“You know, I noticed something about this magi-tech that Ta’Zan is using,” I said, casually leaning against Hunter’s shoulder for a sliver of comfort in this hostile world. Elonora and the others looked at me. “It’s all powered by serium. If you remove the energy source, it won’t work.”
Cassiel smiled. “Smart witch, this one.”
“I know, I only hang out with the geniuses.” Raphael chuckled, giving me a friendly wink. It wasn’t friendly enough to prevent a low growl from leaving Hunter’s throat, but hey.
“Thing is, I can understand how one can combine a type of magic with technology. We do it back in The Shade, too, with our craft. It’s how we build our ships, for that matter,” I continued. “But this magi-tech is different because it requires something else to function—in this case, serium. Now, serium can’t be found anywhere else besides Strava, which is why the magi-tech never made it off the planet. It’s indigenous, which is the reason why we’ve never heard of it.”
“The Draenir kept their cards close to their chests,” Nevis replied. “They didn’t want anyone else knowing about their magi-tech; otherwise, there would’ve been notes in those old Druid travel journals from Luceria, right?”
Elonora nodded. “Well, for good reason, too. I mean, look at all the great but also awful things you can do with it. Imagine if another planet got wind of the serium-powered magi-tech. If others wanted to get their hands on it.”
The young Draenir listened to our conversation, occasionally stealing a glance, but they didn’t interject. Chances were that they didn’t know any of this. Rakkhan had done a pretty good job of keeping them isolated back on Merinos.
Raphael got up. “It’s better if it just stays here. Not everything that’s Stravian is good for the rest of the universe. Case in point,” he said, pointing a finger at the diamond colosseum.
“We need to get cracking,” Elonora replied, as she stood and checked her weapon.
Morning light bathed the entire region, and wildflowers everywhere opened up to greet the sun. Perfects flew above the colosseum in groups of four, swirling around before they shot outward and dashed across the blue sky. We were safe under the cover of trees on that slice of hilltop, but we couldn’t stay hidden for much longer.
I checked my earpiece and phone, which had been customized by Phoenix, Jovi, and Dmitri to work on Strava—provided that the comms were on. “There’s no signal yet,” I muttered.
“There won’t be a signal until we take down the last tower,” Cassiel said, pointing somewhere behind us.
Less than half a mile away, the last tower was still standing.
“Once we disable it, everything will go back on,” Raphael added.
Elonora smirked. “Which means Telluris will be back on, too. We’ll be able to communicate with the rest of our crew, as well as those who survived the fleet attack.”
“Listen, I’ll go take that tower out,” Cassiel said. “You guys handle the colosseum.”
“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” Raphael gripped his wrist before Cassiel could run off. “What are you doing?”
“We’re wasting time doing one thing, then the next!” Cassiel replied. “I can’t be seen inside the colosseum, and I can’t put my faith in your invisibility… whatever paste. I can’t. Based on where my tracker was going when we last saw that deer, I don’t belong anywhere near the colosseum. I’m of more use taking down that last tower. I know how the system works; I know which cables to clip and whatnot. Once I’m done with it, comms will be back on for at least a few days.”
According to what Raphael had told us about the system, it would be at least two days before the command center would be alerted about a tower malfunction.
“This way, you can get into the colosseum and trash those damn ships,” Cassiel added, looking at Raphael. “I told you everything you need to know about the place, enough to help you get straight to the right spot and destroy what’s necessary to ground the Perfects for a little while longer.”
None of us said anything for a while, until Nevis exhaled sharply. “Raphael, Elonora, and I will infiltrate the colosseum, then.”
“So, what, Cassiel just waltzes off, telling us he’ll do something we can’t fully trust him to do?” Raphael retorted, frowning.
“What do you mean you can’t fully trust me?” Cassiel replied, crossing his arms.
“Dude, we met five minutes ago. I already put my ass on the line here, and I won’t risk losing it, along with my life, if you change your mind and turn on us!” Raphael said.
