“Hence why they kept failing.” Ben chuckled. “Yeah, you’re making a lot of sense. I suppose we’ll have to simply consider Cassiel an extremely capable enemy and avoid him at all costs.”
I nodded. “We can’t let him find us again. He’s extraordinarily dangerous.”
“Speaking of which, how is Araquiel?” Ben asked.
“Amane is with him,” I replied, pointing to the far end of our icy shelter. “He’s fully recovered and learning the basics, much like Douma did. It’s been hours since we got here. He seems to have the same regeneration speed as she did.”
“So, he’s calm and peaceful,” Ben said.
I nodded again. “I’m telling you, the Perfects are not inherently bad. If we wipe all their memories, I’m willing to bet Ta’Zan will be finished. He’s had them under his control from the moment they were born and taught them only what would benefit his greater plan.”
We both stared at Amane and Araquiel for a while. The Perfect was mostly quiet, flipping through videos on the glass tablet, his eyes moving rapidly across the screen as he digested all the information, flash by flash.
He’d begun asking questions, too, so I’d left Ridan with him and Amane, to fill in the gaps about our worlds, our origins, and our cultures. This was a joint effort to reeducate a Perfect. If we used Douma and Araquiel as success markers, we could easily repeat the same operation until they were all given a broader view of the universe, completely shattering Ta’Zan’s doctrine.
I didn’t want us to consider the more extreme solutions available. I didn’t want this whole world to burn, its life snuffed out by more, larger-scale violence. There had to be a peaceful and smart way out of this. In fact, my instincts told me to bank on two key elements we could use against Ta’Zan in order to stop him for good.
First, his connection to Bogdana. She was his surrogate mother. She could get close enough to deliver the crippling or deadly blow, depending on the circumstances. She could even try to change his mind and thus prevent more bloodshed.
Second, we could reform the Perfects. Disabling his army rendered him helpless before us. I had more faith in the second element than the first, though. I couldn’t exactly trust Bogdana to do anything against Ta’Zan, since she’d kept such a huge secret from us. I was quite angry with her, in fact.
Angry enough to get up and push us all into the next stage of our Stravian mission.
“Ben, I’m calling a group meeting. Gather everyone in here. We need to talk,” I said.
My brother stood, then went out to get the rest of our team back inside. It was time to take it to the next level, in order to maintain our minor advantage against Ta’Zan. With the comms restored and his flight plans destroyed, we had a good opportunity to do more to save our people.
And my parents had taught me to never let a good opportunity slip through my fingers.
Dmitri
I had to give Varga credit. He refused to let me be on my own for too long, and, despite my growling protests, he insisted and managed to get me out of my soul-crushing sulk. Douma was gone. I’d lost her to Cassiel, and I hated myself for it. Then again, there isn’t much a guy can do when the ground opens up and swallows him whole.
The first couple of hours I spent on my own, freezing my ass off on a nearby ridge. It felt like some kind of self-punishment for letting Douma slip through my fingers. Until I could no longer feel my butt cheeks, and crafted a small fire with a bunch of twigs and my lighter. It was hard to keep it burning whenever the wind intensified, but for the most part it did a decent job, as I’d built it in a concave piece of earth and lined it with large rocks.
Then, Varga showed up and refused to go away. He’d said it wasn’t healthy for me to be on my own at this point. He didn’t seem fazed by my growling, so eventually I caved in and let him stay with me. An hour passed in awkward silence, as he watched me staring out into the distance. The ocean was frozen by the shore, thick sheets of ice breaking farther away from the frosted edge. There was a snowstorm coming, too.
The wind was bound to become unbearable, soon enough.
“You must be a masochist,” Varga muttered, rubbing his shoulders by the crackling fire.
“Or maybe you’re just a wuss,” I said with a smirk.
“Dude, it’s probably twenty below zero. It’s a miracle I’m still talking. Stop being such a hard head and admit you can no longer feel the lower half of your body.”
A few seconds passed before I replied. “More like the lower third,” I grumbled. “It’s not that bad.”
“Come on, Dmitri, let’s go back inside the shelter. At least it’s warmer there,” Varga pleaded with me, but I shook my head in response. Varga rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Fine. Snow and freezing to death while you brood over Douma it is, then!”
“I’m not brooding!”
“Puh-lease. You know we’ll get her back, right?” Varga replied.
I shrugged. “How? Cassiel probably took her back to Ta’Zan. He’ll chop her head off, wait for it to grow back, then shove the old memories back in, and my Douma will be gone. She’ll be hunting me again. And I can’t take that. We were getting along so well. She was looking forward to seeing me go through my first wolf shift, when the time was right.”
“Dmitri, we’ll get her back. Even if it means catching her and cutting her head off and starting all over again,” Varga said, his tone firm. “Whatever it takes to cure this bleeding-heart syndrome you’re exhibiting.”
That got a scoff out of me. “It’s not about that.”
“Right,” Varga chuckled, further getting on my nerves—not because it wasn’t true.
On the contrary. I was lying to him and, most likely, myself. I was absolutely heartbroken, and I needed Douma back in my life as soon as possible. Preferably before my heart became a physical nuisance.
A crackle in my ear made me sit upright.
