“Does that mean we have to kill him?”
“It would be preferable.”
“It’s on our to-do list,” said Charlie. “Let’s go.”
Darcy took one last look at her mother before Dink tapped her on the shoulder, handing the torch back.
Dräng scrambled to keep up with Charlie. “What if you silly humans cannot kill him?”
“Have a little faith, Dräng. We got this far, didn’t we?” Charlie said nervously. He was trying to convince himself more than Dräng.
“No. The Dark Prince is unlike any other monster you have faced, Lesser or Greater. If you fail, all is lost.”
“I know. Thanks for reminding me.”
They burst into the hallway, leaving the dungeon and all of its death behind. In front of them stood the doors to the Great Hall—the Dark Prince was that close, just behind this final threshold. The monster around which their town was built, and which had haunted the same town ever since. The time had come to free, or to doom, Hunter’s Grove—and the rest of the world—once and for all.
Charlie wiped the sweat off his brow. He knew what waited behind those doors. He had seen the Hall one too many times in his dreams.
He turned around to face his Hunters, his allies. His friends. He met all of their eyes, even Lisa’s, whose blank stare had become fiery, determined. Speeches and commands were unnecessary. He simply nodded.
The doors buckled under a wall of storm-stepped lightning, and the four Monster Hunters burst into the Great Hall with a righteous fury, followed by their woodsman friends and one increasingly hesitant Lesser monster.
Lisa was the first up the steps, growling under her breath, “For Liev!” She quickly outran the others, like a disease-maddened hound on the trail of its prey.
“Where are you, blood pig?” she screamed.
Her voice came echoing back, louder and distorted. It repeated over and over until changing to a voice that was not hers—a deeper, richer voice. Her words blurred together, becoming perturbed laughter.
“WHERE AM I? WHERE AM I?”
The Dark Prince was mocking her.
Charlie looked throughout the Hall with his Sight. He could not find the varcolac. The Prince chuckled.
“LITTLE ONE. I’M RIGHT HERE!”
A burning chunk of something flew at them. They all ducked aside just in time, except for Darcy. She stood her ground, using her gift to become dense, too dense for the object to harm her. The flaming debris cracked into hundreds of pieces. Some of it flew past her, falling down the stairs. Other parts fell to the ground near her, catching fire to a rug. She quickly took off her jacket—also on fire—and threw it on top of the rug in hopes of creating some light.
With Fish and Dink at their backs, the four remaining Hunters moved forward, into the dark.
“STUPID HUMANS. HUNDREDS OF HUNTERS CAME BEFORE YOU. THEY COULDN’T DEFEAT ME, ONLY CONTAIN ME WITH HUNTER’S KEY. DO YOU THINK TO DO BETTER, MERE CHILDREN?”
Charlie tried a different approach. He tried to feel out with his mind, and tried to watch from the varcolac’s eyes. It worked.
“Over there. Nash!”
Nash looked to where Charlie was pointing and stomped.
“You’re dead, monster!”
A fusillade of electricity flew up to the ceiling, disturbing a horde of red-eyed bats from their roosting place.
Through a grimace, Lisa shot out a flickering black web as the bats tried to escape, catching and stopping them in midflight. The bats gathered into a shadowy mass before melting into the shape of a man as Lisa’s black web became tighter and tighter, ropelike. She smiled darkly, pouring all of her will power into making the energy net a burning, destroying weapon, trying to make the varcolac feel her pain.
“You killed my brother!”
The varcolac laughed and broke through the web. He took hold and flicked it like a whip, sending Lisa flying. He chuckled again as he blew on his singed hands.
“No, your brother ruined himself by petting the Exsecrifer on my diary. I have to admit, I never thought you all would make it this far.”
The Dark Prince was tall and well built. He wore hooded red robes over a black suit of armor—fit for a king, and for a blood bath. His face, glowing slightly from the dim fire that had taken root at the front of the Hall, was carefully shaped. Too carefully, as if the varcolac himself had chosen the face above all others.
