The Vampire Flame (Vampire Sorceress Book 3)

by T. L. Cerepaka

  “It doesn’t matter what she is,” I said. I pointed Domination at the Mistress. “We finally have you cornered. Give up the Vampire Flame and no one has to get hurt.”

  The Mistress chuckled, which was a very dry sound. “You threaten me with your shiny toy? Please. I am the Mistress. My magical power dwarfs all but the power of the Supreme Sorcerer himself, although given how there is no current Supreme Sorcerer, I suppose that makes me the strongest living magical human in the world. I could easily kill all three of you right this very instant with but one flick of my finger.”

  “She’s joking, right?” said Jane, looking at me and Lucius desperately. “She can’t actually kill us with a flick of her finger, right? Right?”

  I didn’t know. I knew that the Mistress was powerful—you had to be, if you built a livable fortress on the moon—but I wasn’t sure if she actually was that powerful. Given the immense power I had seen some sorcerers wield, it was not out of the question for her to kill us instantly if she wanted.

  “Oh, I can do far more than that, my dear,” said the Mistress. She ran a finger along the basin which contained the Vampire Flame. “But even my power is nothing in comparison to the power the Vampire Flame wields. It is no mere fire, but a physical manifestation of one of the universe’s most primordial qualities. It is a spiritual fire, not a physical one, however it may look to our eyes.”

  “We’re not going to let you put it out,” I said. “The sorcerer and vampire communities depend on it.”

  The Mistress tilted her head to the side. “When did I say I was going to put it out? That would be ridiculous. If I did that, I would lose my magical powers, too. Besides, I suspect that it cannot be put out. As I said, it’s a spiritual, rather than physical, fire. I imagine that if you tried to dump a bucket of water on it or even submerge it in the sea, it would burn as brightly as ever, if not more so. No, I have much bigger plans, plans that involve your little friend there.”

  The Mistress snapped her fingers. Jane flew off the table toward the Vampire Flame. Both Lucius and I tried to catch her, but she flew outside of our reach too fast and stopped several feet above the Vampire Flame. The tips of the Flame narrowly missed burning Jane’s back, while Jane herself was whimpering in fear, turning her head to look down into the fire burning hotly below her.

  “Put her down, Mistress,” said Lucius. He pointed at the floor. “Now.”

  “I will put her down soon enough, vampire, but not yet,” said the Mistress. “But not on the floor, of course.”

  Jane suddenly lowered closer to the Flame. Jane cried out, but she didn’t fall all the way into it. Tears were streaming from her eyes, but she wasn’t speaking. Not that I blamed her. Given everything that had happened, I bet she was both confused and terrified. Still, I couldn’t stand to see my best friend in the world crying her eyes like out that, silently or not.

  “What are you going to do to her?” I said. “Scare her to death?”

  “Hardly,” said the Mistress. “I’m going to sacrifice her to the Vampire Flame.”

  “Sacrifice her?” I repeated. “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said the Mistress. Her smile widened, revealing every last one of her crooked, yellow teeth. “I am going to become a goddess. And there’s not a thing either of you can do to stop me.”

  “A goddess?” I said. “What are you even talking about? How does sacrificing my best friend to the Vampire Flame make you a goddess?”

  The Mistress snapped her fingers again and a book appeared in her hands. She held up the old leather bound book for us to see clearly. “Do you see this? It’s a book Blake stole for me from the Vampire Council’s Vault. It’s the oldest extant copy of Pyr, by the ancient vampire historian Xenolabus.”

  I looked at Lucius. “Lucius, didn’t you tell me that Blake had stolen an important book from the Council?”

  Lucius nodded, though without taking his eyes off the book. “Yes. And that’s the book I told you about. I didn’t expect the Mistress to show it to us like this, though.”

  “Why not?” said the Mistress. “It’s a good read. It is the most complete book on the history, nature, and abilities of the Vampire Flame in the world. There used to be a lot more copies of it, but both the Vampire Council and the Sorcerer Parliament have worked hard to destroy as many copies as they could find.”

