"Hold on, my dear," said Genghis. "You're almost there."
Mindless in the throes of her agony, Mavis continued to howl and flail...and then, all at once, the torment ceased. Her whole being hung suspended, every sensitized nerve awaiting the next burst of pain.
But the pain never came. Instead, a shimmering lightness spread through her body, a tingling like the pleasant nervousness of mild excitement. She slumped, relishing the thrilling shivers flickering through her.
At that moment, the pillars ceased their downward movement, and Mavis' feet touched the floor. She nearly collapsed, but Genghis kept his arm around her and held her up.
"So what do you think, sweetheart?" he said.
Mavis blinked hard—and suddenly, she could see. The chamber was still immersed in darkness, but her eyes could see through it. She saw Genghis standing beside her, a figure of glowing gray in the midst of dim twilight.
As Mavis stared at him, her mood began to change. She felt the thing in her chest twitch and growl.
"Aren't you going to thank me, honey?" said Genghis.
A sudden rush of fire blazed through Mavis' veins. What she did next seemed as natural and instinctive as breathing, though it was something she had never done before.
She bared her new fangs and hissed in Genghis' face.
Before Genghis could say another word, Mavis sprang at him, every atom of her being crying out for bloody murder.
*****
Chapter 103
Newly endowed with the strength of a vampire, Mavis blasted Genghis with a flurry of superhuman blows. She struck with more power than she'd ever possessed in her life, more than enough force to kill a human being with one punch.
She hammered him again and again, frenzied, relentless. Her mind was a fireball of rage, spinning and roiling, burning off all thoughts but one.
Kill him! I'll kill him!
Thanks to Genghis, her vision had come true in a terrible way. She would gladly have become a vampire if Arthur had offered to make her one...but being transformed by Genghis against her will was all wrong. She felt violated on an intimate level, and all she could think of was brutal revenge.
As powerful and enraged as she was, though, Genghis exceeded her. Laughing, he swung out an arm and swatted her away, flicking her to the floor at his feet. Mavis leaped up and lunged at him, and he caught her by the throat.
Mavis thrashed, but the pressure on her throat only intensified. Genghis kept squeezing, cutting off the flow of blood to her head. She began to black out.
Then, a bolt of liquid fire surged from her chest—from the feratu that had taken the place of her heart. Without meaning to, without trying to, she began to change. Her body stretched and snapped and unfolded, twisting into a new form.
Genghis squeezed her throat harder. "Kinky, kinky! Just the way I like 'em."
Looking out of the corner of her eye, Mavis saw a ribbed and leathery wing unfolding beside her, dusted with fine red fur. Raising her hands, she saw her fingers curling into crescent-shaped claws with sharp points and serrated edges. She flexed them, clicking the opalescent bony blades together.
Genghis laughed and shook her like a toy in his grip. "I can do kinky, too." As he said it, his body curdled and grew, shifting into the shape of a creature at least twice his original size. Instead of a giant hawk, he ended up looking like a monstrous cross between a polar bear and a gorilla—like a Yeti, an Abominable Snowman. He was covered with shaggy white fur, and his eyes were fiery red. His massive white wings fanned out like the jagged wings of a demon, each rib tipped with a glistening point.
"Let's do it like animals." In his new form, Genghis' voice boomed and crackled.
Mavis pried at his hands and kicked and struggled, to no effect. She slashed at him, gouging his fur-covered arm, but he just kept strangling her.
James and Thomas leaped into the fray to help her, switching to their own batlike forms and pouncing on the roaring Yeti. They pummeled and tore at him with abandon, pounding and slicing like maniacs in the darkness.
Arthur joined them, returning from wherever Genghis had dumped him when he'd thrown him off the descending pillar. He hacked at the Yeti with Excalibur, chopping the blade into the monster's flesh like a butcher going berserk on a side of beef.
But Genghis wouldn't let go of Mavis, and he wouldn't go down. If he felt any pain at all from his wounds, he didn't show it. Juggernaut that he was, he continued choking Mavis with one hand and fending off the three superhuman attackers with the other.
Then, suddenly, everything changed.
The blaring cacophony of noise that filled the chamber cut off. The darkness ended, too, as shafts of white light flared to life, stabbing up from the holes in the floor into which the crystal pillars had disappeared.
Genghis looked around but didn't let go of Mavis. "The moment we've all been waiting for." He tossed her over his shoulder and swatted aside James and Thomas. "I'm about to become lord of Empyrea and king of the world!"
"Never!" Arthur swept Excalibur back and leaped at Genghis. The gleaming blade swung toward Genghis' throat, about to sever his head from his shoulders.
But Arthur didn't finish that stroke.
*****
Chapter 104
Before it happened, Jonah was watching Genghis fight Arthur, James, and Thomas. Jonah wished he could do something to help, but he knew he'd be dead in a heartbeat if he got involved.
Hearing a scraping sound from above, Jonah looked up at the ceiling...and he saw the middle circle iris open. For an instant, the hole in the ceiling was dark, and then a bright golden light flared out of it.
Mesmerized, Jonah continued to watch, expecting to see the ceiling open wider. Expecting a gateway leading to another world, a heavenly plane of existence.
