by Carmen Caine
The next moment, I witnessed firsthand just how effective a vampire deterrent Lucian’s chain truly was. As a Terzi vampire appeared from nowhere, Lucian charged forward, meeting him head on. It was quick. In a blur, the dark-haired warlock maneuvered behind his victim to drive one of the silver handles like a stake into the vampire’s heart. The vampire froze, long enough for Lucian to draw the chain around his neck like a garrote. His muscles flexed. The next second, the vampire’s severed head hit the warehouse floor with a distinct plop, rolling a few feet before coming to a stop near Dorian’s package.
Silence descended, the kind in which you can hear a pin drop.
And then all hell broke loose.
Flames erupted. Bolts of lightning shot through the air. Explosions shook the ground beneath my feet. Wires, insulation, and ceiling tiles came crashing down from above.
It was war—and it was a confusing, disorienting mess.
Dirt and dust filled the air, whirling around me at almost tornado speed. I stumbled back as Ricky shot out of the back of my neck yelling, “Charge!” but the whirlwind snatched him from me at once. The last I saw of my smoky imp were his two, big green blinking eyes.
I ran forward, screaming his name, but the ground beneath my feet lurched and I fell, smacking facedown against the cement floor. Lifting my head up a couple of inches, I took stock of the world around me at floor level. For the most part, the opposing firepower seemed concentrated on Lucian. Dorian’s package lay in the very center of the battle, untouched and in what appeared to be neutral territory—apparently the prize to be awarded to the victor.
Unless I just got lucky.
Letting revenge rise to consume me, I sprang to my feet and as explosions went off around me like small grenades, tossing more dirt and chunks of cement into the air, I dove for Dorian.
As my fingers touched the edge of the cardboard box, electrical wires dropped from above and wrapped around my ankles like a living thing, yanking me up and away. Using my blade, I slashed myself free, but by the time I dropped to the floor, dodging several more explosions, Dorian’s package had succumbed to the clutches of a delicate, red-hooded figure.
The fighting stopped at once, and all eyes turned on the slender figure.
Anya.
She withdrew enough of her hood to peer at me from under her brows, and her pink lips curled into a cruel smile. “Moarte,” she said, the soft word bouncing around the rubble-strewn warehouse as bits of torn paper fluttered through the chill air.
Behind me, I heard Lucian gasp.
I whirled to see him leaning against a debris-covered forklift turned on its side.
I stared at him in horror.
Something was wrong. Really wrong. His face was chalk-white. I saw the red stain then, the blood spreading across his chest.
Tabitha lay at his feet, her leg at an odd angle and her dark eyes closed.
Heath struggled up from where he’d collapsed near the lifeless form of the snow-white wolf, his white-tipped gray fur matted with blood. Baring his wicked teeth with a snarl, Heath launched himself towards Anya.
She smiled.
Someone or something sent Heath flying back to crash against the industrial steel shelving. I heard the crack from where I stood, and his growl ended in an abrupt squeal of pain. He tried to get up, but he couldn’t.
Heath. Easy-going, Zen-minded Heath.
Something began to boil inside me.
I considered Heath my friend. My first, true friend.
And with that, the monster inside me woke.
The Mindbreaker’s Daughter
At first, I thought I’d fallen victim to some kind of spell. My balance shifted. My vision altered, making everything appear all disjointed and jerky, the kind of vision you see in those first-person, hand-filmed camera movies. But then my senses came alive and everything appeared brighter. Deeper. Vivid.
I didn’t need to call the mists. They were already there, swirling in the air around me, around everyone, a hitherto unseen, invisible force.
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. I heard the shriek. It was inhuman. If it hadn’t come from my own mouth, I would have quaked in my boots.
Lucian opened his eyes, breathing heavily, and then catching sight of me, froze. I saw the fear in his eyes, but it didn’t stop me.
