by Al K. Line
Oskari craved my son, desired and coveted him even more as his awareness of what he was capable of grew. I saw no way that he wouldn't get exactly what he wanted.
"How are you feeling?" I asked Faz.
"A bit beat up, but could be worse," he said, smiling in that familiar, cheeky way I've always found so endearing and so damn sexy.
"You back on fighting form?"
Faz shifted and fidgeted with his hands but held my gaze without blinking and said, "Good enough to give these jokers a proper hiding."
"No holds barred?"
Faz nodded, face draining of all humor, and said, "No holds barred." Magic crackled from his entire body as his ink fattened, black fractal shards of potent death that made it impossible to tell where his dark suit ended and his powers began. His eyes snapped to black as we gazed at each other and he turned from the lovable rogue so many know to the killing machine few have ever witnessed and survived.
Copying my lover's cue, my own eyes snapped to a dark emptiness so fast and hard it made me gasp. My teeth snicked down, drawing blood from my lower lip and I licked it, the power it contained sending my body into a spiral of craving and bloodlust that set every nerve, every sense, alight. I expanded and became animal. Wild, full of desire. Dangerous.
"Let's do this," said Dancer eagerly, having clearly felt impotent being unable to fight back against the vampires for so long. His own eyes hardened and changed color, something I had never seen, and purple swirls of danger cocooned his body.
Persimmon smiled a beautiful smile. Her pert, full bosom heaved in mesmerizing fashion and I caught Kane gulp at the sight. Then her skin exploded though her clothes, her butterscotch flesh exposed as she dropped to all fours, naked and beautiful even as she twisted and cracked as she shifted into a sleek panther that was as perfect as her.
"Cool," whispered Kane. His eyes widened at the sight of Persimmon's transformation and he too dropped to all fours. My son's youthful body stretched and popped as bone metamorphosed and his skin darkened. Fur grew as his head widened and his ears elongated. Then there were two sleek, lithe panthers side by side. Persimmon tilted her head to him and made a low purring noise, Kane responded in kind.
He nodded his head on thick muscles as he blinked and his eyes became dark, empty of emotion. Then, as the assembled masses gasped at his show of power, he faced the vampires and hissed. Large canines snicked down hard and fast, a sound that filled the space and silenced the vampires. They were the longest set of deadly fangs anyone had ever seen, and they belonged to my son.
I wanted to weep.
Oskari's eyes widened in surprise and then he smiled as his own teeth dropped down hard and deadly. Following his cue, the entire surviving population of Cardiff vampires let their own fangs be revealed. The sound of so many pairs of deadly teeth is not something any mother wants to hear.
"You can't have him," I said, voice flat.
"You're a dead man," growled Faz as he raised his hands.
"The boy is mine," whispered Oskari, his voice dripping with desire. He raised long, perfectly manicured fingers then dropped his hand.
The vampires roared, charging forward.
Power Unleashed
In the split-second before the vampires rushed us, I suddenly remembered why everything was happening here. Oskari had retreated to this part of the country—although technically we weren't in Snowdonia anymore we kinda still were—because of the power of the converging ley lines. We'd been set up from the beginning to come here so Kane could be taken and his metamorphosis started. Oskari knew there was immense power here, that there was something different about it, that all energy would be enhanced and he stood a better chance of getting what he wanted, but what about us?
In his arrogant way, he would have given it hardly a thought, knowing I was young and inexperienced and that he had vast knowledge of all things magical even if he wasn't a practitioner himself. As with most vamps, he relied on the power of blood, but if he'd come here then he wanted, and could channel, the forces running through this site. Did it still work in the dwarven realm? Was it still a potent place?
I allowed myself to search for the strong currents of magical forces I'd felt above the surface in the real world, but they were lacking here. This place was too alien for humans, too apart from our world of familiar magic. We were, when you got right down to it, on our own. The battle would be fought with the power we had inside, with what we could muster and control, no extra help given.
