Children of Shadows

by Naylor, Joleene

  Cyprus charged and Wolfe swung the metal like a baseball bat. The redhead dodged, and as he spun back to skewer Wolfe a chunk of rock flew through the air and slammed into him. He stumbled and looked up, snarling in fury as he sought his attacker.

  Sadihra pulled herself from beneath a heap of rubble. Most of her hair had fallen around her shoulders in a golden shower. Her coat was torn and she was streaked with dirt. She held one hand up, ready to throw something else. “Cyprus, stop this.”

  The change that came over the redhead was instant. His eyes bulged and his face turned white. His whole stance loosened, as if in his shock he’d forgotten he was fighting. “Meine Allerliebste… How? What trick is this?” He spun back to Wolfe and the longing joy in his eyes turned to bitter hatred. “Where’s the illusionist?”

  “There isn’t one.” Wolfe slowly stood, a discarded scimitar in his hand. “I told you. You saw, but you didn’t understand.”

  “No!” He looked back wildly to Sadihra as she approached. “I saw her die! I saw him kill her; the monster they woke in the cave. I was there!”

  “No,” Sadihra said. “I was only injured. The funeral you saw was Neil’s, never mine.”

  She stopped in front of him and he raised a trembling hand to touch her face. At the contact he closed his eyes and for a moment Katelina felt something tighten in her chest. She knew that look; she’d seen it before on Jorick’s face in Uzbekistan when he’d thought she was missing and had found her.

  Just as Cyprus had found Sadihra.

  Katelina had to strain to catch Cyprus’ words. “If I’d known, I - I fought for you, for your memory, because he let you die and he didn’t care. You deserved better and I - I only wanted…”

  “I know,” Sadihra said. “Now lower your weapon, call them off. Leave Malick. End this before it’s too late and your misplaced grief helps destroy the world.”

  Wolfe charged and Sadihra shouted to stop him. Cyprus whirled but he wasn’t fast enough. Katelina raised herself on one elbow and gaped. She could see the scene in freeze frame; Cyprus, one hand on Sadihra’s shoulder, his eyes wide, his mouth open, and Wolfe’s bloody sword stuck through his stomach.

  The Scharfrichter pulled the blade free and Cyprus stumbled backwards, clutching the gushing wound, and fell against a heap of rubble. Wolfe raised his sword and made to attack again, but Sadihra threw herself in front of him. “Hör sofort auf! Stop! Enough!”

  Cyprus struggled to his feet, his fist pressed to the hole in his stomach. He met Wolfe’s cold gaze and stepped forward, the sabre barely raised above his waist.

  “Cyprus, stop!” Sadihra shouted angrily. “It’s enough. You’re both little boys and it has gone on long enough. Stop before you’re dead.”

  Though Katelina only had eyes for this confrontation, other vampires were struggling out of the rubble and little fights were starting. Sorino fired his duck foot pistol and a black clad vampire fell into the debris with a cloud of dust. Verchiel dug for his sword, absently knocking a half blind attacker back with a piece of metal like the one Wolfe had used. One of the Algojo, his hood missing, chopped the head off a foe with a single stroke.

  One of the Children f Shadows dropped down from the floor above and landed behind Wolfe. The Scharfrichter spun to fight him with a snarl and Sadihra fell back in a defensive crouch. A second landed in the rubble in front of her, and then a third behind her.

  She had no weapon, but waved her hand and sent a chunk of rock slamming into the back of her first attacker. The force knocked him forward into her, and with a cry they went over. She threw him aside, and the second swooped in, stabbing with a long, thin knife for her heart.

  Katelina squeezed her eyes shut, but she heard the horrible cry. She opened them to see Sadihra on her back, Cyprus on top of her. The attacher stared in confusion, his knife buried in his leader’s chest.

  The vampire fell back, and with a swipe Wolfe removed his head. The blood splattered and sprayed in a pulsing shower as the body fell. Wolfe threw Cyprus’ to the side and wrenched Sadihra to her feet. He shouted something that was probably, “Are you all right?”

