by Ana Calin
“Don’t do it, Lazarus,” Irina cries. “You’ve never killed a human before, and—”
The men pull at her arms, and she cries out in pain. I lunge at the serpents restraining her like an attacking predator, fangs bared and claws out, throwing them down. My brain doesn’t even process what’s happening. I only know that I urge Irina to run, hearing myself snarl, “Now, run, go!”
Being connected to her body and soul, I can sense her as she dives through the serpents in her way, not many because they clearly weren’t prepared for this.
“What the hell!” I hear Zdovan call as if through water. My ears thud with the tension, from the rush going through my body. “He’s a scholar, not a fighter, take him down,” he commands his men.
But protecting Irina is strong motivation. I’m keeping the first two down, one knee on each of their chests. I seem to be heavy as a boulder to them, as they both struggle to throw me off, but to no avail. A violent impulse drives me. I shoot down and sink my teeth into one of the serpents’ throat. All I have to do is pull once to loosen his head from his body. I spit out the cartilage-like remains, oily like a huge worm’s flesh, but my stomach doesn’t turn.
On the contrary, his blood starts a craving in me. My nostrils flare, and I punch down like a savage on the other serpent to keep myself from doing it.
“Take his blood, Lazarus!” it’s Herald calling angst in his voice. “Take the serpent’s blood, it’s the only way you’ll be stronger than them all!”
Zdrovan’s goons are almost here, their big hands outstretched, they’ll grab me in a second. I reason in a flash—I need something to help me stand up to all these serpents, or this will be the end of all of us; of me, of Herald, of Irina. I can’t risk anything happen to her, I can’t bear the thought and the feeling that comes with it.
My fangs sink into the still twitching, half-headless serpent’s body an instant before the others grab me. They pull, and they manage to move me at first, but when the serpent’s blood begins flowing down my throat into my guts it works for me like ambrosia. It fills me with power, so that I can’t contain it in my body. They pull harder to get me off him, but I sink my fangs into the wound in his throat like a Pit Bull.
Power fills me. My fists tighten, feeling like deadly rocks. I flex the muscles in my arms just once, push out and the serpents go flying, slamming against the walls. They fly so hard and high they don’t even knock down any of the coffins.
Then an idea strikes me. I unwillingly let go of my source of power, but this is something I have to try. I turn around with blood dripping thickly from my mouth, facing the incoming serpents with a fierce look. Even Zdrovan’s face changes. He obviously didn’t expect this.
Serpents throw themselves at me, but I throw them off as if they weigh nothing. I roar, full of raging power. The serpents knock into the coffins, the people inside tumbling out, and waking up from their induced sleep.
I take advantage of the serpents’ and Zdrovan’s confusion, and track down Irina through the bond we share. She’s got two serpents on her trail, but she’s feeling confident she can take them down without much effort. I’m of more help to her if I stay here, doing what I’m doing, and keeping Zdrovan and his men focused on me.
“Shut them down, now,” Zdrovan commands, his focus having shifted from me to the immortal humans. I narrow my eyes, singling out two of them that transform quicker than the others.
This is going to be huge for the human race. Even in this chaos I can’t shake the fascination.
Old age peels off of them like old skin, revealing young and strikingly handsome versions of the men. It’s clear that Zdrovan is scared of them—he probably kept them sedated because of their superpowers; I can read it his face that he considers the immortals potentially dangerous now that they’re awake. Could they be of any help to me, then?
They look confused, not ready. I might need to fight to help them instead of the other way around. Besides, the serpents waste no time. They rip apart the first men that get in their way. I grip two others by their arms and pull them to my side, protecting them behind me.
“Fuck,” Zdrovan calls, pointing at me through the chaos that has exploded everywhere. A few serpents shift their attention to me.
“You better come back to your senses quickly,” I groan to the immortals behind me under my breath, my eyes still fixed on Zdrovan and the goons closest to him. “These creatures are going to kill you if you don’t kill them first.”
“Fuck,” the guy to my left spits.
