Dmitri
Leah and Samael were getting sluggish in their defense. The Perfects’ blows were so powerful and came down with such might, that I could hear them grunt whenever they had to block them with their forearms. At least they’d had the sense to strap flat shells on their shins and forearms to absorb some of the impact and to avoid deep cuts.
My team was taking quite the pummeling at that point, and I wasn’t sure what else I could do. I was tasked with making sure that no one got close to Douma, and it was becoming more difficult with every minute that went by.
One of the Perfects got close enough to try to slash me with his claws. I brought my own out in an upward motion and cut through his wrist. He hissed from the pain, then moved forward to try again. He was ridiculously fast, his arms moving up and down like flashes of light as he tried to draw blood. I ducked his last hit, then shot back up and kicked him in the gut.
It pushed him back by a few feet, leaving him breathless for a moment. Leah caught his movement to her side. She swerved around and drove her claws into his lower back, then cut all the way through to the left, leaving him with five deep gashes from one hip to another. The Perfect roared with a mixture of pain and fury, then tried to attack her.
I dashed forward and cut him down with my soul-eater. He dropped like a limp doll.
I gave Leah a thankful nod, then resumed my position next to Douma, while Samael and Leah kept their defense line around us.
“You’re losing faster than the last time,” Douma said to me, restless in her restraints.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, annoyed. “I’m not in the mood for your astute observations right now.”
“I know. You’re too busy keeping me tied up. But if you don’t focus on what’s really important here, Abaddon will kill at least half of your crew before Araquiel or Oriphiel manages to subdue him,” she replied. “You need a win here, and I need to make sure you’re all brought back in one piece. My brothers and sisters cannot keep Abaddon from killing you and take you down.”
“Ah, so you’re not perfect,” I said, grinning.
She rolled her eyes at me, and I found it to be equal parts annoying and cute. This creature continued to stir and baffle me. I heard Abaddon roar. He tried to go after Kailani, but she pushed him away with a powerful bright pulse. Her hands were shaking, though. I wasn’t sure that she would last for much longer.
Elonora and Rose were having trouble. Nevis and Zeriel ran from their fights and moved to tackle Abaddon. The Perfect was barely scratched by Kailani’s attacks, and he seemed determined to get close enough to kill her. He put his hands out, the palms lighting up as fireballs formed between his curled fingers. Nevis cast a fan of ice shards, then threw them at Abaddon with lightning speed. Zeriel went into a rapid sprint, zigzagging across the beach with his blades out—one a soul-eater, and the other his regular sword.
Abaddon heard them coming. He dropped to his belly, and the ice shards missed him by inches. They flew past him, headed straight for Kailani. My heart jumped in my throat, and my voice disappeared. Kailani was quick to form a protective shield around her. From what I could tell, she was harnessing the power of electricity, drawing energy from the air to produce powerful pulses and defense barriers. It was enough to keep the ice shards from piercing her, but not enough to stop Abaddon, who sprang up and darted toward her with his claws out.
Zeriel intercepted him with a football-like tackle, taking him down.
He didn’t manage to keep him there, though. I heard the whistle of sharp claws slashing through the air, then Zeriel’s grunt. Abaddon got back on his feet, leaving Zeriel on the ground, as blood seeped into the white sand. The Tritone king was injured—badly enough to make it impossible for him to even move.
Abaddon then turned around to face Nevis. The Dhaxanian prince wasn’t done yet. Frost spread out from beneath his bare feet. A thick sheet expanded toward Abaddon, who lifted his foot, then brought it down in a hard stomp, just as the frost reached him. His heel went through, shattering the ice. Dhaxanian frost couldn’t do much to this monster.
Nevis frowned, then produced a sturdy ice shield and came at Abaddon with his soul-eater. I knew that this was going to spell trouble for Nevis. He was an excellent fighter in close combat, but nowhere near as good or as vicious as Abaddon. Nevis had spent most of his adult life using his Dhaxanian frost as an absolute deterrent. However, in this case, it didn’t work like it was supposed to.