  Sadihra pushed him aside and dropped to the ground next to Cyprus’ fallen body. The knife protruded from his chest and, though Sadihra wrenched it free, even Katelina could tell he was dead. He’d betrayed them, killed, maimed, and died for nothing.

  Just another of Malick’s pawns.

  The headless body of his killer twitched and spasmed, and Wolfe slammed his sword through its chest in disgust, then tugged Sadihra to her feet. “There is still a fight!”

  Unlike the movies, the bad guys didn’t know their leader had fallen, and they fought on. A pair danced over the top of Katelina, locked in combat. Though she lay still until they passed, it was enough to frighten her back to reality and she turned her attention to freeing herself.

  The chunk of rock was heavy, but with the threat of death she was able to lift it enough to slide out. She tested both of her legs and felt up and down them. They were bruise tender, but not broken. Her back still burned from Ronnell’s attack, and her shoulder throbbed. It was as if she was making up for going unscathed in the last battle.

  She’d lost her sword in the explosion, and like Verchiel she dug through the rocks. She found one of the guard’s swords with a broken tip. It was better than nothing and she took a couple of practice swings with it.

  Armed, she searched the melee for Jorick. The floor he’d been on had a fresh pile of rubble and terror bubbled in her. Was he buried under the debris? She looked frantically for a way to reach him. What was left of the stairs was useless and, unlike the vampires, she couldn’t jump the distance.

  She looked for help and located the bald vampire and Loren back to back, fending off a pair of attackers. She started to call to them when the air turned heavy and alive with electricity, like standing in the middle of a thundercloud. She fell back a step and raised her broken sword, though she didn’t know what she was fighting off. She looked quickly to see others doing the same, enemies and allies alike.

  The heaviness grew, until she struggled to hold her sword up. A deep, angry thrumming started in her ears and she understood.

  It was Malick.

  As if summoned by her thoughts, the ancient master appeared at the top of the stairs. He stood alone, his black robes replaced by scarlet, and the golden crown gleaming on his head. His voice boomed and echoed from the remnants of the building. “What a mess you make, my children, as you scrabble and clutch amidst the blood and ruin. Ants struggling in the mud.”

  One of the Algojo stepped forward. Katelina could feel his presence, like a rolling storm, but it was nothing compared to Malick’s. “Why have you come?”

  “Does not blood always draw a crowd?” Malick asked. “Alas, I am not here for such cheap entertainment. I have come to collect something which belongs to me.”

  He met Katelina’s gaze. She tried to look away but the darkness in the depths of his eyes pulled her in. The world faded to one of polished mahogany and glittering topaz. She was wrapped in silence, trapped in a maze with crystal walls and she couldn’t get out.

  “Do you want to, child? There is nothing for you out there.”

  But there was.

  Jorick. Where is Jorick?

  “Leave her alone!”

  The world slammed back and she fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Tears rolled down her face. She wiped them with shaking hands and raised her head to see Jorick standing before Malick. His long black hair was wild about his face and his countenance was at once beautiful and terrible, like an avenging angel. Katelina could feel his power rolling, crushing, threatening the ancient master with its fury.

  “And so you come to her defense, my son. You think you can save her, but you’re mistaken. You can no more deliver her from her fate than you could the other from the flames. My poor child, destined to know the ache of loss again and again.”

  The other. Of course he meant Velnya, Jorick’s first wife,
who’d been burned alive for witchcraft, thanks to Malick’s interference. The thought of Velnya was enough to force Katelina to her feet. She wasn’t a weak, pathetic little thing like Velnya. She was not going to be used as a toy to torture Jorick with!

  “No.” The building seemed to shake with the force of Jorick’s anger. “You are the one who’s mistaken.”

  The aura of Jorick’s power grew, stretched and strengthened, until it was almost too much for Katelina to take. She looked to see the other vampires falling back, as if from a clash of two ancient masters. And why not? How old had Malick been when he’d fostered Jorick? How old was the blood that ran through his veins?

  Malick laughed and the loud thrumming began again. It pounded with an intensity that forced Katelina to the ground, first to her knees, and then to her stomach. She threw her hands over her ears and tried to see through aching, tear filled eyes. It felt like everything under her face was stretching and pulling, ready to tear apart and shatter like a china doll.