“I have no idea what the fuck is going on,” the other one says through his teeth, hunching in a primitive fighting stance, looking like a grizzly bear. “But I won’t go down without a fight this time. Bring it on, cowards, take me face to face now.”
“That’s the spirit.” I take my stance, getting ready for a fight that could be my last. But I’d be dying for Irina. “The only way to kill the goons is to rip their heads off. Don’t tackle the cripple, leave him to me. He’s harder to kill than he looks.”
The humans throw themselves at the serpents that are now advancing toward us. Other humans are quick to join in, reacting much faster than I thought they could. It lifts my spirits considerably. I tear off my already shredded shirt and lunge forward, ripping serpent heads off, slimy black blood encrusting on my claws and arms as I tear through them. Sometimes the scent of their blood is too much, and I sink my fangs into them, pulling just enough to still my craving, then I go on to the next.
I spot Zdrovan rolling away from the bloody chaos. His plans sure didn’t include waking up the immortal humans, and everything ending in a blood bath.
The more beastly my clashes with the serpents, the clearer I remember the dark desires I had with Irina, and how I despised myself for them; how I refused to accept the dark, animalistic part of me. But I have no choice but to fully embrace it now. It’s what makes me dangerous to these creatures, what renders me capable of slaughter. Of killing like a mindless animal, wanting to stick my cock in my woman after I do it telling her, “This was for you,” as the most heart-felt declaration of love.
I’m about to lunge after Zdrovan into the old pipe opening that he’s rolled into, intending to grab Herald from the corner where he’s crouching, but something makes me stop in my tracks. One of the immortals has frozen in a fighting stance, his hands ready to lash out and slash at his attacker, his nails elongating into claws; they seem made of bone mixed with some kind of metal.
Superpowers.
The immortal humans don’t need me anymore, they’re gaining the upper hand, grouping up against the serpents, and forcing them back through the old pipe ways, in the opposite direction from the one that Zdrovan escaped through.
I should deal with Zdrovan, but I’m a man in love. I need to find Irina. I grab Herald, who stares up at me like I’m a god.
“Come on.”
I drag him after me in the direction Irina ran when I prompted her, but he’s too weak to keep up. I lift him in my blood-streaked arms and throw him over my shoulder.
“Sweet Jesus, I’m a damsel in distress,” he laughs, liberated of his gut-wrenching fear of death.
“You said it,” I say, following Irina’s scent.
We stumble over the two dead serpents that pursued her in a dark old pipe. They lie in a sticky pool of their own blood, their heads a few feet away from their bodies. It wasn’t hard for Irina to tear them apart, but when her scent hits me I panic.
I smell fear in the chemistry of her blood. I walk inside the old locker rooms slowly, like a shadow, until Zdrovan’s face meets me.
“Please, do come in, lover boy,” he says. I don’t have a visual of Irina, but a full view of the bastard, sitting in the moonlight, his red eyes spewing that sick lust I saw in his face at the establishment. The lust for Irina that’s not sexual, yet carnal.
I swallow the bile in my throat. I want to kill him, real bad, but I can’t attack until I know exactly what Irina is so scared of.
&
nbsp; “Decide your next move well, lover boy,” the bastard says. “One wrong step and that will be it for your sweetheart.”
I walk carefully, slowly, even though I want to tear through the walls. I finally see her, and my throat closes.
A huge snake coils around her up to her neck, her face blue like a fresh corpse’s. The squeeze can’t kill her, but it’s causing her to suffer. I look up along the snake’s body, a snake that’s terrifying and at the same time majestic with the scales that seem made of metal, its head like a dragon’s, countless dripping fangs that could tear down an entire building, yet its spiraling eyes leaving no doubt this is a sentient, highly intelligent creature. I’ll be damned. I’m face to face with the Serpent Lord himself.
“No need to despair, lover boy, the Serpent Lord will release your girlfriend if you do exactly as I tell you,” Zdrovan says. “All you have to do is comply with my first demand—have Herald Gruff’s blood.”
I keep my eyes fixed on the hypnotic, spiraling irises of the Serpent Lord. He’s not using his powers on me, but I can feel immense power running all through him. It’s like he’s made of it, so much that his presence alone is crushing.
