by brett hicks
“We must hurry, they are changing shifts like I suspected, so we need to beat the next shift here. We kill the guards only as a last resort. They will be missed right now.”
Eighteen:
Vivi led them along the narrow alleys that connected to the other buildings and many random side-roads. Their trip was already proving deadly when Skylar triggered a stone that set off a volley of flaming arrows.
Reyline sighed and shook her head slowly.
“I told you not to try this way child, yet here we are proving the very definition of the word insanity.”
She remarked matter-of-factly with just a slight hint of disapproval in her tone. She had largely left the expedition up to the “younger” members and seemed more intent on pulling out a box of popcorn to watch them dance through very literal flaming hoops. Vivi, for all her calm dark elf restraint, was becoming very angry with the vague and snide woman. The fact that she could likely rip Vivi out of the shadows and drain her to a withered husk of an elf was beside the point!
Vivi’s own people were rumored to have derived from this woman’s lineage, hence her fierce loyalty to Thea. Vivi had never explained the connection she felt from the first, the power of Nox, largely because she thought it was impossible. Vivi had assumed Thea was a descendant of Nox or Rayline in some form or another, not the only daughter of Nox!
Dark elves pride themselves on being good judges of character most the time. Vivi knew that in Ariel’s case, she just didn’t like witches. Back in the days of the last Inquisition, witches had been the ones to burn out the dark elves from their homeland in the hidden regions of Germany. Not that she was about to explain any of this to the young Bishop witch. Ariel was from a pure line, and with that purity comes a power that can destroy as well as create. Sometimes, even inhumans are prone to human fits of irrational emotion.
Vivi felt the shadows of this desolate place calling to her like whispers of a lover’s caress on her ears. The shadow-plane was something all dark elves could slip into, but few could master. Bix was the only light-elf to ever sacrifice part of her woodland nature to embrace the shadows. This sacrifice had set her apart from her blood-kin. The light elves would have nothing to do with her anymore and the dark elves still saw her as little more than a foster child of their woods. The shadow way was treacherous and unforgiving of the weak. Vivi had seen more than one of her kind lose themselves to the dark whispers, not too dissimilar to the whispers of the roadway Reyline had opened to reach Atlantis. Vivi had barely heard them, while Thea had been nearly inconsolable to the pure insanity of the dark void.
Vivi slipped through the folds of reality and she rushed into the next ally in the shadow-plane and she searched for motion or humanoid forms. Dark whispers tickled her ears and she felt a cold tug towards the north-east. Something was ahead and the shadows wanted her to claim it. While Vivi typically ignored their insistence for blood and flesh, she found that feeding their appetite was fitting while on this particular mission.
Show me and be ye not treacherous!
She thought it, knowing the shadows seeped into her mind enough to read it. She felt the chilly humor and the illogical “mind” that was the life or un-life of the shadows brushing against her innermost thoughts.
Stop there or be ye cast aside!
She warned and she felt them recede. Vivi knew the shadows well enough to know they would not risk losing her bounty of death and flesh. While they loved to play with the minds of even their oldest friends, they loved the offerings even more. The dark elves were trained killers, yet they only killed when it was necessary. This can cause for less than ideal relations with the shadows, but Vivi has been in a near state of war for about a year now, so the shadows were gorging on the souls of the lost and damned.
‘You can feel it too, can’t you daughter?’
Vivi nearly stopped and tripped over her own two feet at the sudden crystal-clear voice in her mind. She turned and barely managed to contain the visible shock that was leaking out of her now.
Reyline was in the shadows with her, only she strode through them with a surety that only the mother of all darkness could possess. She looked to the north-east and she smiled a tiny knowing smile.
“What is it?”
Vivi asked and Reyline turned and looked at her with a bemused expression. She had not laid eyes on the youngest of her offspring in many millennia, yet there were more than a few here with her now on this journey.
“Why spoil the surprise dear?”
She said it like a question, which was confusing. Vivi huffed in frustration. Getting a clear answer from pure darkness was impossible unless your name happened to be Thea Salvo. Reyline seemed more than willing to open up to her actual niece. Not that Vivi was just a tiny bit jealous or anything!
“Fine, but if anyone dies due to this silence, I will attempt to kill you with my entire might grandmother.”
Reyline had one second to look shocked before Vivi was a blur of purple shadows and mist. She dispersed deeply into the darkness and she locked onto the location of her quarry.
Vivi had not thought about her mother in a very long time; the once great ruler of all of Germany’s dark elves, Regina. She was the last direct heir to the darkness, the progenitor of the dark elves. There was a reason, besides her skills, that the dark elves deferred to Vivi. Bix is the only one outside her blood-kin who knows her truth. For all Bix may lead the Rangers, Vivi could rule what remains of their people on a single word. Something in Reyline’s eyes told Vivian that she knew everything.
“What you all are going to see going forward is the maze Nox designed for the city. In the event that it was ever sealed off, as a last resort, she put in a confounding maze, impossible to navigate, unless you have help from the bridge or you have her.”
Reyline said this with an ominous tone and Vivi frowned slightly.
