A Shade of Vampire 81: A Bringer of Night

by Forrest, Bella

  And now she was desperate to escape from the ship.

  She tried to make a run for it, but it didn’t go well. Other creatures emerged from the ship and went dashing after her, their long fangs glistening with hunger. “Get back here, witch!” one of them snarled. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Not without revealing my location behind a bush. These were dangerous people, and my survival instinct was telling me to keep quiet.

  They caught up with the witch, tackling her violently. “What the hell did you do?” another fanged man asked.

  “You wanted a portal! I gave you a portal!” the witch replied, her wrists pinned to the ground. She struggled to release herself, but the fanged man used his whole weight to keep her down.

  “You tricked us!” the first fanged man said, visibly angered and panting. There were dozens of them, each furious about whatever the witch had done. “We had a deal!”

  “I had a deal with the Lord and Lady Supreme!” she snapped. “You broke it the moment you drank my blood against my will!”

  “It’s not our fault you had us wandering through freakin’ space until we ran through our blood supply!” a third man said. “We wouldn’t have had to drink from you had you taken us in the right direction.”

  They dragged her up and tied her to a tree. She was too weak to fight. She could barely stand. I’d heard those titles somewhere before. Lord and Lady Supreme… Oh, crap!

  These were Aeternae! The Aeternae had somehow made it all the way to Cruor before the Elders took over. What in the ever-living hell was going on here? I was missing some pieces from the already-jumbled puzzle that was supposed to be the bigger picture.

  “You tricked us! You said you’d take us to a new world for us to conquer,” a female Aeternae said, approaching the witch.

  “I brought you to a new world for you to conquer,” she replied, grinning with bloodcurdling satisfaction. “Only you’ll never find your way home ever again. You’ll drink this place dry, and then you’ll have nowhere to go. You’ll starve. You’ll suffer. And my agony will have been avenged!”

  The first Aeternae man scoffed, shaking his head in dismay. “So, let me get this straight. You showed up on Visio claiming you had powers and magic, thinking you could maybe dazzle us and gain our fortunes. Then, when you saw our resources and powers, you realized you were of no use to us unless you gave us a new land to conquer, beyond Rimia and Nalore.”

  The witch said nothing, but the hatred in her eyes spoke volumes.

  “That’s exactly what she did, Prometheus,” the female Aeternae said. “She dangled the prospect of expansion before us. She boarded our ship; she made us wander among the stars for months on end until we depleted our resources and started feeding on her. She didn’t like that very much, so she decided to pull one last trick from her sleeve and, well, here we are. Stranded. I don’t even think we’re in the same galaxy anymore!”

  “You’re not even in the same universe anymore.” The witch cackled.

  Prometheus backhanded her so hard blood spurted from her split lip. “You’ll pay for this!”

  “What do we do now?” the second Aeternae asked, despair darkening his face.

  “I don’t know, Basilius,” Prometheus replied. “We obviously cannot go home. Not after what this witch bitch did.”

  Gasps erupted from the rest of the crew. Some of their wounds from the crash were still healing, and they were all quite pale, their eyes glistening with hunger. They’d had nothing to feed on but the witch for far too long.

  “We’ll settle here,” the female Aeternae said. “I can smell fresh blood nearby. This planet is definitely inhabited.”

  “It is,” Basilius replied. “I caught a glimpse of a few settlements on our way down.”

  Prometheus nodded, his gaze fixed on the witch. “If you don’t help us, you’ll be of no use to us. And if you’re of no use to us, then we’ll kill you.”

  “You’d be doing me a favor. My biggest mistake was going to Visio and thinking I could make something of myself there,” the witch spat. “I should’ve gone to Earth, like my other sisters, when they opened their portal.”

  “Earth?” the female Aeternae asked.

  “There’s no point in telling you about it now, Elena.” The witch chuckled. “You’ll never get there, anyway. You’re all stuck here.”

