by Nathan Spain
Draven watched it hang in the blackness above them, an incredibly bright ember of glowing red, lighting up the dark sky. The glow of the flare illuminated the bats winging their way toward the city, and for a moment Draven’s breath caught – there were more of them than he had realized, a dense cloud of oncoming death.
But they weren’t the only army in attendance that night.
As the bats surged over the wall of the city’s southern border, dark shapes shot upward from the rooftops of the neighboring buildings. Like a barrage of arrows, the Winebloods sped to meet the attackers in mid-air.
“This is it,” Damian said.
Ariadne looked at him and Draven. “Both of you stay close, okay? I’m not getting separated from you again.”
“I’ll try,” said Damian. “But above all else, remember the plan. Find Thanatos. Find Brone. Put a stop to this madness as soon as possible.”
Ariadne nodded, and met Draven’s eyes. “Ready?”
He took a deep breath, steadied himself. Ready or not, there was no longer time to consider the risks. “Have to be.”
Ariadne turned her eyes to the fight. The sky had become a roiling mass of winged shapes, clawing and biting at each other and spiraling down to the streets below. A frown of bitter, determined focus clouded her face. “Let’s finish this.”
Together, they ran to the edge of the Needle and leapt into the open air. Downward they fell, the wind whipping at their hair and their clothes, and then they transformed mid-fall, caught the air currents on extended wings and soared at full speed toward the chaos.
Instead of diving straight into the fray, they swooped low, above the downtown streets. Already, some of the invaders had made it to ground level and returned to human form. Their advance was met by Wineblood soldiers, and soon the man-made corridors of concrete and glass rang with the clash of steel swords.
Humans, too, had thrown themselves into the fight. Crowds of them ran toward the dueling vampires, falling upon the Blackwings and Nightcloaks with blunt objects in hand. For a moment, it looked like they might bring down their foes through force of numbers alone. But then blades sliced through human flesh, bodies were thrown backward, and blood spattered the streets as the humans retreated.
Draven saw a group of humans holding their distance, lining up to aim guns at a pack of four advancing Blackwings. Shot after shot rang out, riddling the vampires with bullets. One of the Blackwings staggered and collapsed, alive but too stunned by the onslaught to stand. The rest, however, kept coming, merely slowed by the bullet wounds.
The humans, their guns empty and with no time to reload, fell back in a panic.
Leading his friends, Draven swooped down and transformed, landing between the humans and the oncoming Blackwings. He tackled the nearest foe, taking him by surprise, and knocked the vampire’s blade from his hand.
The Blackwing snarled and clawed at him, but weakly. Bullet holes peppered his chest, and he wore a pained expression underneath his rage. Draven grabbed him by the sides of the head and slammed his skull down into the pavement. The clawing and struggling stopped, and the man lay still.
Draven straightened and glanced to his right. Ariadne had also subdued her opponent; she was just wrenching the Blackwing’s own jagged hunting knife from his skull.
But Draven still heard a struggle. He turned to his left and saw Damian on the ground, a burly Blackwing straddling him, his hands wrapped around the old man’s throat.
In one swift, fluid motion, Draven leapt to his feet, crossed the short distance between them, and delivered a fierce kick to the Blackwing’s head. He released Damian with a yelp and rolled onto his back.
Draven fell upon him with a snarl, but the Blackwing fought ferociously, and before Draven knew what was happening, his foe had seized him and rolled over, pinning Draven beneath his weight and raining relentless punches down on him. The Blackwing’s fist slammed into his face once, twice, and again, and Draven was too stunned to stop him, too overwhelmed by the force of the blows to fight back…
With a cry of fury, Ariadne sped toward them, knife in hand, and pounced on the Blackwing straddling Draven. His assault stopped as Ariadne’s knife pierced the back of his skull.
The Blackwing slumped to the ground, lifeless, but it took several seconds and several more furious stabs to the man’s chest before Ariadne finally tore herself away and staggered back, breathing hard. By then the deed was well past done.