Nevis grinned, clearly amused by this tense back-and-forth. By contrast, the Dhaxanian prince was definitely one of the most reserved and calm creatures I had ever met.
“Kailani, Hunter, Kallisto, and the Draenir can stay back here and provide us with backup, if needed,” Nevis said. “Provided the comms will resume once Cassiel does his job, we’ll be able to communicate accordingly, right?”
We all nodded.
“Good. And Varga can keep an eye on everyone up here, including Cassiel—albeit from a distance,” Nevis added. “We’ll know if Cassiel was honest with us once the comms return. If they don’t, we’ll know he betrayed us, and he won’t be able to find us, because none of us will be around.”
“Let me see if I got this straight,” Raphael replied, scratching his blond stubble. “We let Cassiel handle the last tower. In the meantime, you, Lenny, and me head for the colosseum, while everyone else stays back. Varga keeps a distant eye on Cassiel with his wonder eyes, and, if Cassiel doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do, we what… bail?”
“Gentlemen, ladies, please,” Cassiel interjected. “Give me the benefit of the doubt, please. We’ve been getting along so well until now. I’ve been pretty helpful, to say the least.”
“And you two seemed to get off on the right foot, there,” Hunter mumbled, stifling a smirk.
Raphael rolled his eyes, then let out a frustrated groan. “Just trying to be professional here. Like I said, this gorgeous set of buns is on the line,” he said, pointing at his behind and making me laugh.
“Cassiel knows what kind of firepower we’re packing,” Kallisto chimed in. “He wouldn’t be foolish enough to betray us, when there would automatically be a pulverizer pellet reserved for him if he does.”
“And I’m perfectly okay with keeping an eye on him, too,” Varga added.
“Fine. Okay. Let’s do this,” Raphael conceded, then narrowed his eyes and poked Cassiel in the chest with his index finger. “You’d better not screw this up.”
“Oh, we’ll know if he does,” I said, pointing at my earpiece.
So far, our mission had gone rather smoothly. With the pulverizer weapons in our arsenal, we had a definitive edge over the Perfects. Granted, they didn’t know we had a limited supply of ammo, but it was enough to scare them.
We were no longer the victims. We were no longer the hunted. Technically speaking, we weren’t the hunters yet, but dammit, we were turning the tide this time.
Elonora
Nevis, Raphael, and I split from our group, packing two pulverizer weapons and ten extra pellets each, having left the rest with Kailani and the others. The plan was for us to not be seen, so we took most of the invisibility spell rations, which Kailani had laboriously prepackaged in algae-based pouches for us to simply chew and swallow—one serving at a time.
We left Varga keeping a sentry eye on Cassiel as he went ahead to disable the last tower, the very command system of the comms blocker that Ta’Zan had devised to keep us from talking to anyone, even via Telluris.
Hunter, Kailani, Kallisto, and the four Draenir stayed on the edge of the jungle, atop the tall but flattened hill overlooking the colosseum, with Varga occasionally checking on us, too. Without our comms devices working just yet, only Varga could ascertain whether we were okay or not.
Raphael led the way through the dense jungle, with Nevis and me right behind him. This time, however, we didn’t go on foot. We jumped from tree to tree, climbing br
anches and leaving as few traces on the ground as possible.
“Perfects patrol the areas surrounding the colosseum,” Raphael said, moving to another tree.
This method of sneaking around put a strain on my muscles, but it wasn’t enough to wear me out. I had a hard time taking my eyes off Nevis, though. He was tall and slender, but his muscles were toned and firm, and his mobility took my breath away, as he dangled from one branch, then soared to the next, like any of the long-armed primates we’d seen dashing through the woods. He came across as a stiff, downright rigid character, but rather light on his feet—seeing him move like this was impressive, to say the least. Hell, sometimes I had to work a little harder just to keep up with him!
“What about rogue Faulties?” I asked.
“None remain on this island,” Raphael replied. “The Perfects pushed them all out.”
“Why do they patrol the ground, too, then?” Nevis grunted, as he pulled himself up a curled branch and settled there for a few seconds, waiting for me to catch up.
