The Vampire Flame (Vampire Sorceress Book 3)

by T. L. Cerepaka

  “Laziness, then,” said Lucius. “Not that I’m even remotely surprised to hear that, of course. Your people have a reputation for laziness.”

  “I prefer to think of it as efficiency, myself,” said Timmy with a shrug. “But either way, that doesn’t change the fact that you two clearly need my help. Without it, you will never reach the moon on your own, and the Mistress will have complete control over the Vampire Flame, which I think we can all agree is not an optimal situation.”

  Timmy was right. As much as I distrusted the Strangers in general—and Timmy in particular—this time, we had no choice but to accept his guidance. We really didn’t have time to figure this out on our own.

  I looked at Lucius. “Lucius, I think we need to accept his help. We don’t have any choice.”

  Lucius frowned. “Why are you so quick to say that? You remember how he treated you the first time you met him, don’t you?”

  “I do,” I said, “but unless you want to waste a ton of time wandering the Shadow Way, looking for a way to get to the moon, and risking being attacked by other Strangers who are even less friendly than him, we really don’t have the luxury of declining his help.”

  “The girl is right,” said Timmy. “And a good deal more intelligent than I thought. Perhaps she’s less naive than I originally believed.”

  I rolled my eyes at his characterization of me as ‘naive,’ but I didn’t dispute that right now because I was more concerned with convincing Lucius that we needed his help than arguing with him. Besides, I suspected that Timmy was just saying that to get a rise out of me, and I had no intention of letting him get under my skin.

  Lucius bit his lower lips. He looked this way and that, as if trying to think of a good counterargument to what I just said, but I could tell that his mind was drawing a blank. It filled me with a bit of satisfaction to see a man three centuries my senior unable to actually argue against anything I said. And I had to admit, Lucius looked pretty cute when he looked worried.

  Finally, Lucius nodded reluctantly. “All right. I can see that at this point we have no real choice but to accept your help.”

  “I knew you’d finally see the light of reason, Lucius,” said Timmy. “Now, why don’t the two of you grab my hands and—”

  All of a sudden, Lucius grabbed Timmy by the collar of his shirt and raised him off the floor with one hand. Timmy didn’t look very shocked, instead he looked curious, as if this was a mildly interesting turn of events rather than his life being put in danger.

  “Let’s make one thing clear,” said Lucius. “I’m not accepting your help because I trust you. I’m only doing it out of necessity. And if you try to betray us at any moment during our trip to the moon, I will personally make sure that you never have a chance to leave the Shadow Way ever again. Got it?”

  Lucius’ viciousness surprised me. I always knew that Lucius had a vicious side to him—he was a vampire, after all—but most of the time he kept it under control, to the point where you might mistake him for a pushover if you didn’t know him well. I knew him well enough by now, however, not to provoke him, because he could be quite mean when he wanted to be.

  Timmy, as usual, didn’t look even remotely phased by the angry vampire practically spitting threats in his face. “Yes, yes, I know. Going to take my spleen and shove it down my throat or something, I’ m sure. Can you let me down now? It’s rather hard to access the Shadow Way from an elevated position.”

  Lucius let go of Timmy abruptly, who landed on his bottom. But he scrambled back to his feet quickly and stood up again as if he had not just been dropped like a ball.

  “Now that we’re done with the threats, you two should take my hands,” said Timmy, holding his hands out toward us. “The part of the Shadow Way we are going to is dark and deep and it wouldn’t do us any good to lose you two before you retrieved the Vampire Flame prematurely.”

  Entering the Shadow Way with a Stranger was very different from entering with a vampire. When you entered the Shadow Way with a vampire, it was like walking through solid darkness before you emerged onto the other side in the Shadow Way itself. While it could be a little disconcerting if you weren’t used to it, after a while it felt as ordinary as opening a door and stepping through. It even felt natural to me, and I was by no means a fan of the Shadow Way.

