by Peter Dawes
“So, you’re being a good messenger boy,” she said, picking up the scroll’s box and glancing inside it. A pleased smile danced across her lips, present even after she shut the lid and focused on me again. Even then, Valeria clutched it close to her chest, as though protecting a child. “I think your Order has done you a disservice in not steering you away from this mission.”
“They realize the importance of my mission,” I said, the hesitation in my voice betraying me.
“You’re a horrible liar. Sneaky, sneaky little boy.” She patted the container. “These artifacts you seek are no mere scribblings on a piece of parchment. I know the fire you seek to dance inside and am looking forward to watching it consume you.” Her gaze found me as she turned her focus my way again. My brain began to itch, as though a colony of ants had taken up residence inside my head. “Your maker didn’t do you many favors, keeping her to yourself, but who can blame her? I’ve never been one to cry over wasted time and we have you here now. That is what matters most.”
I did not have the chance to respond before a surge of pain ripped through my chest. My head pounded and hands trembled while I writhed against the tree, the ants turning angry and running from head to foot and back again. Charging forward, Valeria grabbed at my throat. I winced when her fingernails drove past skin, causing the scent of blood to waft into the air and coaxing my fangs to descend.
My attacker smirked at me, her gaze daring me to look at her again. Slowly, her fangs descended to full length. “You’re hungry,” Valeria said, summoning my eyes back to hers. “That’s what happens when you starve the vampire for too long. He starts demanding to have his say and he can be very hard to reason with.” She dug her nails in further. I moaned, and as my eyes rolled back, I felt the emptiness in my stomach. Her soft laugh floated around me like incense. “Yes, exactly like that,” she continued. “Do you feel him in there, Flynn? Don’t you feel him in there wanting to come out and play again?”
My knees trembled, her words only serving to taunt me further. “Do you think I need to tear you to ribbons to get you on the hunt again, child?” she asked. Her clasp on my neck tightened again for emphasis. I hissed at the affront, vaguely aware of sharp teeth jabbing at my bottom lip. “No, I didn’t think so,” she continued. “Squandered. Wasted. Abused. We tried to call you back home, but you wouldn’t answer. We took away your toys, and still you threw your tantrum. Because you’ve filled your head full of delusions and refused to see the truth.”
“You are the deluded one,” I murmured, eyes fluttering open and gaze attempting to fix on Valeria. Seeing her felt like looking through a dirty pane of glass, the other side distorted. Inhaling brought another taunting whiff of my own blood, a tremble afflicting me from head to toe.
“Why? Because I’ve been told about your mad scramble to deny yourself and see through it? Look at you. You’ve been throwing yourself into these human impulses thinking that if you deny what you are, you’ll change your fate. It doesn’t work that way. Immortality doesn’t make you somebody different, it brings out who you are without inhibitions. That sadist you were? That’s the true you.”
“Liar. I am not –”
“– Oh yes, you are. I would throw a human in front of you right now, and you would rip their throat out. Even if they were your beloved watcher.”
“You would not dare.”
“Well, of course I wouldn’t now. People have died keeping her alive, after all. My point still remains.” She stepped closer, using my chin to ensure our eyes met. A growl rumbled through my throat while her eyes danced with excitement. “Yes, there he is. Don’t deny him. You’d rip me apart, too, wouldn’t you?” Whatever she saw in my eyes provided confirmation. She nodded once and lifted her hand, placing a blood-stained finger on my bottom lip and coasting it across. Instinct took over where inhibition had previously resided. I licked my lips and felt pleasure at the taste of my own blood. “Would you like more?” she asked.
Without waiting for my response, Valeria slowly pushed a different finger into my mouth, sliding it deliberately across my tongue. My lids descended halfway, a groan following as she removed the digit. “Manipulation,” I managed, though I felt my thoughts slipping toward bloodlust. And this time, without Monica to call me back, as she had when I was seduced by my maker.
