Shadows of Mist, page 18
part #8 of The Vampire Gift Series
But being a vampire has hardened me. It is not only the lurking darkness that we all hold inside us. It is the combination of all the experiences I’ve had that have made me see the world this way.
Maybe it is what Raul was fighting when he rebelled against the darkness.
I wonder for a moment how he is, being on that mission with Phillip. He doesn’t yet know about Phillip’s great betrayal.
In a way, I think that’s good. If he knew, and he was alone with him, he would kill him.
I know I would.
I break off with another shudder. I am too cold-hearted.
I concentrate, testing the air. I can feel vague hints of the trails of Currents. Not enough to grab hold of them, not even close, but I am heartened to know the potion is wearing off.
I turn to Rebecca. “What do you intend to do with the vampire you’ve stolen the soul from?”
“Intend?” she asks. “I intend nothing. She will remain as she is, feeding me her essence, for all of time.”
“What if there’s another way?” I ask.
“Trust me,” she says haughtily. “There isn’t. If there were, I would have done it. I might look whole and fully restored to you—but that is just on the outside. Using another soul in your body, in the body that soul was not made for, is like…” she trails off, shakes her head. “It’s indescribable. The discomfort. There is a tightness all over me, and the bond between myself and the other vampire is fragile. It will not break, not unless I consciously decide to sever it, but it always feels like it’s on the brink of snapping. And then she will be restored to her former form, and I to mine.”
“You trust me completely, don’t you?” I say in wonder. “You have told me the absolute truth, not holding anything back.” I pause. “Why?”
“When you offered the deal to me I saw who you were,” she says. “I knew nothing of you before. But in that one short interaction, I realized you were the Queen Morgan could never be. The Queen all The Haven vampires deserve. And, despite it all, I still consider myself part of The Haven. I could not have been so determined to build my army and come above ground, to claim my rightful spot amongst all of you, if I did not.”
“But your creatures attacked us,” I say. “On your command.”
“I gave them the order to bring me the Queen. They were not told to kill others. The screams are only a temporary affliction. Your coven would have recovered in time.”
“Strangely enough, I believe you,” I mutter. “I thought you were all enemies.”
She laughs. “The Tentoria do not have enough intellect to consider others enemies. They do as they are told. It’s all or nothing with them.”
“They obey you completely.”
“Of course,” she says. “Each one of them knows, on a deep, instinctual level, that they are indebted to me. Their lives rely on me. I could have them all killed with a snap of the fingers.”
“Could you?” I narrow my eyes. “How?”
“Easy,” she says. “Watch this.”
She calls forward a group of about a hundred screechers. They come before us. The others huddle back.
“Ready?” she asks. She closes her eyes, whispering an incantation, then opens them to glare at the screecher on the very left.
The moment her eyes fall on it, it collapses to the ground, lifeless, an empty husk.
The rest in line topple over, one by one, like dominoes. In a few seconds, there are a hundred new corpses on the ground, unmoving.
“Magic?” I ask. Since I’m still blocked, I cannot tell.
“Not really,” she answers. “The words you heard me speak were simply a way to ascertain the link between myself and the one who was downed first. There are infinite threads linking me to each individual Tentoria. The incantation showed me which thread I had to snip.”
I start to feel a little bit more of the Currents. Very, very weak, but they are not hidden from me any longer.
“The potion is wearing off,” I tell her. “Soon, I’ll be able to channel.”
She frowns. “That is too early.”
“You haven’t tested it on a witch as strong as me.”
Rebecca cracks a small smile. “No. I guess that’s true.”
“What I was saying earlier,” I tell her as the other screechers move in to take away the bodies of the deceased, “If we—”
I cut off with a choke as the living screechers start to rip the corpses apart and eat them.
“What are they doing?” I ask, aghast.
“Feeding,” she tells me with an indifferent shrug. “What does it look like?”
“They feed on their own kind?” I stammer.
“Well, yes. They don’t need food, not directly, they are sustained by part of the same essence that sustains us. But they know that the tiny piece of soul that is spread out through all of them cannot go to waste.”
“By eating their kind they absorb it?” I ask, not able to look away from the grotesque feeding.
Rebecca laughs. “Of course not. When one of them goes down the tiny fraction of a soul in them gets absorbed equally by all the rest. But they don’t know that. They’re not very smart.”
“They’re like zombies,” I whisper, and shudder. The feast is almost done, the last remains of the corpses being slurped up.
“A bit more useful,” Rebecca notes. “What were you saying before?”
A part of me still can’t believe how cordial she is now, after the way we first interacted.
I guess diplomacy sometimes does work.
“I was saying,” I pick up, “that if Morgan was able to sever your soul and cast it in that painting, maybe there is a way to get it back.”
“I gave up on that hope long ago,” she tells me.
“Why?”
“My cousin would not have left these things to chance. When the soul was locked in a painting, it was bound there for all eternity.”
“But she failed,” I say. “She failed, with you. That makes me think it might be possible. If we can get you your true soul back…”
“You’re sweet, girl, but this is not realistic. I’d rather not talk about it. Don’t want to raise false hopes.”