  “That’s exactly why we don’t want you to have it,” said Lucius. “I’ve never read the book myself, but the Council stressed upon me how dangerous it would be for such knowledge to fall into the wrong hands.”

  “The Vampire Council just doesn’t want anyone to threaten its power,” the Mistress replied. “In any case, I’ve spent the last week or so reading it. It’s been a very interesting book, with lots of interesting information about the Vampire Flame which isn’t available anywhere else. Most importantly, however, it confirms that the Flame can be controlled.”

  “Controlled?” I said. “How can you control the physical manifestation of magic?”

  “Only a sufficiently powerful sorceress—or witch, as in my case—can,” said the Mistress. “But immense magical power, alone, is not enough. To truly control the Vampire Flame, the sorceress in question must cast a Powerless human directly into the Flame itself. The Powerless human will, of course, die, but in the process, her death will make it easier for me to control the Flame.”

  “How does that work?” I said.

  “According to Pyr, the burning corpse of a normal Powerless human disrupts the magical power of the Flame,” said the Mistress. “This allows a particularly strong sorceress to gain control of the Flame and use it as they see fit. Should it work according to what the book says, I should have the ability to grant—or take away—the magical abilities of every individual on Earth, sorcerer, vampire, or even Stranger alike.”

  “Why would you want such power?” I said. “Are you just crazy?”

  “Why wouldn’t I want such power?” said the Mistress. She licked her lips. “Such power would put me even above the Darkness and the Origin. I would become a living goddess.”

  “You’re just power hungry,” said Lucius. “Like every other witch in the world.”

  “And like most of your kind, too, vamp,” the Mistress snapped. “But it doesn’t matter. When I want something, I take it, no matter what anyone else thinks. And if you have a problem with that, then you can go and die for all I care.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Lucius and I are not going anywhere. Put Jane back down on the floor now. Or else.”

  “Your empty threats don’t frighten me,” said the Mistress. “Now, I am done talking with you. Absolute power is just around the corner and I am not going to waste this perfect opportunity to take it.”

  With that, the Mistress snapped her fingers and Jane suddenly fell into the Vampire Flame.

  I didn’t even hesitate. As soon as Jane fell, I dropped Domination and jumped into the air as fast as I could. I flew through the air so fast that everything around me was a blur except for Jane and the Vampire Flame. I didn’t even pay attention to Lucius shouting at me to come back. All I could think about was saving Jane, about getting to her before she was consumed by the Flame.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion as I soared through the air toward her. I could see Jane’s face in great detail, see the fear starting to appear on her face, watch the tear drops trail behind her on her way down. I even saw the Vampire Flame evaporate the tears upon impact. I could feel the heat of the Vampire Flame grow stronger the closer I drew to it, could feel its blinding light burning at the exposed parts of my skin. Every instinct inside me was telling me to stop, to drop to the floor and let Jane burn, but I ignored those instincts in order to save my friend.

  Right before Jane fell into the Vampire Flame, I slammed into her body. Jane fell behind the Vampire Flame, rather than inside it, and I heard her cry out in surprise as she fell to the floor, but I didn’t spend that much time thinking about how lucky I was to save her,
because while Jane might have avoided falling into the Vampire Flame to her doom, I did not.

  I landed on the bottom of the Vampire Flame’s basin, sending black ashes flying everywhere. If the heat had been intense outside of the Flame, it was even more intense inside it. I felt like I was literally sitting inside a furnace. The fire ate at my clothing and skin, making me scream in pain. My hair caught aflame and every bone in my body was screaming in protest. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t think at all. All I could focus on was the endless pain burning through my body.

  But the fire didn’t just burn my body. It burned my very soul. I could feel the flames tearing through me, going deeper into my being than ordinary flames did. It was like being stabbed in the heart with a burning sword, but it was even worse than that. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even see anything. No matter where I looked, I just saw multicolor fire burning everywhere.