“How are we supposed to navigate the labyrinth if we have neither and how the hell did Henry Jefferson manage to navigate a maze that confusing?!”
Vivi asked and Reyline shrugged and waved vaguely.
“My niece believes he stole a vial of her blood. She is the city’s namesake. Atlantis would open every door to her. Nox made sure that her daughter would be able to navigate the maze and find her way to the bridge. As for how we shall topple the maze, it’s simple, I know my sister. I know how her mind worked and I know how she would design something that is without any mathematical solution. We are beings of darkness and death, our logic does not move in straight lines.”
Vivi felt chills rush up her spine as she remembered the whispers from the shadow roads. The darkness was twisted and contorted by comparison to the beings of light. While not crazy, they certainly were not at all similar to any “normal” being. That Nox had loved a goddess of the light and war was illogical on so many levels. They should have been bitter enemies, yet they had Thea together. She was the combination of the bloodline of death and the bloodline of life, hence why Thea’s fledglings turned out different than standard necromancer or vampire fledglings.
Vivian could now see just how paramount her young distant relative’s life really was. She was a being of the shadows herself, yet she was still a lot more attuned to the light. Vivi and her people were one of the very few beings of darkness that could transverse both planes of existence with any comfort. They had been obliterated by Seraphina’s father, not directly, nor could anyone conclusively prove he had been behind the grievous devastation. Then again, no one could even prove his legitimacy to the Earth Throne. Such thoughts were dangerous and many a being has been executed—discreetly of course—for thinking such thoughts.
The simple fact was that Vivian and her sisters of the ruined dark elves needed Seraphina. Seri was the first to ever survive directly opposing her father, largely due to the fact that he believed her to be his prized heifer. He has since discovered his mistake but now it is too late. Seri is entrenched in the New World and she has found a kin unlike any before her. Together they
are the only possibility that does not end with the total enslavement of all creatures.
Vivi was no fool; she knew that everyone in the inhuman world was holding their breath until humans knew of their existence. Three-thousand-years are a very long chess game, but for the old ones, it was nothing. Unlike humans, they plan their moves decades and centuries in advance. The many wars that have ravaged the mortal world were often caused by an inhuman ripple. Even Hitler was a pawn and he was meant to root the Sky Lord from his home, but that didn’t happen.
Now the bulk of the hold-outs and outcasts of the current regime are all hold-up in North America. Everything was beginning to surface, Atlantis rising was just the spark that the old ones needed to declare open-season on the territories they deemed disloyal.
Vivi opened her eyes and she felt as if an eternity had unfolded in the span of a few very arduous moments.
“I understand, but none of this makes any sense to me. Despite everything, I feel like this is much too easy. This feels like a trap.”
Reyline shrugged and gave a wan smile.
“We can only deal with one crisis at a time Vivian. We shall face down tomorrows shadow monsters once they arrive.”
“That’s assuming they even wait that long to surface.”
Unfathomable darkness and wisdom shown in Reyline’s eyes and Vivian felt like she was close to an all-consuming void. This was an ancient being that had witnessed the birth of all life on earth and who had watched nearly every member of her family die off in the inhuman culling.
“Focus, you shall have much blood steeped this day. See to it that none of it is yours or those of our comrades.”
Vivian’s eyes widened at the open declaration of alignment from the Old-Blood—from her grandmother.
“They will burn out all the dark places if you help us. You can go unnoticed here in Atlantis, but not out in the open world of the surface.”
Reyline’s smile flat-lined and she nodded once and deep understanding passed between the two women.
“War has come for us, but this time I shall watch no more of my blood-kin slaughtered. I consider it divine providence that your young cosine stumbled right through the door to my domain.”
Vivi felt like the shadows had swallowed her at this confirmation of Reyline’s acute awareness of her parentage.
“Did you really think I could not see my own baby daughter’s looks in you girl? Please, I’m old, but so are you by human standards, yet you can see a target a mile off and still aim your gun at it.”
“Are you two done? We really need to get the hell out of here and now! The guards are changing!”
Ariel said and she huffed in frustration at Vivian. The two sort-of enemies held each other’s gaze for a long moment, and then Vivi slipped into the shadows and peered around the corner outside the old apartment.
Let the hunt begin!
Vivian thought to herself.
Nineteen:
“You know, I have seen the loveliest places and met the most amazing of people with you lass.”
I turned my gaze and snipped.
“Liam now is not the right time to keep testing me!”
The vampire in question, he had been making such comments for over two hours now. Liam was clearly showing his nerves in his humor. Hell, I could see that even Seri was worried. This magical bombardment on the shields had started shortly after the witches and warlocks had finally driven Shemron back to the safety of the layers of wards over his den.
Booming and quaking were constant now, almost in a rhythmic tempo. Each being that had followed me here was holding their nerves tightly in check, but everyone was beginning to feel the pressure.
Rapid gunfire zipped around us and our wounded were rising. As of yet, we had not taken a casualty, mainly due to each of us being such tiny targets on this high elevation and the fear of being toasted by the pissed off dragon keeping the enemy lines back further.