I thin my lips. I do not like being dismissed so easily.
Suddenly, all in one go, awareness of the mass of Currents crashes into me. I gasp, like a drowning woman who’s just been pulled out of water.
Power surges through me and eviscerates the last remains of that nasty potion. My whole potential for magic is unlocked again, and I soar as the Elemental Forces lock into me.
Without thinking, I pull on as much power as I can, filling myself to the brink with magic. The Forces swell and strengthen inside me, growing, growing, ever-more, until I hold more than I ever have before.
I add to that by pulling on the Air, Fire, Water, and Earth forces from the other dimension. They interweave with the ones already inside me, feeding off of them, building, growing, coming together to grant me unimaginable might.
For a flash of a second, I see the entire fabric of all the world, those tiny, infinitesimal, and all-encompassing webs that hold everything together. Rebecca, as a fellow witch, must sense my power, because her eyes go wide, and she takes an unconscious step back.
The web disappears, but in its wake, I can sense each one of the screechers. Every single one. I know their agony, I know their pain, I know their tortured existence. I am one with them all, intercepting the connection Rebecca has with them.
“What are you—what are you doing?” she gasps.
I see no need to respond. My will is absolute. Those creatures threatened The Haven. They hurt my vampires. As long as they exist, not under my control, they are an unpredictable force that can change alliances at any time.
So, I do what any Queen would do. I use the combined force of the Elements to rip away the soul connection to the screechers from Rebecca and infuse it into me.
“No!” Rebecca gasps.
I’m sick with power. Conscious thought does not exist. I operate entirely by instinct, knowing full well what is right and wrong and what must be done.
I open a portal to the Demon Realm in the sky and call upon bolts of fire and lightning to strike the screechers down.
Rebecca screams. I throw up a cage of air around her, using the Demon Realm magic that she cannot undo, to box her in. Chaos rains from the sky, each bolt precise and accurate as it destroys each screecher where it stands.
The whole landscape devolves into mayhem. Through my link with them I command the screechers to stand still. But the stronger ones, the ones with a sense of self-preservation still within them, wrestle out of the command and try to run.
They don’t get very far. The lightning bolts kill on first strike. The fire raining down from the heavens scorches the landscape and turns the bodies to ash. I soar on the Currents, drunk with power. No matter where the screechers are, no matter how they hide, my destructive force finds them. Portals open all over the sky, making The Haven temporarily bright with the other realm’s red sun. Portals open underground, where reserves of the screechers remain. They are all struck down, all killed, all eliminated.
And then it’s done. I am gasping with exertion, blood sweat running down my face. The hidden runes on my arms glow in the aftermath, but even they slowly start to ebb away.
Rebecca has fallen quiet, looking at me with large eyes full of accusation and betrayal.
“You…” she says. “How could you…”
“You promised my vampire’s lives,” I say simply. “This was the only way to guarantee it. For the murder of Riyu, I rightfully sentence you one century of imprisonment. You will serve your time at a later date. For now, you are more useful close to me.”
Pure hatred shows in her eyes.
“There are many things I need you to teach me.”
“You will keep me as a slave?” she spits.
I ignore the accusation. “Now that I am certain my vampires are safe, I will make good on my part of the promise.” Something tugs at the back of my head, and I realize that there is somebody outside, waiting at the entrance of the ward. “You will have unfettered access to Morgan. As long as you do not kill her, nor revive her, you may do what you wish.”
Rebecca seethes. “Do not kill her? You forbid me to kill her, after what she’s done to me?”
“You should be grateful I have spared your life,” I say. “The only reason I have is because you have knowledge that is important to me. I’m sorry, Rebecca,” I add, satiating in the feeling of absolute power, triumph, and victory. “You rebelled against the Queen.”
“I let you go!” she screams.
“Maybe now, you wish you hadn’t,” I say, surprising even myself by the words coming from my mouth.
I hadn’t intended to kill the screechers, not at all—not before the Currents were restored to me, and I saw the whole situation more clearly than I ever had before.
I hadn’t intended to do it, but now that it’s done, there is no doubt in my mind that it was the right course of action.
I look down at Rebecca, feeling nothing but contempt. I do not take insults to my person lightly.
“This is my Haven,” I proclaim. “Here, I make all the rules.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Phillip
On the outskirts of The Haven.
I give a start when an opening appears mid-air in front of us, and Eleira and the guards step out.
I don’t have a chance to react as she immediately binds me with ropes of Air. She walks to me, ignoring the rest of the party, even Raul, with fire in her eyes.
“Phillip,” she says flatly. “You are charged with treason against your Queen. Against me. The only suitable penalty for what you did is death.”
My mind races, thinking of what the hell she is talking about.
Could she have discovered Morgan?
“Oh, yes,” she whispers, her voice frighteningly dark. “I know how you kept your mother alive. Guards?” She nods to the circle surrounding her. “Take him to the cells.”
“Wait, wait!” I cry out, before they can seize me. “Don’t you want to know who I’ve brought?”
Eleira’s eyes move over to Raul and the three witches. They watch him with the same inscrutable gaze on their faces.