“He’s going to lose,” Douma said. “I told you, I can take him down again. We’re all going to be taken back to Ta’Zan, after all.”
“Can you stop talking like you know for a fact that we’ll get captured in the end? It’s annoying,” I retorted. “You don’t know that for sure. You’re just saying it to chip away at my resolve, and it’s not going to work. You’re the one in cuffs right now, not us. So, spare me!”
“Dmitri, if it’s what I think, you can’t fault me. I only know what I’ve been taught and what I’ve seen so far. And I’m telling you, your frosty friend might die in the next minute or so,” Douma replied, her tone mellow. “I only need to make sure you all survive, and, as long as I’m tied down, that won’t happen.”
Abaddon slid to his right to avoid Nevis’s soul-eater, then gripped his ice shield with one hand and rammed the other right through it. The shield disintegrated into hundreds of twinkling shards. Abaddon’s clawed fist got lodged in Nevis’s side.
“Dammit!” I cursed under my breath.
This wasn’t the first time that Nevis had gotten an actual hole in him, courtesy of Abaddon’s claws. But I had a feeling that this could very well be the last. I caught a glimpse of Elonora falling. She didn’t even see what had just happened. Maybe it’s better this way.
“What did I just say?” Douma added, then brought her cuffed wrists up. “Dmitri, do yourself and your friends a favor. Let me get rid of Abaddon. Then, we can talk.”
I broke into a cold sweat. Nevis had fallen to his knees, his eyes wide and his lips parted. Abaddon withdrew his claws, and blood gushed out of Nevis’s wound like he was a broken fire hydrant. I had to do something, or he’d bleed out and die in the next five minutes. I still had some healing supplies in my backpack. I could get to him, if only I kept Abaddon busy.
This was a tough choice, but I had to admit, Douma was right.
She’d helped us before. I had to give her another chance. I was nothing without my people.
I exhaled sharply, then removed her charmed cuffs and restraints—Kailani had made it impossible for her to break or take them off, but not for any of us to remove them, if necessary. She gave me a half-smile, then stepped forward and let her claws out—long and slim, elegant and shimmering white. Despite their slender form, they could easily slice through pretty much anything. I had no idea what her skeletal structure was made of, but it had to have something extra. Perhaps a gene or two from a local rhino-type animal.
“Abaddon!” she shouted at him. “How about you come here and try to do what you promised, you mindless oaf?”
Rose and Elonora were both startled to hear her voice. In an instant, all eyes were on us. Ben frowned at me, and I gave him a shrug in return. I hoped he got my message.
Abaddon revealed his pearly white fangs, then trotted across the sand toward Douma. Once again, I was speechless at the sight of her. Douma was like the wind, almost invisible as she moved around Abaddon, creating a whirlwind of sand.
She made it impossible for any of us to even see Abaddon.
“Come in here, you fiend!” Abaddon shouted from inside.
Douma smirked as she stopped for a second, then went in another supersonic sprint around him to keep the sand up. The other Perfects had no choice but to resume their fights, as Elonora, Rose, Ben, Vesta, Ridan, and Kallisto were still standing and took advantage of their momentary distraction to deliver some serious blows.
Leah and Samael handled the hostiles that had been trying to get to Douma and me, while I rus
hed to Nevis’s side and used the last of my healing paste to fill his wound. I tore his silken tunic off and pressed it on top of the paste, to stop the bleeding while the magic did its work. I checked his vitals—they were faint and worryingly weak, but I couldn’t get Rose or Elonora to help him at this point since they, too, were struggling to stay up.
Araquiel had chosen to focus on them, in particular, and he was a worthy foe, to say the least. I looked at Douma just in time to see the sand column get thicker.
“Stop playing tricks! Come in here and fight me like the warrior you claim to be!” Abaddon shouted.
“Hold on, give me a second. I’m just showing these folks why, despite your excellent nose and intuition, you’re still an idiot!” Douma retorted.
That got a snarl out of Abaddon as he breached the sand barrier, coughing and choking, his claws out and fury contorting his otherwise beautiful features. Douma flashed to his side, then brought her leg up in a high kick. The blow was powerful enough to throw him back inside the sand tornado.