Fear was my weapon, and now that I could see it in the mists, I instinctively knew how to use it, the same way I’d traced the mana threads back to the green door with its gargoyle knob on Park Avenue. It was just like pulling a rope, creating a noose of mist around each victim’s throat before pulling it tight. The fear would do its own magic then, destroying them from within.
The Terzi vampires hissed, crouching on the wreckage around me, steadying themselves for a concerted attack.
They charged.
Strangely, I slipped right through them. Was I bodiless? It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. I was like a thing possessed. I tightened the mists swirling around my victims as I passed by them. Half the Terzi rank faltered as the others regrouped to face me once more.
I screeched again, a banshee’s keening wail, and stretched my hands.
What I saw made even my heart quail.
My fingers were bony. Gray. Filaments of light, more ghost than human. My hair swirled around me, a strange mixture of my auburn red and the gray straw-like locks of the jaggers I’d seen in the Nether Reaches.
“I am here, Cassssssidy,” a voice spoke from behind me.
I whirled, or floated, really. I didn’t seem to have feet.
True, the Night Terror, stood behind me, looking very much like the specter of death. I could only see his two glowing eyes shining brightly in the recesses of his dark, cowled cloak.
“Let’s get them,” I hissed at him, nodding at the Terzi vampires cringing before me. “We can finish them off.” Strange. When had I become so bloodthirsty? But I brushed the thought away as inconsequential.
“No, little one,” he disagreed. “We’ve come for you.”
I looked over his shoulder to see the warehouse filling with Night Terrors. An army of them. I smiled. We could win now. “Let’s attack!” I said, surging forward.
I lost control of myself then. The specter in me unleashed in all its pent fury. I felt giddy with power and only growing stronger by the moment. I was invincible. And certainly never more alive. I had the Terzi vampires on the run. The witch, too. She was half-crouched on the floor over Dorian’s package, her gray eyes glued to my face in horror. I squeezed the mists around her, watching her gasp, drop the package, and fall back to join the rest of her crew.
I had them on the run, and I certainly wasn’t going to let them escape. I wanted their blood, their lives, their shrieking screams of terror as payment for the pain they’d inflicted on what I considered mine.
“Attack!” I screeched.
True’s hand clamped over one of my gray, glowing wrists. “No,” he blocked my path. “You must govern the specter inside you. Let me show you the way back before it’s too late.”
“Back?” I asked, but I wasn’t really interested in his answer.
Giddy with bloodlust and power, I flexed my arms and called to the mists surrounding me. They were live things, I saw that now. I wanted to converse with them. Feel them. Touch them. Cradle them. For the first time, I understood the temptation of the Nether Reaches, to float with the mists in an eternal conversation.
“It’s a mirage, little one,” True warned, grabbing my bony shoulders and shaking them as if to wake me. “When a specter feels all powerful, unconquerable, and indomitable, that is when you can be enslaved. Possessed. Controlled. You must return to your human form. And quickly. Your ability is a double-edged sword!”
I didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted to destroy Anya and the Terzi.
“Cassidy!”
A new voice called my name.
Wait. It wasn’t new. Dimly, I recognized that slightly British-accented baritone. Lord … Lord? It took me a mo
ment to remember his name. Lucian.
That startled me. How could I forget him? Confused and alarmed, I turned back to where Lucian had collapsed to his knees next to the overturned forklift. The sight of his blood staining his shirt made me sick to my stomach, pulling me back from my strange frenzied state like nothing else could have. Heath had returned to his human form to crawl to the warlock’s side as Tabitha hovered over them both, balancing on her broken leg and moving her hands in front of her face in a gesture that looked as if she were warding off evil.
Was she protecting them from … me?
Lucian’s eyes locked with mine, the expression in them calm, accepting. Holding his hand out, the mists carried his whisper to my ears. “It’s enough, Cassidy. Enough. Come back.”
I blinked.
A reflection in the forklift window caught my eye then. I gulped, catching the full image of the disturbing creature staring back at me. Long, red, straw-like hair. Gray skin. The eyes. Two bright, silver glowing pinpoints of light. Jagger eyes. And … no nose.