He looked upon them, a demonic smile on his perfect lips.
“But you did make it. Such a pity, too. You will all make fine additions to my blood cellar. Especially you,” he mused, cruel red eyes alighting on Darcy. “The blood of a young, generational Monster Hunter. Just what I need to raise the Ancients.”
He turned and held out his hand. Dräng flew from behind a pillar, landing in the varcolac’s vice grip.
“No doubt the traitor has shown you my blood cellar. Am I right, traitor?”
He threw the small monster away like trash, turning back to smile sweetly at Darcy.
Darcy scowled, remembering her mother, alive and yet not. She launched herself forward, making herself as dense as she could, and threw one solid punch at the varcolac’s ribs.
Her hand connected in his side with a loud CRACK. She fell to the ground, cradling her fist in pain. The varcolac simply nudged her with his toe, and she slid several feet away.
With a clear view, Fish and Dink opened fire. Their special bullets bit into the varcolac, sending him backwards. In the darkness, they could see chunks of material and flesh disappear from his black silhouette with each shot. Soon the varcolac was nothing but a mess of holes, but Fish and Dink kept firing, until their guns were empty.
The Dark Prince’s torn and ragged form shuddered. He twitched and shook, and his silhouette became whole again—the gaps and holes of flesh filling themselves in within seconds.
The Hunters watched in horror as the varcolac took a step forward, with his hellfire eyes and malicious grin. He held out his hands, and Fish and Dink looked down to see that they were not holding guns anymore, but large snakes. They cried out and threw the things down, stomping on the snakes’ heads.
Nash let another tumult of lightning fly into the varcolac. The varcolac held up a hand, and the pure energy flew into his palm. It congealed into a large glowing orb, becoming a ball of smoke and fire.
The Dark Prince threw the ball back at Nash. Fire caught on his jacket, and Nash flailed around, trying to remove the jacket and keep from getting burned.
Charlie looked around at his friends. They were defeated, all trying to kill the Dark Prince on their own terms, with their own grudges. They were, as the varcolac had said, children, and now they were divided. They needed a leader.
The varcolac watched him expectantly, eyes like burning coal.
“Would you like to try your pathetic gift against me as well?”
Charlie didn’t have time to respond before he felt the monster inside his own mind. He saw what the varcolac truly was then—not a handsome prince, but a sickening monstrosity of nature.
He dropped his spear, clapping his head in his hands as images badgered his mind repeatedly—visions of the varcolac’s true form, his nightmares, Liev’s death….
Amidst that chaos of painful images, Charlie could see it clearly now. The truth behind his nightmares. Liev was gone, and it was Charlie’s fault. And the varcolac was winning.
Tears stung Charlie’s eyes as the varcolac reminded him of Liev’s thrice death. Poisoned by a manticore, wounded by the wolf, dragged to the depths and drowned by murderous rusalkas. The varcolac forced Charlie to remember the night they had found the diary, when Exsecrifer bit into Liev’s thumb. Liev had been cursed to die from then on.
“You knew, deep down, that Liev was cursed by the Exsecrifer,” said the Prince. “So, how does it feel? Knowing that your friend was cursed, and that you still put him in harm’s way? Blinded by your own ambitions, you let him take the
fall.”
Abruptly, the Dark Prince stopped talking, and the painful images stopped flickering through Charlie’s mind. He heard scuffling.
Charlie looked up to see that Dräng had launched himself onto the front of the varcolac’s intricate armor. Chunks of glowing marble were held in both hands, with which he beat his former master relentlessly. The varcolac threw up a hand to shield his face, torn and bloodied with each hit from Dräng’s magically enhanced chunks of marble flooring. Under Dräng’s barrage, the Prince’s face seemed to shift from bloodied, to hairy and ugly, and back to handsome again.
It was the moment Charlie needed. He stood on wobbly legs and looked around at the fallen friends…his teammates and fellow Hunters. They needed a leader.
“Get up,” Charlie urged, helping Darcy to her feet. “Get up! We have to fight him together. Only if we use our gifts together can we beat him.”