She then jumped in. I heard Abaddon’s roars and Douma’s gasps, followed by a grunt.
Without Douma’s lightning speed, the sand column collapsed, revealing her as she stood over Abaddon’s headless body, blood covering her hands. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.
She looked at me, breathing heavily. A smile stretched her lips, and I knew what was coming next. There were plenty of her brethren still standing and fighting. And we were not her friends.
The pain in my stomach confirmed what I could already see coming. For all her strength and grace, Douma was quite predictable. Then again, if I were in her shoes, I probably would’ve done the same.
“Now, time to be a good puppy and come home with me,” Douma said, her deep blue eyes twinkling with delight.
She was no longer helping us. She was hunting us.
Elonora
With six Perfects on her side, Douma had enough firepower to beat us into a pulp. She was clearly more capable than most. In some respects, I would’ve dared to venture that she was even better than Araquiel, who had his sights set on Rose and me—mainly because of how we’d been bleeding his fighters out to gain equal standing, albeit temporarily.
I would’ve seen this coming from Douma, anyway. Her choice to finish what Araquiel and Abaddon had started struck me as obvious. I would’ve done the same if I were her, and I would’ve done exactly what Dmitri did, too, by releasing her to take out Abaddon.
The circumstances were against us more than before, though. We were exhausted and functioning purely on instinct and reflexes, too tired to think strategically and, in some respects, even critically.
“I should’ve known you would do this,” Dmitri said, frowning at her.
“Then you’re not as dumb as my brethren thought you were,” Douma replied. “I’m serious, Dmitri. Stop this nonsense now. You’ve had enough running and hiding, and you can’t escape us. No matter how much you try, we will still defeat you. We will take on the universe and eliminate any civilization that has ever waged war against others and against its own people. We’ll make the whole world perfect, like us.”
Kailani cleared her throat. “Through more war and violence? Are you even hearing yourselves?”
“We will offer everyone the chance to surrender peacefully, of course,” Araquiel interjected.
“You’re asking billions to surrender their sovereignty, their worlds, and their cultures so you can take over,” I said. “It’s insane. It’s unrealistic. It’s downright delusional.”
“If you resist change, it will still come. But it will kill you,” Douma said. “We have a plan, and we will bring it to fruition. We will show everyone what true evolution means.”
“Okay, now you’re just cramming propaganda down our throats,” Kailani replied. “You’re made in a lab. You’re hybrids, like most of us. And you have to respect the cultures and ways of other people, especially since they don’t affect you in any way. You may be physically superior, but you are morally broken, and no nation in this universe will ever accept your leadership. You have no claim to it whatsoever, and there is no chance in hell that anyone will ever take you seriously. You were practically born last week, for Pete’s sake!”
Araquiel stepped forward, extending his claws once more. “It’s either our way, or death. I’m confident that, once they see their options, others will be smarter than you.”
“And choose what? A life of servitude to your kind, because you consider yourselves superior? In your dreams, chicken-wings. People would rather die than be your slaves!” Rose cut in, pointing an angry finger at Araquiel.
Douma shrugged. “You’ve wasted enough of our time already,” she said. “Just do yourselves a favor and surrender now. You’ll be reunited with your friends and family, and you’ll be allowed to live in our empire. That is an honor we don’t intend to bestow on many people. Take it.”
Nevis was down, but Dmitri had managed to stop his bleeding. I needed to get to him and give him some of my blood so he could heal. Half of our team had been injured, some unable to get back up on their own. We were running low on healing supplies, too, and we couldn’t get Kallisto, Samael, and Leah to help us harvest more medicinal plants with Perfects on our tail.
I could barely stand either, but I had no choice. We’d come too far to let them catch us. I had a feeling that, once we were in the coliseum, they would win. Amane had told us about the shock collars. If they snapped one on me, I was done for.
“Think about it this way. You’d be doing us a favor, because we won’t have to struggle with Abaddon anymore. You’d be doing yourselves a favor, too, because you won’t have to struggle with Abaddon anymore,” Douma said with a confident smirk.
