“Maybe, if we survive this, these two will finally get together.” Raphael sighed, looking at Nevis and me. “Less than a day in, and I’m already tired of how you tip-toe around each other.”
I blinked several times, doing my best to ignore the sudden cold sweat. Nevis was practically frozen next to me. “What, um, what are you talking about?”
“Really? You’re going to play dumb with me, Elonora?” Raphael replied, lowering his voice. “Life is short and ridiculously uncertain for your kind, at this point. You might want to skip whatever courting rituals you guys have, and get straight to the kissing and loving, because if Ta’Zan gets bored of hunting you and decides you’re better off dead, you won’t get another chance to be together.”
That statement left me speechless. In fact, it felt like a punch in the gut.
On top of it all, it rang painfully true. We didn’t know what tomorrow had in store for us. Whether or not we were going to make it out of this Stravian debacle was a matter of chance and wit. But it wasn’t certain. If I let my fears of heartbreak get in the way, I could miss out on something amazing, even though we were in the middle of enemy territory.
One look at Nevis, and I felt my heart explode. The look in his icy blue eyes was like a hammer to my knees. There was something… There was definitely something there I hadn’t seen before, and it fired me up on the inside, as if I was syphoning energy directly from the sun.
Kailani
We got together in one of the research rooms. Dmitri stayed close to Douma as she watched a selection of educational videos on the glass tablet. Amane began working on a device powered with ten pounds of serium crystals. Her skill and dexterity were practically out of this world, and I found it hard to keep my eyes off her.
Rose and Ben led the conversation, with Raphael, Nevis and Elonora by their side. Ridan moved next to Amane, occasionally handing her whatever instrument she required for her contraption. It looked like the tiniest machine, no bigger than a quarter, but square and half an inch thick.
Hunter and I stayed together, finding it increasingly difficult to keep our distance from each other. Vesta and Zeriel, Kallisto, Leah, and Samael joined us as we began discussing the next steps of our mission.
“So, good news is that Raphael has decided to join us,” Rose said, smiling with confidence.
I couldn’t stop a sigh of relief from leaving my chest. I’d seen the guy move and fight. With Raphael by our side, along with Douma, we had a better shot at pretty much anything we wanted to do, going forward.
“And the bad news?” Samael asked, pursing his lips.
“The Perfects are coming,” Rose replied. “Abaddon, Araquiel, Oriphiel, Elyon, and the others. They’re fully recovered and searching for us. We heard the sonic booms about an hour ago, during a brief walk outside. They’re still considerably far, but it is time for us to get moving.”
“Once Amane sets Douma up with her blocker, we’ll be able to get to the next stage of our plan,” Ben added.
Kallisto frowned. “Hold on, what plan is that, exactly? We’ve been running for our lives for the past three days.”
“Well, why are you here with them, if not to help them?” Raphael interjected, raising an eyebrow at her. His skepticism didn’t sit well with Kallisto, but, then again, she was definitely the most sensitive member of our band of underdogs.
“Yes, to reach out to the other Faulties, maybe even some Perfects, but we couldn’t do anything without some serious muscle in our crew,” Kallisto replied. “Which now, thanks to you, we have. The rogues will have an easier time following us if they see you by our side.”
“Sounds like a breeze.” Raphael chuckled. “But it’s not enough. We need more than a handful of bitter Faulties to turn people against Ta’Zan, particularly where the Perfects are concerned. They’re not easy to sway, and you can’t just go around extracting memory chips from them and retraining them. You don’t have that kind of time.”
I raised my hand, as if I were back in school. “We could reach out to the Hermessi,” I said. “We’ve had this as an option for quite some time now. And we’ve gotten signs of life from them already.”
“What are you talking about?” Raphael asked.
“Ah, that’s a rich topic,” I replied, smiling. “But I’ll try to keep it brief. You know the natural elements, right? The four basic components of life. Water, air, earth, and fire.”
Raphael nodded. “The elements with which the fae bond, for their abilities. Yes.”
