by Iris Walker
Megan crashed to her hands and knees. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered, keeping her head turned down.
Fausta knelt slowly, coming closer and closer. Megan forced her trembling body to stay still, to face the woman. An icy finger touched her chin and drew her gaze up. “You are smart, yes, but do not ever make the mistake of thinking that a wolf could outsmart a vampire. It is not in your nature.”
Megan nodded, her eyes wide, Fausta’s petrifying image blurred through thick tears. She felt her heart hammering like a derailed train, faster and faster, as she looked into the vampire’s eyes and knew for certain that she would meet her end right then and there. She wanted to beg, wanted to plead and promise Fausta that it would never happen again, that she’d be good and do whatever the vampire wanted, but she couldn’t make any words surface.
Fausta’s cold anger faded slightly before subsiding. She studied Megan’s face with a light sigh, bringing her pale hand up and brushing the tears away. Megan was so dumbfounded that she didn’t dare move. She hung there like a defective robot, afraid to do anything, until Fausta wrapped her arm around Megan and pulled her close, rocking them back and forth. “Shhh,” she hummed, stroking Megan’s hair. As Megan realized that Fausta wasn’t planning on killing her just quite yet, another wave of fierce emotion crashed into her all over again, and the tears renewed, shaky, blubbering, sobbing tears that Megan couldn’t stop. It was like being on a roller coaster, and her brain had no way of slowing down once it had started. But in direct contrast to the sharpness Fausta had just shown her, the vampire didn’t seem to mind pausing in the middle of the hallway to comfort her as Megan sobbed all over her beautiful gown. She wasn’t sure how long it was before she was able to speak again, but Fausta gave no indication of impatience. Megan drew in a shuddering breath, and Fausta pulled her up, fastening her arm around Megan’s shoulders and locking their gazes. “You are my most prized possession, little wolf,” she whispered. “Do not give me reason to second guess my decision to keep you so close to me.”
Megan’s eyes widened slightly, her mussy hair trembling as she shook her head in a panicked, harried motion. “I won’t.”
“Promise me,” she hummed.
“I promise, Mistress Fausta,” she said, the words genuine, choked by raw emotion.
Fausta wiped a final tear from Megan’s face and touched the tip of her nose; a small, gentle motion. “I believe you,” Fausta said with a warm smile.
Robin
Her hands crashed into the floorboards of the ocean shack, splinters digging into her palms as she gasped for breath. “Jesus Christ,” she heaved, fighting to focus her eyes. Chadwick’s arms pulled her up and she looked at the caster, who was tense, staring at Darian and Lucidia with a guarded expression. Robin staggered to her feet and caught her breath, wincing as the burn subsided and the blue glow faded, leaving them bathed in lamplight and the strange colors gleaming off Chadwick’s equipment.
“You said you can help her,” Darian said, his tone betraying both his caution and gravity. “Lie to me and I will remove your heads.”
“I can try,” Robin said, glancing to Chadwick.
“She is not long for this world,” he warned.
She nodded, quickly moving to the large wooden work table in the center of the lab, clearing notes and books to the side. “Bring her here.” Darian glided across the room, laying Lucidia on the table. Her limbs sunk onto the surface, and a wave of nausea welled up inside of Robin at the sight, and smell, of the wound festering on her shoulder. Lucidia’s sunken eyes rolled feverishly behind her lids, caught in some burning night-terror. “What happened?” Robin asked with a grimace.
Darian turned his steely expression to her. “You fled and the Legion attacked.”
“In Sedona?”
“Yes.”
Robin scowled. “I didn’t know… I had no clue, or-”
“All the same,” he said flatly.
She swallowed the urge to fire off another comment and turned her sights to Chadwick, who’d circled around the table, behind her, letting her stand between him and Darian. He let his gaze fall on Lucidia and quirked his head to the side. “The Legion,” he murmured. “Their poison did this?”
Darian nodded, burning anger clear in his eyes.
Chadwick drew in a sharp breath. “I can cure her. I know the antidote.”
