by Jeff Gunhus
Vases shattered. Mirrors on the wall cracked. I dropped to my knees from the sound of it – the pain almost too much to bear. It felt like shards of glass cutting through my skull and that my head would be the next thing to explode from the sound.
The carpets and the tapestries were on fire now. Everything was so old and dry that it all went up like kindling. In seconds, fire climbed all four walls. In the center of it, her world burning down around her, Shakra continued to scream.
The door burst open and Pahvi ran inside. He hissed when he saw me but went straight to Shakra and led her from the room. She allowed herself to be guided out from the flames, her scream slowly decreasing in volume as if she were running out of breath.
Finally, I was able to remove my hands from my ears. There was blood on both palms, and I wondered if my eardrums had ruptured. The fire surrounding me reminded me I had bigger problems. Already, the heat was so intense that I thought my skin might peel in crisp, black flakes. I grabbed a throw blanket from a nearby chair in one hand and a large stone vase filled with flowers that had survived Shakra’s sonic onslaught. Lucky for me, it was half-filled with water. I put the blanket over my head and poured the water over myself.
For a few seconds, it was amazingly cool, but the heat came right back. It felt like I would catch on fire at any second. Lifting up the blanket slightly, I could see my path to the door. I could make it.
But the Jerusalem Stone was in the chest on the other side of the room.
Seconds could make a difference, so I went with my gut and charged toward the Jerusalem Stone.
As I ran, a tapestry fell from the wall and covered the floor in front of me. I leapt over it and slammed into a chair when I landed, hitting the floor. I scrambled to my feet and reached the chest. I remembered Shakra had locked it. At least it was small enough to just grab the chest and worry about opening it later. Using the blanket like oven mitts, I lifted the chest up. The hot metal burned right through the fabric, and I barely dropped it in time to avoid being burned.
I dropped to my knees and pressed the Templar Ring to the lock. I felt the rush of energy leaving me like water pouring out. The chest lid popped open. Reaching inside, I grabbed the Jerusalem Stone. Impossibly, it was cool to the touch, almost cold despite the inferno raging around us. It reminded me of the Templar Ring, and I wondered if they were made out of the same material. The idea was fleeting because when I turned to look for the door, there was only a wall of fire in front of me.
I was too late. I’d captured the first Jerusalem Stone only to die in the process. I crouched down, eyes darting like an animal, trapped in the inferno.
The crackle and spit of the fire filled my eyes, only now I wasn’t in Shakra’s cave but back in Gregor’s house. Through the flames, I saw the old hunter steel himself to pay for our escape with his life. He turned to me and raised his arm in the salute of the Black Watch. “Do your duty!” he cried to me.
A wave of shame came over me at the words. I couldn’t die in this room with only the first Stone collected. My friends outside were counting on me. The coming war was going to happen, and I had my part to play in its outcome. I had to escape. I couldn’t fail. At the very least, I could not give up.
I stood and, with a yell, ran blindly into the fire, hoping I faced the door. I jumped over a burning couch, dodging a falling tapestry that was now a sheet of flames. The blanket I hugged to me caught fire, and I threw it off. Spotting the door, I sprinted toward it with everything I had.
The heat suddenly disappeared, and I knew I was in the short tunnel that led to Shakra’s room. I’d escaped the heat of the fire, but now I was in a dense cloud of smoke. I inhaled a lungful and choked as I ran. Finally, I reached the end and tumbled forward onto the stage in the cavern filled with vampires.
Hacking to clear my lungs, I slapped at the smoking parts of my clothes that were on fire. Once I put them out, I tried to steady myself on my feet, the Veritas dagger in one hand and the Jerusalem Stone in the other.
Heavy smoke hung over the assembled crowd of vampires. They moved and slithered over each other, crowding the stage, agitated. Eva remained tied to the pile of wood, still alive. I rubbed my burning eyes when I looked to the far side of the stage because I didn’t want to believe what I saw there.