“I thought you were working for the Serpent Lord, not the other way around,” I address Zdrovan, my eyes on the huge serpent. “Didn’t realize he was the one doing your bidding.”
Hissing fills the room, piercing my ears violently. Herald covers the sides of his head and falls to his knees, pressing his head against the back of my thigh, seeking protection behind me.
Irina tries to shake her head no, desperately, but the serpent squeezes her too tightly for her to speak. Damn it, Lazarus, think faster!
“I think I know why he insists on you biting me,” Herald manages, crawling up and pressing himself against my back. He has to scream the words in my ear, so that I can hear him through the violent piping of the snake. “He injected me with something in the car. I think biting me would make you addicted to my blood, even though he didn’t turn me into an immortal. It would probably not have the same effect as the blood of a fully immortal human, but it would have you hunting down immortals for more blood, which would get you fully addicted. It could be a vile plan to mess up your morals and your heart as well as your body. Zdrovan Daniel wants to prove something by having you take my blood.”
The hissing of the snake dies down, and I take the advantage to talk.
“The immortal humans will get here in no time, Zdrovan. You made a mistake, and now they’re awake, their superpowers activated. They might even be done with your serpent shifters by now, on their way to get you. Some might have already made it out of there, leaking into the world and unveiling the secret of their existence. You screwed up big time. If I were the Serpent Lord, I wouldn’t forgive you this failure.”
Zdrovan glares menacingly at me, but the Serpent Lord hisses again, this time forcing me to my knees, too. It stirs the air, causing it to blow like a gust of wind all through the old locker room. Zdrovan falls from his chair, hands over his head. God, the satisfaction of seeing him like this.... My dark side spins out of control. Under the pressure of the Serpent Lord’s hiss I imagine doing unspeakable things to the man who harmed Irina. I don’t know in detail what happened between them, but the bond she and I share tells me it was horrific. I would gladly give him the same intensity of suffering, in whatever way it will give her pleasure to watch me do it.
The Serpent Lord’s hissing turns into words. “You have failed me, vampire.” I’ve never heard a dragon speak, but I’m sure this is exactly what it would sound like. Deep and vibrant. It’s terrifying, and yet somehow.... beautiful. “The immortal humans are awake.”
“They don’t have anything on you,” Zdrovan stammers. Damn it feels good to see him like this, pale and scared staring up at this terrifying creature looming over him as he lies helpless on the floor. I wonder if this is how Irina stared up at him all those years ago.
“Serpent Lord, please,” Zdrovan insists with the huge serpent. “You can easily take them all out with but a swipe of your tail.”
Damn, he’s right. How am I supposed to get Irina out of his hold? I could take down the other serpent shifters, the normal ones, having drunk their blood I’m suspiciously powerful, but this creature? There are at least two dozen immortal humans on their way over here, and they wouldn’t be enough to tackle this thing.
“Yes, I could,” the thing hisses. “But I see no reason to save you. You’re of no use to me anymore.”
“But I have been.” The bastard grabs his wheelchair, trying to pull himself up on his hands, but the wheels move backwards and he slips back down. How pathetic he looks, how delicious to watch him beg, terrified for his life. But one thing’s for sure, he won’t get out of here with it. If the serpent doesn’t kill him, I will.
“That’s a lesson you never seemed to quite understand,” the serpent says. “In the world of the powerful at the very top, there’s no room for loosening up. You have to stay on top of your game, always be useful. Otherwise you end up in the garbage.”
“At least leave me her.” His eyes settle on Irina. He’s rapacious for her. “Please. Give me just this last token of appreciation for all the work I’ve done for you all these years. I understand you have no more use for a crippled vampire like me, but I’m not asking for much, am I? This woman—Just give her to me, dead or alive.”
“Son of a bitch,” I snarl, throwing myself blindly at him, not caring what will happen to me.
The serpent’s tail intercepts me, hitting me right in the chest and throwing me back so hard that I shoot through a tiled wall, the tiles cracking loudly and falling to the floor all around me.