“Well, they’re more than elements, actually. They’re entities of supernatural origin, powers of the cosmic plain that we cannot manipulate or fully understand. For a long time, they were worshipped as deities, and the more people believed in them, the more powerful the Hermessi were,” I explained.
“Fires burned brighter. Rivers flowed thicker. The gardens were richer. The winds could tear down mountains, even,” Vesta added. “Or so the legends go. We only had one direct encounter with a Hermessi back on Neraka, and that was more or less a matter of chance. But he told us that the faith of the people will make them stronger.”
“So, what, like a religion or something? Does faith fuel the Hermessi?” Raphael asked, understandably skeptical.
“Sort of, yes,” I replied. “It’s the energy of the people, actually. The more of them that connect, in thought, with the Hermessi, the more powerful they become. Now, the faith of one won’t do much, but the faith of three, five, or a hundred will definitely help.”
Raphael shook his head in disbelief. “It sounds like a fairytale.”
“We thought so, too, until we saw it!” Vesta said. “Harper, our friend, saw the fire spirit, and others were present when that happened. None of them would lie.”
“Besides, we’ve had contact with other Hermessi, too,” Ben added. “In our dreams, in strange visions. They’re aware of us, here on Strava, and they’re trying to reach out. Granted, they’re not very clear in their communications, but for shapeless entities they still do a decent job.”
“And let’s not forget the one Hermessi that drowned Douma,” I said.
Douma looked up at us. She’d heard her name. Her brow furrowed, but Dmitri gave her a soft smile. “It’s okay. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Finish this session first,” he said, pointing at the glass tablet.
“But they said my name,” she whispered. Douma had the emotional maturity of a seven-year-old, at this point, but was rapidly evolving. By sundown, she was going to be a teenager. Until then, however, she was still easily distracted, and the complete opposite of the Douma we’d first met. The wonders of a new brain.
“Can you flip to the next file? I’m curious about the next lesson,” Dmitri replied, motioning for her to focus on the tablet. She gazed at him for a little while, then resumed the learning session. She definitely liked him, and she’d gotten used to his presence more than anyone else’s. Dmitri seemed to have a soothing effect on Douma, and it helped with our mission to get her back to a functioning level as a Perfect warrior.
With Douma sucked into the glass tablet once more, and Dmitri keeping a loving eye on her, we were able to resume our conversation.
“One of those entities took down a Perfect?” Raphael asked, clearly astonished.
“It was a water Hermessi,” I replied. “We were there. We all saw it. I’m telling you, there is potential in crafting a relationship with these… elements.”
“Do you know how to do that?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.
“Not really.” Ben sighed. “We’re hoping for more dreams. Maybe they’ll reach out again like they did before. In the meantime, we simply think of them as often as we can. We believe in them. The more of us aware of their existence, the better our chances.”
Raphael circled the room once with careful and balanced steps, as if taking everything in, over and over. “Yeah, that’s not enough. We can’t just sit on our asses and pray to natural elements to save us,” he said. “I’ve got a b
etter idea, besides rallying Faulties and any other Perfects who might be swayed to join us.”
“Okay, well, we’re listening,” Elonora replied.
“What do you know of the Draenir?” he asked.
I blinked several times, mentally gathering all the information I’d learned about them.
“Mostly what Kallisto and I told them,” Amane offered, as she continued to fiddle with the device. She was in the middle of connecting extremely slim wires between different chunks of serium crystals. She’d tasked Ridan with slicing a piece of serium to match the size and shape of the device, with the use of a small laser knife. “Gone extinct because of the plague, four of them survived in Ta’Zan’s lab, they left all these strongholds, the infrastructure, and a ton of resources and technology, which we upgraded…”
“They’re not all extinct,” Raphael said.
That statement was enough to make us all freeze and stare at him.
“Hold on. What?” I croaked. “That can’t be. We scanned the planet before we came here, before Ta’Zan was let loose. There was no one living in the wilderness or in any of the abandoned cities.”
