains and rain hell down on them all.
Yet, I am not wholly certain about my chances to walk out of that fight unharmed. The numbers are all on their side. I do not know what hidden traps or abilities they have.
Besides… somehow, Rebecca’s sentiment feels sincere. It’s ridiculous for me to be admitting it, but maybe she has a point. Maybe her entire grievance is only with Morgan… and maybe because of our shared distaste for the former Queen, I can make an ally of her.
It’s a long shot. But I need to think not only about the sanctity of The Haven, but also how we are to deal with future threats. I do not want to be a Queen like Morgan was, locked inside while the entire world just passes me by. I fully intend to find a way to free myself from the self-imposed prison I created when I erected the wards and to bring my vampires into the current century. I will not be satisfied if we simply continue to exist in this small fortified portion of the land, disengaged from the entire world.
The looming threat from The Crypts only came about because isolation was Morgan’s foremost priority. If those vampires decide to strike at us—
No. Not if. When. When those vampires decide to strike at us, I intend to immediately drive them back, not hide behind the defenses of the wards like a frightened child.
I know The Crypts has greater numbers. I know their vampires are stronger because of The Ancient’s blood.
But what if the screechers… the very things threatening us from the inside… can be converted to my side?
Killing all of them now, even if the odds of success are not in my favor, would be like throwing away a powerful new weapon simply because I was too scared of its might.
I look again at Rebecca. Our eyes meet.
“I’ll drink the potion,” I say. “If I have your word that no more of my vampires will be harmed.” She opens her mouth to say something, but I continue right over her. “Morgan is not one of my vampires. She betrayed me, also. She is fair game.”