Valeria smirked, offering me the next finger. “Ian said you thought your maker had manipulated you. But this is not manipulation. This is instinct, gaining back its voice to speak to you.”
‘You only mean to seduce me.’ My answers turned telepathic, my body developing a mind of its own. I lavished upon her skin, attempting to get every smear of blood staining it. ‘The lot of you.’
“Oh, I’d give you my body if that would keep you satisfied. I’d give you a hundred vestal virgins, too, for all I care. This carnal charade never was my pleasure and it never will be, but I know the demands of the powerful. I have served them, the same way you will serve me.”
‘To what end?’
“For you to realize your true calling, child. Drown if you need to. I will help you do it. But I promise all I am doing is silencing your doubts just enough for that monster within you to come out to play.”
I furrowed my brow at her and she smirked, withdrawing her hand and bringing her wrist to her mouth. I watched her bite into it, crimson rivulets running down her pale skin and droplets falling to the ground I might have fallen to my knees to lap up. “You have me enchanted,” I said, speaking aloud now while still watching the blood pooling on her skin hungrily. “Do not play me for a fool.”
“Simple spells you could break if you wanted to,” she said, raising her wrist to my mouth. I lapped up one of the rivulets and moaned with approval. Another melodious chuckle resonated from the vampiress. “But you don’t want to. I have everything you need. I have all the answers which have been kept from you. Drink my blood and let me share them with you.”
Answers? I did not issue the question aloud, but it summoned that old anger being kept in the dark about my own identity had roused back when I truly bore the name Flynn. Denied an answer each time, I would rage against ignorance with homicide until the next time Sabrina, or Robin, or someone else would awaken my wrath anew. As I pursed my lips around the bleeding wound and took my first draw, I felt the assassin slipping through the cracks, straining to hear whatever secrets her blood had begun whispering.
I saw flashes of Sabrina. Pulling from the wound again, the images were made clearer, yet confusing, when the montage of her face with Ian and Valeria’s combined together into one scene.
“Drink again and see whose minion you truly are, seer.”
A chill ran through me, but something caused me to hesitate. I heard footsteps, smelled something foreign in the air and ripped away from the image, blinking to regard the dark magician standing before me. She raised an eyebrow at me, but I turned my head just as I caught sight of a something move in my periphery and heard the rustle of underbrush. Valeria saw it, too, but by the time either of us registered what had happened, we were both struck at a loss.
Ioan laid on the ground, sprawled out as if knocked to the side. His captor stood with both hands raised, exposed at last to be a much shorter and less imposing vampire, made all the more so by the look of surprise on his face. One arm coiled around his torso from behind – pointing what looked to be one of my daggers directly over his heart – and as I waded further from the spell, I saw bottle of vodka clutched in the man’s other hand with a rag crammed into its neck. He adjusted its position, sloshing liquor around in the process. That was the moment I became aware of who had come to rescue us.
Grigore looked out from behind the other vampire. “I thought you had left these lands,” he said, his posture nervous, but his tone of voice abounding in authority.
Valeria groaned, licking away the blood on her wrist and adjusting her hold on the box. “Grigore Dragomir,” she said. “How did I know I’d run into you somewhere? So, you’ve taken in the seer? D
o you have any idea how much trouble you’ve invited to your coven?”
“No more than you’ve invited on your head, being where you aren’t welcome.” His eyes flicked to me, quickly, then back at Valeria. I thought I caught a hint of disdain in them. “Let them both go.”
“Oh, how precious.” Her free hand pointed at me. “You’re going to sacrifice yourself for him?”
“I’m sacrificing my life for no one. But you will let him and my child go.”
“Always the bleeding heart.” She shook her head and shrugged. “What if I don’t want to? Your child would make a very nice plaything and him, well… I have special plans for him.”
Grigore pressed the dagger further into the vampire he held hostage, cutting cloth and bringing blood to the surface. The vampire gasped from the sudden pain, but resolved himself into a sneer. “You threaten my child again and I will end yours,” Grigore said.
