Scarlet Night (Limited Edition)

by Megan Parker

  “Well well well, Serena! This is quite an unconventional way to begin a negotiation, wouldn’t you say?” Keith snickered as he stepped out of the fog ahead of them, arms held out and palms empty as he stepped confidently towards them, “Guns? Swords? Therions?” he shook his head and clucked his tongue, “If I was a less-trusting type I might be worried that I’d been tricked; maybe even go so far as to claim that I’d been deceived! This, however, would be beyond foolish and you—my dear, sweet, naïve bitch-of-a-sister—are certainly nobody’s fool.”

  Zane bared his fangs and hissed angrily, “Watch your mouth, you bastard, or you can watch me rip it from you!”

  “Oh my!” Keith held a hand to his chest in mock-horror, “Such brash words and barbaric threats! Perhaps I should reconsider my stance on how to deal with our father’s treachery and the blind support of the morons he kept company with!” He took another step forward and smirked at Zane, arching an eyebrow, “How well did you know him, Zane? What was it that Gregori told you that you’re so quick to accept at face value?” He snorted and shook his head, “Now, I’m willing to wager it’s something to the tune of: ‘Keith is mad with power’ and ‘he’s deceiving The Council’ and whatnot, am I right?” He smirked at Serena, “Do you think that they’re stupid, Serena? Would you say—here and now and with all of these witnesses to hear it—that The Mythos Council are imbeciles?”

  Serena glared, “You know I wouldn’t!”

  “Oh ho? You would be right about that, too! Because they aren’t idiots!” he laughed and turned his back on them, his voice echoing around them as he continued to rant like a lawyer on his closing statement, “So, now that we’re in agreement as to the credibility of my employers, is it fair to assume that I am the monster that you so obviously appear to be convinced I am? Or, and bear with me here, does it seem more likely that, upon my leaving our father’s clan—upon seeing his corrupt and foolish use of The Council’s support—that he would lie to his mindless drones to maintain their trust?” he paused and glanced over his shoulder at Zane, “So, my bestial bastard half-brother, just how well did you know my and Serena’s father?”

  Zane’s eyes had narrowed into angry slits as his jaw shifted and clenched, his tattoos beginning to glow. Seeing this, Nikki’s tattoos flared as she began to chant under her breath and Serena watched as wisps of her pale aura began to work their soothing magic on him.

  Frowning, Serena looked back and Keith and shook her head, “You always did love to talk.” She sneered, “But do you expect me—one who grew up beside you and knew him better than anybody else here could hope to!—to abandon what I know just because you can weave a fancy sentence and”—she glared and threw her aura out in a pulsing wave throughout the clearing and shattering his auric shields and, with them, his psychic influences on their group—“fuck with peoples’ minds?” She glared at him as the group began to realize their minds had been tampered with, “Now, Keith—my ass-kissing, limp-dick, parasitic worm and shitty excuse for a brother—if you’ll be so kind as to repeat your speech without your eel-like aura slithering through my friends’ minds?”

  Keith hissed at her, “Bitch!”

  Serena smirked, “I’ve been called far worse by far better, shit-stain!”

  “How dare—” Keith stopped himself and breathed in, steadying his thrashing aura and calming himself before offering a solemn nod. “It can’t be said that I didn’t try with you, Serena.” He glared at her, “As much as I’m sure you’ll tell them otherwise when you’re suffering The Council’s wrath! I come here alone to peacefully negotia—”

  “Oh, eat shit and rot, you lying cock-stain! I know you brought others!” Serena glared, stepping forward and swiftly drawing back and firing an auric bow in a fluid motion that caught Keith off guard. As the bright purple tendril cut through the clearing and slammed into Keith’s leg, knocking him to one knee, the blinding fog broke and revealed the waiting army that Keith had brought. She smirked, keeping her auric grip on her brother’s leg, “And now everyone else does, too.” She shook her head at him, “Are there any more lies you want to try to feed us before I wipe the woods with you?”

  “Oh no, sis.” Keith laughed and wrapped a pair of red auric “arms” around Serena’s hold on him and easily crushed it. “I think it’s safe to assume that everything worth saying has been said!”