“Because of you. Well, us.” Raphael chuckled.
“So, Ta’Zan is expecting us,” I concluded.
“Let’s just say he’s not excluding the possibility of at least some of us trying to get closer to the colosseum, to try and break the prisoners out, somehow,” Raphael explained. “By now, he probably knows I’m working with you, too, and he’s lost Douma. So, I figure he’ll strengthen security the closer we get to him.”
“Perhaps we should start using the invisibility spell, then,” Nevis suggested.
Raphael nodded. “Give us another five hundred yards. From what I remember, those little packs of magic you have only last about two, maybe three hours, each?”
“That’s correct, yes,” I replied. “It makes sense to be conservative with their usage on the way in and save most of them for while we’re on location, as well as on the way out.”
My heart thudded, my senses sharp and my reflexes on the very edge. This was the farthest I’d ever gotten into enemy territory. The first colosseum I’d seen, back when we’d first met Kallisto, was more on the edge of the occupied islands, closer to Noagh than to this place. I listened to every single sound, every crackle and pop, every rustling leaf and broken branch. I paid attention to every flicker and any shadow that fluttered through the woods around us.
I could see why Ta’Zan had chosen this island for his colosseum. The beaches were narrow and rocky, suspended on a thick layer of sharp rocks, perfect for the turbulent ocean waters in this area to pummel at will. The woods were deep, with tall and gnarled trees that branched out and weaved a thick overhead crown, blocking the sun. There were plenty of predators in these parts, too—the big kind, like turquoise tigers and blue-backed bears, a plethora of giant, poisonous snakes, and deadly insects. The latter I was most uncomfortable with because I couldn’t see them until it was too late.
Granted, since I was a vampire, they couldn’t kill me, but a single bite from a green jumper spider was enough to knock me out for a couple of hours. Nevis wasn’t as fortunate. The same creatures could, in fact, kill him. But the hostile fauna was the least of our worries at this point.
We all stilled for a few minutes, hidden in one of the tree crowns. We’d all heard the voices, so we waited, quietly, as they passed us by. Raphael had given us some of his wicked black mineral dust to rub on ourselves once every half hour, to conceal our scent. The Perfects were still the apex predators of Strava, and their noses were sharp. We were cutting it real close this time, but we couldn’t turn back.
Our objective was less than six hundred yards away now.
Four Perfects passed through the clearing to our left—a small patch of crude, green grass that was bathed in golden sunshine throughout the day.
“I’m telling you, if he doesn’t catch them by the end of the day, Father will lose his standing among the higher circles,” one of the Perfects said.
I immediately checked Raphael’s expression. He was frowning, clearly aware of what they were talking about. Hope flared through his aura, too. I had a feeling this conversation was of utmost interest to us, so I kept my ears open.
“He’s failed to catch them one too many times. I hear Abaddon has been a disappointment, too,” the second Perfect said.
“That’s an understatement!” the third one replied, rolling his eyes. “That guy’s a mindless beast, no self-control whatsoever, no matter how good that nose of his is.”
The fourth Perfect chuckled. “Word’s out that he got his head chopped off by Douma.”
“Now, the outsiders have Raphael on their side, too.” The first one sighed. “I don’t know where all this is going to end, I swear.”
“Why would our people join them? I don’t get it. They’re all just persistent bugs, weaklings that need to be taught a lesson,” the second one said.
That made my blood boil, and I would’ve loved nothing more than to blast him into oblivion with my weapon, to show him exactly what kind of bug I was. Raphael’s smirk caught my eye, though. The Perfects’ conversation seemed to please him. It had to mean something, perhaps even working in our favor.
“Raphael isn’t stupid. And we all know Douma is one of our brightest. There has to be a reason why they chose to protect the outsiders against Father,” the fourth Perfect said.
“Maybe they cut their heads off and removed the memory chips,” the second one suggested, drawing shock and disgust from his companions. He offered a shrug against their groans. “What? They’ve got Amane with them! That little snake knows everything about us!”
