The Vampire's Heart

by Breaker, Cochin

  The sight in my left eye clears and the magical energy spent keeping it working gets diverted elsewhere. I doubt Fel was responsible for keeping me working when my body was broken; it would have been more like a natural reaction. Within instants the casting is complete, and my body is back in prime condition.

  ‘You could just leave now. That’d be easiest,’ Fel says, ‘and you’d survive which is a bonus for you. You know you’re scared of him; that’s why you didn’t cast wings to return immediately to help Liesl and Revner. You got lucky, Alleil.’

  “Shut up Fel. It is sunrise soon so go back into your little dark box and leave me in peace,” I say aloud, albeit in a hushed tone.

  A scream comes from off to my right, around the other side of the Lighthouse. I do not recognise the voice. I sharpen and harden my fingernails, and latch onto the wall.

  I am once again hauling myself up the white walls of the Lighthouse. My freshly repaired body feels strong and new, which makes scaling the steep tower seem so easy.

  As I clamber onto the tiled rooftop the sun breaks the horizon. I feel Fel return to the place from whence he came, which leaves my mind with a distinctive peace. I get to my feet and look for Muzbeth.

  A shaft of brilliant white light erupts from the sun and strikes the severely wounded Kellum, whose demonic soul is ripped out and cast back into the depths of Hell, leaving only the dried, yet mangled, corpse. I’ve seen this happen only a few times before, when a newly turned vampire hasn’t been able to get into cover from the sun in time. It is the most painful way to go for a vampire. Kellum will have suffered far more than he should have.

  I glance around at the battleground. My eyes survey the devastating scene arrayed upon the early-morning yellow washed roof. Muzbeth is gone and Luc is dead. He, Callic, and Morren are now nothing but dust in the wind.

  Only three of the vampire Lys-Karalis can fight for their race. As I look into Liesl and Revner’s sad eyes I know that not all of us will make it out of this alive. Three have fallen back into death already. More of us will surely follow. Either that or the monster that started all of this will wipe us all out.

  Something moves on the ground in front of me.

  - Muzbeth -

  I pull out the knife imbedded in my side and wield it, assessing its weight and balance, and then fling it, deciding that it’s useless. The dagger sails from my grasp and disappears between two chimneystacks, and over the edge to fall down into the courtyard thousands of feet below.

  I leap toward the lip of the roof, away from the remaining two Lys-Karalis who at this moment are racing at me.

  I’ve over judged the jump; that realisation comes too late. Suddenly I’m plummeting the huge distance to the hard cobbled floor below, just like the dagger I just threw. I struggle to move my body to the wall, but I manage to do so. I slide down the wall, which slows me a little, but nowhere near enough. The flesh on the rear side of my body is being worn or torn away by the friction.

  A chimneystack, which protrudes out of the side of the Lighthouse, rushes up. I bend my knees and kick down into it, destroying the stack, and cracking the bones in my legs at the same time. I continue without control down the wall.

  About twenty feet from the floor, a pressure forces me hard into the wall, slowing me dramatically. But I do not slow enough.

  I land with a sickening crunch; my brittle, dry, dead bones break from the pressure of the landing. I stumble and fall, my leg bones broken and useless. I manage to stand and take a few steps around the Lighthouse when Summer runs to me. Sweat and blood stain her dress, and she is severely out of breath. She puts her arm around my waist, and uses her telekinesis to lift us quickly up into the air and over the wall. She seems to be holding her breath as she does.

  Once we are over the wall, she lowers us to the ground. About ten feet before the sodden grassy mud, her telekinesis fails and we drop like stones onto the soft ground.

  Summer lies quite still. I can feel her heart beat though, so I know she is not dead. Her hands are caked in blood. I locate the freshest blood on her and lick, trying to absorb some of the magical power within it; it is a useless effort. I take her hand, pull it close to my mouth and kiss it. I then turn it over and sink my teeth into the flesh of her wrist.

  The blood is delicious, far better than the taste of my own. I feel its power well up inside of me; I long to drink more, to feast upon the woman I love so that we can be together forever. But I stop myself. She would hate me for it. What am I thinking, she would come around to my way of thinking eventually. I bite down harder, and feel a fresh wave of hot sweet blood.

  “Stop it.”

  At the sound of her voice I drop her hand and kiss her. Using the magical power I just took from her I heal my broken body and her wrist. I gently pick her up in my arms and begin to run, speeding us away over the ground. It rushes beneath me, faster than I have ever run before; so fast that the greens and browns blur together. The rain from the Tomam casting splashes into my face as my newly repaired legs pound upon the soaked ground.

  Now we have to wait. Soon I’ll feed again and then we’ll go back to the Lighthouse. They do not get off that easily. The Lighthouse will fall to me. And once the remaining Lys-Karalis leave, I will put into practice part one of our Godhood; the Becoming.

  - Zinne -

  My dear kings, what has happened? I pause momentarily during our march, the feeling of the deaths of the Lys-Karalis shaking me to my core. I look around at my men to see that they have reacted also. How could so many of the Lys-Karalis die without another taking up their reign?