  Serena cried out as the energy backlash hit and she fell to the ground.

  Zane’s eyes flashed and he snarled and shot at Keith, his aura beginning to shift from blue-to-red. Seeing his advance, Keith’s aura surrendered its hold on Serena’s and he turned to face him, his face twisting into an angry roar.

  “TAKE THEM!”

  Isaac howled out a warning as Keith’s army flooded into the clearing.

  Serena pulled herself to her feet and fired an auric arrow into the skull of one of Keith’s vampires as it hurled itself at her. “Nikki! You’re up!”

  Nikki smirked, her tattoos glowing brightly as she ducked below an enemy therion’s swipe and drove the handle of one of her Sais into her attacker’s windpipe. As the therion gasped and whimpered, staggering back and clutching its throat, she shouted to Zane; “Let them meet Maledictus!” She smirked, driving the point of her other Sais through the bottom of the gasping therion’s jaw and let it spear through its skull before casting her magic and hurling its corpse into an oncoming group.

  Zane bit his lip and glanced back at Serena as she fired two auric arrows through the chests of a pair of attackers and, using her hold on them, drove them into one another with bone-crushing force. As they collapsed in a broken heap she turned to Zane and nodded, “Do it!” she urged him, “Just leave Keith alive!”

  Zane growled, “If I lose control of it and threaten the cause”—he grimaced and gasped as both of his arms twisted and shattered; stretching under their own weight until his fingers nearly met the frost-tinted turf—“you need to stop me, Serena!” His eyes bulged as another wave of agony hit him and he slammed into the ground as he began to pop and contort. “N-no ma-matterrrr… what!” he shrieked as the lower-half of his spine elongated with a wet crunch and left his upper torso sagging under the poor support, “You… must… s-s-STOP—” Zane’s eyes went wide from pain and the words caught in his throat as his body seized and froze in mid-writhe. The battle paused for a moment—friend and foe alike craning to see what had happened—as his body went limp and sagged under its own heft before exploding into the beast’s form and sneering. “YOU WON’T STOP US!”

  Serena’s eyes went wide as Maledictus raised to his full height and grabbed two of Keith’s followers in his hands and scooped up another five in his aura. Dangling his captives high above him—forcing them to watch his activities—he began cackling as he crushed the first from the middle and then, tossing the still-dying vampire aside, twisting the other’s limbs free of his joints one-by-one until he finally grew tired with him, as well, and pulled his head off like a doll’s.

  Serena watched this for a moment, chuckling at the child-like exuberance in the midst of his “play” before turning away and returning her focus to the battle.

  Nikki smirked as she leapt over a towering therion, driving her Sais into its shoulders and cartwheeling over its head as her tattoos flashed and the pale-white magic crushed its skull; splattering a layer of gore across her face like war paint as she landed on the other side. “You think he’s having fun, Serena?”

  Serena laughed, “I do! I was actually starting to get jealous!” She punctuated her last word by firing an auric bow into the chest of an approaching freak as she shook her head. A freak! Keith—Mister High and mighty Council-supporter—had been turning humans into raving, psychopathic, deranged third-generation vampires solely to build up his army. That was something, which, in and of itself, was at least three broken laws punishable by execution and multiplied by each and every ravenous Mythos mishap she saw thrashing about.

  Shrieking at the auric arrow in its chest, the freak foamed at the
mouth and began to charge at her still. Sighing, she shook her head and began expanding it inside him, causing his upper torso to burst and leaving his legs to kick about in momentary confusion.

  Nikki laughed at Serena’s show and nodded her approval before shifting her focus to her left, “Isaac! Cover the flank!”

  Nodding his fox-like head, Isaac barked and snarled, gesturing to the other therions from his pack and directing them into battle around the edge of the clearing before charging forward on all fours and jumping into a pod of enemies head-on. As the unsuspecting sang in the middle was speared by Isaac’s dive into them, the others spilled in either direction like bowling pins from the impact. Before they’d had a chance to hit the ground, Isaac had already torn his enemy’s throat out and, spitting the bloody wad from his mouth, stood to his full height and backhanded the nearest vampire before starting in on the others.