  She saw a flash of something red and black and then for a second she saw Verchiel hanging from the edge of the ragged floor above. Something silver arced through the air. Jorick caught it without even looking and swung.

  The roar shook the building and the thrumming stopped. Katelina pulled up to her knees to see Jorick standing over Malick, holding Verchiel’s bloody sword. The ancient master’s face was contorted with pain and fury until he looked more demon than man. He clutched his arm. Blood gushed around his fingers from the spot where his right hand had been.

  Jorick raised the sword again and suddenly the world snapped away. There was no maze, no topaz tunnel, only darkness and a door. The blackness that seeped around the edges was deeper than night, darker than the deepest pit, a blackness of such despair and agony that she never wanted to see it, never wanted to know it.

  “The time has come! Open the door and see the truth, see the world for what it is. Look and know, my child!”

  The door screamed as it flew open and the darkness surged out. She fought it, batting and writhing as it wrapped around her in tendrils. It slid under her skin, inside her ears, her mouth, her eyes, until she was full of the blackness, the hatred, the despair.

  “This is the world. Century after century of it. Taste it. Taste it until you can no longer stand it.”

  She could see a room, but it made no sense. Rocks instead of walls, holes instead of floors. Blood, pain, death. The dead lay among the rocks, discarded and unsung. The misled, the betrayed, the broken lover. All had died for something different, and yet still they were dead, and beyond it there was only that blackness, pulling them in, choking out the light, reeling in soul after forgotten soul. Soon they would all be dead. Their bodies would crumble and their consciousness would disappear into the void. All their thoughts and deeds wasted.

  A thousand agonies stabbed at her. She felt Cyprus’ longing, his screaming rage; Sadihra’s crushing regret, her guilt drawn over years and sharpened to a fine point; Wolfe’s secret dread, the years of private torture as Sadihra turned away from him; Micah’s empty misery, abandoned by a master he barely knew and left friendless and alone; Loren’s screaming grief for a murdered brother; Torina’s desperate need to be loved, never fulfilled; Oren’s bloody despair as he watched his wife and children burn in a bonfire of the Executioner’s making; Verchiel’s aching loneliness; Jorick’s throbbing terror, his unending sorrow, his guilt and pounding doubts and fears; and a thousand other dreads, terrors, aches, and agonies, all darker than the darkness, blacker than the night, the misery of nightmares.

  Their pain crushed her and she let out a strangled cry of anguish. No sound could express the agony of hundreds, thousands, millions. It was more than she could stand and it needed to end before it tore her apart.

  In the background, like voices echoing through a fish tank, Jorick shouted, “What have you done?”

  Malick laughed, cold and cruel. He stepped back, holding the stump of his hand. “She is mine one way or another, my son. Living or dead. The choice is yours.”

  “He put something in her head when he was in Munich before!” Verchiel shouted, standing on the floor above. “You saw it when you looked into her mind after Samael!”

  “But that was-”

  And Malick laughed again. “And so you blamed Samael for my handiwork. I don’t know whether to be insulted or amused.” Underneath his laughter was his anguish. Betrayed by his favorite son, abandoned for a woman too weak for Jorick to ever truly love, left behind by the world to inhabit musty dungeons and dwell on the memories of grandeur.

  The agony in Katelina’s head pulsed, screamed, and drowned out their voices, drowned out the world. There was nothing but the pain, and desperately she grabbed the broken sword from the ground.

  “Join them, my child. Join the souls that scream and end your agony.”

  She pressed the blade to her throat. Anything to make it stop.

  “Close the door!”

  The words were a command and the door in her mind slammed shut with a sound so loud it sent her sprawling. The screaming pain drained away, like water leeching down the sink, slow at first and then faster, until she could lift herself and look up.

  He stood in front of her, his long black hair wind swept and glistening like strands of ebony. His tawny skin, smooth as marble and a million times finer, appeared to glow from within, begging her to touch it. His face was perfect, so beautiful it broke her heart to look at it and his eyes were like staring into the heart of a burning star.