But instead of opening wide to admit visitors, the hole stayed just big enough for something to slide through from the other side. Something strange and dazzling.
It was a cylinder of radiant amber, a crystalline tube shedding rays of golden light as sharp and solid as metallic gold itself. Bathed in those brilliant rays, the contents of the cylinder were visible even from a distance. Even far below, Jonah could see there was a figure inside. A human figure.
There was a person inside that cylinder—stooped and skeletal, bearded and gray. Wrapped in white cloth, holding a walking stick. Withered and ancient, yet giving off beams of blazing golden luminescence.
Jonah gazed at the man in the cylinder with wonder, forgetting the battle going on around him, forgetting Empyrea, forgetting everything. In that moment, he knew—though Stanza hadn't told him what to expect, he knew—that this was what he'd come for. This was what he'd been meant to find from the beginning.
As he thought this, Jonah raised a hand to shield his eyes from the brightness above him. That was when it happened.
The cylinder started to turn...and as it turned, it grew brighter. It turned faster and grew brighter every second, so Jonah had to squint as he gazed up at it. Soon, the turning became spinning, faster and faster, and the brightness became blinding. Jonah had to look away.
And at that instant, the light exploded, filling the chamber with blazing incandescence like the light of the sun. Light so powerful, Jonah shut his eyes and collapsed under the weight of it.
Everyone in the chamber did exactly the same thing. Jonah couldn't see them, but he heard them crying out and dropping all around him—Arthur, Mavis, James, Thomas, even Genghis. Hundreds more besides, near and far, falling to their knees. Trying to shut it out.
And then came the worst of it. They started screaming.
All of them, everywhere, screamed in agony. Howled at the top of their lungs. Cried out in the throes of pain, as if they were being tortured or put through surgery without anesthetic.
Mavis! James! Thomas! Arthur!
All of them shrieking. Every last one of the hundreds in that room.
Except Jonah. And Stanza.
"Hold on!" Jonah heard Stanza
somewhere nearby, talking people through the torture. "It'll be over soon! Everyone, hold on!"
Suddenly, it occurred to Jonah why he and Stanza were the only two not screaming. Why they out of all the hundreds were not suffering excruciating pain.
They were different from all the others in one respect.
Jonah and Stanza weren't vampires.
*****
Chapter 105
Screaming only seemed to make it worse.
Mavis writhed on the floor, screaming herself raw, and the agony continued to build. She felt like her entire body was on fire, every inch of it burning in the white hot flame filling the chamber. No matter how she moved or what she did, the pain doubled and squared and redoubled with each passing moment.
The worst of it, though, by far, was the thing that lived where her heart had been. The feratu clawed and spasmed in her chest, jolting and gyrating. It felt like a fist gloved in razor blades, trying to rip its way out of her.
Oh my God! Please help me!
It way by far the worst pain she'd ever experienced. She was out of her mind with it, out of her soul. For the first time in her life, she knew how it felt to be in so much pain she'd do anything to end it. Anything.
The vampires around her sounded like they were suffering just as much. They howled and thrashed among the mummified feratu, shrieking for help like children...hundreds of powerful immortals, begging for the pain to end, begging to be put out of their misery. Even the monster Genghis was wailing like an infant, crying out for someone to help him, kill him, make it stop.
Then, suddenly, Mavis heard something new—a loud crackling, breaking over the screams. It started in just a few places, here and there, and then it spread throughout the whole chamber...crackling, like kindling being snapped or bones being broken. And as it spread, the screaming got louder. Mavis hadn't thought it possible, but it got louder, as if something was happening to increase the pain.
Tears of pain pouring from her eyes, Mavis writhed on the floor, listening between her own screams to the crackling and screaming around her. The crackling was followed by a sound like suction, a hissing whine—and then squealing, an inhuman screeching. Inhuman and familiar.
Mavis recognized that sound. Just as the crackling seized her body, she realized where the sound had come from, what had made it. And then it was too late, and her mind was filled with it.
Filled with the screaming of the feratu.
*****
Chapter 106
Mavis clutched her chest as the pain there suddenly escalated. Twisting and thrashing on the floor, she screamed louder than ever, beyond all limits.
And then her chest began to heave. The bones over the place where her heart had been began to buckle outward under her hands. Began to crackle as they splintered and snapped and tore through her flesh.
When the bones burst apart, blowing a hole in her chest from within, she wrenched her hands away. Screaming even louder, she banged her head on the floor against the pain, ready to kill herself to make it stop.
But it just got worse.
The hiss of suction filled her ears as something pulled at the hole in her chest. Sucked at the gaping wound...and the feratu.
She felt the creature battle the pull, sinking its pincers deeper into her flesh. Screeching in agony and rage, it fought to hold on to her, fought to keep her.
And then, with the most terrible cry of all, the feratu was dragged out of her. Screaming in unison with the parasite, Mavis felt it leave her, felt its pincers and tentacles tear free. In the short time it had been with her, the thing had sunk its roots deep...and now, she felt it ripped away, taking bits of her with it.