She acknowledges them with a respectful bow of the head. “Congratulations on joining our ranks.” She looks at Raul—I see a flicker of hesitation on her face—and then she says to him, very formally. “A job well done on converting them.”
“No,” Raul says, none of his old hesitation present in his voice. “I didn’t do it. Phillip did.”
Eleira’s face instantly bunches up. “What?”
“Phillip made the witches into vampires,” he says. “They are his fledglings, not mine.”
Eleira’s face twists in rage. I’ve never ever seen her display that emotion before.
She leaps toward him and very sharply asks, “How could you let that happen?”
Raul looks uncomfortable for a minute. I see absolutely none of the old lovey-dovey chemistry between them. Eleira looks at Raul as if he’s a table rag, and he looks at her only as his Queen.
Well, I think slyly. Maybe I can still make good on my plan to steal her away.
Once this meddling death sentence thing is taken care of.
“That’s a long story,” I interject. “Meant for happier times. Might I add that if you kill me, Raul dies also?”
“Did I say that you could speak?” Eleira screams. I’ve never seen her so out of control. But then she turns to Raul, and asks, “Is this true?”
He averts his eyes and nods. Eleira curses.
I step in. “Raul was mortally wounded. He was cut by an enchanted blade.”
“Once again,” Eleira mutters.
“The Forsaken Sisters saved him. But as we know, magic does not heal. They created some kind of link between me and Raul that sustains his life. The vampiric essence was not strong enough to help him on its own.
Eleira shakes her head. “You will explain it all to me,” she says, looking at the Forsaken Sisters, “Inside. Geordam—take Phillip and Raul to my apartments. Neither of them are to leave, or to speak to anyone else.”
Geordam nods gruffly and grabs my arm.
“Careful, vampire,” I warn him. “Don’t forget who I am.”
He grunts, unimpressed, and pushes me through the portal. The weaves of Air still constrict my upper body. At least my legs are free.
We emerge to the other side of the portal in the middle of the night, far away from either the village or the apartments or even the ruins of Mother’s old castle. In fact, I don’t even recognize quite where we are.
“This way,” Geordam says, shoving me through the trees. I glance over my shoulder at the portal. Raul comes through, trailed by the guards.
The portal closes without Eleira or the Forsaken Sisters coming through.
“If I had my magic,” I grumble, “I could undo these weaves around me in a second.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Geordam says.
“And what do you know?” I challenge.
“I know that male and female weaves of magic are different. I know that one cannot be sensed by the other.”
“They don’t have to be visible for me to sever them,” I say under my breath. “They are made of the same core material.”
“If you’re so sure of yourself, why don’t you do it?” Geordam asks. “None of the oaths Eleira bound you with preclude you from that.”
I decide to be upfront with him. “The witches I made into vampires and brought back—the witches Eleira holds in such high esteem, the ones who collectively are stronger than her—the ones who know ancient wisdom—they saved Raul by linking him to my Blood Magic. Don’t ask me how. All I know is that I cannot pick on the Elements, because they are all being transferred to Raul. And if you look in his eyes and see the miasma—you’ll know that he can do magic, too.”
“That’s a lie!” Raul snarls. He steps to my side. “I want nothing to do with your filthy, dirty, corrupt Blood Magic.”
“Too late, dear brother,” I say sweetly. “The Forsaken Sisters have awakened the latent power within you. Just as Mother did for me.”
“Lies,” Raul hisses. He is not taking the public revelation well.
“Give me a goddamn break,” I grunt, rolling my eyes. “Mother was the strongest witch we knew. Her sister was an even stronger one. Her mother, our grandmother, taught them both.”
“Mother never spoke of her past,” Raul says darkly, almost as a warning.
I bark a laugh. “Maybe not to you. But I know that magic runs strong in our blood. And you are a Soren, after all. You cannot deny your destiny. Nor can you reject it. You’ve already embraced who you are—I saw it happen on the plane.”
“You mistake me,” Raul says softly. But there is very little conviction in his words.
“You should know that you’ve been stripped of your post as Captain Commander,” Geordam says.
“Let me guess—Eleira named you my replacement?” Once more, I let out a crude laugh. “Congratulations on your new position. You now hold the most vaunted place in Eleira’s ring of beta orbiters.”
He sniffs and shoves me forward. I trip over my feet, stumble a bit, but catch myself before I fall.
“Better in my position than in yours,” he tells me, with an air of finality.
The rest of the walk back is done in silence. After what seems like forever, we emerge in the large, open plains near the apartments.
When I see what’s been done to them, I come to a staggering stop.
“What the hell has happened here?”
The whole ground is scorched as if by lightning. The grass is burned, the vegetation black and ashened. Great pits of upturned earth scatter the field.
But amongst all that destruction lie bodies, thousands and thousands of bodies, all a sickly, pale white, all destroyed, and all looking like they are minutes way from disintegrating completely and being lost on the wind.
“The Tentoria,” Raul says, his voice hushed and awed.
My eyes scan the ground. There are five thousand littered here, at the very least.
