Sacrifice of the Septimus: Part 2 (Afterlife saga Book 7)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “Don’t worry, I will protect you,” I said slapping him on the chest and then saying ‘Oww’ when one of his blades nicked my little finger. He just raised an eyebrow at me and shook head saying,

  “And I am taking you into battle against a Persian Devil.” I ignored this comment and looked back over the open sandy plain, which was quickly getting stained with blood.

  “I don’t think that horse is going to make it,” he said looking over his shoulder at our horse that looked closer to passing out than ready to ride again.

  “I don’t think we have time for that…look!” I said pointing to where we could now see Draven fighting Pertinax and each of them were in their other forms.

  “Can anyone else around them see their true forms?” I asked Lucius.

  “No, why?” I looked him up and down and said,

  “Because I think I know a quicker way.” He gave me a questioning look and then asked in a weary tone,

  “Why, what do you have in mind?” This was when I gave him a smile and said…

  “You have wings, don’t you?”

  Chapter 70

  Sacrificed

  “You might want to stand back,” Lucius warned as he took off his jacket and pulled his undershirt off over his head. I did as I was told knowing that he was getting ready to change into his Demon form.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said before bending over to place his hands on his knees. The first thing I saw was the black veins travelling along his body as though someone had just injected him with ink. They looked like lines on a map, pointing to one place… his Demon side.

  Then taking another step back I watched as two massive horns burst free from the skin on his shoulder blades as if they themselves had ripped away from the rest of his skeleton and twisted back to allow his wings to come forth. Black charred skin stretched out between long bones that ended with razor sharp points and from what I remembered, these wings were unlike the ones I had seen on him before as they now looked brand new. They didn’t look worn or broken in the places I remembered and even his claws looked as though they hadn’t yet felt an enemy’s flesh.

  He stood up and stretched them out putting me in shadow for a moment as he blocked out the sun that was going down behind him. His skin looked paler, almost as though it had been dusted in chalk, with only the black lines of power pulsating through. His once grey blue eyes had disappeared completely, now being replaced with blood red pools of demonic hatred as he looked barely able to control this other side of himself.

  It had been a long time since I had seen him like this, as after what happened in the Temple and the Triple Goddess ritual, he had forever changed. But now, in this time, this was the only form he knew and he looked like a newborn Demon, unlike the cocky, self-assured two-thousand-year old Vampire King I was used to.

  “It’s alright, don’t be frightened,” he told me again, obviously taking my startled look for fear. I gave him a grin, walked over to him and patted him on the back saying,

  “Don’t sweat it, I have seen you like this before. Besides, you’re not that scary,” I told him with a laugh, making him growl.

  “Nope, still cute, now let’s go,” I said watching him bend down and pick up a sword.

  “I hope you know what you are doing,” he said pulling me to him and putting an arm around my waist.

  “Me too,” I muttered as I reached up and gripped onto his horns for something to anchor myself to as suddenly he turned and ran us towards the edge, throwing us both off. I couldn’t help but scream as he let us fall for a moment before gaining the air flow beneath his wings. Then he quickly flew us up higher making my stomach turn.

  “Did I mention I am afraid of heights?” I said in the arms of one of the most powerful Demons on earth, soon to be King of the Vampires and here I was scared of the height at which he could accidently drop me.

  “I gathered,” he said sarcastically, reminding me of my own Lucius. I buried my head in his shoulder as I saw him gaining more height so that we could fly directly over to where we needed to be.

  “The King,” he said and hearing this my fear of heights fled me and a new fear seeped in and overrode anything else.

  “Draven!” I shouted knowing that we had to hurry. We were high above them both and Lucius had stopped, keeping us suspended in this position.

  “There is only one way for me to do this,” he told me looking into my eyes and trying to weigh up for himself if I was brave enough or not. I looked down just as Draven had been knocked to his knees ready for what looked like the killing blow. I knew what he was going to do so I looked back at him, held on tight and said,

  “Do it!”

  Then we fell.

  Lucius had folded his wings in and suddenly we were free falling through the sky, ready to drop in at what I was praying was just the right moment. I felt the air fight against us and knew when we would land as Lucius tightened his grip on me. I opened my eyes to see Lucius drop us directly in front of Draven, who was still on his knees. Then Lucius pushed me towards Draven and spun around, opening his wings at just the right moment so that it deflected Pertinax’s killing blow away from us all.

  “YOU!” Pertinax snarled in his demonic voice as Lucius turned to face the enemy. I knelt down next to Draven and placed my hand on his bloody face to lift it up to look at me.

  “Nāzanin?” he whispered in disbelief, as though being near death was deceiving his vision.

  “It’s me Arsaces, I am here now,” I said before looking back to see Lucius circling around giving me a clear view for the first time of the beast we were up against.

  Pertinax was a man no longer, and looked to have forgone his vessel altogether as the older man I saw in the hallway was now lay on the ground discarded like an old suit. In his place stood someone I would have said looked like the Devil himself, as he wasn’t just huge but at least triple the size of a man. And with his reddish burst skin and giant horns, I would say he was stereotypically…The Devil!

