by Sakurapu
"Who put that here?" The music came to a halt, and Mandrake crossed the room and pulled the panel away.
The ornately-framed floor-length mirror was covered, but smoke swirled from it.
Mandrake looked to Dred and crossed the room. "That is not to leave the library."
Vohn emerged from the woodcut room, slamming the door behind him, his sword bloodied. He ripped off the tapestry, showing the mirror the room.
Every jaw dropped.
"This is forbidden," Scarlet said, backing a few steps. "Vosporos, you know the rules. No one summons—"
"Where's Maeve?" Branard glared at Vohn. "What have you done?"
Vohn grabbed Ivy's arm and dragged her to the mirror, forcing her to her knees before it. "Here is my tribute to your power, great Mortifal. Our choice, each of us. Let her be our conduit back to the days of glory."
"You can't do this," Scarlet said.
Ivy looked up at the rectangle glass as the dark smoke billowed out. She tried to get her legs under her, but Vohn pushed her down by her shoulder. "I thought you were the nice one."
He laughed. "There are no nice ones." He looked around at the others. "You all want this, too." He faced the arc of vampires, his hand clutching Ivy's bare shoulder until she gritted her teeth at the pain. "Each of you, in your own way. Someone to watch you play," he said, nodding to Jovan. "Share your love of beauty," he said to Scarlet, then turned to Mandrake. "Inspire you to compose."
Mandrake glowered at him. "Where are Maeve and Evandis?"
"Drop it, Vosporos!"
Ivy turned to see Dred, a sword in his hand.
He glared at Vohn, the hilt twisting in his grip. "Let her go!"
Vohn stepped back, pulling Ivy with him. She looked up at him in horror, twisting against his hold. "Ah, the shadow has spoken, has he? You, weak and half-full loser." He laughed cruelly. "Useless."
Branard was at the door to the woodcut room. He yanked on the latch, then pounded on the door. "Maeve! Maeve!"
"He killed her," Ivy said shakily.
The back of the sword hilt struck her opposite shoulder and Vohn jerked her to face the mirror again. "Nothing from you."
She refused the tears forming in her eyes.
"Hey! Don't touch her!" Dred charged, bringing his sword blade down on Vohn.
Vohn stepped to the side and deflected the slash, following with a slice to Dred's stomach. "You've never been good enough to take me on, Drexor. Don't try now."
"Oh, Dred," Ivy said slowly, watching him recoil, his hand at his stomach. New red seeped through his black-and-white shirt. "No . . ."
"Shut up," Vohn snapped at her. He laughed as the smoke puffed quicker from the mirror. "I almost had your little friend set up for this year."
She twisted to look up at him. "Lornie?"
"No, Camille. You three following me around like puppies, easy pickings. She was my first choice. But this," he laughed, "is even better. More appealing to each of us, something for everyone." He extended his sword to Dred now trying to stand. "And Drexor comes in and drops you right among us. Like a helpless worm among hungry birds. How very thoughtful." He appraised him derisively. "Playing with fire when he can have the very sun."
"I wasn't gonna do this." Dred stabbed the sword tip into the parquetry, using it to pull himself to stand up.
"What were you going to do? Bite her? Is that all? Such little ambition." Vohn laughed.
"Not in my school," Maeve said from the doorway.
Ivy angled her head to see the girl, who was bloodied, but steadier. Her hand was still on her waist, but her dark eyes shone, targeting Vohn. "Not very smart of you, trapping me in there with our time expert."
Evandis stepped from the room, stopping between Maeve and Branard. In Evandis' hand, he held a dagger, a gouge now missing from the door.
"How far gone are you?" she asked Vohn. "I should have known knew a Vampire with your history would be trouble eventually. I thought you'd learned in Neverfall."
Before Vohn could answer, Branard stepped before her. "I'll finish this, Maeve." He reached over his shoulder and drew a short sword from under the thick hoodie collar. "Let's go, Vosporos."
Ivy tried to inch away, but Vohn's fingers dug into her flesh.
"All in time, Branard." Vohn turned and with a quick flash of his blade, ripped open Dred's shirt, leaving a second slice in him.
Dred howled in pain and fell to his knees, struggling to stand.
"Stop it!" Ivy screamed at Vohn.
