What the vampires hadn’t counted on was that every house had been emptied of children, the sick, the disabled, and the elderly. Everyone had been ready, and people had been placed close to the main statues in case they needed to activate them and send out the alarm that they were under attack.
Without his father, he would’ve been mocked and no one would’ve prepared themselves for the worst. While he had pleaded his case to Captain Valmar about there being vampires amongst them, his father had been listening and had realized that something was indeed amiss in their society and with the feud. Because he was a key figure in the Fire district, who was known and respected by many, his father’s claim about there being vampires hadn’t been dismissed but had instead spread like wildfire. His father had been instrumental in convincing everyone that a second Vampire Regime was about to start if they didn’t do something.
Asher was still surprised by his father’s change in behavior. Rather than feeling resentment towards him or anger, Asher felt a sense of pride for having him as a father. His father had believed in him.
Asher turned the wheel and his truck rattled harder than before. He was only a couple of blocks from City Hall. His truck would make it, it had to. His thoughts raced, and worry set in. He hoped that Karena was okay.
At the exact moment he saw City Hall and the horrific sight of smoke rolling out of its windows, something slammed into the side of his truck. His body hit the driver’s door, and his vision tumbled as his vehicle did. Metal crunched and squealed. Glass pelted him.
When it was over and his truck had finally stopped rolling, he lay against the driver’s door, bruised and disoriented. His hand went to his head, but he stopped himself when he saw the blood dripping from his cut palm. He looked through the fractured windshield. What had happened? Something had hit his truck. If it had been another vehicle, surely he would’ve seen it out of the corner of his eye.
Alarm coursed through him. His hand flew to his seatbelt and unbuckled it. His blood raced. Someone jumped onto the passenger door above him. Whomever it was, Asher wanted nothing to do with them. Heat simmered inside of the cab until the plastic softened into putty. The steps above him vanished when the person retreated to the outside pavement.
He blasted away the remains of the windshield and crawled through its dented frame. Ash swirled around him. He heard someone move towards him, but pull away due to being unable to withstand the heat he was generating. Once he climbed out of his truck, he stood up.
“I know you,” a female voice said. “You’re Asher.”
He turned to see Corentine standing a short distance away from the roof of his totaled truck. She was a Council member. It struck him as odd and suspicious that she was there. Her tone was slightly off. He looked at his wrecked truck and saw the massive dent in its side. There wasn’t another vehicle or even a beast in the surrounding area that could’ve impacted it.
“You’re up and about. How is that possible?” Corentine said.
Asher frowned. Heat waves danced on the asphalt. “What happened to my truck?” he asked.
“I didn’t see. I only heard the noise and came running,” she said.
He heard a whisper of a sound behind him, and whirled around. His head spun and his vision tried to adjust to the movement. The impact had dazed him. Daray ran towards him, and Asher sent out a warning of heat. He wasn’t sure what was going on or if they were vampires.
“You must’ve hit your head hard. You can’t tell friend from foe,” Daray said. His eyes constricted and dilated with a will of their own, as though he was viewing prey. Asher couldn’t tell if he was imagining things. The distance between them made it questionable.
Corentine asked, “Where were you going, Asher?”
They were on either side of him. If he faced one, then his back would be unprotected. He put his back against the hood of his overturned truck.
“City Hall,” Asher said.
Corentine’s eyes squinted towards where the smoke created its own thunderclouds as it exhaled into the sky. “Why? It looks like it doesn’t need any more fire,” Corentine said.
“Such a shame, all those books destroyed,” Daray said, but not a trace of sadness crossed his face.
“If you really are humans, then you need to get to safety,” Asher said, having had enough of them already. He needed to get to Karena. She could be in trouble.
They gasped.
“Are you implying that we are something other than human?” Corentine asked.
Wisps of fire circled around him.
“Terminate the heat and fire, boy,” Daray said. His tone demanded obedience.
The both of them were Council members, but still, he hesitated.
“You’re disobeying a direct order by the highest authorities in Archelm City,” Corentine said. “Disengage from your elemental powers now.”
“Why?”
“We don’t have to give you a why.”
Their eyes bored into him.
Asher wanted to give in, but the city was at war with those that could blend in with them. He said, “Prove to me that the both of you are human.”
“Stop the heat and fire around you. Your impertinence is punishable by law.”
Creatures of the night, we will not let you in his blood said to him.
His elemental powers sensed something that he couldn’t see. But no, he only had to look closer. Daray’s face seemed smeared, not by shadows or the dim lighting, but because the heat was causing his skin to sweat. And that beading, trickling sweat carried with it a thick, pale-colored sludge. It was makeup. Underneath it, was grey-tinted skin. Blue veins twisted across his brows. Daray was a vampire.
Asher studied Corentine. Around her neck and jawline, the same thing was happening. Asher telepathically sent out a questioning feeling to his powers.
Do not doubt. They are not like us. Why are they here? Why are they ordering us around? Do they not have any human rationale? his blood replied.