“There is no antidote,” Darian said.
“No, there is. It’s one of their most guarded secrets.”
Darian’s eyes narrowed, his voice accusatory. “How would you acquire such a thing?”
“I already have it. I mean, I copied it, for safekeeping,” Chadwick said, his mind working a million miles a minute. “But we need supplies. A lot of them.”
“What do you need?” Robin asked sharply.
“Nothing we have here. I’ll have to call Reykon,” he said, already sprinting to the main house.
She nodded sharply and turned back to Lucidia, hovering her hand over her sister’s heart. A stab of anguish drilled into her chest. “She’s weak…”
“She’s nearly gone,” Darian said bitterly.
Robin let her powers rise to the surface, feeling the burning glow of energy, and slipped her hand into Lucidia’s. She searched for the seat of power, the life force inside of the strongblood. A moment of panic flashed in her mind, the desperation mounting, when she couldn’t find it. Robin drew in a slow, controlled breath and pushed further, until there was a hum, a flicker. So small, she thought in fear. Like she was coaxing a fire, Robin started releasing her own energy into Lucidia’s body, a lifeline, building the spark until it was stronger. Robin held onto it with a steel grip and opened her eyes, searching Lucidia for any sign of… well, anything.
Her eyes had stopped rolling, but her skin was still a sickly gray color. Darian had moved to the other side of the table, inspecting Lucidia’s face, his ear hovering over her chest. “Whatever you’re doing is working,” he murmured.
Robin nodded, focusing all her effort on the tether between them, the slow transfer of her life force into Lucidia’s. When Robin was certain the connection was secure, she let out a long breath, leaning against the table. She glanced to Darian, still hovering over his strongblood subject. “I swear, I didn’t know…” Robin said solemnly.
“Would it have mattered if you did?”
“Yes,” she seethed, shooting him an angry glare. “She’s my sister, and she risked her life for me. I’m not like you.”
“And what do you actually know about me, Robin?” he retorted, his voice admonishing. “You have been on this earth for twenty-six years and I have walked it for thousands. So tell me, in all your infinite wisdom, what discernments have you made on my character?”
She scowled, searching his face for a moment before letting out another tense breath. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
He made a noise in the back of his throat and looked around the lab, inspecting Chadwick’s volumes with an ancient gaze. “This place does not smell of the plana terra.”
“It’s hidden,” she said. A small glimmer of sadness slipped into her mind. They could no longer stay here, now that Darian knew where it was, and could commission a caster to find it.
“Curious,” he hummed. “You have been here ever since?”
“Yes.”
“I see congratulations are in order,” he said softly.
She actually laughed, despite the ridiculous situation. A small smile spread out on her face and she quirked an eyebrow at the age-old vampire. “Yeah. Thank you, I guess.”
“And where is the young strongblood?”
Robin pushed the hair out of her eyes, letting more energy slip from her stores to Lucidia’s. “He’s looking for allies.”
Darian nodded, just as Chadwick bolted through the door, holding his phone up. “He’ll be here in an hour.”
“Is that enough time?” Darian asked.
“It has to be.” The caster turned to Robin. “How are you holding up, Spa
rky?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
He nodded, focusing on the options at hand. His eyes raced over the documents, the scrolls, until he finally muttered something under his breath, snapped his fingers, and ran to the other side of the lab. A crash sounded out, and Robin craned her neck, trying to see around the equipment. After another thud, she gave up and leaned over, resting her arms on the table and letting out a long breath. Chadwick returned with an armful of scrolls and a stack of buckets, the top one full of clanking supplies. Once he was positive that he had everything, he glanced to Robin and then flicked his eyes to Darian, holding up a finger and pointing it straight at him. “Before I do this, I need your guarantee that no matter what, you will not intervene.”
Darian’s brow pulled together in a moment of deliberation, before he nodded slowly. “You have my word.”