Oh, how he must have been disappointed when he was captured. That his advantage was lost, that somewhere he'd believed would allow him to take the next step of the vampires' evolution was taken from him. Yet he still had his backup, and was confident he would win. After all, why wouldn't he? He had thousands, we were few, and the dwarves and trolls seemed content to let us fight this out amongst ourselves.
So be it. If there was no extra power to be drawn from the land itself, then I'd make do with what I had inside.
"Ready?" I asked Faz as I steadied my stance and let a calmness wash over me.
"Damn straight." Faz grinned, cocked his head, and gave the running vampires a sneer. I loved him for it, for him facing down death in his "fuck-you" attitude, and it gave me hope.
"You and me," I said, and we both had the same thought at the same time.
We grabbed hands, forming a fist so tight it was like our bone and flesh fused. As our ink activated fully, and magic channeled through our bodies, a barrier was torn asunder and the Hidden powers of a young vampire and a century-old wizard combined in a frenzy of manic mayhem.
As one, we directed our magic, until there was no me and him, no individual strength or weakness, only a single, deadly and unbelievably violent power source that almost knocked us unconscious.
For a moment I wavered, then I gritted my teeth, gave myself to it totally, and was consumed by the man I loved so very much and the magic I both loathed and worshiped. My true addiction. My love, my hate, my sense of violence and source of bottomless love for the men in my life.
Our joined fist rose as the vampires charged, and before the others could join the attack and get taken down, our hands glowed white hot. Magic backed up in our systems, pressure building until it spat from our sign of trust and love in a spasming burst of fury that threw us back ten feet onto our asses and obliterated the first few rows of our attackers. I don't mean just knocked them down and broke a few bones, I mean totally obliterated.
The room fell silent, all movement stopped as the vampires behind the front rows stared down at the ash-covered ground. They were gone. Several hundred vampires had vanished as if they'd never been. All that remained was a light covering of ash; more fell and drifted lazily around the silent cavern.
Faz and I rushed to our feet, the connection lost, and I knew that was it, that we could never recreate such a feat. We were ourselves once more, individuals with only the power as was our right, and although it cemented our bond in a way that remains, it would never be repeated.
Not ones to stand about while your enemy recovers, Persimmon and Kane sprang into action simultaneously. Two black blurs of claw-tipped death, and more teeth than was friendly, tore through the vampires while they stood gawping at what remained of their kind.
Tens fell while they recovered their sense, then the screams and the wails rose. Fists flew and fangs tried to bite but the panthers were fast and perfect for this kind of combat. They darted in and out, clawed and raked and slashed and chewed, ravaged flesh and snapped Achilles heels, ripped out throats and disemboweled before the vampires could do anything remotely effective.
Dancer joined the fray as Faz and I ran forward, but even though I would not stop, would not rest for a minute, I knew that however much of a good beginning we'd had we were still vastly outnumbered and you simply did not win against these odds.
So much sadness, so terrible that it would end like this. That most of the time I'd had with Kane was full of violence, that I'd had no time to
cuddle up with Faz and make fun of his stupid shoes, that we'd never get the vegetable plots finished and a million other minor details that suddenly seemed to take on so much more importance than all this crap we got ourselves involved in.
There would be no days when we'd stay up past midnight fretting when Kane came home late, no mornings sitting around the table talking as a family. No playing in the garden, no eating dinner together, no trips to the zoo, none of that.
It ended here and now, but we were a family of fighters, and if that was the way it was to end then we wouldn't make it easy for the buggers.
Then I had an idea.
An Interruption
The problem with good ideas is that they're hard to implement when you've got a horde of fanatical, homicidal vampires attacking you. They were on us in a heartbeat, their fury and bloodlust overwhelming their fear. The panthers continued to leap and attack, then dodge and retreat, but it was a losing battle. As the vamps reached us, Faz let loose and began, as he would say, blasting the dark arts.