Like a boiler, Asher’s elemental essence pressurized inside of him. The heat seemed to fade from around him, but it was because it was getting sucked in so that it could detonate. Corentine gave him a one-sided grin as approval. It appeared like he was giving in to their demands, but he wasn’t.
“Now what?” Asher asked.
They didn’t respond. The awkwardness of the moment was immense.
Asher continued, “I asked you a question. What are we going to do now? City Hall is in flames.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Corentine said.
“You’re so hot-headed. You need to cool off. Now isn’t the time to panic,” Daray said.
They weren’t making sense. Inside of him, his blood raced. Heat built up inside of him. In the center, close to his heart, a rotating ball of elemental power gathered together like a growing sun. It was gaining mass. The surrounding area returned to normal night temperatures as the heat withdrew back into him.
They stepped towards him. Just as they came within several arm’s lengths, Daray stepped to the side with a speed that wasn’t human. Asher felt the rush of air and the brush of Daray’s cloak as he came to stand in front of him with teeth bared. Vampires were two to three times as fast as a human in moving around, if they wished to, but they could only do so in short bursts.
Death was moments away. From where it had been invisibly collecting, Asher unleashed the huge, churning orb inside of himself. Heat exploded from him and scalded his surroundings. Though on fire, Corentine jumped and escaped being burned to death just barely in time. She flew away with something in her hand. No doubt, it was something magical, like a wand, which gave her the temporary ability to fly. Asher cursed.
Everything around him ignited into flames. The shops and the newspaper factory nearby began to burn. The lamp post across the street curled downwards from having been partially melted by the heat blast. The asphalt had cracked. He looked down and saw the burned remains of Daray. All that was left of him was a crispy, skeletal figure. He hadn�
��t been able to detect what Corentine had.
Fire consumed the buildings. He snuffed them out with several clenches to his fist. They didn’t want to die out, but he made them surrender to his wishes. Corentine was on the loose, and wielding the power of a Council member. He hated to think of all the damage that she, Daray, and the other vampires who were masquerading as humans had done in their time as influential leaders of Archelm City and the Sundarin Nation. They had been amongst them for an untold amount of time. It infuriated him. It was the worst kind of betrayal, the kind that sickened the stomach and crushed all sense of safety and confidence.
Crying, and someone hushing a kid, caused him to turn around. The mystery of where Corentine had gone was now solved, but she wasn’t alone. She had a hostage. She had seized a small child who was quivering in fear. Her hand was clamped down on the child’s shoulder to prevent her from running off.
She pushed the kid forward towards him. In the light of the closest street lamp, he could see that the girl had blue eyes. Corentine had been quick in snatching her from the Water district. Her parents were probably still unaware that she had gone missing.
Everything inside of him went quiet. He didn’t want to hurt the child.
“You’re powerless now,” Corentine said. “Look at what one juvenile will do. It reduces you to nothing and it will be your death sentence.”
“Compassion and self-sacrifice isn’t a weakness,” Asher said.
“Yes, it is. Your kind can’t help but be weak,” Corentine said. Her robes were burnt and her skin had peeled into ugly blisters. She would regenerate soon though.
“So how was it all these years as you watched us prosper while your race couldn’t?”
Her lips twisted into a snarl. “We don’t think short-term. Our time to rule your kind is destined to come again. The feud has unraveled everything that you humans have built and prided yourselves on. It’s been so much fun playing both sides off of each other and seeing everyone be eaten away by hatred.”
“Your plan didn’t work. Listen to the sounds above. You’ve lost and your race has lost again,” Asher said.
He watched her creep nearer and nearer until he could see the creases of her face and her liquefied, raw skin. She pushed the girl aside and leapt at him. Asher couldn’t react fast enough. Corentine slammed the end of her wand into his chest, inches below his neck. It combusted and sent a shock of magical essence through him. The wand sailed away.
He collapsed to the ground and gasped for breath. His lungs could barely move. It felt like he was suffocating.
“How are you still alive?!” Corentine screamed at him.
His hand went to his chest. The stone pendant that he had been wearing crumbled apart in his hands. It had been a chunk of unpolished moon diamond. Its magical properties were at its strongest because it was nighttime and they had a waning moon above them. His pendant had absorbed most of the blast. Had he received any more of it, it would’ve have killed him. He had been extraordinarily lucky, so much so that he couldn’t process it.
Despite the pain, Asher tried to summon up his elemental powers, but they sizzled, unable to come to life. They were in shock, just like his body. He heard something metal crack, and then water gush away somewhere nearby. It probably was a fire hydrant.
Corentine stooped downwards to tear him apart with her claw-like fingernails. She was going to finish him and it would be a horrifically painful death. It was like the dark spiritual realm all over again. He was helpless. He couldn’t move or use his powers to stop her.
But when Corentine tried to take a step closer to him, so as to reach him better, she couldn’t. She tugged at her feet and wildly twisted around to see what was holding her down. She had stepped into a water puddle, and the girl that she had kidnapped was using her water elemental powers to anchor her feet down. Behind the girl, a broken fire hydrant was spouting water upwards like a geyser and flooding the scorched asphalt with channels of water. The girl could’ve run, but instead she was trying to save him. Asher realized this with awe for the girl.