“If you think this is the first bloodthirsty maniac we’ve ever dealt with, you’re dead wrong, sister,” Rose replied. “We’ve been at war before. We’ve lost people, friends and family. We’ve shed our own blood, and we’ve suffered tremendously. But we stuck together, and we never gave up. We believe in love, in freedom and progress. You believe in nothing besides what your manufacturer tells you. That’s why we will win.”
“Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually, we always pull through,” Ben added, standing by his sister’s side.
Araquiel sneered. “You are way out of your league here.”
“We’re always out of our league. We will never be invincible, nor will we ever aim for that. It would lead to complacency, and that’s what gets people killed,” Ben replied. “We learn. We struggle through challenges. We emerge victorious and ever wiser. I mean, look at us. A few days back, you people were shredding us, and yet, here we are, getting better and holding on to our resistance. Do you really think we’re ready to quit, now? After all the progress we’ve made?”
Araquiel sighed. “Fine, then. We’ll do this the hard way. I will beat it into you, until you recite it every morning when you wake up in your cage. Perfects always win!”
Rose took her attack stance. “Bring it on, birdie.”
Rose
I expected to get another round with Araquiel. Elonora was ready to back me up. His punches had bruised my ribcage, but I could still hold my own. At least until we figured a way out of here. They had blockers on, so we couldn’t flee by transporting. Taking enough of them down for us to jump on Ridan’s back as he went full dragon was our only option, but first we had to neutralize Araquiel.
We’d analyzed possible escape routes repeatedly during our trek, and we’d agreed on the dragon flight as the most reasonable. But we needed the heavy players to be out of the game—specifically Araquiel, Oriphiel, Elyon, Abaddon, and, in this case, Douma. Even after the cuts we’d delivered with our soul-eaters, they were quick to recover and were incredibly dangerous. The others were ever so slightly more manageable. We just needed to put a reasonable distance between us and those blockers, for Kailani to teleport us to a safer spot.
Having this option was probably the only reason we wer
e still standing, still clinging on to the idea of maybe making it out of here in one piece and without shock collars around our necks.
Douma smiled at me. “I’m taking you and Lenny on,” she said. “I’d rather fight someone who’s capable. I would’ve gone for Dmitri, but he’s a weakling and not worth my time. Besides, I need to pay you ladies back for all the blood you’ve been skimming off me.”
“I shouldn’t have let you out,” Dmitri spat, his fists balled and his muscles flexed. He wasn’t just insulted. He was furious.
“You didn’t have a better choice,” I said, trying to comfort him. “You picked the lesser out of two evils. It’s okay, Dmitri. We’ll take down as many of them as we can, then skedaddle out of here, as per our plan C. You remember plan C, right?”
A grin bloomed on his face. “I absolutely remember plan C.”
“Fantastic,” I replied. “So, you know what we have to do.”
“Mm-hm. You two gals take Douma down, and maybe shove a slice of humble pie down her throat while you’re at it,” he said. “The rest of us deal with Araquiel, Oriphiel, and these other winged goons. Consider it done.”
One of the Perfects chuckled, running a hand through his medium-length hair. “You talk about defeating us like it’s a walk in the park. It’s almost adorable.”
Elyon groaned, recovering from his throat cut. Dmitri was quick to chop his head off, finally disabling him—we couldn’t have Elyon back in action.
“Meh. You know, once you’ve seen one Perfect, you’ve seen them all,” Dmitri retorted. “You’re all the same to us. Mindless robots with way too much power on their hands. Your superiority claims are ludicrous, at best. But I guess we’ll just have to show you, over and over, until you get it into your stubborn heads that we are anything but weaklings,” he added, scowling at Douma.
Douma smirked, then darted toward me. I dashed right and left, trying to keep up with her Perfect speed. The Faulty blood had helped, but I needed an angle to draw some from Douma, directly, and up my game a little bit more.
A Shade of Vampire 64: A Camp of Savages Page 5