Black lightning sprang from his fingertips as he struck his dashing poses and kept his cool even under such extreme duress. Scores died as he sank deeper into the zone, but they kept on advancing. Dancer, not usually one to use magic in fights as his skills lay elsewhere, nonetheless let rip with an intensity and ferocity I'd never believed him capable of. He slashed through the rows as he swept his arms back and forth like he was wielding a flame thrower.
Bodies dropped, sliced through by his magic, and Mithnite, who had been uncharacteristically slow to let the Empty consume him—maybe because he was smart and didn't want to act until he was ready so he could fight longer—suddenly snapped to magic-mode and took out lone attackers one after the other with precise, directed hits that exploded heads and covered the crowd with gore.
As bones splintered and brains blew apart, I became consumed with a rage that erupted through my fingers in an uncontrollable and mindless fury. It was unstoppable and impossibly volatile, pop, pop, popping from my fingers in small and large blobs of searing, multicolored hate that blasted through row after row of our enemy as they surged forward and dodged their falling, screaming, half-obliterated comrades.
Vampires writhed on the ground, screaming or gasping. Some were repairing within moments, others were too injured to do anything but stare at me with hate-filled eyes before they met the final death.
On and on we went, giving it all we had, more magic than I thought possible coming from us in various ways. I blasted continually, burned through bodies until I finally lost power. I paused, felt energy return, and went at it again. But after several seconds I felt the power wane, knew I couldn't keep on going like this, and it was obvious the others were faring much worse. Soon they'd be writhing on the ground, paying with pain for their thievery. Kane and I wouldn't have to pay such a price, but there were limits to our reserves and they were being eaten up fast. Persimmon was also slowing, not enough to be killed yet, but it was only a matter of time.
It was now or never.
As Persimmon and Kane fell back into line to gain a brief respite, and Dancer and Faz sprayed the vampires with death, I dashed forward, grabbed them both, and dragged them back. Mithnite caught my eye and I nodded; he retreated, clearly happy to take a rest.
For a moment it was a standoff. The vampires gathered themselves, many less than keen to continue as the piles of bodies were certainly enough to make you think twice about being in the front row, and we all stood in a line facing them, chests heaving, magic fizzling, yet still consumed by the violence.
We had seconds before Faz, Mithnite, and Dancer would be unable to continue. Dancer may have passed the point in his career where he had to pay much in dues for his thievery from the Empty, but this was extreme use and I knew he'd suffer along with the others.
"Still time to make a choice," I shouted, trying to keep my voice steady. "You heard the dwarf. This is crunch time. You either change, only kill those who truly deserve it, or you die. My son will decimate you. There will be no second chance, no reprieve. You accept this or you die." I turned to Kane, and said, "Show them."
Kane nodded then morphed from panther to human. Then he was me, then Faz, then he was Oskari. The vampires gasped at the extent of Kane's abilities.
Oskari approached, his clothes pristine, hair perfect. "He is powerful, no doubt, but he belongs with us. We are vampire, we have a right to feed. You are a disgrace." He moved back to his own kind, eyes locked on mine.
There were murmurs of agreement, but it wasn't exactly unanimous. I knew many were faltering, that faced with their own mortality they would choose life over the freedom they'd grown accustomed to. But most were resolute, and they knew they could take us. They were also loyal, and I suppose that was about their only good point.
Nobody spoke and the crowd tensed. This wasn't working, this would never work.
But then someone stepped forward, pushed through the crowd. He dashed across the divide and came to us. A young man, one I knew, one I'd believed was good underneath. He nodded at me once then turned.
"We are vampire, but we don't have to lose our humanity. We can feed as Kate does, use our gifts to destroy those who are truly evil. We can do good, not bad. We can change, make the name vampire respected, not just feared."