Damian stared at her with a look of mingled pride and horror, feelings that Draven felt mirrored in himself. Ariadne’s capacity for violence, especially in defense of those she cared about, wasn’t news to him; he had seen it before. But he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to it.
Ariadne turned her blood-spattered face to him. “Are you okay?”
Draven swallowed roughly and rubbed his bruised face. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you, Ari. Guess that’s another one I owe you.”
Ariadne looked at him with a sly grin. “You get through the night alive, and maybe you can make it up to me later.”
The tip of her tongue teased the tip of her fangs as she smiled at him, and even in the shadowy street, the blood on her face stood out against her pale skin. She looked monstrous, and she looked beautiful, and it occurred to Draven that he could not divorce the one state from the other. In that moment, she possessed a beauty unlike any she’d had in life, no less potent for its monstrousness.
Damian nudged Draven and pointed, breaking the spell. Down the street, the humans they had defended stood watching them. Their guns were raised in trembling hands, the weapons pointed at the three Winebloods.
The vampires froze, staring back at the frightened humans. “Easy…” Draven growled, extending his hands up by the side of his head. “We’re the ones on your side.”
“Stay-stay back!” a young woman shouted, her gun pointed squarely at Draven.
“We’re just going to fly away now,” Ariadne called out. “Try not to do anything stupid like shooting at us.”
Damian chimed in, “But if more of them attack you, remember – a shot to the head will stop them. That or decapitation. A torso wound will only slow them down. Our kind are tougher than yours.”
“Dad,” Ariadne hissed.
She grabbed her father, and together the three of them twisted and transformed. But just as they did so, a gun went off with a bang and a shot whizzed past Draven’s head. He never saw who had fired it.
The vampires quickly flew out of the line of fire, settling on a rooftop high above.
“Did you really have to give them pointers on how to kill a vampire when they had weapons drawn on us?” Ariadne fumed.
“They’re going to need to remember such things if they want to survive this,” Damian said defensively. “You saw what happened when they tried to shoot those Blackwings.”
Ariadne sighed. “I swear to God, Dad,” she said.
But Draven could tell her irritation was already fading. It was hard to be angry with Damian. He never made a mistake that didn’t have an inherently selfless motivation behind it.
“We have bigger problems,” Draven said, striding to the edge of the rooftop to look down at the streets below. Most of the fighting had made it down to ground level, and the dimly-lit streets were a crowded and violent blur. Groups of vampires danced around each other, blades clashing, while bands of humans with guns and makeshift torches bravely stood their ground against the invaders. They were hard-pressed to resist their inhuman opponents, however; corpses had begun to litter the streets, and the scent of blood was strong in the air. “We can’t defend all the citizens. We have to put a stop to this.”
“Lead the way,” Damian said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Without further hesitation, Draven once again leapt into the empty air and took off in bat form, the others following behind him. As he flew low over the streets, he tried to pick out familiar figures from the chaos, but it seemed impossible to find any one per
son in the chorus of shouts and crowd of battling humans and vampires.
Suddenly, Ariadne flew past him, picking up speed. He followed, letting her take the lead. As they grew closer, he realized what she had spotted – there, at the end of the street, Rosanna and Callidora led a band of Winebloods in battle with a pack of Blackwings. At the front of the group of foes, furiously locking blades with Rosanna, was a squat but swift man with a ghastly smile permanently fixed on his face.
Ariadne flew faster still, diving directly toward Brone. She hurtled downward like a rocket, only reverting to human form at the last second.
She slammed into Brone at full speed, knocking him away from Rosanna. Ariadne held onto him as the two of them crashed to the ground, but the force of her momentum caused her to lose her grip as they both went tumbling across the pavement.
“Ariadne,” Rosanna shouted with a wild bark of laughter. “Thanks for the assist, sister.”
Even as Draven and Damian landed next to Rosanna and Callidora, Brone and Ariadne were already getting to their feet.
“You again,” Brone spat. He stared at her maliciously, his blinded eye giving his face a gruesome asymmetry. “You just can’t resist me, can you, little firebrand?” He glanced at Draven and Damian. “And it seems you’ve been reunited with dear old dad. Oh, I’m gonna enjoy making him watch you die.”