  This wasn’t the Vampire Flame. This was hell. If Satan himself showed up, I would not be surprised. I would only be wondering what took him so long to show up and start torturing my eternal soul.

  This was the end for me. The Vampire Flame wasn’t just going to burn my body to a crisp. It would reduce even my soul to ash. I guess I knew what would happen to me when I died, then. I wouldn’t go to hell, but I wouldn’t go to heaven, either. I would just cease to exist. Maybe that was for the best, given how I was an unnatural abomination that didn’t deserve to live.

  But even as the flames ate away at my clothing, even as the Flame tore into my soul, I suddenly felt something stirring deep in my soul. It felt kind of like magical power, but it was even stronger than that. It swelled within me, making the burning pain hurt less, though even with this sudden swelling of magical power, I didn’t think I would survive long enough to escape the Flame.

  Then I heard footsteps walking across the ash and I looked up. Someone was walking toward me, a man by the look of it, but the flames obscured my vision too much. All I could tell was that there was someone else in this burning hell except for me, but I didn’t know who it could possibly be. I wanted to say it was Lucius, but there was no way that Lucius could be in here with me. He would probably die even faster than me, and besides this guy didn’t give off the same aura as Lucius. He had a different aura, his own aura, which seemed to protect him from the flames.

  The man stopped in front of me and looked down at me. But when I looked up at him, I still found it hard to read his face. His features were blurry, but at the same time, I felt a kindness in them that I had not felt in any other human being’s. The closest time I could think of was whenever Dad looked at me, but there was no way in hell that this man could be Dad.

  “Get up, Tara,” said the man, whose voice sounded both close by and far away at the same time. “Your mission in this world still isn’t done.”

  There was something intimately familiar in the man’s voice, like I had heard it somewhere before, but I was in too much pain to think about where.

  I just said, in reply, “I can’t. The Flame is too much for me.”

  “Not for me, though,” said the man, shaking his head. He held out a hand. “Take my hand. You just need to lean on me.”

  Even though I wasn’t sure I could do even that much, I nonetheless held out my hand and took his. The man’s grip was firm and strong, but comforting. It reminded me of how Dad’s hand felt whenever he held mine when I was a girl.

  The man helped me to my feet and slowly but surely led me through the flames. Even leaning against him, I couldn’t tell what his facial features were. All I could tell was that this man, whoever he was and wherever he came from, was my friend. A real friend, as close as Jane, even though I didn’t even know his name.

  “Here we are, Tara,” said the man, stopping at what seemed to be the edge of the Flame. “This is as far as I will take you, but rest assured that I will be with you even when you leave the Flame. Don’t let fear dominate your actions. Just do what you have to do.”

  I was about to ask the man what he meant by all of that, but I didn’t get a chance to speak, because the man suddenly shoved me out of the Flame. The last I saw of him, before I fully left the Flame, was the man smiling at me, his features suddenly becoming clearer just as I left the Flame.

  And that was how I knew who he was.

  I landed on the cold, hard stone floor of the chamber very ungracefully. Going from being in the heart of the Vampire Flame itself to the much colder chamber room where the Mistress had summoned the Flame was kind of like walking into the bathroom after a warm shower, but at the same time, I wasn’t complaining, because at least I wasn’t on fire anymore.

  I suddenly heard a shrill scream above me and looked up. The Mistress stood nearby, staring at me with her ugly eyes, which were practically bulging out of their sockets now. She was slamming her cane against the basin of the Vampire Flame over and over again, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “No!” the Mistress screamed. “This cannot be! I didn’t work toward this so hard for years just to have a dumb slut jump and ruin everything at the last possible second! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  I wasn’t sure if the Mistress noticed me or not. Given how obsessed she was with banging on the basin, I figured that she must not have noticed me yet. That was good, because the last thing I wanted to do at the moment was deal with her insanity.

  But then the Mistress looked at me and her frown turned into the ugliest scowl I had ever seen on another person’s face. “You! You did this. I should have killed you the minute you and your dumb boyfriend appeared from the Shadow Way. No matter. I will correct that mistake and kill you now. Then I will sacrifice your friend and gain the power I so deserve.”