Different emotions flickered over each face—sorrow, anger, duty. Finally, they looked at each other and seemed to find themselves again.
They all heard a small screech and watched as Dräng’s small body collided sideways with a broken pillar. He fell to the ground, where he did not move.
“Now!” screamed Charlie.
The four Hunters lurched forward, wounded and beaten up as they were, to where the varcolac stood with his back to a pillar, holding his face. His true face—all fur, horns, teeth and tusks. It became handsome, princely again, just in time to see the four Hunters cornering him.
“All together,” Charlie said gravely, scowling at their enemy.
As Lisa’s net of black energy pushed forward through the air, Charlie remembered Loch’s last words before they had passed the gateway.
Loch looked at the ground. Then he lurched forward, suddenly remembering the one thing he had forgotten to give them.
“Charlie, wait!”
“Yes?”
Lisa pushed with all her might. Her black energy pinned the varcolac to the pillar. A small streak of white flickered through the bonds, as if Liev were helping his sister one last time.
Lisa saw the white spreading throughout her black energy. Her heart jumped, and she pushed with something beyond herself—the memory of Liev. She focused as Loch had taught her. Her energy, usually forming into a net, became a solid, painful stream against the varcolac.
The varcolac felt his skin burning from Lisa’s gift. He squirmed in momentary weakness.
Loch passed the box to the boy. “Inside—don’t open it! Inside is a…mirror of sorts. A looking glass, if you will.”
Darcy jumped forward, condensing her mass and throwing punches through Lisa’s bonds at the varcolac. Bones broke, trying to heal themselves, only to be broken again by the girl’s determined beating.
Nash, nervous about hitting Darcy, but knowing he had a duty to complete, stepped forward and brought his foot down hard. The electricity jumped to its target, but it did not flicker off. The stream mixed with Lisa’s, striking him straight in the chest, where his black heart failed to beat.
“A mirror?”
“Yes. You may not be able to kill the varcolac. If you can’t kill him, show the mirror to him, but don’t set eyes on it yourself! As you know, most undead have no reflection because they lack a soul like ours. But this mirror will show the Dark Prince his reflection, and it will bind the varcolac himself within the glass. With this, you’ll have an advantage the first Hunter’s didn’t have. But whatever you do you—and this goes for those blockhead friends of yours as well—you must not look at the reflective side yourself. The mirror is facing the bottom of the box, just so you know. Do you understand?”
Charlie nodded gravely. He could imagine well enough what would happen if he looked into the glass, and he did not need any more dissuasion than that.
Charlie reached into his jacket pocket for the box that Loch had given him. While he did, he closed his eyes and, though it caused his mind to scream in pain and his nose to bleed, he thought of as many people in Hunter’s Grove as he possibly could, seeing through all of their eyes at once. An ocean of images roared through his mind, threatening to tear it apart. When he couldn’t find another person, he pushed with his mind and sent the same tormenting cacophony of visions into the varcolac’s head.
“For Liev,” muttered Charlie. “And for Hunter’s Grove.”
The varcolac screamed. He had never felt this much pain, never been this weakened by an opponent. It consumed him, showing him for what he truly was—his beautiful face, his princely robes, all fell away to reveal a disgusting beast covered in coarse fur, with horns, jutting teeth, and shriveled wings. Some spark of what life was left in him cried out to the Hunters, begging for mercy, for release, for anything but this.
They stopped at Charlie’s command. The broken, smoldering form of the varcolac monster fell forward, slumping onto its clawed hands and knees. It was unrecognizable from the handsome creature they had come to defeat. The only things that resembled the varcolac now were the burning eyes, which slowly looked up at the Hunters, incomprehensive and lost, devoid of any real thoughts.
Charlie held the mirror forward, and they all looked away.
The varcolac looked up at the four blurred shapes that stood before him. A light rose in front of them. Was that…fire? His sight cleared slightly, just enough to see the reflective object Charlie held out to him. What was that? Two red dots stood out on the object’s surface for a moment, then….