“Please, no. Anything but that.” The apathy in her words forced my stomach to twist. She looked at the other vampire, tilting her head and smiling. “My darling, you do know how much I’d miss you.”
“I serve you, My Mistress,” the other vampire said. Despite the pain moving produced, he lowered a hand and wrapped his fingers around Grigore’s wrist. “I die that we all might rise,” he declared, and before Grigore could move the dagger away, he and his hostage drove it through the latter’s chest, fully in and at the point where the heart could be reached. Grigore stumbled backward when his captive turned into dust, left exposed now, eyes wide with surprise.
“You should have known better than to face me alone,” Valeria spat.
The coven master had no time to react. Another gust of wind kicked up the ashes of the fallen vampire, swirling it in a tempest and at Grigore’s face. Teeth gritted, I forced myself out of the slackened, invisible bonds and raced for him, but paid dearly for the effort. The air grew thick, the remnant kicked up by the breeze impacting me as I rushed into the cloud. My eyes burned and throat tightened. Lungs filling with dust, I panicked and forced myself to cough, but with every heave, whatever I had inhaled caused me a greater amount of distress. My chest burned, the feeling somehow suffocating. I fell to my knees, clutching at my neck.
Grigore collapsed beside me in the same amount of distress. Ioan fell victim as well and as Valeria stepped closer, I saw her look down on us with derision, her sight especially on the coven master. “I’ve been waiting a long time to get you where I could finish you, Dragomir,” she said. “You’re too late. After you die, your whelp will, too, and then I’ll have the seer to myself.”
“They will come for you,” Grigore managed through hacking coughs, adjusting his hold on the makeshift Molotov cocktail. A quick flick of his eyes in my direction provided all the message he was apt to give. His focus returned to the sorceress. “The natural order always finds a way.”
She tsked. I fell onto my stomach, continuing to hack and sputter. Further words poured past her lips, lasting long enough for me to shut my eyes and focus the small amount of concentration I had left to the task at hand. My body continued to convulse, but the sparks jumped from finger to finger in short order, until the familiar glow engulfed my fingers.
Lifting the hand, I shot a pulse of energy at the dark magician, hitting her square in the chest.
The enchantment subsided enough for Grigore to fight to a stand. I brought up ash from my lungs, spitting it out while he and Ioan did the same. Struggling up to one knee, I saw the box had been knocked out from Valeria’s grip, the parchment resting beside its receptacle. A flash of light from the corner of my eye directed my attention there next.
Half bent over, Grigore had still produced his lighter. The alcohol-soaked rag went up in flames, the coven master straightening to a stand as much as possible. Valeria rose shakily to her feet while Grigore readied the makeshift weapon.
“Enough of this,” he said, hurtling it for her.
The force of his throw shattered the glass and drenched Valeria in liquor and flames. She wailed, but her hands lifted and the same fire engulfing her bellowed out, aimed for the three of us. My arm caught. I felt the sting of flesh searing when I attempted to beat it out and finally stripped my coat before it could spread, leaving my torso clad simply in a button-down shirt. Ioan had avoided it altogether, but both of us paled when we looked to Grigore.
Unholy screams bellowed past his lips as the fire engulfed him, having impacted his chest and spreading fast. “Domn!” Ioan cried out, running for his maker, but pushed aside by Grigore himself. I watched, transfixed and terrified as the flames engulfing Valeria began to subside even as Grigore’s grew worse, a sight the coven master must have noticed as well. He suddenly dashed forward and tackled her to the ground, arms and legs wrapping tight around her.
“Go,” he screamed through the agony. “Get out of here. Now.”
I failed to move at first, stunned and only half registering the sight until I heard Ioan bark out in protest. The angry words which spilled past his lips knocked me out of my stupor, the inevitable presented before us and the world tilting just enough for me to know my head still was not steady. We would not survive a second onslaught. Grabbing Ioan by the collar of his shirt, I dragged him toward the fallen parchment and plucked it off the ground. Clutching it in one hand, I stumbled forward, clinging onto Ioan with my other.