  The Mistress pointed her cane at me, but before she could cast a spell, Lucius appeared and yanked her cane out of her hands. He then slammed her in the side of the face with her own cane hard enough for an audible crack to emit from the blow. The Mistress immediately collapsed onto the floor, her body as still as a stone.

  Tossing the Mistress’ cane aside, Lucius walked over to me and, kneeling beside me, said, “Tara, are you okay? How are you feeling?”

  “F-Fine,” I said, unable to hide the trembling in my voice. “A little hot, but okay.”

  Lucius, however, continued to look me over as if I hadn’t said a word. “I don’t understand. I saw you plunge directly into the Vampire Flame without any protection whatsoever. By all rights, that should have killed you. Yet you emerged from the Flame not even five minutes after you fell into it, looking no worse the wear. How did you do it?”

  “I didn’t do it on my own,” I said. I glanced at the Flame. “I had help.”

  “Help?” said Lucius in disbelief. “Help from who? There’s no one else in here but you, me, Jane, and the Mistress.”

  I opened my mouth to tell Lucius who had saved me, but before I could utter even one word, the chamber shook.

  “What was that?” I said, looking at Lucius.

  Lucius also looked around, his expression grim. “I’m not sure. It felt like a tremor, but the Mistress is dead, so it can’t be something she did. Unless—”

  A sharp cracking sound interrupted Lucius, making us both look up at the ceiling. Sharp cracks had appeared in the ceiling of the chamber. Not enough to expose us to the surface of the moon, but definitely enough to make us both worry.

  “Why is the ceiling cracking?” I said, looking at Lucius again.

  “It must be the Mistress’ last defense measure,” said Lucius. “I’ve heard of sorcerers who booby trap their own bases to explode when they die. Usually, it’s only when they have secrets to hide, though, or when they don’t want anyone else to get their hands on their work.”

  “Blake said that the Mistress used magic to make her base habitable,” I said. “Without her to sustain it, do you think that means that the spells are failing and the base will be destroyed by the moon’s atmosphere?”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Lucius. “Which is why we need
to get out of here fast.”

  Lucius quickly ran around the Vampire Flame and reappeared just as quickly with Jane in his arms. Jane’s head lolled against Lucius’ biceps, while the rest of her body hung somewhat loosely in his arms.

  “Is she still alive?” I said, looking at Lucius in worry.

  Lucius nodded. “Yes. I think she just lost consciousness when you knocked her out of the way of the Flame. I imagine she must have smacked her head against the stone floor and was knocked out cold as a result.”

  “Better unconscious than dead, I suppose,” I said. I looked up at the Vampire Flame. “But what about the Flame? There’s no way we can bring it with us.”

  “We won’t need to, I think,” said Lucius. “The Flame can take care of itself, now that the Mistress is no longer around to control it. For now, the three of us need to leave. Now.”

  I followed Lucius over to the nearest shadowy corner. Before I followed him into the Shadow Way, I cast one last look over my shoulder at the Vampire Flame, because I didn’t know if I would ever see it again.

  And, though I wasn’t sure because I entered the Shadow Way very quickly afterward, I thought I saw the outline of a man waving goodbye at us.

  I never thought I would ever be so glad to enter the Shadow Way. Even though it was darker and creepier than the Mistress’ room, I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we crossed the threshold and closed the door behind us.

  “Whew,” I said, wiping sweat off my brow. “That was a close one.”

  Lucius nodded. “Yes, it was. Far too close for comfort.”

  “That’s the last time I’m going to the moon,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “From now on, I’m just going to stay on Earth. Much safer than the—”

  I was interrupted by the sound of wood cracking behind me. Both Lucius and I turned around in time to see the ancient stone door which led to the moon suddenly collapse into a heap of wood and metal. Only its crescent moon symbol still stood out among the remains of the door, staring dully up at us out of the pile of rotted wood which was once the doorway to the moon.