"Quiet." With the tip of his sword, he lifted Dred's torn shirt. "He's still intact, like a good little lamb."
Maeve stepped forward despite Branard's attempt to stop her. "I've not lost a student or vampire in a century, Vosporos, and I'm not sacrificing an innocent now." Her eyes rested on Dred's exposed stomach. Beside the bleeding cut at his left abdominal muscle, the vampire birthmark indicating his year now had a circle half-wrapped around it.
Maeve stopped, staring at him as he panted. "That's new."
Vohn ripped open his black shirt, exposing most of his birthmark, which was nearly faded, leaving only the circle. "I bring it out in him. I disavow this weakening of vampires. I reject my mark and keep only our legacy!"
Dred stared at the circle. "We both have that."
Vohn glared at him. "And I'm not alone."
All eyes went to Dred.
Maeve scowled. "You're working together? Moon twins?"
Dred slowly got this his feet. "What?"
"What are Moon twins?" Ivy fidgeted, working her hand under her blossoming skirt to her knee.
"Not him, you idiot," Vohn said to Maeve. He turned to Dred, "Come on, brother. Let's settle this, if you think you can."
Ivy's fingers slipped to her thigh. "You're brothers?"
"No way!" Dred shouted, wobbling on his feet.
"Moon twins; same father, different mothers," Maeve said, backing a step as the smoke grew thicker from the mirror. "I've never seen it . . ."
"Stronger than other Vampire years. Born on a full moon at the same time," Vohn said, looking at them all as they stepped closer. "And she's perfect. I can convince you all in the year." He grabbed Ivy's arm where the ruffle fit around her shoulders. "We keep her, among us, and within the year, you will all beg me to lead us into a new age of vampires!"
"I hate that we share the same dad," Dred said, gripping his sword in one hand, the other holding his stomach as he stared hard at Vohn. "But I am not like you."
"Because you haven't spent time in Neverfall?" Vohn laughed cuttingly. "If we could find a nun around here, you'd have bitten her, believe me. This," he said, pulling Ivy's arm to a painful height, "is just as good."
A harsh smoke blew from the mirror, thick and dense, like ash.
Ivy looked at it, eyes burning from the soot.
"What have you done, Vosporos?" Mandrake demanded. "Drop Ivy, now!"
Vohn stayed his ground, but stepped back as Rimbladt approached.
"Kneel!" a voice boomed from the smoke.
Everyone in the room flinched as a tall, cloaked figure stepped from the smoke, from the mirror. Only Ivy remained too shocked to move.
The figure stood seven feet tall, his black cloak dusted with ash, his gaunt face tight with age and ages of hiding. His black hair was pulled back, forming a sharp V at his brow. His eyes glowed yellow, pinned on Ivy.
"Well done, my son," he said, well-developed fangs jutting from his lips.
"Uncle Mortifal," Dred said, turning to Vohn. "Son? That's not Dad. Not my dad. So you're not my brother!"
"Shut up," Vohn said curtly. "My father is Mortimund Mottknight, just as yours. Uncle Mortifal Mottknight is our uncle, you moron."
Mortifal stepped closer to Ivy, the heat from his boots nearly singing the dress at her knees. "This is the girl."
"Yes, Uncle." Vohn bowed.
"You aren't welcome here," Mandrake told him, stepping forward. "Your place is in Neverfall."
"None of you should call yourse
lves the noble breed of vampire," Mortifal growled. "Pathetic." He turned to Vohn. "Except for you. Your mother was right; Dahlia, the beautiful Nightshade. Your father never wanted what I desire. Weak, to allow joint ownership of the world with humans. And you, Drexor Mottknight," he said, turning on Dred, "by Nora Vera, born on the same night as Vosporos Mottknight. You should have his audacity."
"Go back," Jovan told Mortifal, standing beside Dred.
Ivy looked up at Jovan, then lowered her gaze. Beneath her skirts, her hand closed on the size eleven wooden knitting needles she'd wrapped to her thigh with her hair ribbons. She carefully pulled one free, hoping it was long enough.
Mortifal's toxic stare leveled on her. "No trick of the eye, no deception of mirror, girl."
A cutting laugh came from him, making Ivy tense with fear.