The only recourse we had left was to flee, so flee, we did.
My companion finally followed along more readily the closer we came to the road. Somehow, we made it back to the car, me collapsing into the back and the other man slipping into the driver’s seat while hurriedly starting the car. I relived those last moments of terror as we pulled away, my ears still ringing with screams horrific enough to haunt me the rest of my days. What remained more unsettling, however, had been the final sight of the fire.
It consumed both vampires at first. By the time I broke free enough to run, though, the flames licking around Grigore had grown in intensity while Valeria’s own had diminished. It left no doubt in my mind. The man had perished, and the sorceress had survived. One glance stolen in Ioan’s direction only offered confirmation as blood tears had begun falling down his cheeks.
My head pounded and hunger nipped at my heels, but I could not hold onto consciousness any longer. Valeria’s voice joined the chorus of mayhem looping in my mind until we hit the main road and gained speed. “I have you now, child,” she said. “You and I have only begun our dance.” A shiver assailed my body, my fangs still itching, the world spinning while the taste of blood took up permanent residence on my tongue. Finally, I could bear no more of it.
Everything fell to black. I slept through the entirety of the ride back to Bucharest.
Part Four
Venom and Treason
“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely,
absolute power attacks the corruptible.
Frank Herbert
Chapter Nineteen
The slap across my face caused me to jump, my eyes shifting frantically around the room as I searched for whoever had hit me. Nobody stood before me, and while the affront had been disorienting enough, the fact that I found myself seated in a chair at my old coven house only startled me all the more. Blinking failed to bring about any reason to this madness, and attempting to stand revealed me bound by my wrists and my feet.
“I think we’ve confused him,” a female voice said, the intonation of laughter on her voice.
I furrowed my brow, knowing the speaker without being able to place her at the moment. I shifted in an attempt to line her in my sights, but my actions only spurred her on to further mirth. “Don’t strain yourself, seer,” she said. “Panicking isn’t going to bring you the answers any faster.”
“The answers?” I asked, repeating the words almost beyond my own volition.
“Yes, my killer,” chimed another voice. Hers, I would have recognized anywhere, and as she joined in the chorus of amusement, I ceased trying to peer behind me. Instead, I fro
ze in position, staring straight in front of me and hoping to will away whatever accursed nightmare had afflicted me. That I recognized the room did nothing to settle me. Shelves of weapons had been mounted on what had once been a bare white wall, a rack of swords arranged next to them bearing the tools of my former trade. This had been my private quarters in Philadelphia.
Sabrina appeared in my periphery before I could knock myself from the trance. “Didn’t you want the answers?” she asked, a taunting grin on her face. “Oh, I remember how angry it used to make you when we avoided telling you.”
Turning my head only brought the other female in my line of vision. The newly-acquainted Valeria. “I think he fears what he might find,” she said.
“Whatever could you mean?” asked a male voice, its owner appearing in front of me. The crushed velvet suit and cane matched his garish smile as Ian leaned back against one of the shelves. “The part where he discovers who he truly is?”
“Our masterpiece,” Sabrina said, walking closer to Ian.
“Our collaborative work,” Valeria added, flanking the male vampire on his other side.
The trio stared at me as I gulped for air, swallowing it down in haggard breaths. Ian smirked as he tilted his head. “Clinging to a dead humanity like the lie it is,” he said. “You even conjured yourself a reflection since we spoke last.”
“Isn’t it pitiful?” Sabrina asked.
Valeria smiled. “Now, let’s not be too hard on him,” she said. “He lacked proper guidance.” She stepped forward, dressed the same as she had been in the woods, crouching while her expression conveyed a sickening form of compassion. “The humans love twisting the truth around, don’t they? Who created you? Who fashioned your destiny?”
I swallowed hard. “The Fates did,” I said, issuing the response while knowing it would be called false.