  All of his forehead, from his eyes upwards was two horns that reached up at least a metre above his head. They joined at the centre of his nose, making it look like a demonic helmet, one that was rippled down to the point and back up to the twisted horns that were tipped with gold, turning them into weapons. Eyes of black with tiny white dots at their centres stared down at Lucius with a hatred only found in such evil.

  “HOW DARE YOU BETRAY ME SEPTIMUS!” The Demon roared extending his wings out and they looked big enough to scoop us all up in one go. They looked a very similar shape to Lucius’ only on a larger scale and where his were black, Pertinax’s looked like dragon’s wings on fire. Lucius shrugged his shoulders and spun round his blade, telling him he was ready for the fight.

  “What can I say…I like him better,” he told him making the beast awaken in all his raging glory. He threw his arms back and roared out to the sky before swinging his colossal sword at him. Lucius had to use both hands to defend himself against the attack, or he would not have had enough strength to keep hold of his weapon.

  “You’re still alive?” Draven asked me and I looked back down at his injuries to see that he needed time to heal.

  “I am. Lucius saved me and now it’s time that we saved you.”

  “No! You need to run, get out of here!” he said grabbing on to me and then trying to push me away so that I would do as he asked.

  “I am not leaving you!”

  “GO!”

  “NO! I know it takes the power of three to defeat him, now help me! What are his weaknesses…tell me?!” I shouted down at him before looking back to see that Lucius was still going strong.

  “How do you know that?” he asked me and I wanted to roll my eyes.

  “Now is not the time, just tell me!”

  “He doesn’t have any weaknesses. Every blow I make goes straight through leaving him untouched,” he told me and I looked behind once more to see that he was right. Every time Lucius would make a killing blow against him, an area of
his body would just turn into a black mist, surrounding the blade in smoke, making the thrust useless against him.

  “You have to leave, please,” Draven begged grabbing me to him once more but I wasn’t listening. Instead I was trying to figure out what my gut had been trying to tell me. The first time they fought him they stabbed him in the heart but with his own weapon…was that it? Was that the only thing that could pierce his own heart?

  “Can you stand?” I asked him and he nodded, lifting himself up now that part of his mangled leg had healed. He obviously didn’t know that I could see him this way or the limp way his wings dangled behind him. It was so painful seeing him like this, for I was so used to seeing Draven as an unstoppable force. Which only served as a testament to what we faced now and the immense power we had to battle against.

  I looked around where we stood to see that the battle against the Romans had almost been won, but the war against good and evil was far from it. Lucius was holding out against him, but I knew it wouldn’t be like this for long. In fact, he had just knocked Lucius to the ground and was letting the huge sword swing down when suddenly arrows started flying in from all around us shooting straight through him, giving Lucius the few seconds pause he needed for him to roll away before the blade crashed into the hard sand.

  The arrows continued flying thick and fast from all directions as Draven’s men had started trying to defend their King. I had no clue what they thought they were firing into but when I looked at Draven’s glazed eyes, I knew that he was the one controlling them all. Not one of the hundreds of arrows that flew at him made it through the black smoke but it was at least keeping him busy enough as he must have had to concentrate on not letting any get through.

  This gave me the time I needed to run to Lucius and tell him my plan,

  “I think it’s the spear on his back, I think that is the only thing that will get through to his heart. We need to get it,” he nodded and said,

  “We don’t have many options left. Do you think you can distract him without getting killed?” he asked over the bellowing din of Pertinax trying to fight against the rain of arrows.

  “You mean can I annoy someone enough to get their attention? Yeah sure…but for them not to kill me, I guess we will soon find out,” I told him but then Draven limped over and issued his new order,

  “I will distract him, now go!” Lucius didn’t need to be told twice as he picked up his sword after Pertinax had knocked it from his hand.

  “Now you will run until you reach the city!” Draven told me and I was just about to argue with him when suddenly the earth beneath us started to shake.

  “Ever had déjà vu?” I asked him, looking down at the ground to see the sand dancing two inches from the floor. This was how it started back in the hallway when we were first taken and any minute now I expected to see rock demons springing from the ground. However, this didn’t happen…

  Something else did.

  “RUN!” he suddenly bellowed to me just as the earth seemed to open up next to us. Then it shot outwards like someone had just set off a bomb beneath the ground. Massive jagged rocks sprang up from nowhere and fired towards Draven’s army around us, bursting from the sand like someone had set off a line of charges. The rocks beneath thundered along, traveling in lines like giant tentacles, attacking groups of his men causing chaos around us.

  Then the rumbling seemed to centralise itself, focusing solely on where we stood. Draven grabbed my arm to steady me as the ground started to split off from the rocks, cracking down into the centre of the earth so that when it started to lift, we were left with a small diameter on which to fight.

  “Great, even more heights.” I grumbled as Pertinax continued to raise up his arms controlling the growing mountain on which we stood.

  “You gonna stop asking me to run now?” I said looking down and Draven just growled back at me. At least, unbeknown to Pertinax, this was giving us the distraction we needed, as Lucius was already getting into position.