“Even so, we can’t be so easy to turn against Father. Come on!” the first Perfect replied. “He’s taught us everything, yes, but there has to be something inside us, a grain of loyalty, that existed from the very beginning, that you can’t just wipe out. I refuse to believe that.”
“Suit yourself,” the second one said. “The outsiders are too dangerous to be left out there, in the wild. Father has sent Cassiel out to get them. If he doesn’t deliver either, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
The third Perfect laughed lightly. “The upgraded Perfect. As if we weren’t good enough! Are you okay with that? Did you see how he paraded him in front of us, calling him the next stage in our evolution?! Our evolution! We’re not evolving anywhere! He’s just making a better Perfect now. Before you know it, we’ll be tossed out like the Faulties.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the first one hissed. “Father loves us. He would never do something like that. I think he designed Cassiel solely for the purpose of capturing the outsiders.”
Their voices dimmed as they moved farther away from us, but I could still hear snippets of their conversation. Half of them were angry about our persistence in slipping through their fingers—they’d lost their trust in Araquiel and Abaddon, and they were skeptical about Cassiel, too. The other two were more concerned with Cassiel’s role within this Perfect society, and they worried about their own standing, if Ta’Zan decided to make more of him.
The seed of discord seemed to work on mysterious levels, and I couldn’t help but smile about it. Convincing the Perfects—or, at least some of them—to work with us, rather than against us, no longer seemed like an impossible feat. Maybe we didn’t have to cut their heads off and rip their memory chips out to get them to listen to us. Maybe we just needed to fuel this fire that Cassiel’s creation had ignited.
“Ta’Zan made a huge mistake when he created Cassiel,” Nevis murmured, staring blankly into the small clearing. The Perfects were gone, and they hadn’t sensed us at all. I had to give credit to that black mineral dust—it definitely worked.
“He made a huge mistake when he created the Perfects, too,” Raphael replied. “He should’ve stuck to his Faulties. He should’ve lived out the rest of his life on a remote island, leaving the Draenir alone and alive. He started something he will never be able to undo, I guarantee it.”
Raphael sounded angry. His aura burned bright and red, too.
&
nbsp; “Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because once we change the minds of Perfects, he’ll suffer the greatest disappointment. He’ll have to swallow the hard truth. He’s not a god. And he cannot control us. I’ll make sure of it.” Raphael sighed.
I understood then that, the more time he spent around us, the more determined he became to make a difference, to change the outcome of this mission that Ta’Zan was on. And I couldn’t blame Raphael one bit. Whether he’d had a say in it or not, all these Perfects were his people, his brothers and sisters in this world. They deserved a fair shot at life, but their minds needed to be changed first.
When we reached the five-hundred-yard mark, we consumed the first round of invisibility spell servings. Each pouch came with a red garnet lens, much like the ones our people had used on Neraka to see anyone using the invisibility spell. Even with Lumi’s upgrade, the lenses worked, allowing us to see each other once we vanished.
The diamond colosseum was now a giant rising before us, its millions of clear facets breaking the sunlight into countless shards of color reflections. Perfect guards patrolled the top—I could see them clearly now.
They didn’t carry weapons. They didn’t need them. Their claws, their speed, and their strength, along with their genetically stolen supernatural abilities, were more than enough to destroy the enemy, if needed. We’d been on the receiving end of all that, more than once.
Looking inside the building, I could see about a thousand or so roaming around. They had their own chambers and common living spaces, training and study halls, laboratories and storage facilities, along with everything else that they needed for a comfortable life here. I held my breath when I used my True Sight to see beyond, right into the dome, which rose gently on the other side from where we’d stopped.
“Nevis. They’re in there,” I whispered. My vision became blurry, my eyes filled with tears. I could see them all so clearly. “Grandma Claudia… Grandpa Yuri… Derek and Sofia, Xavier and Vivienne… All of them. Oh, hell, Jovi and Anjani, too! Dmitri will be able to breathe again when we tell him.”
A Shade of Vampire 65: A Plague of Deceit Page 18
