The horn blew a third time, prompting me to look over my shoulder.
Astra was pale, her eyes wide with horror. Soph kept glancing down, her brow furrowed while her red eyes scanned the forest, catching movement here and there. “They’re hot on our heels,” the daemon said.
“Jericho, you need to go faster,” Dafne urged.
He growled in protest, but he made the effort nonetheless, his wings flapping frenetically while the ice dragon prepared to dismount and take flight on her own. “Where are you going? We need to stick together!” I warned.
“We’re too heavy on him!” she said. “I can fly on my own. If nothing else, I can help keep some of those creeps back!”
I didn’t want to split up, especially right now, but even I had to admit that we were terribly overwhelmed. If Dafne could help, it made sense to let her, so I nodded my assent. “Be careful,” I added for good measure.
She took off her jacket, and I looked away, only hearing the rustling of fabric as she handed her and Jericho’s garments over to Soph. “Hold on to these,” Dafne said. “I’m going to need them.”
“Oh, cool. I’ve got enough to start a grungy Shadian fashion line,” Soph muttered.
The ice dragon chuckled and jumped off, bones crackling as she shifted in freefall. Her wings spread wide, and she descended closer to the treetops, huffing in her search for clones. Jericho was moving slightly better, I noticed, since he had less weight on his back. But it still wasn’t enough. A barrier caught up and punched him in the gut, throwing us to the side.
Astra screamed, but Soph caught her by the wrist before she tumbled off. The Daughter dangled midair, but the daemon had a firm grip, pulling her back up and helping her throw one leg over Jericho’s spine to properly mount him. I’d nearly lost Isabelle’s clone, too, but I’d locked my arm around her waist in a bid to keep her as close as possible and hoping I wouldn’t end up losing her along the way.
I heard Dafne roaring somewhere close by, along with the whistling of water gushing through the air. She’d unleashed her special ability, something she didn’t use very often, since it wore her out faster than the usual ice shards. I managed to look back just in time to see her spewing a powerful jet of water over the trees. As soon as the liquid hit the first leaves, it instantly froze, glazing everything in a thick layer of ice.
“Thayen, watch out!” Astra shouted.
But I didn’t see it until it was too late—a fireball the size of a melon crashed into Jericho’s side. The impact was explosive, yet it wasn’t the actual flame that undid us, but the force of the strike.
Astra’s scream tore me apart on the inside. I couldn’t catch her because I was falling, too. Hitting the ground would hurt. It would disable us and leave us at the mercy of the clones. Jericho spiraled down, clearly dazed as he struggled to regain his balanced flight. More fireballs were propelled upward, all of them aimed at him.
Isabelle’s doppelganger was just below, shooting toward the ground at a crippling speed. I tried to reach out, to grab her by the ankle, but I wondered what good it would do. How would I stop us from crashing?
We were about to penetrate the forest’s thick tree crowns, and I braced myself for the impact. It would hurt. Badly.
Astra’s scream was cut off. Dafne had caught her and Soph, determined to reach the Port. Jericho managed to get under Isabelle’s clone and me, and we landed on his back with a thud. I held on tight, my legs straddling his scaly back. My grip was so strong, it made my muscles sore. But we’d made it, damn it. We’d survived an aerial attack and—Jericho’s snarl obliterated my last thread of hope. Something silvery poked out from his wing.
“This is getting annoying!” Isabelle’s clone snapped from her position pinned under my body on the dragon’s back.
Ahead, we watched as a long and slender arrow shot from below and struck Dafne in her wing. The dragons cried out, and we all fell. I shot through the branches, snapping some of them off. The cool air filled my lungs as gravity pulled me down. Instinctively, I grabbed whatever I could as I plummeted, but everything broke under my sudden weight. I got cuts and bruises on my way down, though I did manage to slow my fall—enough to soften the force of a landing that would’ve crushed me otherwise.
I couldn’t breathe for a good minute. Finally, my lungs filled with precious air, and my ribs ached, sending waves of hot pain through my torso. “Gah…” I managed, wiggling my toes and fingers first to make sure my spine was still intact. We only had seconds before the clones would reach us.