Shakra, dazed and immobile, stood next to an angry Pahvi. In front on them, on their knees, hands tied behind their backs, were Daniel, Xavier and Will.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Will cried. Pahvi cuffed him in the back of the head.
“Put down the dagger called Veritas and return the Jerusalem Stone,” Pahvi shouted, raising a sword over his head. “Or I’ll cut off their heads one by one.” He placed the blade across the back of Daniel’s neck. “You have three seconds to decide.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“ONE…” Pahvi shifted position so the blade rested on Daniel’s throat.
Daniel clenched his teeth, grimacing but holding his head high. “Don’t do it, Jack,” he said. “They’ll just kill us anyway.”
Xavier was in tears. Will shook his head, his eyes darting to the side, begging me to run. At least that’s what I thought at first. Quickly, I realized he was trying to draw my interest to a ragged vampire shuffling along the back wall.
“TWO,” Pahvi yelled.
I noticed a pair of muddy Nikes sticking out from under the rags. Along with a bulging midsection. T-Rex! Somehow the vampires had missed him. He worked his way behind Eva.
“He’s right, Jack,” Eva cried. “Use the dagger to escape. Leave us here.”
I only had a second left to make a decision. I took stock of what I had to work with. Shakra remained frozen in place, her eyes glazed over. She seemed thousands of miles away. But I guessed at the truth. She hadn’t gone anywhere but deep inside her own mind. The truth of Gregor’s forgiveness had dredged up centuries of anger and pain that overwhelmed her. Her scream had been horrifying, but her blank stare made me shudder. Still, from a practical standpoint, as long as she stayed immobile, she was not a factor in the coming battle.
“Your last chance, Templar,” Pahvi hissed.
My mental inventory continued. I had T-Rex in disguise. Eva tied to the stake. My friends held hostage under the sword. A cavern filled with rabid, hungry vampires. And one very motivated, ancient gypsy vampire who burned with pure rage. Sure, I had the Veritas dagger, but if I used it, my friends would die under Pahvi’s hands.
Things didn’t look good. Even with days to think, I couldn’t see a way out. So with only a split-second to decide, I made the only decision I could.
“Very well. THREE!” Pahvi yelled. He raised his sword.
“Wait!” I shouted. “Just wait.” I turned the dagger around in my hand so that I was holding the blade instead of the handle. “Okay, Pahvi, you win. I surrender.”
Pahvi smiled. The vampire horde squeezed closer to the stage. Sniffing the air. Licking their lips. I saw a large brute of a vampire bite a smaller one near it, starting a fight among three of four. Pahvi had warned me that the leaders didn’t have complete control over them. Some of the older ones were so insane that even the threat of death didn’t deter them anymore . They were like rats, feral and hungry.
That’s when it came to me. A ridiculous thought, so brazen that it was absurd. But when all other choices led to certain failure, even the most absurd idea gets its day. If I couldn’t save our lives, I could at least give us all an honorable death. A death for which any monster hunter would be proud. A death not on bended knee, but one fighting our enemy to the bitter end.
I made eye contact with each of my friends, one at a time. They could see the resolve and knew what it meant. Each of them, without hesitation, gave me a silent nod. They were in. Pride surged in my chest, but it shared the space with a black anger that I couldn’t offer them more. I couldn’t save them. My hands clenched into fists as I turned back to Pahvi.
“You want the dagger, Pahvi?” I said. “Come and get it, you foul, bloodsucking gypsy.”
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With that, I slid my hand across the razor-sharp blade of the Veritas dagger. The cut wasn’t very deep, but I knew it would bleed a lot. And that’s what I needed.
I flicked my bleeding hand at the vampire crowd, drops of my blood hitting some of them and splattering across the stage. Exactly as I hoped, they went berserk for my Templar blood. A roar went up from the ones nearest the stage as their nostrils filled with my scent. Those unlucky enough to be hit by a drop were immediately attacked and wrestled to the ground, screaming as the other vampires devoured them.
Within seconds, the vampire horde swarmed onto the stage. In that instant, a terrified T-Rex threw off his rags and lurched forward. With a small knife, he sawed hurriedly through Eva’s bindings.