“Come and get me,” Ariadne taunted. “I’ll be the last thing you ever see out of that one good eye of yours.”
Hesitation flickered in Brone’s eye for a moment, and Draven knew he was recalling the sting of Ariadne’s nails slashing his face. Brone was a conniving snake, but he was no fool; he hadn’t gotten to his current station in life by engaging in reckless displays of bravado. Draven recalled how Brone had not participated in the fight at the lodge, and how he had ambushed them at Wineblood Manor hoping for their surrender and an easy coup. Brone could hold his own in a fight – Draven still had a faint ache in his side to remind him of that – but at heart, the Blackwing lord was not a fighter. At heart, he was a coward.
But his men were watching, and his opponent was a small, unarmed woman, and Draven knew that a coward in command of an army could not afford to let their cowardice show.
Brone had dropped his sword when Ariadne had rammed him, but now he thrust out a hand, and the nearest Blackwing soldier relinquished his weapon. “Stay back,” Brone growled to his men. “This one’s mine.”
“Ariadne,” Draven shouted. He picked up Brone’s fallen sword and tossed it into the air toward her. It sailed above Brone’s head. Ariadne reached out a hand and caught it by the hilt, snagging the blade out of mid-air and assuming a defensive posture in one swift motion.
Draven sensed Damian tense up at his side, but he held out a hand against his friend’s chest. “Wait,” he said softly.
No one else around them was fighting now; all eyes were on Brone and Ariadne. The Blackwings had clustered behind their lord, and the group of Winebloods gathered around Callidora to face them from the opposite side of the street. In the center, between the two groups, the combatants circled each other warily.
Damian’s voice was tight with anxiety. “She can’t fight him alone, Draven.”
But Damian hadn’t seen Ariadne fight at the lodge or at the Manor. “I think she can,” Draven said, and as he met Damian’s worried gaze, with his eyes he said, Have faith.
Ariadne glanced toward them, just for a moment, and Draven caught her eye. With just a glance and a tiny nod, he tried to communicate his confidence in her. She flashed him a fleeting, fanged grin, before looking back at Brone.
Just as she did so, Brone leapt forward with a growl of impatient rage, thrusting his sword at Ariadne. She spun to the side, avoiding the attack, and brought the pommel of her sword down hard on the Blackwing lord’s skull. He staggered to the side, clutching his head and spewing a foul stream of curses.
Ariadne grinned. “Is that all you’ve got, Lord Blackwing?” The way she pronounced it made the title seem less like a formality than a mockery, like she thought him unworthy of the name.
Brone’s fury was palpable. “I’m going to feed you your eyes,” he snarled, pointing his sword at her, but compared to Ariadne’s withering scorn, his threat had a desperate, ineffectual tone to it.
He charged at her again, swinging his blade at her head, but this time, instead of dodging, she blocked his blow. They twisted and parried, sparks flying, each unable to get their sword past the other’s.
They broke away from each other. Brone panted slightly, but Ariadne looked almost relaxed.
“So, are you going to start putting some effort into it?” she said sweetly, taunting him with her carefree smile. “Or are you just going to screw around?”
Brone said nothing, but his mouth twisted and his nostrils flared like an angry bull, and Draven suddenly realized what Ariadne was doing. She had reversed the roles on Brone, taken over his brand of slick confidence and goading taunts. She was humiliating him, showing him up at his own game, leaving him no ground on which to gain a purchase, save for blind frustration.
And a frustrated Brone was a careless Brone.
Ariadne extended her hand, curling her fingers in a ‘come at me’ gesture. With a wordless snarl, Brone charged at her, aiming a slash at her body. She easily blocked the blow and spun away, a light, mocking laugh bubbling forth from her lips.
She pivoted and faced Brone again. He turned, his sword raised high by his head on his right side, but his left side faced her, unguarded.
A grin tugged at Ariadne’s mouth as she ran forward, aiming a blow at Brone’s vulnerable side.