  Samael.

  His voice rang through the ruined halls like summer thunder and crystal trumpets, “I have come for her. Let those who stand in my way taste death.”

  She could feel his power, growing, coalescing into a ball of energy. Malick shouted something and Ronnell appeared in front of her. Without a word, Samael unleashed the invisible attack. It slammed into Ronnell and his head exploded in a cloud of scarlet. Bits of bone and scalp flew through the air and splattered Katelina in gore.

  Ronnell’s body dropped to the ground and Samael held out his hand. Katelina stood without thought, and he wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her against him. She stared into his eyes, bright as the sun, bright as lightning, bright as the golden peace she’d touched in her dreams.

  And the world disappeared.

  .

  Epilogue

  “Where am I?” Katelina was aware of her voice only after she’d spoken the words aloud. Her body ached and her senses were bathed in darkness.

  The answer was a single word, like a breath of peace from warmer places. “Safe.”

  Safe from what? Her memory was numb, but she ached to understand. An urgency pressed beneath the surface. Something terrible had happened. Falling rocks, screams, blood. And among the chaos had been her… what? Her friends? Were they all right?

  “They are safe,” the voice soothed again, the words followed by a touch; a hand on her head. “Close your eyes and see.”

  But she didn’t have to close her eyes because the scene was there, as bright and clear as if she was a participant. There were names attached to the actors in the drama, but she couldn’t find any feelings about them. Did she know them?

  Etsuko sat on a chaise longue in the motel room, wearing a pink kimono, her hair pulled up. Her attention moved between her needlework and a clock, as if she was counting the minutes.

  Someone pounded furiously on the door and Etsuko jumped. She laid her needlework aside and hurried to answer the frantic summons. The door was barely open when a vampire burst inside, his long lion-colored hair wild around his face.

  “Oren-sama, I did not think to see you. The sun is rising–” Etsuko broke off as she noticed his state of disarray. He was streaked in blood and dirt, his shirt was torn, and a wound on his shoulder bled freely. “You are hurt.”

  He pushed past her and threw his suitcase on the bed, as though to pack, and then flung it aside again. Etsuko turned to close the door, but two more vampires forced
their way through. Like Oren they were dirty and bloody. The teen had thick, curly hair and a sunburned face, while the bald vampire’s head glowed pink. They were sunburned.

  Etsuko bobbed her head quickly. “Loren-sama. Micah-sama. I must guess from your appearance that the battle has happened? What was the outcome, if I may ask?”

  “That son of a bitch took her!” Micah roared. “We need to go after him!”

  Took who? Katelina wondered.

  Micah snarled and Etsuko asked, “Who was taken?”

  “Katelina,” Loren answered.

  The scene wavered for a moment. Katelina. The name was familiar, and she felt like it belonged to her, but it didn’t stir an emotional connection.

  The scene cleared and the teen rushed on, “Malick showed up and did some weird thing to her. Verchiel said Malick ‘activated a kill switch’ – he said he’d suspected it was there but he’d never expected it was to make her kill herself. He figured, if anything, it would be Jorick. Anyway, Jorick attacked Malick and cut off his hand. It’s still there at the guild-whatever, so it won’t grow back on. The Scharfrichter took it and are going to do something with it. I dunno, maybe put it in a box as a trophy. As I was saying, Jorick injured Malick, then all of a sudden Samael dropped down from the sky, exploded Ronnell’s head, grabbed Katelina, and jumped out again – whoosh – like Superman. Malick laughed and laughed, then he did something similar and Jorick started after them, but Wolfe tackled him and told him the sun would be up any minute. And he was right, we barely made it here.” Loren unconsciously rubbed his pink nose. “But they had this huge argument about it and Jorick said he meant to follow anyway.”

  Jorick. The name felt at home on Katelina’s lips and something stirred in the back of her thoughts. There was an image of a man with long black hair and pale skin. Dark eyes the color of night.

  The images disappeared as the door flew open and a red haired vampiress stormed in. Her dress was torn and her exposed skin was rosy from the sun. “Thanks for leaving me to pay the taxi. That would have been great if I’d burst into flames.”