There were already a dozen vampires between me and the others, but I noticed a flurry of activity on the far side of the stage. As I hoped, Daniel had seized the moment when the vampires rushed forward. He, Will and Xavier were on their feet and fighting.
The first vampire reached me, his eyes wild with thirst, his face contorted in a kind of painful ecstasy. He was dressed in modern clothes, showing himself to be a younger vampire, but he still held a sword in his hand. I lunged forward, knocking his blade aside and plunging Veritas deep into the Creach’s chest.
The vampire dropped the sword and clutched the dagger with both hands, looking down to where it pierced his body. A few beats…and nothing happened. The vampire’s face stretched into a wide, crazy grin. A cold chill passed over me. What if Veritas really was a fake? If it didn’t work, then the end would be fast and vicious.
Then the vampire’s expression changed. The point of impact in his chest began to glow. I pulled the dagger out and the vampire staggered backward, frantically slapping at his chest as if trying to put out a fire. The glow spread farther, now covering most of his torso. The vampire’s lips parted in a silent, gurgling scream, and light shot from his mouth. He fell to the floor, flopping and shaking.
I remembered what Gregor had told me. The blade killed vampires by inflicting on them all the pain of their victims, forcing them to feel both the physical death and the emotional pain. The vampire in front of me kicked and writhed, feeling all the loss, all the tragedy, all the suffering of hundreds of deaths at once. The light continued to spread until it engulfed the Creach. It flared and then winked out. With a final, piercing scream, the vampire lay motionless on the ground. Dead.
I nudged him with my toe to make sure he was dead. The vampire dissolved into a pile of ash under my foot.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” I jabbed.
But I didn’t have long to gloat. The rest of the vampires had stopped on seeing their comrade writhing in pain, but the insanity returned quickly to their eyes. Again, they hissed and clawed the air at me. More cautious, but ready to attack.
I felt movement beside me, and I raised Veritas to stab down.
“Jack!” Eva cried.
I pulled back just in time, shaken by how close I’d come to striking. She and T-Rex took positions next to me, facing a wall of vampires.
“You call this a rescue?” she said.
I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Please don’t tell me I hid in the sewers just die here,” T-Rex said. “Talk about disgusting.”
Eva took a whiff in the air. She didn’t say anything, but she agreed. “What’s the plan, Jack?”
“Plan?” I asked, waving Veritas side to side at the approaching vampires. “Uh…you’re kind of looking at it.”
Eva bent down and picked up the sword of the dissolved vampire, then crouched down into her fighting stance. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
The vampires charged. Really, the ones behind them just pushed forward, but the effect was the same. The battle began.
I slashed and hacked with Veritas. Each vampire that came in contact with it fell to the ground in pain. Eva and T-Rex fought alongside me, holding the vampires off enough to protect themselves from being bitten.
The bodies piled on the stage around us, eventually turning to ash kicked around by the other vampires. I hoped Will and the others were doing alright.
“This way!” I yelled.
I got Eva and T-Rex to the back wall so we at least had one side protected from attack. We cut our way through the vampires, making our way to the other side where I’d last seen the others. There were so many vampires, climbing over each other like sewer rats, that it took a few minutes to get there. I allowed myself to breathe a sigh of relief when I saw Daniel, Will and Xavier still alive and fighting Pahvi. With my blood in the air, none of the other vampires gave them any notice, but it took all three of them to keep Pahvi busy.
I saw Shakra standing tall nearby, her head raised as if she were a queen reviewing her subjects. But on closer inspection, she wasn’t even watching the battle in front of her. She continued to stare over it all, her eyes focused on a distant point.
Behind her, I spotted a door. A way out. “Come on!” I cried, pointing to the door in between swipes of Veritas. My arms burned from the effort, but I didn’t dare stop.
We moved toward Will and the others. The crowd of vampires following me pushed right into Pahvi’s battle. Will played it perfectly and allowed the crush of bodies to separate them. Even though Pahvi angrily chopped down vampires himself, he couldn’t break through.