  But entering with a Stranger was an entirely different matter. Timmy didn’t lead us into a shadowy corner like Lucius would. Instead, he simply closed his eyes, hummed a short tune under his breath, and then stepped forward.

  Abruptly, we found ourselves standing in the Shadow Way, but it was a part of the Shadow Way I had never seen before. The hallway was still made out of stone, of course, but it looked ancient, with more cracks in the floor, walls, and ceiling than there were in the parts I normally traveled. One of the doors along the walls was covered with rubble from where a portion of the ceiling had caved in, while another door was bashed in, just barely hanging on its hinges. There was even what looked like a bullet hole in the wall directly opposite us, though I doubted that any gun had ever ended up in here.

  This part of the Shadow Way was also very cold, almost freezing. The Shadow Way was not a very warm place, which normally didn’t bother me due to my half-vampire nature giving me a degree of immunity to the cold, but here, it was almost unbearable and made me wish I had brought a coat with me. Lucius, of course, didn’t seem affected by the cold, but given how he was a full-blooded vampire, I just assumed that he had an even greater immunity to the cold than I did.

  “Where are we?” I said, looking around. “I’ve never been in this part of the Shadow Way before.”

  “Very few mortals have,” said Timmy. “This is one of the oldest parts of the Shadow Way. It was old even when the Earth was new and it will continue to exist long after your world passes.”

  Lucius was also looking around in interest, which reminded me that Lucius had also never been to this part of the Shadow Way before. “It does look rather old. Do all of those doors lead to the moon?”

  “Nope,” said Timmy, shaking his head. “Only one of them does, really.”

  “Where do the others go, then?” I said, looking in particular at the bashed in door that was directly opposite us. “Other worlds?”

  Timmy just chuckled. “Just because I’m helping you find your way to the moon doesn’t mean I’m going to reveal all of my people’s secrets. Now, follow me. The way to the moon is not far from here.”

  Without another word, Timmy started walking to the right. Even though he looked like a small child, he was surprisingly strong, pulling Lucius and I along behind him like we were the children and he was the adult. Of course, his child body wasn’t his real form and he clearly seemed to be very old, so in all likelihood, we probably did look like like children to him.

  At the end of the hallway, just before it forked into four different pathways, Timmy stopped in front of a door and said, “Here we are. The door to the moon.”

  I looked at the door we stopped in front of. Like the rest of this part of the Shadow Way, this door was clearly ancient, made of wood which seemed to be deteriorating from old age. Unlike the other doors, however, it had a crescent moon design on it, which was slightly rusted around the edges, but was still very detailed and impressive nonetheless. It was designed so well that it looked almost like the moon itself had been taken from the sky and nailed onto the door, though it was probably just made out of some kind of metal.

  Timmy let go of our hands and stepped back. “This is the end for me. I can’t go any further due to the spells the Mistress cast. But if you go beyond this door, you will enter her base, which is safe for you mortals to breathe.”

  “Are you sure?” I said. I glanced at the door uneasily. “Because the last thing I want to do is walk out into the emptiness of space and drift through it for eternity.”

  “I’ve seen the Mistress use this door several times without harming herself,” said Timmy. “But if you want to turn around and run away
now, I will understand, though you’ll have to find your way back to Earth yourself.”

  I looked at Lucius. “Are you ready?”

  Lucius nodded. “Always.”

  I nodded again and looked at Timmy. “Timmy, I just want to thank you for taking us here. I still don’t like or trust you all that much, but by helping us with this, you’ve done the world a great service.”

  Timmy shrugged. “I don’t care much for the world. All I care about is making sure that the Vampire Flame is returned to its rightful place in the Maze. As long as you retrieve the Vampire Flame successfully, I will consider that thanks enough.”

  I could not help but smile, because I could tell that Timmy liked my gratitude more than he let on.

  “All right,” I said. “Then let’s go.”

  Lucius grabbed the doorknob, looked at me one last time, and then turned and opened the door. He stepped through the doorway and I followed, ready for whatever awaited us on the other side.