  Prometheus grinned. “You’re forgetting something, Noula. Your life, your existence, still depends on us. In fact, you know what? I’ve just changed my mind. We won’t kill you. No, we’ll keep you as a pet. We’ll drink from you enough to keep you down. The day will come when you’ll beg for us to release you in any way possible. That day will be the day you do our bidding. Until then, you’ll have to watch what we do to this place.”

  The witch was horrified, but she didn’t surrender. “You do what you want. I will never help any of you, ever again.”

  “You’re saying that because you haven’t experienced true suffering yet,” Basilius replied. “We’ll talk again in a few centuries, darling.”

  “Lock her up,” Prometheus ordered. “We’ve got a world to conquer.”

  Terror gripped my throat, spreading ice through my veins as I realized what had happened here. Cruor was already suffering because of the Night Bringer’s curse and imprisonment. His misery seeped outward, causing life to wither away, the wood nymphs gradually dying out. On top of all that, misfortune had also brought a crew of exploring Aeternae to Cruor. They were stranded here, holding a witch prisoner.

  Still, by the time the first humans had been brought here much later, there had been absolutely no sign of Aeternae or wood nymphs. I assumed they’d all died out because of the Elders. But where had the Elders come from? Were they a byproduct of Night’s suffering, too?

  “Hello there, cutie pie.” Prometheus’s voice startled me.

  He’d found me. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out of the bush. I screamed, trying to get as far away from him as possible. But I was no match for a powerful Aeternae.

  “Let the feast begin,” Basilius muttered behind him.

  Before I could even beg for mercy, they pounced on me, all of them at once. Their fangs pierced my skin. Lightheadedness quickly set in, and I drifted away in an empty sea of nothing, my life snuffed out by Aeternae on Cruor…

  “Get them off me!” I screamed as soon as I came to, still feeling the sting of every Aeternae bite that had brought on my demise. No, the wood nymph’s demise. I was okay. I was back in the present with Soul by my side.

  “You’re okay,” he said. “Deep breaths, Kelara.”

  “That’s it. A Beta element,” I replied, glowering at the stone cube. “Oh, the things I saw… Oh, man, Cruor is a lot more twisted and complicated than I thought.”

  In what felt like a single breath, I told the First Tenners about everything I’d seen, from the beginning of the end for Cruor to the Aeternae’s arrival. By the time I was done, I no longer cared about the agonizing pain that would spear me once I broke the third Beta element. Despite his misery, the Night Bringer had managed to drag me into his story, and I was dying to get to the next chapter.

  He’d embedded his memories into this place in no particular order, but I really wanted to know what happened to the Aeternae. To Prometheus, Basilius, Elena, and the others. There were gaps in Cruor’s history, and I had to fill them to make sense of it all.

  I managed to get up, raising my scythe with newfound determination.

  “Kelara, take it easy,” Phantom warned me. “It’s all getting pretty intense. We can all feel it now.”

  “I can’t stop,” I said. “I need to find out what happened here.”

  I brought my scythe down with every ounce of strength I could muster. The blade sliced through the stone as easily as before. As soon as the Beta element was broken I fell backward, convulsing from the rippling pain.

  This time, Soul and Widow held me, trying to soothe me as best as they could while I rode it out. Phantom held Morning as she cried. “
Oh, Night… I feel you, brother,” she sobbed. “Hang in there. we’re coming!”

  “Man… this is a lot,” I managed, my joints stiffening as I tried to let it pass.

  My body jerked, but Soul and Widow held me down. Focusing on my breath, I could feel a sense of clarity coming. After the storm, the sun always came out. I’d just weathered one giant hurricane. It was time for the clouds to disappear.

  There were two Beta elements left and no time to waste.

  Kelara

  The fourth Beta element was a small piece of black marble. It fit in my hand, but the message engraved on its sides was more powerful than the others. We’d found it about five miles from the village, on the other side of the stony mountains hidden beneath a pile of rubble.