Will, Daniel and Xavier fell in next to us, the vampires around them all focused on me and the smell of my Templar blood in the air.
“The door!” I yelled. “Right there!”
“What about Shakra?” Will yelled back.
I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw her far-off expression hadn’t changed. “Just go!” I shouted. “It’s our only chance.”
Will pulled T-Rex with him and ran past Shakra. She didn’t move. Daniel and Xavier went next. Eva and I were left alone.
“Go,” I cried. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“You have to kill her on the way out,” Eva said. “If you don’t, she will come after us.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. Just go.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Eva cried, stabbing a charging vampire to my right. “We are the Black Watch. It’s our duty.”
“You don’t understand.”
“It’s your duty, Jack. Come what may,” Eva said.
“She’s my blood,” I cried. “My mother’s twin sister.”
Eva, stunned, dropped her guard, and a vampire swiped a clawed hand at her shoulder, tearing the flesh away. She cried out and held her wound. A cry went up among the front line of vampires with the smell of new blood in the air.
“I’ll explain later. Please,” I begged. “Just go now. Go to the door.”
Eva hesitated and then nodded. “You better be right behind me,” she cried.
“You have my word,” I promised.
Eva turned, and I struck out at the vampires in front of me, trying to create more space, getting ready for my own escape. If I could make it to the doorway, their massive numbers wouldn’t help them. Only one at a time could follow us. Veritas would make short work of them and create a pile of bodies to block the way. If we could get back to the tunnels and the sewers that ran beneath them, then we might stand a chance. For the first time, I felt a glimmer of hope.
A piercing scream behind me washed all of that away.
I spun around, already fearing what I would see.
Eva.
A sword impaled through her chest.
Pahvi had worked his way behind us and now lifted her into the air with only one hand on his sword. Eva choked on blood. Her eyes widened in astonishment.
She turned to me. Her lips moved. No sound came, but I knew they formed my name.
Every ounce of energy I had left me. The light in me turned off. I sagged forward, not willing to believe my eyes.
Pahvi raised his sword higher, and Eva hung suspended over the ancient vampire’s head. “You want truth, young Temp
lar?” Pahvi cried. “This is how truth looks. This is how truth feels. The most powerful always win in the end.” He pointed to Veritas. “Drop it now, or I take off her head next.”
My mind could barely register the words. Part of me knew she was already too wounded to live, but it didn’t matter. My hand did as he commanded. My fingers weakened and the dagger tumbled out of my hands.
Eva’s eyes slowly closed as I did it. It was a simple gesture. The end of hope. The end of everything.
With a violent downward sweep of the sword, Pahvi threw Eva to the ground. She hit hard, curled up, and lay there unmoving. Her eyes were open now, staring right at me, but she was gone.
Eva, my Eva, was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“No!” I cried, finally finding my voice. It sounded hollow and distant. A stranger’s voice. Filled with a kind of anguish I’d never heard come from me before. Everything around me faded into the background, blurry and moving in slow motion. All sounds came at me like I was underwater. And that’s how I felt. Unable to breathe. Drowning.
Rough hands picked me up and dragged me to Pahvi. I fought free and dropped to the ground, taking Eva in my arms. There was blood everywhere. Her eyes were glassed over and stared right through me. But I felt her chest move in shuddering, shallow breaths. She was still alive. But only barely.
The world around me locked back into place, and I went from being aware of nothing to being aware of everything. Pahvi spoke in a booming voice that filled the cavern, using a language I didn’t recognize. He held Veritas in his hand. A group of vampires charged at me, and he lopped their heads off before they hit their first stride. This quieted the others not so insane as to want to face the wrath of Pahvi with his new weapon. Shakra remained motionless through all of this, locked somewhere inside herself.
I looked to the door where the others had escaped. There was no one there. I couldn’t know whether they had heard Eva’s screams or not. It didn’t matter. The important thing was at least they had gotten away. I pulled Eva closer.