Mommy! It spoke to her! Its voice the voice of a child, a little girl, in her mind. Mommy! Help me!
And then, at last, it was gone.
Mavis slumped, empty and exhausted, on the floor. She was grateful for what would come next, what she knew had to come next.
For the feratu had been the only thing keeping her alive. The thing had devoured and replaced her heart...and now, she had neither. She had nothing to push the blood through her body, nothing to animate her.
Time to die now.
Still a pastor in spirit, still a believer, she prayed for deliverance. Prayed for God to take her soul to Heaven.
I'm not ready to go, I finally found my true love, but it's Your will and I accept it. I'll die in peace.
Finally, the pain subsided, and Mavis stopped screaming. Felt a chill flow through her body and sink deep, settling in. Sparks flickered against her eyelids. She tried to move and couldn't. Couldn't speak, either. Couldn't say what she wanted to say.
Goodbye, Arthur. I love you.
I love you.
Mavis faded, drifting free of body and world and life like a stringless kite. Disappearing like sugar stirred into a cup of coffee. The end.
Except it wasn't.
*****
Chapter 107
The cold that had taken hold of Mavis began to fade. A wave of warmth filtered through her like liquid, slow and smooth...flowing from her feet to her legs to her trunk. Rolling up to gather in her chest.
The heat rose and throbbed in the gaping cavity left behind by the feratu...swelled up like a balloon, then condensed, focused, hardened. Mavis could feel it take shape and weight inside her, curling and connecting. Not with hooks and suckers, but with soft cords and tissues.
The new thing in her chest shuddered and began to move. To pump.
To beat.
The white glare that had blinded her turned to soft, golden light. She heard and felt more crackling, but this time without the agonizing pain.
Opening her eyes, she looked down at herself. Her ribs, as she watched, flexed like fingers, bending down and knitting together. Threads of red muscle wove over them, and sheets of skin stretched over both muscle and bone. Replacing what she'd lost.
Bringing her back.
She felt the pulse of blood from her newborn heart spread out through her body. She felt the heat of life rush through her, washing away the pain.
After everything she'd gone through, she'd survived. The suffering had been a crucible, burning away the vampire parts of her. Boiling away the impurities, leaving the gold.
Alive! I'm alive!
Propping herself up on her elbows, she gazed in wonder at the immaculate surface of her chest, fully restored as if the skin had never been broken. As if a monster had never been sucked out of it.
Mavis looked down along the length of her body, then jumped. The feratu clung to her left knee, gnarled and black and covered in slime.
But it was no longer alive. When Mavis kicked, the thing flopped to the ground and lay there, shriveled and still. A thing of horror, collapsed among the desiccated remains of its brethren who had died there long ago.
Now we know where all the dead feratu came from.
Looking around, Mavis saw ex-vampires rising up everywhere from their ordeal, tossing aside feratu corpses like chicken bones. Rubbing their eyes and yawning and gazing at the ceiling.
Mavis followed their lead, looking up at the source of the golden light that suffused the chamber. She saw an amber cylinder at dead center of the ceiling, turning slowly, bathed in a nimbus of purest golden radiance.
At the heart of the cylinder, she was sure she saw a man, withered and ragged and old beyond imagining. A stick figure with limbs and a beard. The light was coming from him.
"Mavis!" Just then, her new heart leaped at the sound of Arthur's voice. He hurried toward her with arms outstretched, an ecstatic smile plastered across his face. "Thank God you're all right!"
As weary as Mavis felt, she scrambled to her feet and charged into his arms. "Arthur! My love!"
When they kissed, her heart pounded like never before. She pressed her hand to his bare chest and felt his new heart beat, too...felt it pound.
Arthur placed his hand over hers. "Isn't that something?" He beamed like the sun, grinned bigger than she'd ever seen
him grin. "I haven't had one of those for centuries."
Mavis kissed his hand. "You'll need someone to show you how to use it."
"I've already found my teacher." Arthur kissed her lips again. "If she'll have me."
"You don't even have to ask," said Mavis.
"But I do." Arthur leaned back and gazed into her eyes. "Will you have me, though I'm no longer an immortal? Though my powers have fled?" He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "I'm not the same man anymore."
"You're the best you've ever been," said Mavis. "Of course I'll have you."
"Let's take it a step further then. This calls for a celebration." Arthur unwrapped his arms from around her and dropped to one knee. "Darling Mavis." He took her hand. "Will you be my wife and my queen?"
Tears filled Mavis' eyes. Was it really happening?
"Y-you want me to marry you?" Her hand shivered in his grip. "Is that what you're saying?"
Arthur nodded. "It would be my greatest honor. My greatest joy."
Mavis dropped to her knees. She slid a hand behind his neck and gathered him to her, touching her forehead to his. "We've been married since the day we met," she whispered. "Since the first time I saw you."
Arthur smiled. "I know," he whispered.
And the kiss that came next, bathed in golden light, was the sweetest, most perfect lingering kiss that had ever existed in the history of the world.
*****
Chapter 108
Jonah was gazing up at the amber cylinder when Stanza came up behind him.
"I told you everything would work out, didn't I?" she said, and then she kissed his shoulder. "We did it."
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