Raphael smirked. “Areas that are rich in serium deposit can warp any kind of scanning equipment. If they were somewhere deep in a jungle or underground, you wouldn’t have spotted them. The serium jumbles everything.”
The realization hit me so hard, I was left breathless. “That might explain why we didn’t spot them at all.”
“I want to hear more about the Draenir!” Amane cut in. “Where did you see them? You wouldn’t mention them if you didn’t see them with your own eyes.”
“Ah. You know me so well.” Raphael chuckled. “Yes. I saw them the other day. Only a handful of youths on Merinos, many miles from here. They were fishing by the river, where it spills into the ocean.”
This was an incredible development, to say the least. “And you didn’t think to tell us about this sooner?” I managed.
“You didn’t ask,” Raphael replied with a nonchalant shrug. “Anyway, that’s not the point. I tracked the youths, out of sheer curiosity. I found their tribe. It’s close to another stronghold on that island. There’s about a hundred of them. I made sure not to be seen. They live there.”
“How is that even possible?” Amane breathed. “The plague wiped them all out. The ones in Ta’Zan’s lab were completely isolated from the very beginning.”
“Maybe that’s what happened to these Draenir, too,” Raphael suggested. “Besides, they’ve picked a good place to live in. That area is a weather nightmare, with sudden temperature drops and spikes, extreme storms. It’s crazy weird. No one in their right mind would live there. Maybe that’s what saved them. Maybe they were all immune, and they ran off to Merinos knowing that the sick ones—”
“Wouldn’t follow them there,” I murmured, finishing his sentence. “That actually makes sense. And I know the area you’re talking about. We’re aware of the extreme weather there, too, though we were never able to properly explain it. It definitely has something to do with the clash of marine and arid air currents in the region. You’ve got winter on a ten-mile patch, then summer on the next one, and so on. In between, storms rage as the temperatures change suddenly. It’s incredibly hostile.”
“They’d survive there, if push came to shove,” Kallisto chimed in. “Which is exactly what they did.”
“But you said there were youths with them. Which means they’ve had kids, too,” Elonora added.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s their elders we want to talk to,” Raphael said. “No one knows Strava and its resources better than the Draenir. In fact, I’m willing to bet that there are things about this world that only the Draenir know of. If we find them, if we talk to them and convince them to join us… we might have a better chance against my siblings and my maker. I know where to find Ta’Zan, but there is no way in hell I’m letting any of you go there without a plan or backup. We need the Draenir.”
For the first time in what felt like forever, hope seemed to be within reach. It was a fickle and treacherous thing, but we needed it now, more than ever. My grandparents, our friends, and our families were still prisoners of Ta’Zan. And the world was in peril.
Elonora
The device requiring ten pounds of serium crystals to power it was tiny, but glowed a powerful shade of blue. Amane had made it from a sterilized type of rubber-like material, which was soft and easy to insert under Douma’s skin.
“It’s itchy,” Douma murmured as we walked through the jungle, visibly resisting the urge to scratch the back of her neck.
Amane had kept the voice muffler device on, implanted on the side of Douma’s neck, under the pretense of preventing an infection, but she’d removed the wing blocker from her back. With the new device in and the memory chip out, Douma was no longer a flight risk. She’d gotten accustomed to our presence and goals, and she’d acquired enough information to understand what we’d set out to do.
“The itchiness will fade,” Amane said, staying by Douma’s side, along with Dmitri. “Just until the stitches dissolve. Try to ignore it.”
Raphael led the way through the woods. Ben, Rose, Nevis, and I followed in pairs, with Kailani and Hunter right behind us. Douma was in the middle, flanked by Amane and Dmitri. Ridan was next, then Zeriel and Vesta. Kallisto, Leah, and Samael watched our backs, as we put more distance between us and the underground stronghold.