“For cryin’ out loud!” Isabelle’s doppelganger moaned from a few feet away from me. I raised my head and found her on her back, twigs and leaves poking out from under her. One stick had punctured her side, and blood was seeping into her blouse like a crimson rose unfolding its petals.
A loud thump made me jump. Jericho had landed about ten yards to my left, the metallic arrow stuck in his wing. He roared from the pain, shifting back to his humanoid form to better deal with his injury. The arrow had gone through his bicep. Dafne wasn’t too far away, either. I could see Astra and Soph getting to their feet. The ice dragon must’ve softened their fall.
Rushed footsteps echoed in the night, and I knew we had a battle coming. The problem was that we were all injured in one way or another. I doubted we could hold our own against the incoming hostiles.
“Astra. Soph. You okay?” I called out, pushing myself into a standing position. As soon as I straightened my back, I felt my spine crack. It wasn’t broken, but it had taken some damage. I needed at least half an hour to get back to full strength—wishful thinking, since I could already see the bastards coming, silhouettes dashing left and right between the old redwood trees.
Half a mile behind me, the Port waited.
Isabelle’s clone’s snicker got on my nerves as she stood and pulled the stick out of her wound. “You’re so screwed.”
“It’s not over yet,” Jericho replied, gritting his teeth. He used his fae fire to melt off half of the arrow. I ran to his side and helped pull the rest out of his arm. He snarled and released a slew of expletives while I used the incandescent end of the arrow to help close his wound and cauterize it at the same time.
I caught a glimpse of Astra doing some healing on Dafne’s shoulder, her hands glowing pink as she struggled to breathe. There was no energy left in the Daughter, yet she kept pushing herself in order to help others. Soph had draped Dafne’s jacket around her, and she was running over to give Jericho his garment, as well.
The fire dragon grabbed it and quickly got dressed. Soph and I positioned ourselves in front of Isabelle’s double. “There’s no other way,” the daemon breathed. “We have to fight them.”
“I don’t have enough strength to do another curtain of fire,” Jericho said, flames bursting in his hands. “But I can still torch a clone or two.”
Astra helped Dafne up. The ice dragon’s injuries had not fully healed, mainly because Astra was spent, but at least the bleeding had stopped. They reached us at the same time as the clones, and the air thickened with hostile tension as the creatures surrounded us with devious grins on their faces. Nausea caused knots to form in my throat, but this was it. This was our only option.
My claws and fangs were out, skin tingling as I got ready to use my glamoring ability in combat. I’d yet to perfect the technique of casting my influence against a moving target, but I would have to try.
“How’s Dafne?” I asked, my gaze fixed on Hazel and Tejus’s clones. They were slightly closer than the others. What were the odds I could glamor them both at once? Slim to none, I figured, as Hazel’s clone threw a barrier out.
Astra gasped and launched one of her own. The air ripples clashed and burst into a soft pulse that nudged us all back.
“I’m currently useless,” Dafne said, and Soph handed her one of her spare long knives.
“You can still slice one of these bastards,” the daemon princess replied.
The ice dragon smiled at the sight o
f the blade. “Damn right.”
“Jericho, I hope you’ve got enough fire left in you to show these knockoffs that they made the biggest mistake of their pathetic lives when they decided to invade our island,” I said.
Isabelle’s copy giggled. “I like how you’re still hoping to survive this.”
She was cuffed, and Dafne moved to grab her by the back of the neck, long knife ready to cut anyone who dared approach them. “Shut the hell up already,” the ice dragon muttered. “I’m getting tired of the sound of your voice.”
“You’re woefully outnumbered,” Isabelle’s clone retorted. “Might as well give up now and hand me over. Maybe they’ll kill you quickly.”
“I see about a dozen of them left,” I said, eyeing our adversaries as they inched forward, gradually closing the circle around us.