  Only four of our leaders survive now. I felt three die, as every vampire across the world must have done.

  It is terrible when one of our ‘Karalis dies. Now is not the time for war, so we will abandon the attack on Scathack. I will lead the small army down to the town of Vecen, our capital, which is located just east of Rebium. There we will mourn the loss of so many of our leaders. Many of the vampires travelling under my command have never even met the Lys-Karalis, and to mourn them whilst never having met them will certainly be an odd occurrence; they cannot begin to understand the link we normal vampires have to them, nor the respect we have for them.

  Originally my group was fairly small but, when we entered Lowan, a town to the south of Nuima, our numbers grew dramatically. We managed to stay in Lowan for three nights. On the first night we turned nearly twenty people. We fed the freshly turned first, and taught them how to feed, and more importantly how to turn. Every night we would turn more. By the end of our short stay, my men numbered almost one hundred and fifty. The village hardly even noticed we were there until it was too late. We were so careful; never once did we encounter military or priestly opposition. Now that village is empty.

  But now, as we travel north, I am going to have to change my plans. Initially I was not willing to travel through the Gatheck Range, though now we must travel down them; only coming out of their dark crevices when we are near Vecen. I’m thankful of the difficult terrain in the mountains, though it will be hard to make it to Vecen, as it will be dark all of the way, bar for a scant few hours at noon. That means we should get there fairly quickly. We owe our Lys-Karalis that much.

  I wonder which of them have passed, and which still live?

  Whatever the result, they deserve to be mourned for they have led us well. They will be missed.

  - Sczeran -

  So Muzbeth is still alive, that is a pity. The ignorant bastard should be dead. But at least, even though I cannot disobey him, I can twist his words. He never said I shouldn’t defend Scathack against invaders. So when he comes, I’ll be sure that he can never get close enough to speak to me, or to the vampires underneath me.

  Zinne, that lazy bastard, will feel my wrath one day too, for skirting Enlil to save his own skin.

  I’m currently leading one hundred and forty-two vampires across the Gatheck Range. Oh, won’t he be surprised when he sees how big my army is compared to his pitiful twenty-
five strong strike force.

  Many of the original twenty-seven of my squad were lost in Enlil. The Calcian Hunter teams proving very impressive, but eventually we overcame them and now that town is defenceless.

  And Calcian forces will inevitably be rushing to Enlil, attempting to help by undoubtedly leaving Scathack practically defenceless.

  The Macer of Scathack, who is a skinny wraith of a man named Pelicis, will submit his city to me without much encouragement. Even if he is not still in charge there, as it is a good few years since I’ve been there, his successor is will suffer the same fate. The lucky people of Scathack will be my army, and they will be free of the rule of Lys-Karalis.

  Soon my dream will become reality.

  - Alleil -

  A few feet in front of me the prone form of Kellum lies upon the floor, stirring slowly. How is he moving? I’ve never seen anything like it before. I rush over and roll him onto his back, he tries to scream but it comes out as nothing more than a dry and cracked gurgle.

  How can he still be alive? It’s just crazy! Just to my left I can see his fingers twitching, as though he’s trying to tell me something. Unfortunately his wounds are stopping him annunciating anything.

  ‘Bite him, devour him, we need more power.’

  I thought you’d fucked off? I think at Fel.

  But still, I suppose Kellum has to survive.

  I slash my claws across my wrist, letting the thick vampiric blood drip into the gaping wound that was once his mouth. Instead of biting him I simply suck the fresh blood away from his wounds, exchanging my vampiric blood for his somehow human blood. It is truly odd turning someone, it feels like you are being washed with them, and in the moment of exchange you can see their thoughts and feel their pain. The latter is the pleasurable part for vampires; usually we do not feel pain, especially not the Lys-Karalis.

  This time it is different; it is his thoughts that capture my attention while the two of us are one blood sharing being. He is a Season, whatever that is, and he is running from something. He has a plan for that something. It is a plan that will make him safe from those he runs from. Still he plans to become a Lys-Karalis.

  As soon as the thoughts are shared the connection is sheared. Kellum has passed away, his recently life-filled body falling limp. I’d used a lot of magic on healing after the fall earlier, but this is just as important. I look about the tiles for the discarded mandible, and spot it a few feet away from Liesl.

  “Liesl, chuck us that bit of Kellum will you? And I think you’d better come and help me with this cast.”

  The two Lys-Karalis both head my way to lend their magical strength. Liesl hands me the jaw and I put the detached body part where it should naturally go.

  I feel Liesl’s hands on my neck, and my body reacts immediately. The magic is suddenly coursing inside me, warming me at his touch.

  Their power flushes through me, filling me with magic. Our Link-Shell comes into being, our magics feeding off each other and becoming greater than the sum of each individually.

  Liesl’s fingers play across the scar on my neck from where I was bitten and turned. That is the only thing I will never be able to heal with my magic. His soft touch sends spears of lust through my mind, firing my nerve endings with magical heat. My entire body is teased by it.

  I clear my head and lift my mind from somewhere near the gutter. I’ve never tried to heal a corpse before. Well, not an uninhabited one, anyway. But this man, this ‘Autumn’ as he calls himself in his head, will need as much strength as he can get for the coming ordeal.