It hurt. Not the wall that I just flew through, or the tiles still breaking against my head, but the creature’s tail that felt like steel against my ribcage. I try to move, but I cry out at the excruciating pain. Tears fill my eyes, and I fall to my knees, holding to my broken chest. Nothing has hurt like this since I became a vampire.
I watch the creature squeeze Irina until she loses her consciousness and snarl in frustration, forcing my legs to push up and lunge forward despite the pain. It hurts so bad I can’t imagine hell being any worse. I feel like I’m moving through water or through a bad dream, my body not carrying me as fast as I want it to. I can’t reach the woman I love before she falls limp to the floor.
My Irina, her beautiful body drained of energy, of life force. Her mouth hangs open, blood trickling to the floor—he must have ruptured her inner organs!
“I’m going to kill you for this,” I growl after the beast as it retreats into the wide shaft of an old pipe, his muscular tail with the metal scales glinting like ghosts disappearing in the dark. Through the pounding in my ears I hear the creature laughing, genuinely amused at my powerless display of chivalry.
My rib cage has already started to heal and it hurts less, allowing me to move faster, but still not as fast as Zdrovan as he crawls on his hands to Irina. He glances from me to her. I can see it in his eyes, the lust to do something terrible to her before finishing her as a vampire the way he killed her back when she was human. He’s almost sure I won’t reach them in time, but seeing him over her like that gives me strength.
I move faster despite all the pain, howling like a wounded beast as I force myself against the restraints of my still wounded body. I knock him off of her, pinning him under me with my knees on his arms.
“You filthy bastard,” I growl through my teeth, “I’ll rip your flesh off your body bit by bit, then your organs, and let you live through it all.”
I half expect him to laugh in my face and defy me, but behold. The bastard isn’t as badass this time. He stares at me out of those red eyes full of frustration, hatred but also fear.
“What the fuck do you love about her,” he says. “She’s a whore, she’s been one since she was a child. There was never a time when she was pure or, if there was, not even she remembers it.”
My claws pierce his wrists, maki
ng him grunt and curse. I bend down to him. “I’d love to pierce your throat right now, watch you suffer and bleed. But I’m saving it for her.” I motion with my head to Irina. I’m thinking of a way to still keep him down and help her at the same time, joining Herald who’s already tending to her, but then her blonde head stirs. She raises and shakes her head, her beloved blue eyes finding me.
“Thank you, God!” I laugh, tears of happiness in my eyes. Her face regains its beautiful color, she’s regenerating quickly. She’s stronger than the Serpent Lord thought—or maybe he just didn’t squeeze as hard as I thought, he merely disabled her but let her live so Zdrovan could enjoy torturing her to death.
This piece of shit.
“He’s at your disposal, my love.” Damn, even I realize that I sound like a mad man. Like a mad man in love, ready to do anything for the woman he loves and wants to save. “You don’t have to tell me what happened between you and him centuries ago, what he did to you. Just do it to him in return.”
She stays there on all fours at first, staring at us, then comes to her feet, slowly, carefully, taking Herald’s help as he offers it. I stand as well, holding the bastard like the piece of shit that he is.
“He’s here, all yours to do with as you please, my love.” The rush of the situation, the privilege of giving Irina the opportunity of finally taking revenge sends me on a high. Paired with the power in my veins it’s almost toxic, but also liberating. Yet, to my surprise, she doesn’t want it.
“This won’t heal the past Lazarus, and you know it.” Her voice is suave, tender. It’s still her, it’s the woman I’d die for, just a new part of her that baffles me. She stares into the bastard’s face as if she’s seeing him for the first time.
The immortals march in from the pipes, drawing dangerously near. They flood the room as Irina and I face each other, Zdrovan between us as I hold him up like a rag, surrounded by walls of broken tiles, warped lockers and broken mirrors.
“Do it,” Zdrovan urges. He struggles in my hands for the first time. The bastard is afraid of the immortals, he’s scared they’d tear at him like a pack of furious wolves, doing much worse to him than Irina would.