“Guess again, nimrod,” Ben’s double replied. More of them emerged from all around us. They’d been wearing red glasses and using invisibility magic. They must’ve been part of the posse from the beginning but stayed hidden from sight. Jericho had missed them, since he hadn’t been able to see them. My blood ran cold as I realized we were dealing with many more clones than I’d thought, and each was armed with a disk shield and a black spray bottle… and who knew what other dirty tricks up their sleeves.
We had limited space to work with due to the redwoods. Dafne couldn’t use her ice shards while in humanoid form, and Jericho’s arm would take some time to heal. Astra’s batteries were low, and only Soph and I were slightly better equipped to fight. It didn’t look good, especially since we couldn’t even call for help.
Ben’s clone threw out his hands, flames crackling from his open palms. He started throwing fireballs at us, and we had no choice but to duck. Dafne kept Isabelle’s copy close. “I’ll keep her away from them,” the ice dragon said.
Among the doppelgangers, there was a version of me. It made my blood run hot and cold at the same time, since this was the first time I was seeing a mirror image of myself. To say that I was creeped out would’ve been an understatement. He came out from the swelling crowd, grinning as he approached me, eager to fight. I got into an attack position, shifting my bodyweight from one leg to the other. He started running, his feet light as he glided across the short distance. Something glowed just behind him. A split second later, he’d been cut in half, blood gushing as his torso and legs fell in different spots.
Kelara emerged from between realms, her scythe crimson red and dripping.
The clones exchanged confused glances, but they had no time to figure out what was happening as Stan and Ollie started tearing through them. Growls and spine-tingling howls mingled with horrified screams. Somewhere to our left, a gaping black hole opened, and an unseen force threw some of the doppelgangers inside before it closed. An interdimensional pocket. The Soul Crusher was here, too.
“Sorry we’re late.” Kelara sighed. “There were some… issues along the way.”
“Better late than never,” I said, hope daring to blossom in my heart.
The clones still outnumbered us five to one, and they intensified their attacks. Astra used whatever sentry abilities she still had functional to keep some of them at bay, but they were getting closer, so I moved to protect her while Dafne stayed close to Isabelle’s clone. Soph teamed up with Kelara, and they started zigzagging through the doppelganger crowd, slashing left and right before the clones could use their black spray on them.
Stan and Ollie were doing a horrifyingly good job on their own, able to switch from subtle to visible forms, catching their targets on the wrong foot at every turn. Soul was decimating the clone population with a mixture of death magic and modified interdimensional pockets, dooming those he tossed inside to a gruesome demise. He’d told us once that if he closed such modified pockets with people still in them, they would be crushed into nonexistence, their souls forever lost. Of course, there weren’t any real souls to worry about in this instance, but I still shivered at the thought. I could tell these were modified pockets because of the screams that came out of them before they vanished.
“We’re trying to get to the Port,” I told Kelara, then dodged Ben’s clone’s fireballs and bolted toward him just as he took out his black spray bottle.
Dafne cried out. I ducked and drove my clawed hand into Ben’s clone’s chest. I felt his heart between my fingers, and I tore it away from the ribcage. The doppelganger fell, stunned by what had just happened, then gave his last breath. I threw his heart on the ground before turning to look for Dafne. More clones were coming for me, but that wasn’t the biggest of our problems.
Isabelle’s copy had gotten the drop on Dafne. They were both down, and the clone was using her charmed cuffs to strangle the ice dragon. Soph was too far away. Astra was fighting off Hazel and Tejus’s doubles, utterly overwhelmed. Jericho tried to get to Dafne, but Field and Astra’s clones rammed into him, and it quickly turned into a bloody brawl.
I scrambled away from the other hostiles and ran toward Dafne. Her eyes had rolled into her head, and I wasn’t sure how much longer she’d last. My heart was racing, as I dreaded the thought of losing anyone in this fight. I threw my hand out, releasing what felt like an invisible lasso. It hit Isabelle’s clone in the chest, and I had her under my glamoring control.
“Stop!” I shouted, but it didn’t seem to be working.