But Draven saw a flash of cunning in Brone’s eye, and the memory of his own near-fatal mistake in the battle at the Manor came flooding back to him.
It was too late to warn her. Brone leapt straight up with surprising strength, just as he had at the Manor. Ariadne’s low slash passed harmlessly under his feet.
It happened so fast that Draven almost missed it. Just after Ariadne’s sword passed under Brone, while he was still mid-jump, she let go of the hilt for a split-second, flipping her hand and arm from palm up to palm down, and with a strong, sudden twist of her wrist and pivot of her body, she swung the sword back in the other direction.
The blade cut through Brone’s leg like it wasn’t even there.
He hit the ground and collapsed onto his chest, an agonized scream tearing its way out of his throat. Brone rolled onto his back, clutching what remained of his leg with his left hand; everything below the knee had been severed. His face was a howling, disfigured mask of pain, shock, and anger.
Ariadne approached him as he lay there, and he tried rather pathetically to slash at her with his sword, but she knocked it from his hands with a single, powerful stroke. It clattered against the concrete, out of reach.
“Don’t just stand there,” Brone roared at his watching men. “Kill her!”
But none of them moved. A hush had fallen over them as they watched the fight, and now they watched its outcome with grim faces. Damian’s words about Brone from many nights prior swam to the surface of Draven’s mind. An odious autocrat, loved by no one.
There was no love in the faces of the assembled Blackwings now. Most hid their feelings behind tightly-sewn features; thin-lined mouths and cold eyes. But in some faces, Draven saw naked disgust.
Fury overtook Brone as he realized none of his men were springing to his aid, and he unleashed a foul string of abusive epithets – at them, at Ariadne, at the Winebloods, seemingly at the whole of creation.
Ariadne pointed the tip of her sword at his remaining eye. “Are you finished?”
Brone gulped, his good eye focused on the steel point hovering above it. Hoarsely, his worry barely masked, he said, “You going to kill me, darling?”
“Maybe,” Ariadne said. “Maybe not. I’m still deciding.”
A chill of goosebumps traveled up Draven’s arms. A lot of things had changed about Ariadne since he’d first known her
, but one thing that still remained the same was the sound of her voice when she lied.
Brone’s lip curled in a snarl. “Do you want me to beg?”
Ariadne paused, as though considering this. “Yes, I think I do.”
Brone’s face contorted even further with hatred. He was still gripping his leg, as if holding it could somehow make it better, and his hands were slick with blood. “Haven’t you taken enough from me already, you bitch?” he shouted. “You want to rob me of my dignity now, too?”
Ariadne’s face darkened. “Here’s the thing.” She leaned down to look him in the eye. “You love taking people’s dignity. You live for it. Trying to humiliate people, to dominate them, to hold all the power. You only care about yourself. I bet you started plotting to stab Thanatos in the back as soon as you teamed up with him. Hell, I bet he sees it coming and plans to do the same to you first. Everyone else is just a pawn to a man like you, and they know it. That’s why your clansmen aren’t lifting a finger to help you right now.”
Brone took his eye off her just long enough to scan the faces of the crowd. Draven could tell Brone saw the same thing he had, because, for the first time, the anger on Brone’s face was overpowered by fear.
“Men like you get off on threats and abuse,” Ariadne continued. “You threatened me. You threatened my clan. You threatened my father.”
Draven felt Damian draw in a breath at this last statement, and he put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. It was both a gesture of comfort and a warning not to interfere.
“So, no,” Ariadne finished, cold contempt in her voice, “you don’t get to die with dignity. You just get to die.”
“Fuck you, you Wineblood wh-”
Ariadne didn’t let him finish. She drove her sword through his eye and up into his head with a single, almost casual thrust. His tensed, angry body went limp, like a puppet with its strings cut, and Brone, Lord of the Blackwings, ended his reign lying broken in the street of a human city, just one more body amidst the carnage he helped to sow.
Wordlessly, Ariadne wrenched her sword from Brone’s skull and walked over to the Winebloods.