  Walking through the doorway was very much like walking through any other doorway in the Shadow Way. I’m not sure what else I expected. When I followed Lucius through the door, I guess I expected to enter a zero gravity environment and find myself floating through the air uncontrollably, kept from drifting into the infinite void of space thanks only to the ceiling of the Mistress’ base.

  But when I stepped out of the shadows and into the light, I didn’t suddenly go flying up. It felt exactly like I had stepped back onto Earth. In fact, based on what I could see, we had stepped back onto Earth.

  The room into which we had emerged looked like yet another stone chamber, almost identical to the Heart of the Maze, although there were several significant differences. Tall stone pillars supported the ceiling above our heads, while two wooden doors stood on either side of the room, perhaps leading to other rooms within the building.

  The room itself was almost bare of furniture save for a single stone slab in the very center of the room. And lying upon the slab, her eyes closed and her arms crossed in front of her chest, was my best friend in the world, Jane Gardner. Aside from having paler skin and messier hair than usual, Jane looked unharmed, but when I saw her, I still couldn’t help but feel worried for her safety.

  “It’s Jane,” I said. “She’s actually here this time.”

  “Yes, I see her,” said Lucius, though he was not focusing on Jane. He was looking around the room instead, as if searching for something. “But I don’t see the Mistress. Or the Vampire Flame, for that matter.”

  “Maybe she’s in another room,” I said. “In any case, let’s try to wake up Jane. If we can wake her up, maybe we can get her out of here before the Mistress comes back. At the very least, we might be able to keep the Mistress from using Jane for whatever she’s trying to use her for.”

  I walked over to the slab where Jane laid quickly and stopped beside her. She looked almost like a corpse, but when I felt her pulse, I found she was still alive. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Jane,” I said as I shook her. “Wake up, Jane. Can you hear me? Jane?”

  To my relief, Jane’s eyes flickered open. Her eyes were unfocused at first, like she was still partially asleep, but then they refocused and she looked up at me with a puzzled look on her face.

  “Tara?” said Jane, her voice weak. “Is that you? What are you doing here? Where am I?”

  I smiled, because even though Jane sounded horrible, she was at least awake. “Yes, it’s me. As for where we are, I’ll tell you that later. For now, we need to get you out of here. You’re not safe here.”

  “Not right away, though,” said Lucius, who suddenly appeared by my side without warning. “First, we need to get the Vampire Flame.”

  Jane started and looked up at Lucius with surprise. “Who are you? And what’s wrong with your eyes?”

  Uh oh. I forgot that Jane didn’t know who Lucius was or that he was a vampire. For that matter, I hadn’t even told her that I was a half-vampire yet, though it was because I didn’t want her to get involved in all of this craziness. Unfortunately, it looked like she was about to learn everything the hard way.

  “His name is Lucius,” I said. “He’s a friend, despite how scary he looks. I’ll explain more later. For now, just know that you’re safe and that we’ll all be back home in Texas soon.”

  Jane still looked confused, but then she nodded and said, “Okay, Tara, I believe you. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but I trust that you and your surprisingly handsome friend will take me home safely.”

  “Great,” I said. “Now, we won’t be able to take you back right away, because there’s still something here we need to get first, but it shouldn’t take us long to do. Can you tell us if you remember how you got here?”

  Jane shook her head. “No, I don’t remember anything. The last thing I remember is a black guy coming up to me in Ricardo’s Place wanting to talk. After that, my memory is a total blank.”

  “She doesn’t remember the Mistress, then,” said Lucius. “That’s not good.”

  “The who?” said Jane.

  “We’ll explain later,” I said. I looked at Lucius. “The Mistress has to be around here somewhere, though. I mean, this is her base, so she has to show up sometime, right?”

  All of a sudden, the floor started to shake under our feet. Jane clung to my arms, a look of fear on her face, while Lucius and I looked around in surprise, wondering what was causing the floor to shake.