  I let the magic flow from my hands, much stronger that I have felt it in a long time, into his neck and jaw, choosing to reattach his old one rather that grow him one anew. To do that would take considerably more magical power. I let my hands contact all of his wounds. I feel the flesh knitting together, both magically, and beneath my hands, but it heals much more slowly that the flesh of the living or the vampires.

  Soon the casting is complete and I stand with Kellum’s dead body in perfect condition at my feet. As I rise, the two hands on my neck fall away and I feel a pang of loss due to the ending contact with Liesl. I turn to look at Revner.

  “We need to get him out of here, somewhere safe. Somewhere away from any Calcians.”

  “The only suitable place around here will be villages,” Revner says, looking to the edge of the roof.

  “Do not worry about getting into cover; he won’t need it,” I tell my counterparts, recalling the plan I learned of during the connection between Autumn and myself

  “What? How can you be sure that he’ll become a Lys-Karalis?” Revner asks, with a little more than concern.

  “I’m not sure at all, but he can survive having the demon ripped from him, so eventually he’s bound to get a subservient one.” Revner nods his head as I explain a tiny fraction of Kellum’s plan to him.

  “Cunning. We should head out into the wilderness then?” He asks.

  “Yes, please hurry. I can only imagine how little time we have before the Calcians get up here.”

  Revner nods again and stoops to pick up the dead body. My eyes glide to Liesl’s. He has dark hazel eyes. There is such depth and anguish in them. He struggles so much with his demon, and there is nothing we can do to help him. He can only bear the burden. I smile at him, and he smiles back.

  Given what has just happened to the other Lys-Karalis it feels so surreal that I might find happiness in such a simple thing.

  ‘You disgust me,’ Fel informs me.

  The Seventeenth Chapter

  - Alleil -

  12 days until the birth of a god

  The 21st day of Spring-Fall, 1538

  Revner and Liesl stand to either side of me. The farmlands we’re stood upon are sodden and un-growing; the heavy and practically constant rain since winter ended has stunted the growth of the crops, which would have been near fully grown by now. Though, now the rain has finally broken and the sun is pouring down upon the land, the climate has become so hot and muggy it is even unpleasant for us dead.

  Whoever, Kellum or Autumn, is staked to the ground in front of us, not yet wakened from his death to embrace the vampiric way once more. It should only be a few moments until he wakes.

  The sun is high in the sky and it is beating down upon my face. It is about two hours since we lost Callic, Morren, and Luc. We’ll need to travel to Vecen once we have dealt with Kellum… Autumn… whoever…

  “So what did you see that made you want to torture this poor man?”

  The sudden voice interrupting the quiet and gentle wind startles me a little. It is Revner, he knows what will happen when the ‘poor man’ wakes.

  “I saw what he wanted,” I say to Revner, not taking my eyes from the sky.

  “And that was to be tortured, was it?” he asks. It is a fair question.

  “No, he wants to be in control of his body, but still needs to be a vampire.”

  “But…” Revner starts, before he stops himself. There is a lengthy pause while Revner mulls it over.

  I consider explaining it to him, but I think I like the peace and quiet. Before long, Rev’s voice breaks the silence again.

  “I see now. How can you be sure he’ll survive this time?”

  “Well, given his physical state last time, and his physical state now, I’d hope he’d be able to deal perfectly well. He is evidently very resilient.”

  Silence falls over us once more. The only sound now is the distant lowing of cattle and the wind touching on our hair and clothes. Come to think of it, I have no idea how he does survive. The fact that he can become human is amazing; once he is a Lys-Karalis he will have to explain how he managed it.

  “How long do you think?” Liesl asks, breaking the silence once more.

  “Only a few more moments,” I reply, hoping I’m right.

  “I can see a problem here. It’s taken him nearly a quarter of a day already; it’s going to take a long time if we don’t manage to get him what he wants
straight away.”

  “Usually it takes about three hours for a turned to wake,” Revner answers for me. “We healed him during his time of turning, perhaps doing that again would speed up the process more next time; if we healed more?”

  “You may have a point there, Revner, what do you think Liesl?” I ask of our eldest member.

  “I think it’s worth…”

  I catch the movement of the body twitching out of the corner of my eye.

  “He moved!”

  My observation makes us forget the conversation as all of our attention is drawn to the stirring body, bound spread eagle to the wet earth beneath our feet.

  He’s moving in the sunlight. Perhaps, just perhaps we’ve succeeded first time. I take a step forward, but both Liesl and Revner hold me back, stopping me from getting any closer. Within seconds there is a shaft of brilliant white light, this time angled from high in the sky, lancing down onto the defenceless vampire.

  He screams with an agony that is so evident. It cuts through to my bones, and chills my already cold blood. As soon as the shaft of light comes, it seems to be gone, nothing more than a few instants of brightness.

  The ground where he lay no longer sodden but now dry and cracked, the body is charred, and unsurprisingly to me, still alive, though only just. We have work to do.

  ***

  “Alleil, this is the last one before sundown. We won’t get another chance until the morning.”