"First you, and then the rest of this wart of a town." His voice turned gravelly. "Your little circle of influence, those tender morsels of girls you teach, and then your school, with all of its Old World blood and vigor. We shall raise a new melody, all we vampires of the old rule, one made from a thousand throats of the youth!"
"Leave my friends alone!" she bit out, her fear nearly crippling. She clenched the knitting needle tight beneath her skirt.
"Evandis was right," Mortifal said, smiling a rigid grin at him as he turned his attention from Ivy. "Vosporos was right. And Mandrake, Rimbladt, and you, Jovan, were all right. Keep the girl. Let her admire your music, be your muse, pose for your sculptures, be your companion," he said, sliding a look to Scarlet. "And together we will usher in a new age of vampire rule." He raised a fist that shook with his words. "Rule as we are meant to rule!"
"Don't let him tempt you," Evandis said, a pocket watch dangling from his other hand. "We have no time for this."
Mandrake didn't take his eyes from Mortifal. "He's tempting no one with—"
Ivy leaped to her feet and lunged at the ancient vampire, plunging the knitting needle to its full nine inches into his chest, screaming incoherently.
Vohn's hand tightened on her but didn't stop her, clawing three long gashes into her shoulder.
"You!" Mortifal howled, shock darkening his face as he clutched his chest. Black fluid spurted from the wound. "Avenge!"
A rushing sound came the mirror and black smoke poured from it. When Ivy's attention turned from it, she was greeted by the flash of metal.
Vohn's sword slashed across her waist, slitting the green velvet sash. A metallic clang rang off her side, making the sword blade vibrate.
The force knocked Ivy against the wall, an "Oof" escaping her. Her breathing wheezed as she braced a hand to the wall, glaring back at him. The slash left her shaken, surprised as much as he at the minimal damage—to the dress.
Vohn's eyes widened as she pushed off the wall, standing before him, no blood at her side.
Ivy was shocked, her fingers finding the bare metal stays ribbing her side. She straightened, gripping the knitting needles in her other hand.
"You're . . . You're inhuman," he gasped.
Ivy wanted to laugh, but hadn't quite caught her breath yet.
His blade stabbed at her again, but she pivoted, driving a wooden needle into his throat.
"Ivy!" He fell back, hands pawing at the wood. He slashed at her, an awkward movement that caught her stomach, further ripping open the green sash. The corset fabric split, exposing the metal stays beneath, leaving Ivy intact.
She lunged on him before he could recoil. She pulled the needle out of his neck and stabbed it into his chest with all her force. She backed from him, feeling under her skirts for another needle.
Around her, the vampires stared back, but not with the surprise she expected.
"Gods, no!" Evandis cried in horror. "You came here to kill us?"
Every vampire in the room surged toward her.
Barely had she grabbed a knitting needle and raised it than Dred tackled her. Ivy's back hit the hard floor, doubled by his weight. He pinned her arm away as she tried to bring the needle down to his chest.
"Stop it, Ivy!" he shouted, struggling to keep her hand away.
"You killed all my friends! Just like you killed your family!" She tried to twist him off, but he straddled her stomach, knees to either side of her, stretching her arm across the floor.
"What? I didn't . . . We're helping you, dammit!" He dodged her other hand as she tried to claw his face. "Just look!"
Their hands locked at a stalemate between them as she spared a glance to the ballroom. The smoke was thinning, and in its place, eight bony vampires had materialized from the mirror. All wielded bone-bladed swords, now in battle with Rimbladt, Jovan, Mandrake, Evandis, and Branard.
Vohn was slumped to the wall, trying to pull out the wooden knitting needle in his chest. Smoke came from the wound, and his face was tight as he glared at her, but managed a low laugh. "She believed it."
"Who are they?" she asked, ignoring Vohn, barely able to breathe under Dred's weight.
"The unrepentant, the ones who would not conform to the world," Dred said. "He's opened Neverfall."
She looked back up at him. His chest was red, the black-and-white tie-dye now stark with blood and torn flesh. She could see one edge of his birthmark. "Let me up."
"Are you gonna not try to kill us?" He winced, still holding her hands away.
"I'm not staying. I want my friends back. Evandis said it's almost too late, Drexor."
He sat back, his hands loosening on her. "Don't say that. I'm not him here. That's only for the past."
She coughed. "Get off me."