  I crossed my legs, resting my back against a boulder. Soul and Widow joined me while Phantom continued to care for Morning. The Night Bringer might have latched on to me, but she could still feel him on an emotional level. Out of all the Reapers in existence, only the Morning Star truly understood what he’d been going through, since she’d suffered a similar ordeal back on Vetruvia. I couldn’t help but sympathize with her plight, hoping I’d get her brother out soon. No one deserved this—well, no one except the Spirit Bender, and his death had been too easy by comparison.

  “We’re here if you need us,” Soul said to me.

  “I think I liked you better when you were playing mind games and messing with my sanity,” I muttered.

  Widow chuckled. “My brother is rediscovering his conscience, apparently. I never thought I’d live to see such a day, but I’m on board with this version of him.”

  “I could toss you inside a puzzle and watch you claw your way out of it,” Soul said to Widow. “Kelara’s going through enough already, but you… you I can still torment.”

  “Let’s leave this argument for later,” I replied, then ran my fingers along the symbols engraved on the black marble piece. Inhaling deeply, I felt my body disappear.

  After darkness’s sweet embrace, I came to. I was an old wood nymph this time. My knees were bony and felt heavier than they should. Age had caught up with me, and I moved slowly through the dying orchard. Carrying the black marble piece, I feverishly carved the Night Bringer’s message. My skin pricked. My spine ached. Most importantly, my heart was breaking.

  The world wasn’t just dying. It was being tortured by a combination of elements. The Night Bringer’s pain poisoned Cruor. My people suffered—hungry and cold and thirsty. And now the Aeternae were taking over, raiding our villages and bleeding us dry.

  I climbed up a tree to get a better look. Settling on a sturdy branch, I could see it all. My wood nymphs running as fast as they could, though the famine had visibly weakened them. Prometheus led the pack of Aeternae. Basilius and Elena were by his side. They tore through the village, dragging people from their homes and tearing into their necks.

  Blood glazed their chins, but no matter how much they drank, the pain didn’t stop. The Aeternae were suffering. The Night Bringer’s toxic agony had caught up with them. Plumes of black smoke were still rising in the distance where their ship had crashed. Not even a day had passed since they’d been stranded here, and they were already transforming.

  I sensed the Night Bringer’s presence. He didn’t want them hurting innocent creatures, but he couldn’t do anything about it, either. That made him suffer even more, and the air became thicker, harder to breathe. I carved the last symbol into the black marble, then tossed the piece away. It landed atop a house. Someone would find it later. Someone who might be able to help the Night Bringer.

  Me…

  “It’s no use!” Prometheus exclaimed. “It still hurts!”

  “We have to make it stop!” Elena growled as she dropped one wood nymph and caught another. The villagers tried to flee from their path, but the Aeternae were significantly faster and stronger.

  Basilius dropped to his knees, screaming from the bottom of his lungs. “What is happening?! What is this place?”

  “It’s doing something to us…” Prometheus managed. He couldn’t stand anymore, either. His breath faltered, and he soon joined Basilius on the ground.

  Another Aeternae cried out. He fell, but his body never felt the impact. It dissolved into millions of flakes of ash, leaving a black mist in its wake. Oh, my…

  “Argh! What is this?!” Basilius croaked, staring at his hands with sheer horror. He disintegrated like the other Aeternae. The wind blew and scattered the ashes away, but the black mist remained, a shapeless and desperate confusion.

  This was it. The exact moment in which the Night Bringer’s suffering forced the Aeternae to succumb. The exact moment in which the Aeternae lost their bodies and became the Elders. Basilius, Prometheus, Elena… all the members of the crew were reduced to wisps of black smoke, angry and helpless and constantly hungry.

  This was it! The missing piece of the puzzle! The true origin of the Elders. Holy crap. Vampires and the Aeternae were even more closely related than Seeley had thought. Than any of us had thought. By some perverted twist of fate, everything bad about Cruor stemmed from the Spirit Bender’s betrayal and the Night Bringer’s suffering.