  “He will need you to hold him back for it has to go directly into his heart!” I told Draven noticing that now, he was more steady on his feet.

  “GO! I will distract him!” Draven looked torn but even he knew we only had one shot at this.

  “Don’t you dare die on me again!” he snarled, pulling me to him and giving me a quick kiss before running towards Lucius.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I muttered to myself before looking back at the Demon and seeing that he had finally stopped the platform from moving. I looked over my shoulder and gulped at the new height I found myself. It was like being on the top of a skyscraper about to fight King Kong.

  “What I wouldn’t give for Adam right about now,” I grumbled knowing that the time had come. So I walked closer to him, opened my arms up and said,

  “Hey Asshole! Yeah you! Do you have any idea who I am!?” I shouted up at him after picking up a rock and throwing it at him. He looked down at me and grinned.

  “NOW I GET THE CHANCE TO PLAY WITH YOU!” he roared before lunging at me. I saw a quick glimpse of Lucius snag the spear from his back and I jumped to one side barely missing the swing of his sword as I watched it in slow motion travel over me, missing me by inches. The power of his thrust made his body spin with the action and there waiting for their chance was Draven and Lucius.

  I sat up and shouted,

  “NOW!” just as Draven grabbed the arm holding the sword back, so that Lucius was there ready to hammer the end of the glass spear into his heart. It hit its mark and the two of them jumped back to give it time to take effect but instead of the sound of defeat, it was only the sound of demonic laughter that met our ears.

  “It didn’t work, go, fly down and take her with you!” Draven shouted to Lucius who looked ready to do that.

  “NO!” I shouted knowing that there was something we had missed…no, wait…it wasn’t what they had missed, it was something that I had missed. Because they didn’t know what I knew. They hadn’t lived through this time like Sophia had.

  “Think damn it!” I scolded myself.

  “Look out!” Draven pushed me to one side just as I saw him sacrifice himself for me as he himself was pushed over the side of the platform.

  “NO!” I screamed scrambling to my feet and racing to him as Lucius fought him back, slashing out at him over and over, no doubt praying to Lucifer that one blow would stick. That one hit would be enough of a…wait, was that it?

  I ran over to the ledge to see that Draven was clung to the side climbing his way back up. I inhaled a thankful breath and looked back at Lucius knowing now what had to be done. It wasn’t about where we hit him, it was about what we could hit him with.

  What his weakness would be.

  Because it was like I first thought…

  ‘Stopping a demon like Pertinax was a war worth fighting for and fighting for that war was a sacrifice worth dying for. But how many of the supernatural lives living on earth can say that they would sacrifice themselves for the human race, for to give up that amount of power would be a powerful thing indeed.’

  It was in that sacrifice where the power was held and it was also in the blood of both Heaven and Hell…in Draven. Those combined had been enough to pierce the heart of hatred. And now it was up to us to do the same. I was just moving back to allow Draven room to climb back over and I threw myself into his arms.

  “I thought you were…!”

  “I know,” he said touching my cheek gently but our moment was short lived.

  “I know a way to kill him. But you need to sacrifice your…”

  “LOOKOUT!” Lucius roared but it was too late as we had no time to move. I fell forward into Draven as the weight of a body fell on top of me. I watched wide eyed as Draven too fell backwards and for long agonising moments I couldn’t understand what had happened. I seemed to be sandwiched between the two men I loved and it was only when I saw the long wooden pole sticking from Draven’s shoulder that I knew what had happened.

  Luc
ius had thrown himself in front of us both as Pertinax had being trying to kill us with his spear. I turned around to see him laughing and celebrating by raising up his hands at his own victory of killing us all with one blow.

  But this was when it happened…The rage.

  My rage.

  It was back.

  Chapter 71

  Hell Hath no Fury like a Woman Scorned

  It was strange feeling.

  The feeling of becoming lost in a grief so great that nothing left in the world made sense to you. The only action left for you was as simple as taking death into your own hands and calling it revenge. And that was what loving someone to death really meant to you. It was the force to conquer within yourself and turn it into a power so great, that even you had to become something different just so that you knew how to handle it.

  That was what I was.

  I was a vessel for myself.

  It was almost as though my body was being lifted and my limbs were being moved weightlessly through water. The tingling that usually came to me in my fingers was now all over my body, zinging around as though every single part of me was sparking back to life…a life that wasn’t solely my own. I didn’t feel fear or even really have an understanding about what I was about to do. All I allowed myself to feel was hate and mourning for those I thought I had lost. I let it fuel my blood as though changing it into something more.

  I could see what I was doing as if watching from afar but yet not. I was lost somewhere between myself and what I needed to become. I saw my own hands snap down on the wooden pole that connected them, as though it was made from paper. I then lifted Lucius’ lifeless body up as if he weighed nothing at all.

  I lay him down and saw the damage that had been done far too close to a heart that I knew didn’t belong to me, not in this lifetime or the one I should have been living. But nonetheless it was a heart that I cared for and would have given my life for if given the chance. I briefly heard him moan from pain so knew that at least he lived for now, my only hope was that when this was done, that I had my chance to say goodbye.