He tilted to one side, swinging off her. "Hey!"
She scooted to her knees and stood up. "I'll spare you."
He grabbed the hem of her dress, but she ripped it out of his hand. "Ivy!"
She grabbed two needles from the ribbon at her knee.
"Ivy!" It came from Jovan across the room, who had a gaunt vampire held to the far wall. From the harpist's back she could see the point of a bone blade. "A spike!"
She flung a needle to him.
Jovan caught it and shoved it deep into the vampire's chest. It screamed and slid to the floor, clawing at the wood as smoke poured out its chest.
Ivy glanced around, finding most of the battles won. Vohn had stopped moving, leaned to the wall, his hands at his sides resting on the floor, his face bloodless. She ran to him, grabbed his sword, and turned as a shwip sound went past her.
Dred's spinning sword smashed into the mirror, shattering the glass.
Mortifal staggered back, glaring at Dred. "You little bastard . . ."
Ivy pulled the last knitting needle from her ribbon, but when she turned on Mortifal again, he was dissolving into a stream of smoke. It funneled back into the broken mirror, followed by the fallen, fighting unrepentant vampires unleashed from Neverfall.
Ivy stared at the warped images in the jagged glass frame. The heat around it grew cold and damp.
"It's over, Ivy," Mandrake said, stepping among the broken glass on the floor to her. "He's gone."
She looked up, cringing at the laceration over his brow and the tear in his shirt that showed two red trails on his chest. "I need to get back to my friends before it's too late."
He sighed, wincing. "You won't stay, even after your classmates are safe?"
She slowly turned in a circle, taking in the room.
The harp was on its side, the strings cut. Beside it, Jovan stood, looking down in remorse. Rimbladt was nearby, wiping blood from his sword blade with the bottom of his shirt. Rockfort had a bloodied eye and his clothes were ripped, showing a heavily injured shoulder. Maeve and Branard were against one wall, she holding her stomach as he murmured to her. Scarlet and Berella were on their knees, attending the wounds on Stansa and Strasse.
Ivy turned to Evandis, who still held the dagger in one hand, its edge gleaming with red and black, and the pocket watch in his other. She slowly stepped back to see Dred. He was on his feet now, breathing heavily, an arm croo
ked over his stomach, the other gripping the sword that had shattered the mirror. "Is it too late to save them?"
"No," Evandis said. "Not if you hurry."
"Me?" The chill in the room seeped into Ivy, making her fingers tremble. "Alone?" She turned as a handkerchief draped over the clawed skin of her shoulder. Mandrake gently pressed down.
"Yes, alone. There is still some work here for us to do to stop them from coming back." Mandrake smiled, his fangs still elongated. "Evandis."
She looked up as Evandis stepped forward.
"Take this," he said, holding out the pocket watch. "You have fourteen minutes left. I cannot reverse time any more than I have tonight." He smiled, his fangs shorter. "Go to your friends and break the watch. Time will resume for them, as if nothing has changed."
"But not for you," Maeve said, joining Evandis. "Unless you want it to."
"Hey, uh, if she leaves out the East door to forget, then how's she gonna remember what to do?" Dred grinned some at his reasoning.
Maeve wasn't so impressed. "I'll tell her what to do after she leaves, Dred."
"Oh."
Ivy's hand closed around the watch. "Everything? I'll forget everything?"
"Everything that happened here tonight, yes. And every other time you were here. That's what the East door does." Maeve shot Dred a sharp look. "Some of us didn't always follow that house rule, which is why there have been complications."
Dred shrugged, wincing at the movement.
"And I don't have to stay?" Ivy didn't ask it to anyone in particular, but it was Mandrake that answered.
"No. Not if you choose not to," he said.
She glanced to him, returning his patient smile. Her attention went to Dred, who was holding his stomach, watching her with a pained expression. "I hope you'll be okay, Dred."
A crooked grin came to his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Yeah, not a problem, Ivybelle."
She gave the rest of the vampires a swift look. "Goodbye."
Chapter Seventeen
The line of student actors and dancers took a unified bow to the cheering audience, then raised their clasped hand that linked them together. The center five were Lornie, Heidi, Jarod, Carlie, and Fritz, who had turned out to be a crowd favorite, according to the Rasperville and Shanonton newspaper reporters.