  The latter had ultimately killed all that was living here, and it had turned the Aeternae into Elders, as well.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  Tears for Cruor and tears for the wood nymphs. Tears for the Aeternae who’d devolved into Elders. Tears for the pain and devastation they later caused when breaching the human dimension. I understood now… the witch they’d captured—she must’ve given in, eventually. She must’ve opened a portal to get them to Earth.

  The black mist of Basilius found me this time. All the other memories had ended with the beholder’s death. This wasn’t supposed to be any different, yet I was still shocked and horrified. I screamed again as the black mist tried to possess me.

  Its evil burned through me. I couldn’t hold it.

  This particular flashback had brought the story full circle back to my first experience with a Cruor Beta element. What I’d seen there must’ve happened not long after this. It made sense now. I understood everything.

  As I came to and looked into Soul’s galaxy eyes, I found a cosmos of comfort. I was crying, and I could barely speak, but I could see it all. Every single piece falling into place. Every single decision that had led to my being here. The universe really did work in the most peculiar ways.

  And as I broke the fourth Beta element and caved under the crippling pressure, I heard the Night Bringer’s whisper. “Kelara… Make it stop… Please…”

  I will. I promise.

  There was one trial left. One more round of terrible memories. One more Beta element to break. We were so close. I could almost see Death’s smile as all the remaining First Tenners came together to break her seals. I could almost see order restored in the fabric of existence.

  Nethissis

  Petra remained stunned on the floor, blood still flowing from her cut ankle.

  Her son had just turned on her in the worst possible way. Aganon and Simmon were equally stunned, though they had managed to take Veliko down again, this time tying his elbows behind his back in an extremely painful position. Because his hand had yet to grow back, they’d needed a creative way to restrain him.

  Unlike their older brother, Tudyk and Moore were more upset and confused than anything else. I wouldn’t have expected anything more from them, considering how young they were. Just like Ansel, they’d gotten themselves involved in something they had yet to fully understand. Just because they matured faster than humans in terms of intelligence and physical prowess, it didn’t mean they had enough life experience to fully comprehend that there was a reaction to every action. Unfortunately, they were bound to suffer the consequences, sometime in the near future—or so I hoped, at least.

  “He… I can’t believe he did that,” Simmon muttered, looking like a lost lamb.

  Aganon looked at his sister. “Where did he learn deat
h magic? You weren’t supposed to teach him anything!” He asked the question even though he obviously already had the answer.

  Atlas approached his mistress, his hand slowly growing back. He seemed to heal faster than an Aeternae after a scythe cut. He’d once been a Reaper, after all. There was only so much a cut from a Reaper’s blade could do to him. Remembering Veliko’s repeated blows against Ignatius, however, I kept in mind the realization that a ghoul could still be killed with that weapon by a non-Reaper. It took more work, but it was possible.

  “Ah, this is going to take forever to heal!” Petra snarled, and Tudyk and Moore rushed to tend her wound, tying strips torn from their own shirts around her ankle to slow the bleeding.

  Veliko snickered, despite his face being partially squished into the floor. He was in trouble himself, but he was still taking a moment to revel in someone else’s misery. Atlas growled at him, instantly reducing Veliko to silence.

  The rest of us were stunned. Speechless and astounded, not moving from our corner of the room. My hand had gripped Seeley’s wrist reflexively, and I still couldn’t bring myself to let go. “What the hell did we just watch?” I whispered.

  “One backstab after another until the Darklings were left with their asses out in the open,” Sidyan replied dryly, staring at the Visentis Aeternae. “What a mess she’s made—and she was mocking Veliko for his handling of the previous incidents.”

  “A mother’s weakness is the same everywhere,” Lumi said. “Petra can’t kill one of her own. But Veliko would behead his own mother, given the chance.”

  Petra managed to get up, finding some support in her youngest sons. She scowled at Veliko, gradually calming herself through deep breaths.