  “What’s going on?” said Jane. “Is this an earthquake?”

  I was about to say that I didn’t know when a portion of the floor toward the back of the room began to slide apart. It revealed a hole in the floor from which something started to rise. Light came from the hole, a bright, flickering light which forced me to cover my eyes with my hands to avoid harming them. So did Lucius and even Jane, though Jane, of course, wasn’t a vampire.

  It wasn’t long, however, before I saw what the source of the light was, because it was slowly but surely rising out of the hole. Bit by bit, the size and shape of the object became more obvious. It was a bowl of some sort, ancient and made of stone, but the bowl itself didn’t catch my attention. My focus was on the fire burning within it, the fire which I had never seen before in my life, but which I had no trouble recognizing, because there was only one fire it could possibly be:

  The Vampire Flame itself.

  The Vampire Flame was even more impressive in person than it had sounded in Dad’s description. Its flames flickered every color of the rainbow, with individual flames even being multiple colors at once. It radiated intense heat, like opening a furnace at full blast, but at the same time, I felt drawn to the Vampire Flame, as if I was staring into the face of God himself. And, despite its brightness, I couldn’t take my eyes off its majestic form. It seemed to be calling me toward it, like the Vampire Sword, only unlike the Vampire Sword, I sensed that the Flame was nowhere near as evil, although it was just as dangerous.

  “Whoa …” said Jane in barely more than a whisper of a voice. “That’s the most beautiful fire I have ever seen.”

  “It’s not a mere fire,” said Lucius, who sounded just as awed as Jane. “It’s the Vampire Flame. The source of all magic in the world.”

  Jane looked at Lucius in confusion, but before she could ask him the obvious questions about what he said, a harsh cackling sound came out of nowhere. It echoed off the walls, magnifying its general creepiness and making all three of us look around in surprise, but we didn’t see its source anywhere.

  “Where’s that sound coming from?” said Jane, who was now clutching my arm so tightly that it felt like she was about to tear it off my elbow. “It sounds like the Wicked Witch of the West!”

  All of a sudden, a cloud of smoke descended from a vent in the ceiling. The smoke cloud lowered in front of the Vampire Flame, stood very still for a second, and then vanished, leaving in its place the ugliest woman I had ever seen in my life.

  The woman had to be at least a hundred years
old. She was short and bent over, while her face was covered in warts and pimples that made me feel ill just looking at them. Her nose was hooked and crooked, while her clothes were little more than gray rags that clung over her thin, rail-like frame. She leaned on a black cane for support, which somehow had the effect of making her look more threatening, rather than less.

  But her eyes were the most frightening part about her. Her right eye bulged out of its socket, like it was about to fall out any second, while her left eye was abnormally small, to the point where I wondered if she could even see out of it. Her hair was white and stringy and her teeth were yellowed and even black in a few spots, a definite sign that she didn’t take very good care of her hygiene.

  Although I had never seen this woman before, I instantly knew who she was. “You’re the Mistress.”

  The Mistress grinned, revealing more of her ugly teeth. “Correct. And you should be dead. Did Blake run away?”

  “He tried,” I said. “But then the Maze killed him.”

  The Mistress scowled. “I knew I couldn’t count on that stupid boy to finish you two off. He always thought he was smarter than he was. Made him easy to manipulate, of course, but I hate working with people who don’t know their place. It is very annoying, especially when they are your own servants.”

  “Tara, who is this woman and how did she appear in a cloud of smoke?” said Jane, staring at the Mistress with fear. “Is she a magician?”

  “She’s a witch,” said Lucius.

  Again, Jane looked at Lucius for explanation, but Lucius didn’t even pretend to offer her one. I understood. We didn’t really have time to explain all the differences between sorcerers and witches to Jane. We didn’t even have time to tell her that magic existed. I just hoped that Jane would be able to use that smart mind of hers to figure out what was happening on her own, though given how scared she was, there was a good chance that Jane wasn’t thinking rationally.