There were insults and childish jeers, but the crowd shifted and it was clear this guy was not alone. More took hesitant steps, then ran, fearing their comrades would cut them down. Some did fall, caught before they could cross, but as the vampires fought amongst themselves many took the opportunity to come to our side until we must have been a hundred strong and maybe even stood a fighting chance.
"Game on, bitches," I shouted.
Taking Sides
Kane moved, but before I could reach him Faz grabbed his arm in a grip I knew he couldn't shake off easily. Even over the roar of battle cries I heard Faz say, "Wait here, Son. We've got a lot of catching up to do, and I don't want to be talking to a corpse."
"But, Father, I am stronger than them."
"Maybe, but there's more of them, and anyway, I'm your dad. Do as you're told."
Kane smiled at Faz, and although I saw his desire to fight, to remain a part of this and do his bit, he also understood the love behind the words. "Yes, Father."
Faz grinned like a loon and then they hugged quickly. Kane moved back and nodded at me. I smiled at him, felt so much love for my men I wanted to scream it to the world. Then a horde of vampires came charging at me and I dashed off with them following before I got crushed.
Dancer and Mithnite went down under a barrage of bodies only for the vampires to be hurled off a moment later as a torrent of colorful magic boomed. They both got up but looked truly awful, and trust me, Dancer never looks good at the best of times. Mithnite staggered and a vampire sped at him, fangs bared. No, I wouldn't have another man I loved turned, or worse, and I cut that guy down with a fist to the face that went right through.
Mithnite sagged and I knew he was spent. Dancer dropped too.
It was carnage on a scale I'd never witnessed, and it had been a gruesome few days, but this wasn't over. Faz and I protected our friends as Persimmon whipped back and forth taking out anyone that came too close. The vampires on our side formed a protective ring, another layer of defense, and the odds evened out quickly. Those who'd joined us had a hell of a lot more to lose than just their lives. They would face Oskari's wrath if they lost, so they fought with an intensity that could not be matched by those who opposed us.
More and more of Oskari's army attacked but they were either beaten down by the good vamps—never thought I'd say that—or those who managed to burst through the cordon were easily taken out by us. I blasted, Faz blasted, Persimmon raked and bit and each time this happened the opposition grew less certain of themselves and their attacks more feeble.
Oskari was shouting and cajoling, pouring scorn on those who had betrayed him, threatening punishments too innumerable and terrible to repeat, but he
saw what I saw, and the worse it got for him the more incensed he became. Spittle flew from his mouth as he cursed us all, his words morphing from English to Finnish as he lost himself to the fury, the inconceivable consideration then realization that he was beaten.
Faz dropped and writhed on the floor, screaming in agony for the valiant fight he'd put up, even as Mithnite and Dancer emerged from their penance and lay gasping. They rose slowly, standing there next to useless as vampire fought vampire and I continued to take out those who broke through.
Faz calmed as his pain subsisted, then to my surprise he was on his feet.
"Got off lightly," he said as he came close, grinning.
"You back?" I asked, unable to contain my own smile.
"I'm back, baby, and the future looks bright."
We held hands and turned to smile at our son, standing behind us, an angry expression on his face for being left out of the fight. He saw us looking and came forward. Faz and I broke apart and each of us took one of Kane's hands and we faced down what remained of our foe.
The others joined us. Mithnite, Dancer, and Persimmon. We stood in a line, protected by a small band of vampires intent on change, and ready for action.
The fighting stopped, everyone exhausted, hardly anyone left who opposed us, and then the way parted and Oskari came forward, even those on our side shifting to allow him to approach.
"You think you've won?" he spat, eyes burning. "I'll kill you all. Don't you know who I am, what I can do?"
Something snapped, like I actually heard the twang as my body dug deep of the true power I held within. He'd messed with me and mine, tried to take everything from me, and for that I would see him dead. The Hidden magic I now owned like a second skin erupted inside, flooding my system with an energy and a lightness like secret whispers. It burst into my ink, so rapid that the skin split apart where it was at its thinnest.