There was no reflective surface. Charlie was not holding anything out to him.
What the varcolac saw changed completely. He found himself staring at his Great Hall, but it was at a strange angle. The varcolac reached out a seething hand to lean against a pillar, but what he felt was a glass wall. Like a mirror.
He pressed against the glass but it did not bend. His broken body healing faster now, the varcolac pounded against the glass, only to realize that it would not break. And then the scene was changing again. The room fell away and was replaced by the velvet bottom of the thin box in Charlie’s hand. As the varcolac roared silently from inside his silver mirror of a prison, the scene went black. Charlie had closed the box.
The Dark Prince was defeated, confined to the mirror.
Charlie rubbed his sweating brow as pieces of Blood Castle’s roof began to fall. His nose had stopped bleeding, but a stream of dry blood already ran down his face and jacket. The others were saying something to him, but the voices were distorted. Maybe it was the loss of blood, or maybe it was the mind-splitting effort of looking through so many eyes at once, but Charlie felt weak.
Nash saw his friend start to topple backwards, and caught him just in time, before Charlie’s head met the marble floor. Carrying yet another person that day, Nash picked up Charlie’s smaller frame and nodded to the others.
“This place is falling apart,” said Fish, picking Dräng up. “We need to get out of here.”
“We’ve got to get my mother out first!” cried Darcy.
“We’ll get them all out, but we still need to get a move on.”
Nash ran out with Charlie over his shoulder, jumping over the flames at the Great Hall’s entrance. Darcy and Lisa followed, and Dink after them. Fish took up the rear, holding the conscious but still wounded Dräng.
They escaped just before the Great Hall collapsed in ruin.
The Sagemistress watched with her coven of witches from Wyvern’s Peak as the tallest tower of Blood Castle came crashing down. She smiled softly, knowing the children had finally done it. The Prince was gone, and all of his accursed, binding magic was crumbling.
She watched as what was left of the varcolac’s army began to disappear from the Otherworld.
The wolves looked up at the crumbling castle and howled, released from their master’s bonds and vanishing into sudden gusts, returning to their long forgotten homelands.
Banshees and boggarts swirled and faded into the air, returning to green coastlands.
Everywhere the Sagemistress looked, it was the same. The Prince had been overcome, and their vows to him were broken. Unknowingly, these new Hunters had released monsters back into the world, to their places of origin, their homelands.
Howls and roars and screams of celebration rose into the air, fading just as quickly.
And then the shockwave of wind rushed up Wyvern’s Peak. The Sagemistress smiled, and her coven of witches behind her began chattering excitedly.
She raised her head and closed her eyes as the wind reached her. Sweet release.
And then the Sagemistress was gone.
They ran through the hallway, pushing and pulling the varcolac’s prisoners along. Charlie had woken up, but he needed help moving forward, as well. Nash was at the rear with Fish and Dink, making sure no one fell behind. He carried little Bobby Muldor, who would not have been able to outrun a collapsing castle, while Fish and Dink helped the two ancient looking prisoners keep up—both of whom had been prisoners for centuries.
They reached the courtyard and kept going. With towers and buildings collapsing all around them, they ran straight for the open gate, courtesy of Darcy and Dräng, who had gone ahead to make way.
She and Dräng phased straight through the ceiling of the gate way as the others approached, dropping onto the edge of the drawbridge.
The others merged with her, all running perilously through the portcullis and across the still lowering bridge. Fish and Dink were the last to jump from the bridge to the suddenly empty and void plains of the Otherworld, just as Blood Castle gave one last heave and the outer walls fell in on themselves. The bridge and gate gave way, crashing into the empty black waters of the moat, as they all—Hunters young and old, a monster, village idiots and townspeople alike—crashed into the ground together.
Exhausted, they all sat lamely staring at the ruined remains of Blood Castle.
The Hunters and their friends fell back against the ground, taking the first chance they had in a very long day to rest, while people who had been frozen for years took the opportunity to move freely. To live without hindrance.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: The Varcolac's Diary Page 21