Claudia’s copy slipped past the others and pounced on Dafne and Isabelle’s double. All I could see was a mixture of arms and legs flailing, and I wasn’t sure what was happening. By the time I reached them, Isabelle’s clone was dead, her throat slit, and Dafne was trying to get out from under her. Claudia’s doppelganger had already stepped back, wearing a deranged grin as she admired her bloodied hands. She was holding something.
A small cubic object, perhaps the size of a die, caught the moonlight on its surface. The object…
I tried to take her down, but she whispered “Morfuris” and vanished, leaving me stunned for a few moments. Per GASP protocol, we’d been taught to always carry a red lens on us in case it might be needed. I dug through my pockets and fished one out just in time to see Claudia’s clone running away through the redwood forest, headed straight for the Port.
“Put your red lenses on! We have to stop Claudia’s copy! She took something from Isabelle’s clone!” I shouted. It was happening so fast, I didn’t even have time to fully process Isabelle’s clone’s death or my friends’ injuries. My only reaction was to chase after Claudia’s double. She had something—the one thing that all the other clones had been working so hard to retrieve.
I couldn’t let the monsters have it, no matter what it was. So I ran. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, following someone who’d been modeled after one of the strongest and most resourceful vampires I’d ever had the honor of knowing.
Astra
(Daughter of Phoenix and Viola)
It was as if an invisible force had taken over each of us as we each slipped our red lenses on. The moment we saw Thayen running off into the woods after Claudia’s copy, we understood that our fight here had ended. Whatever Isabelle’s clone had had in her possession, it had been transferred to Claudia’s, and we could not let it leave The Shade. The enemy had gone to great lengths to get it, and we’d be foolish to let them have it.
The thought was collective in our small, frazzled group. One by one, we moved away from the fighting and started running after Thayen. Jericho and I helped Dafne up—she refused to be left behind, even though Stan and Ollie had kept some of the clones away from her. I saw Soul throwing my grandparents’ copies into one of his interdimensional pockets before he moved on to other “elders” of The Shade. Soon Soph was hot on our heels, bolting in the same direction.
We left Kelara’s group to handle what was left of the hostiles, though we were still outnumbered. I didn’t regret the decision, and I knew Kelara wouldn’t blame us for it, either. She hadn’t seen Claudia’s clone running off, but she’d heard Thayen. She understood how impo
rtant this was.
As we went after Thayen, watching Claudia’s copy a few yards ahead through our GASP-issued red lenses, a peculiar thought occurred to me. We’d gotten strangely accustomed to killing the clones of our friends and families. Knowing that they were a deadly enemy didn’t take away from the fact that they’d been modeled after the people we loved most. I would’ve expected a more disturbing feeling to linger at seeing my grandparents or even Isabelle’s doppelganger get killed. At least a bit of nausea, some uneasiness while my brain processed the physical similarities. But there was nothing.
I wasn’t sure why it irked me. Maybe it was the violent nature of this situation that had forced me to push my feelings aside. All I knew was that the clones were bad, and they had to be captured or eliminated without hesitation, no matter whose appearance they’d stolen. On any other day, I might’ve said easier said than done, but here… it was strangely easier done.
“Dafne, wait up!” Jericho gasped as the ice dragon got closer to Thayen, who was maybe ten yards behind Claudia’s clone.
“You’re going to need to move a lot faster if you’re going to keep up with me,” Dafne shot back. I could’ve sworn she was smiling, though I couldn’t see her from this angle.
Claudia’s clone pulled something from her pocket as she kept running. She yanked the top off and threw it over her shoulder. By the time we saw it coming, it was too late. The canister hit the ground and exploded in a puff of black smoke. Thayen covered his mouth and nose with his arm, but Dafne and Soph weren’t as quick. They both took deep breaths, and I knew they wouldn’t be able to keep running unless we helped them.
Holding our breath, Jericho and I moved faster and caught up. Dafne’s grayish eyes were filled with tears, and she was seconds away from a heartfelt scream. Jericho scooped her up and threw her onto his back, firmly crossing her legs around his waist as he took off running. I didn’t have much strength left in me, but Soph needed my help.
A Shade of Vampire 88: An Isle of Mirrors Page 20