Essentially, we were both stuck, them down there and us up here.
“Just keep your head down and don’t take a shot to the face.”
I told Liam and he smiled devilishly at me.
“You know, I think I might have told a gal that very same thing before.”
I huffed and aggravation and waved my hand vaguely to my right.
“Go, shoot or I will be forced to explain to Bix why her boy toy fell off the crag!”
Liam huffed and puffed his chest.
“I’m just tryin’ to lighten the mood up here lass.”
“Well go lighten it over there and don’t blame me if Bix punches you herself.”
Liam snorted derisively and rolled his eyes.
“All right, get yer knickers out of a bloody twist woman. I’m going to shoot me some bloody cultic inhumans with automatic rifles. If ye come back into yer humor, ye can find me just over there.”
Liam gestured to the right perch about twenty-five feet ahead of us. Seri was shouting for help and I rushed over while staying low to the ground. She was being pinned down by focus-fire.
“Bix, we need another grenade!”
I shouted above the blasting and ricocheting bullets.
Bix strapped thick grenade onto the end of an arrow and fired it down and the blast was barely delayed enough to have the desired effect. She was the best markswoman I could ever hope to have up here with me!
“Thanks, I’ll cover her!”
I said and I dropped to her side and Seri was leaking blood from her lower left side. I felt an electric surge of pure fear rush through my system. She had been hit! I felt my oxygen falter in my lungs and my body tensed.
“It’s not fatal you newbie. Nothing is fatal beyond beheading or destruction of the heart for me. I’m not even sure you could exsanguinate me properly. I regenerate too fast.”
Seri told me with a bemused tone and her pink lips twitched in amusement. She was hanging low to the ground and I wrapped her in my embrace. I felt her slight body cradled against mine.
“It’s ok; you’re going to be ok.”
I said it soothingly and she closed her eyes and leaned her head on my lap and expelled a long harsh breath.
“Babe, I need you to get the bullet out. It might not kill me, but it sure is distracting me from healing properly. Besides, what good am I to you if I can’t shoot?”
I kissed her temple and whispered into her hairline, “You are always of use to me. I can think of at least one thing you do better than fighting.”
She purred a murmur against my cheek.
“Yes, we will always have Manhattan, won’t we?”
I snorted and nodded in agreement. I remembered my first time with her in our Manhattan high-rise apartment building. We had made it to the elevator and then to the penthouse hallway. That was likely the most vivid and precious memory I had ever made.
“Yes, and we’re going to have a lot more time to christen this whole damn planet if I have anything to say about the matter!”
Seri smiled weakly and she looked deeply amused. Her green eyes spoke of her hidden well of desires she kept tightly guarded against most of the planet. She was worth more than any nation on the planet and she was infinitely more powerful, yet she felt so frail in my arms drenched in her own life-blood.
My heartfelt weighed down by a burden of my sudden fear. Fresh pangs of anxiety spiked through my nerves like barbs of thorny vines. I had never seen anyone I loved hurt like this, even if I was certain she should be fine later. I have been shot several times and I was whole and well by the next day.
“Where’s your blood supply?”
She shook her head slowly and muttered, “No, not yet, need to get the slug out first.”
I swore and I brushed my palm over her cheek.
“Tell me what to do.”
She lazily gestured to her bag.
“Med-kit in there, need you to cut the bullet out Thea.”
I made an anxious sound and swore vividly.
“Honey, I am not a surgeon.”
<
br /> She smiled lazily at me through her pained and exhausted features.
“Don’t need you to be a doctor, just need you to fish the damn bullet out of my gut. Thea, stop complaining and just do it!”
Her tone became firmer and her green eyes lit with her power again. Seri was still firm and in control; she would never let something as small as a bullet take that from her.
“You’re right,” I sighed in exasperation and conceded to her point. Then I went and fished through her green knapsack with a red cross-branded box.
“I think I found it.”
She nodded lazily and her eyes dimmed again. I swore in a constant string like a profane mantra. My hand was steady despite my nerves and my grave fears. My hands were always steady, even when I had taken a life for the first time I had maintained enough control to survive my run-in with the redcaps that fateful night.
I peeled her blood-soaked shirt up and I pulled it up to her chest to give me access to the wound. The wound was maybe an inch-and-a-half of a circular bloody mess. It is steadily leaking red and the tissue seemed to keep trying to close over the leak, but something was holding it back.
“I’m going to have to get in there; I think the bullet is lodged right near the entry hole.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not the proper medical term Thea.”
Seri said in a tired tone, but her light sass still radiated. Her spirit was unbreakable and her will seemed to be as eternal as her forever-nineteen body. I reached down and I gingerly prodded the wound and Seri let out a muffled grunt. She seemed to be enduring the pain much better than I could. I knew that she had suffered in her past and she has known torture, but still, her lack of response to my finger moving in her side disturbed me.
I slowly worked in millimeter by millimeter. Seri made very little noise, but her breaths came faster and I felt her pulse quickening. I slowly worked into the wound and I felt my finger-tip touch the metal slug.