  “Zoey, check his blind-side!” Nikki called as she threw a Sais into an enemy’s chest before drawing it back to her with her magic.

  Darting and weaving like a dancer between enemy attacks and letting her bubbly blue aura do the dirty work as she put each of Keith’s followers behind her, Zoey closed-in on Isaac like a Hell-born ballerina—leaving a trail of headless foes behind her—and leaping gracefully into the air and pulling Isaac off the ground and out of the path of several enemy therions.

  Isaac’s animal eyes widened for a moment as he floated over the battlefield before coming to rest and beamed over at Zoey, who nodded—blowing him a kiss—before letting him drop down onto the confused Mythos below for the slaughter.

  Nikki continued to bob-and-weave like a glowing ninja while shouting commands to the others around her. As Serena watched, the efforts of their small band of fighters began to open a pocket in the middle of the clearing that left Serena, Maledictus, and Keith to handle their end.

  “Why do you”—Maledictus sang in his multilayered, gravelly voice—“build us up, butter-cup baby,” he hurled one of the last four Mythos he’d been playing with nearly one-hundred feet into the air, as his aura lashed out behind him and began pulling another’s limbs off before dropping them—crippled and useless—to the ground to bleed to death, “Just to let us down?” He smirked as he threw out his hand and caught the still-shrieking airborne Mythos and holding them to his face as he sneered, “And mess us around! And worst of all…” the vampire let out one final cry only to have it cut short as Maledictus drove his forehead into his face and caved it in. Pouting playfully at the gory remnants of his enemy’s face, Maledictus shook his head, “… you never call, baby, when you say you will.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Serena shook her head and chuckled, “Hey! You almost done?”

  Maledictus looked up at her and smirked, tossing aside the corpse and stepping towards her as he finished his song, “But we love you still!”

  Serena shook her head at him, “Even as a killing machine you’re a smooth talker.”

  “Only for you, buttercup baby!” his enormous grin widened as his scarlet aura whipped about around him. Stepping beside her, he shifted his eyes towards Keith, who had watched—wide-eyed and unbelieving—at the scene around him. “Let us break him!” he looked pleadingly at Serena, “Just this once! We WANT to see him inside-out!”

  “I know you do, baby,” Serena patted his shoulder, “but there’s far worse in store for him.”

  Maledictus scoffed, “There is NOTHING worse than US!”

  Serena smirked, “I know, sweetie, but others want to play with him, too.”

  The playful conversation between them seemed to shake Keith from his horrified stupor and he narrowed his eyes at them. “Fine! If that’s how it has to be!” he wrapped his fists in his aura, “Then who am I to disappoint?”

  Maledictus rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, “Can we break his legs? No killing—we promise—just fracture his fucking femurs!”

  Serena frowned, glaring at Keith and shaking her head, “No, baby. I think I want to do this one on my own.”

  A disappointed whimper emerged from Maledictus’ throat, but he did nothing to protest as Serena stepped forward.

  “Admirable move,” Keith started towards her, nodding, “Stupid, but admirable, nonetheless.”

  “We’ll see,” she sneered, letting her auric bow appear in her hand.

  She glared and let out a loud cry and began firing a series of auric arrows as she rushed towards Keith.

  “Ah-hah! There’s the brash bitch we know and love!” Keith sprinted at her, ducking and rolling around every auric strike that came at him and drawing nearer.

  Serena roared, firing more and more auric bolts at him until their source became a violet blur in her hands, but no matter how many she threw or how fast she threw them, Keith evaded and continued towards her.

  “Did you forget, Serena? Have all our years taught you nothing?” he jumped over a wave of bolts and continued at her, “I have always had the upper hand! I’m faster! I’m stronger! And I’m smarter!” Keith grinned and focused his aura into his right hand, elongating it into an auric blade, “And I know all your tricks!”

  Serena fired an auric bolt at his feet and he side-stepped to avoid the explosion of turf, “You want to talk about forgetting, Keith?” She fired another wave of auric bolts that forced Keith to redirect his approach and come in from her right, “How ‘bout we talk about forgetting your roots?” She fired more at his feet and forced him into the air before slamming an auric shot into his chest and throwing him to the ground.