Chadwick’s eyes flared in tentative disbelief, and he emptied the buckets, unstacking them and lining three of them next to Lucidia. He turned to a drawer of tools he had in the workbench and selected one from the pile. Robin’s eyes widened as she realized that it was a massive hunting knife. “Here we go,” Chadwick said, stepping back to Lucidia and holding the knife just under her sternum. Darian stiffened, leaning in slightly, but Chadwick shot him a fierce look. “Do not stop me, under any circumstances, or she will die.”
The vampire let out a tense breath that set Robin’s teeth on edge. Chadwick pressed the knife down and made a long gash on Lucidia’s abdomen, dark black blood gushing up to the surface like a geyser. Chadwick let the knife drop and closed his eyes, lifting his hands as turquoise magic crackled around them. Robin squeezed her eyes shut, pressing Lucidia’s hand tighter, focusing on that life force, still terrifyingly weak but no longer flickering. When she opened her eyes again, they widened in wonder at the sight before her. A river of blood hung, suspended, swirling in the air. Blood was floating out of Lucidia’s body, snaking into the space above her, a small branch of it streaming into the first bucket. Robin peered closer and saw that the liquid dripping into that bucket wasn’t red, but a sickening brown color, sending an acidic stench into the air. The river returned to the wound, a never-ending circular motion. With each fluttering heartbeat, the blood swelled, and then surged once more. Chadwick’s brow was dotted with sweat, his eyes closed in concentration. A few moments passed, Robin mesmerized by the floating liquid in front of her, until Chadwick nodded slightly. “Okay, Xander, fill one of these with water.”
A burst of air whipped through the room as Darian returned in less than two seconds, a full bucket of water resting on the table. Robin raised an eyebrow, her mouth nearly falling open at the speed and precision he’d used, not even spilling a drop. Chadwick didn’t seem to notice, deeply entrenched in the work before him.
He gave a nod of recognition to Darian, then left one hand hovering over the spiral of blood, dipping the other one into the bucket. A single drop of Lucidia’s blood drifted away from the river and Robin watched it in awe, listening to the delicate plink it made against the water. Chadwick drew in a deep breath and pushed it out in one controlled, circular movement, before muttering a few words and pulling his hand out of the bucket.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Darian’s expression change, and he leaned forward, looking at the contents. “This…” he murmured. “Only one other caster has achieved this, and he is long gone.”
Chadwick wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Yeah. I scoured all his journals. What can I say, I was a curious kid.”
Chadwick flicked his wrist, pulling the water out of the bucket and joining it to the river still pulsing in the air. Except it wasn’t water, not anymore. It was blood. Fresh, red, thick blood. Compared to the stuff coming out of Lucidia, it looked crimson.
“Holy crap,” Robin breathed.
“This won’t stop the poison, but it’ll give her organs a little breather until I can make the antidote. Dialysis, if you will,” he said, wiping his forehead again.
Robin continued watching the river, feeling the core of energy inside of Lucidia, that substance that bound her together, that kept her alive. It was so small. Robin wasn’t even sure she’d be able to find it again. Harley had been injured, but even touching her skin had been like hugging a bonfire. Lucidia’s was a measly candle, if that. Time passed, the bucket of blood nearly emptied into Lucidia. Robin let out a shaky breath and wiped her forehead on her sleeve. She was sore from the exertion, from the slow stream of her life force being transferred into that portion of Lucidia that had been imbued with vampiric energy. A clanging sound echoed into the room and Robin’s eyes snapped up. The bucket containing the toxin that was filtering out of Lucidia’s blood had fallen off the table.
No. That wasn’t right.
Whatever was inside of it had eaten through the table, a ragged semi-circle still sizzling at the edges of the wood. Chadwick stared at it in concern for a moment before skirting around it and shrugging. “Okay, nobody go near that. It’ll eat your face off.”
Robin scowled and leaned under the table. There was a hole in the floor, seeping down to the ground. When she brought her head up, she felt a wave of exhaustion crash over her and she stumbled against the table, her other hand gripping it to keep upright.
Darian appeared next to her with a chair, and she sank against it. “Thanks,” Robin said with a long exhale.