I took a step back … or more accurately, floated back, my legs had disappeared into tendrils of mist.
Whatever the movement, the reflection mirrored it. There was no denying it. It was me.
“You’ve got to come back, Cassidy! Now!” True gasped at my side. “It is coming.”
It.
I lifted my head in alarm as the dark, sinister feeling from before descended upon me, the uncanny coldness that I’d felt near the dumpsters by the theater. A melancholy call snaked through the air.
Around me, the Terzi vampires that still remained wailed in fear.
I knew what it was, what was coming. A Fallen One.
Strix, wherever he was, was right. The creature had followed me, and judging by True’s reaction, it was intent on possessing me. I could sense its arrival even before I looked up at the warehouse entrance to see it suspended in midair, a spectral figure in the moonlight, wearing black armor wrapped within a tattered black cloak that flapped in the breeze.
Even from that distance, I felt its invisible touch caress my face. I could smell its rank breath.
It was evil incarnate. And it wanted me.
And I? I had set it free from the Nether Reaches. Somehow, I had called it to me. I had freed it. My own nemesis?
I couldn’t believe that. True had to be wrong. But it was moving towards me, and I found myself mesmerized, incapable or maybe unwilling to lift a finger to escape.
“You must return to your body!” True shouted in fear.
And then Lucian’s voice reached my ears, weak, but still commanding. “Look at me, sweetheart. Look at me!”
I only turned because it was Lucian’s voice begging me to. Still, it took every ounce of my willpower. As the Fallen One swooped towards me, I glanced over to where Lucian now lay on the debris-littered warehouse floor.
‘Breathe,” Lucian ordered. “Focus.”
I focused on the red-stain spreading over his shirt. Even from this distance, I could smell the coppery scent of his blood.
A cold finger touched the back of my neck. The Fallen One.
And then I understood. It couldn’t possess me. It wasn’t that way, at all. Throwing my head back, I whirled to face the creature, crying, “No! I am your master!”
Crouching down on one knee, I banged my fist against the cold, cement floor.
The Mindbreaker’s symbol flashed silver white under my hand.
Everyone gasped, but no one louder than myself, and then, the Terzi—including Anya—fled.
Somehow, Lucian was there, holding my hands—flesh-colored, normal hands.
"I think I'm sick," I said, looking up into his silver-blue eyes.
And then everything went dark.
The Key
I woke with a clammy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I took a deep breath. The mana surrounding me was vibrant, intoxicating, swirling around me in a multitude of heady mixes. But there were three fragrances among them that I found troubling: Heath’s woodsy smell, Tabitha’s spicy exotic scent, and Lucian’s one-of-a-kind powerful, mouthwatering aroma. I shouldn’t be smelling them at all, and certainly not in their full unchecked glory. It could only mean that Lucian’s wards were completely down.
Hadn’t the Terzi fled? Hadn’t we won?
Thoughts of winning reminded me of just what I’d become to ensure it. A true monster. Something uncontrollable. And the Fallen One. Master? I felt sick again, just thinking about it. What had happened? Where had it gone?
Cautiously, I opened my eyes and propped myself up on an elbow. The room was dark, lit only by a single candle in an iron candelabra, its dim light affording me only a glimpse of an arched entrance, the brick walls of the windowless chamber, and the futon-like cot on which I lay. Beyond that, the place seemed empty.
I sat up.
Immediately, a shadow separated itself from the wall to approach me. I wasn’t alarmed. I’d caught the scent. True, the Night Terror and for want of a better word, my … cousin.
“Welcome to the Temple of Nightmares, little one,” he chanted a greeting, gliding to the foot of the bed. “The home of the Night Terrors.”
I couldn’t really see much of their home. It was too dark. Swinging my feet over the edge of the bed, I asked, “Lucian? How is he?” The blood I’d seen on his shirt couldn’t have been good. Now, with the strength of the mana I was smelling, I figured it was even worse.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose,” True answered, bowing his head and tucking his hands up his long, sweeping sleeves. “He suffers. Follow me. I will take you to him.”
“Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?” I probed, padding after him.
The Night Terror stopped and hissed, highly insulted. “And what human hospital can treat a warlock?” he practically spat at me. “They’re no more than butcher shops.”
“Touché,” I granted under my breath.
“It’s an attack on the House of Rowle,” True explained, resuming his glide down the dark corridor. “An attack of the likes never seen before.” He paused in front of an arched door and waved me inside.
I hesitated. I was hungry and Lucian’s mana was the ultimate temptation. It didn’t seem like too bright of an idea to hover over him in a defenseless state. Especially since I’d repeatedly demonstrated a decided lack of control whenever his mana was involved.
True shrugged and floated into the room without me. I was fine with that and decided to remain in the hall and just poke my head inside instead.
Lucian’s room was bigger than mine, sporting a two candle iron candelabra, and in place of a cot, he lay on a carved walnut, medieval-style bed complete with heavy, red brocade curtains tied neatly to the bedposts. A coat-of-arms hung on the wall. It took me a moment to recognize the Rowle family crest.
True had joined several other Night Terrors at the foot of the bed. They drifted there in a clump, looking for all the world like specters of death waiting for their victim to rise into their waiting hands.
It was all very macabre. Ghoulish.
“Cassidy, lass,” Dorian’s voice suddenly snaked through my mind. “Ach, can you truly be this close?”
I jerked, spying the cardboard package we’d fought the Terzi for, propped up against the wall near the candelabra.
Dorian.
Temptation blazed across my mind. Revenge. And within an arm’s length. At last.
Now that I wasn’t engaged in the chaos of battle, I could smell his faint, unique scent, the combination of the Chosen One death scent, the Terzi clan aroma, and the slightest whiff of the highlander he’d once been.
But it was all intertwined, fused with Lucian’s mana, the power of the curse that held the vampire in the warlock’s thrall.
And it was … breaking.
I gasped, realizing that instant that there was something wrong with Lucian’s mana.
I was at his bedside in a flash, forgetting all about Dorian and the temptation of setting him free.
Anya’s curse, the scent of her spiders, the stench that made me want to run the instant I detected it … that rank odor had invaded Lucian’s heavenly mana. Yes, by only the slightest hint, but it was enough. A foothold.
“This must be her nasty surprise,” I muttered aloud, looking down at Lucian unconscious on the bed.
His dark, sooty lashes were closed, and his skin beaded with sweat. A series of cuts marred the sleek lines of his flawlessly muscled bare chest. Amazingly, the injuries were more than half healed, a few of the smaller ones little more than purple lines, already fading at the edges. It had only been hours since Lucian had received them. No wonder True had called hospitals butcher shops.
I saw a small form then, resting on the pillow next to Lucian’s head. His ward, the blue troll. One look and even I could tell it was too late for the little creature. It reeked of Anya’s curse, holding the bulk of it inside its little body like it was trying to sponge up the mess. But the evil mana was too strong. The curse was leaking out, traveling back through Lucian’s household mana to infect the warlock himself. Somehow, she’d succeeded in attacking the very foundation of Lucian’s hereditary magic.
Alarmed, I took a deeper breath, searching for Heath and Tabitha’s mana amongst the others swirling in the place. They were close, most likely in the next room. Injured, but not terminally. Closer to bruised and battered. I could sense life in the strength of their scent.
Cripes!
They were infected, too.
“It’s bad,” I choked.
That woke Lucian. He looked up at me weakly. It took several attempts, but he finally managed to gasp, “Strix.”
As if on cue, Strix appeared at my side. The blond Nether Reach keeper looked exhausted and definitely worse for the wear with bandages on his arms and left thigh. But he was standing. Barely. “My lord,” he bowed his head in respect.
The lines around Lucian’s mouth creased in irritation. “Not you,” he struggled to say, locking his silver-blue eyes with mine. “Strix,” he repeated feebly. “He’ll … watch over … you.”