We kept our backpacks light, evenly distributing spell and healing supplies between us. Leah and Samael scattered some of that black mineral dust over our tracks every three miles or so, to further throw the Perfects off. Amane had used it before to keep Araquiel and his band from easily finding us, and she’d taught Leah and Samael about where to find the ingredients needed to mix it.
Strava was a cornucopia of plants, crystals, and minerals that could be specifically combined and prepared to perform a wide variety of tasks, from healing and nourishing to dissolving traces and poisoning, among other things. Amane had become quite the naturalist expert.
“How are you coming along, Douma?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. She seemed utterly different, doe-eyed and smiling. There was a spark in her deep blue eyes, one of curiosity and wonder, as she was rediscovering the world and her own existence. I didn’t feel comfortable reducing Ta’Zan and his Perfects to mere villains, but, like Amane had said, we needed to ease her in.
“It feels strange to not remember anything from my past,” she said. “But I do understand you don’t want to shock me with what I might’ve done.”
That stopped us all in our tracks, prompting me to turn around. “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
Douma smiled. “I’m not stupid, you know. I see the looks you give each other, how you try to measure your words before you tell me something. I noticed the cuts in the video files that Amane showed me, too. I must’ve done something terrible for you to be so wary and fearful of telling me the whole truth. I was able to put two and two together.”
“In what? Ten hours?” Ben muttered, his eyes wide.
Douma offered a shrug. “I’m sure it has something to do with this Ta’Zan you spoke of. The Perfects. I mean, I can see there’s a Perfect leading us,” she said, nodding at Raphael. “I found it safe to assume that he, like me, didn’t agree with what Ta’Zan was doing, hurting innocent people. Your people.”
“Oh. That. Yes.” Dmitri croaked, relief washing over him as he let out nervous laughter.
Douma was definitely in the ballpark, just not as close as we’d thought. I did appreciate her observant nature. She wasn’t inquisitive unless she couldn’t get an answer any other way. While we’d been watching her, she, too, had kept an eye on us, it seemed.
Amane sighed. “Yes. Well, we are trying to ease you into some aspects of your past,” she replied, keeping it as vague as always. Letting Douma believe she’d gone against Ta’Zan and had paid the price was going to buy us some time, at least until her mind was fully
shaped. According to Amane, she was still easily influenced, if provided with solid arguments, and, from what we’d learned about Ta’Zan’s propaganda style, Douma could be vulnerable.
“So, what happened?” Douma asked. “How did I end up with no memory? Skip the beheading part, I know that.”
“Your Perfect siblings are difficult to deal with and nearly impossible to convince that what they’re doing is wrong,” Rose said. “I think it’s best if we just leave it at that, and we move forward. Getting stuck in the past never helped anyone.”
“But I don’t get it. Why would they think they’re the only creatures that deserve to live? To thrive?” Douma mumbled. “How could Ta’Zan convince them to be such monsters, when they have the potential to be true guardians of this entire universe? They could do so much good with such powers. I mean, that’s what I would do, anyway.”
Raphael chuckled, then resumed our trek through the jungle, as we followed. “That’s the beauty of freedom of thought. Well, freedom in general. I would just enjoy it, bask in the sun, explore new worlds, eat different foods. Travel to the farthest corners, just to see what this whole universe is about.”
“You all have your own personalities, no matter what Ta’Zan told you,” Amane said. “You develop different needs and wants. Raphael here, as strong and as dashing as he is, simply wants to enjoy life… take it easy,” she added, hardening the tone of her voice—a jab aimed directly at Raphael. “You, on the other hand, seem to have a certain sense of righteousness, wanting to do the right thing. Your Perfect siblings are also different, but Ta’Zan flattens their individualities and pushes them into this herd mentality of genetic superiority. He thinks they’re the only ones who deserve to live and rule the world. He’s infected them with this megalomania, and that’s a hard thing to shake.”
“But Raphael and I, we did it,” Douma replied, frowning.
“In a way, yes,” Raphael said as we reached the beach.
A Shade of Vampire 64: A Camp of Savages Page 20