“You do not have enough to revive her,” he observed in a grim tone.
“Wow, Pessimistic Pete over here,” Chadwick said sharply.
“I can do it,” Robin insisted. But even as she said it, she felt her own stores weakening. Healing Harley had been a heave, that was for sure, but even still, it had only diminished her own energy by half. They were rapidly approaching the halfway mark, and Lucidia wasn’t near stable.
“You cannot,” Darian muttered.
“Well, thanks for the…” she said, watching as an amulet plunked onto the table in front of her. “What are you doing?”
Chadwick eyed it suspiciously, and Darian drew in a deep breath before nodding. “You will take what is needed from me.”
Robin’s eyes widened as she realized that the amulet had been his talisman. The sole item that protected him against her ability to siphon his essence and turn him into a human. He was leaving himself entirely vulnerable. If she wanted to end Darian Xander, the age-old master vampire, bested by none, he would be helpless to it.
“Are you sure?”
Darian nodded. He outstretched his hand, and Robin glanced to him once more before taking it. As soon as their hands connected, a bolt of fire ran up her arm. “Jesus!” she flinched, drawing in a sharp breath.
He gave her a look of concern.
The vampires that she’d transformed back into humans had been little firecrackers compared to the vampiric energy that was contained within Darian Xander. He was an atom bomb. She’d never felt anything like it, not even under Jadzia’s comet.
“How… how is that possible?” she asked, catching her breath and clutching her arm against her chest.
The silver haired vampire simply gave her a puzzled look and shrugged. “You are the conduit. How should I know?”
“Aren’t you supposed to know, like, everything?” she muttered, flexing her still-buzzing fingers.
“You’re an entirely new creation, and your race opens up a whole realm of information never to be explored. There are still some things that surprise beings even as old as I.”
Chadwick paused his stream of magical mumbo jumbo and leaned over slightly. “The magic that binds vampires together takes a miniscule bit of life force from the blood of humans that they consume. Older vampires amass more energy, which is necessary for them to stay alive for so long and also gives them their… well, unique, appearance.”
Robin turned back to Darian and tentatively stretched her hand out, hovering over his hand and barely brushing up against the burning, roiling ocean of energy he had. She drew a small amount, letting it
roll through her, revitalize her, and then nodded, turning her gaze back to Lucidia. “That’s definitely enough, and then some.”
“I must ask you…” Darian began, his tone grave.
Robin knew exactly what he was getting at from the weight of his voice. She looked at him, her blue eyes piercing his glowing red orbs. “I wouldn’t,” she said sharply. “Not like this.” He gave a single nod, a look of understanding passing between them, before they both turned back to Lucidia’s pale form.
Reykon
In retrospect, the whole misunderstanding was Chadwick’s fault. Chadwick was the one that didn’t tell Reykon what or who the supplies were needed for and didn’t even bother to tell him that there would be a vampire master in the lab when he returned. Reykon slung the pack over his shoulder and stepped into the portal, every cell in his body ripping apart and fusing back together, like being dipped in habanero peppers and deep fried in boiling oil. He caught his breath, just in time to see a stream of confusing images.
The longer he looked, the worse it got.
First, Chadwick casting, the crackle of magic sharp in the air and building with each second. Then, a waterpark of blood just floating, like you’d paused a Quentin Tarentino movie at just the right moment. Then he realized that there was a body under the blood and his thoughts rushed to Robin but found that the body was Lucidia’s. The same Lucidia that they’d faced off in Sedona, that was trying to secure Robin for Master Darian’s forces.
Fear, then relief, then fear once more. It was like a roller coaster. And it only deepened when he saw Robin, slumped over in a chair, holding hands with the vampire master himself. Reykon let the supply bag fall to the ground and he ran over to her, arms blazing with the unrestricted magic he now had access to. Robin drew in a sharp breath, turning just as Reykon advanced. Darian Xander was on his feet quicker than either of them could see, a vicious, cold expression on his face.