  Growling, he pulled himself up and started in at her again, “I’ll see you tortured for that!”

  “How about we discuss forgetting your place?” She shot into overdrive and repositioned herself several yards away and once again forcing him to recalculate his approach. She sent another set of arrows at him that he easily evaded, “Or how about we get personal, Keith! Like when you forgot which fork to use at Dad’s big dinner with the Keilano Clan leader and you threw a hissy fit and shit your pants?” She laughed and fired directly at his chest, only to arc back around once he’d dodged it to knock him to his side. “Or that time you forgot to wear a belt at that ball in Venice and I pulled down your pants in front of the ambassador’s daughter?” She cackled, sending more auric bolts at him and beginning to clip him in his efforts to get to her. “Did you forget, dear brother, just how unimpressed she was with what she saw?”

  “Shut up! Shut-the-fuck-up!” he roared, throwing out another auric blade in his left hand and leaping at her.

  Before he could land she’d jumped into overdrive and put another hundred yards between them. “Funny that you accuse me of forgetting when you’ve clearly allowed so much to slip your mind. You see”—she fired more arrows and succeeded in knocking him down once again—“you are faster, and you’re definitely stronger!” She smirked as she hooked another auric bolt around and pulled his feet out from under him and cackled at his rage-fueled roar. Throwing out his aura, he pushed himself off the ground and charged at her again. Serena shook her head, sneering, “But I’m beginning to second-guess that smarter thing.”

  Keith jumped at her and swung with his auric blade, nearly taking her arm off as she rolled free, “Oh? Would you care to elaborate?” he growled.

  Serena giggled, “Well, for starters, I have to question the sort of mind that can allow a man to forget what his dick is for!” She ducked under another strike and shifted behind him, “Or how you can find reason to boast when you have the body of an eight year old girl! But, more than anything else, Keith, I think you’re a dumb-fuck because you’ve forgotten that I’ve always been better than you at one thing!”

  He glared and turned to strike, “And what would that be?” he growled and overshot the attack, only to have Serena drive her knee into his groin.

  Serena howled in laughter as he hissed in pain, his aura whipping about in a fit of rage. “See? You’re dumb ass has already forgotten!”

  “You can’t do anything!” he lunged a
nd missed again.

  “Nope,” she smirked at him, “You forgot that I could always piss you of—”

  Keith roared in triumph as he brought his auric blade around and stabbed right through her abdomen. Serena gasped as blood dripped down her chin from the attack and pulled back, staring down at the gaping hole in her stomach. The battlefield went deathly quiet as she dropped to her knees and looked up at her still-heaving brother with fading eyes.

  “S-see?” she coughed and struggled to smile, “Y-y-you… you did forget…”

  Keith shook his head, “I have never forgotten how much you piss me off, Serena! And I think now you’ll remember that!”

  Serena groaned and inhaled sharply, nodding, “Perhaps. But you d-did forget”—she coughed up some more blood and groaned—“t-two very im-important… things.”

  He smirked and knelt down, “Do tell. What have I forgotten?”

  “You weren’t… su-supposed…” she grimaced and threw out her hand to catch her as she started to fall to the ground, “… to kill a member of Vail… without Council consent…”

  Keith’s eyes widened as his rage-clouded vision shifted to reveal his mistake and he began to shake.

  “And…” Serena chuckled, “… you forgot… about… him.” She managed to point over her brother’s shoulder at Maledictus before her strength left her and she hit the ground.

  Nikki’s eyes widened as she ran towards Maledictus. The beast had gone berserk with rage after watching Keith stab Serena, and while she was worried for the sake of her friend’s wellbeing—Serena’s usually bold and vibrant purple aura rapidly fading—it was, as much as she hated to admit it, Keith that she was most concerned for.

  If he died now, everything they’d just accomplished would be for nothing.

  “Maledictus! You must not kill him!” she yelled, her tattoos flaring as she tried to calm the curse. Though the speed and ferocity diminished from the monster’s attacks, it did not stop them. “Help Serena! Maledictus, you can save her!”