Corentine screamed at her. The girl’s eyes widened in fear, but she remained resolute in keeping Corentine bound to the water puddle.
“He’s a Fire, you stupid girl! Shouldn’t he die?” Corentine yelled at her.
With a trembling voice, the girl said, “My blood says that you’re the enemy.”
“You’re hearing voices. You shouldn’t listen to your imagination.”
“My teacher at school taught me to always listen to my intuition and the voice of my powers.”
The wisdom and courage of the girl meant that she wasn’t an ordinary elemental. Asher could see that she was a Chaos elemental. Their blood spoke strongest to them, and they felt a sense of duty to protect others more so than other elementals. When she turned eighteen, she would be classified as a true Chaos elemental, but with vampires in their midst, she was in danger like all the others before her who had mysteriously perished, even before they had turned eighteen.
Corentine thrashed and tore at her own feet, mauling herself.
Asher crawled, and then forced himself up onto his feet. He grabbed the girl, and put her into a nearby car.
“Stay here,” Asher said.
The girl nodded and gazed up at him with her sapphire eyes. Water beaded her face and neck. He closed the door and limped down the street. He could barely feel his feet.
When Corentine freed herself, she hobbled after him with blood gushing from her legs. He ducked into a shop to lead her away from the girl. He stumbled past the glass cases and made his way towards the back. The front door slammed open and then close, which caused the front door’s glass to shatter. She covered the distance between them in a single bound of superhuman agility, and her entire weight slammed into his back.
He fell, rolled, and kicked her off. She hit one of the display cases of jewelry and crafts. She emerged with a long shard of glass in her hands. Corentine pounced onto him with it raised. He grabbed her wrist, halting its descent. The jagged tip prickled his neck.
Asher broke her wrist. She cried out, but didn’t let go or stop trying to stab him in the neck. Her wrist continued to twist and crunch as she used every ounce of strength she had to drive the glass shard into his neck. He summoned his elemental powers, and scorched her wrist, but that was all he was capable of. She jumped back and seethed from the pain.
He scrambled onto his feet and into the back room. She threw a chair at him, and he was knocked to the ground. The light bulb in the room flicked on from his presence triggering a spell to flip the switch. The bulb warmed, and he could sense its growing heat. Corentine staggered into the room on broken ankles. Her wrist was bent at a grotesque angle. Her wrist jerked on its own accord as the healing process kicked in. Her hateful face contorted into something grotesque.
His eyes searched the room. It was filled with boxes and shelves. Tables with empty gold and silver mounts to place polished gems inside lined one of the walls. There wasn’t an exit. He had been cornered. His adrenaline surged through him, but his powers were absent.
Corentine’s wand flew back into her hand. Even though vampires didn’t possess magical abilities, somehow she had commanded it to return. The wand’s tattered ends stuck out at odd angles. Despite this, it could still function because its core hadn’t been completely decimated. He was finished. Death was imminent. He couldn’t fight Corentine, not without his powers. It could take a long time to recover from the wand’s blast. It was a miracle that he was even able to move.
Desperation set in. Asher hurtled himself at her. He fought her by punching and kicking. He stomped on her feet and threw a fist into her stomach. She grabbed his arm and clamped down, threatening to break it with her vampiric strength. He wiggled out from her grasp and kept trying to push past her in order to get out of the backroom.
Fighting a vampire by using hand-to-hand combat was foolish. He needed a weapon, but didn’t have one. The shock that he had received from the w
and still affected him. He could barely function. His strength was almost non-existent. It was the fear of Corentine that kept him going.
Having had enough of him, Corentine seized him by his neck and held the wand in his face. In one quick motion, she slammed her side against his right arm and the wall, pinning his arm against the nearby wall in the process and keeping it there by using her weight and strength to do so. With his free arm, he punched her in the ribs, but she merely flinched.
“I admire your courage, but this is a cat-and-mouse game that you’re predestined to lose,” Corentine said.
“As long as I don’t give up, I will always have a chance of succeeding,” Asher said. “You can’t stop me from trying, or anyone else for that matter.”
He stared at the splintered end of the wand. Corentine crunched down on his neck. Her nails were like spikes jabbing into his skin. She didn’t want to kill him just yet; she wanted to make him suffer first. Vampires were naturally sadistic.
With his free hand, he withdrew the crumbled remains of the moon diamond from his pocket. He didn’t know what he was doing, other than that he had to do something. Her nails punctured his neck and blood trickled from where she had cut him. Even though he could barely breathe, he resisted flailing around or trying to pry her hand from his neck.
“Beg for mercy and a quick death,” she seethed in his face.
He spat into her eyes. As rage swept across her face, he fitted the broken pieces of the moon diamond into the hollow of her wand where the end had splintered. The dark red runes on the wand faded and glowed white. Corentine screamed in agony. She let go of him to swing her wand-carrying hand up and down, but the wand wouldn’t allow her hand to release it. Somehow, the moon diamond pieces didn’t tumble out from where they had been placed and remained stuck to the wand.
Gaze of Fire Page 26