“Dmitri, you there, brother?” Jovi’s voice came through.
I could easily slap myself. I’d barely exchanged a few words with Jovi since the comms had come back on. And I’d been worried sick about him since the fleet attack, not knowing if he was still alive or not. Douma’s capture had taken such a toll on me that I’d neglected the best thing to come out of our dangerous missions: the confirmation that Jovi had, in fact, survived the fleet attack.
“Yes! Yes, I am!” I said, feeling a smile stretching my probably-purplish lips. Varga raised a confused eyebrow, until I realized that Jovi was reaching out to me via our private channel. We all had that option on our earpieces, based on voice commands. “How’s it hanging, Jovi?”
Varga smirked when he realized what was going on, then put his palms toward the fire while I caught up with my brother. As the winds grew stronger, the rocky edges no longer helped, and the flames eventually died out, leaving Varga pouting.
“Well, the mood is slightly better than yesterday, if you ask me. From the moment the comms went back on, it’s like everyone came back to life in here,” Jovi said. “Man, it’s so good to hear your voice again.”
“I know. Sorry that I’ve been a little quiet. I’m still reeling from that Cassiel episode,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, five hundred Perfects coming after you is bound to have that effect.” Jovi chuckled. “But, for your peace of mind, you should know we’re all okay in here. Anjani, Jax, Hansa, Heath, the founders’ crew… The prisoners. We’re all good. They feed us, and they don’t torture us or anything. Amal comes in once a day to collect genetic samples, and that’s it.”
“That’s good to hear. At least you’re not in peril of dying anytime soon,” I said.
“Nah. We’re fine here. It’s the rest of the world we’re worried about. You, specifically,” Jovi replied. “Ta’Zan is beyond pissed off. Isda said he’s fuming and snapping at everybody. They haven’t seen him like this in a long time.”
“That’s fantastic!” I said, gritting my teeth. “It means we’re finally getting to him!”
“True. But he t
ook Sofia.”
“He won’t do anything to her. I’m willing to bet on it,” I replied. “From what we’ve learned so far, Ta’Zan’s got a bit of a soft spot for Derek. I think he took Sofia out of there just to annoy him, as some kind of payback for what we did. He’s not an idiot. He’ll soon realize that he’s not hurting us with that kind of behavior. He’s just coming across as a moody toddler, that’s all.”
“You have a point there. Lucas was telling Derek the same thing, but he is livid right now,” Jovi said, lowering his voice. “I swear, if it weren’t for these shock collars, he would’ve slit Ta’Zan’s throat already.”
“Oh… Right. How are you dealing with them?” I asked, trying to better understand the technology behind them.
Out of the entire Shade, Jovi, Phoenix, and I were the top tech guys. We’d been around devices since we were kids, and we were quick to understand the principles of computer science, physics, and mechanics, not to mention astrophysics and chemistry. We’d all focused on these subjects in school, and we’d all become adept at tinkering with even the most complex forms of technology that our worlds had to offer.
Jovi being in there was to our advantage. He could study the collars up close and get a better understanding of them—enough to help us later, since those things had to be taken off line before we could get our people out of there.
“I’ve pretty much gotten the hang of what I can and cannot say, and specifically, of what I can say before it starts burning me. I rarely get a shock from words. It’s what we do or intend to do that really matters to these devices,” Jovi explained. “I would love to open one of these babies up, but, for the time being, all I can do is observe their reactions to our behavior and conversations.”
“So, when you talk about getting out of there or killing Ta’Zan—”
“They heat up to pretty uncomfortable levels,” Jovi cut in before I could finish my question.
“But you can listen to us, for example, talking about the same?”
“I can agree or disagree, and offer advice to a certain extent. As long as I don’t get too specific or aggressive,” Jovi said. “The temperature spikes serve as warnings. I’m guessing they may be monitoring collar activity in a different chamber; otherwise, I can’t explain why the Perfects scowl at some of us more than others in this dome. The founders’ group gets the biggest share of the frowns,” he added with a chuckle.
“They don’t record your conversations, do they?” I asked, contemplating a potential hole in our future plans.
“I don’t think so,” Jovi replied. “If so, I and at least a hundred people in this place would be put in glass boxes for sedition, or something. Our escape attempt was foiled by Amal, who’d been looped in on the plan, to begin with. And, given the conversations we’ve had so far with you guys, I think you’d have Perfects breathing down your necks already over there, if they were, in fact, recording our conversations through the collars.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I murmured, nodding slowly.
I heard murmurs in the background, as if Jovi were talking to someone else in a lower tone, before he shifted his focus back to me. “Hey, I’ve got some news for you,” he said. “Isda’s around. It’s feeding time. She said they brought Douma back into the colosseum. She’s with Ta’Zan and Amal as we speak.”
I squirmed at the thought of Douma and Ta’Zan meeting again. Only one of them remembered the past, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Douma would once again become his loyal soldier.
“Douma’s with Ta’Zan,” I said to Varga. “Just as I’d thought. Dammit.”
“Hey, I told you. We’ll get her back, sooner or later,” Varga replied.
“Dude, Douma is fair game as soon as she goes out again,” Jovi interjected. “Ta’Zan can wipe her memory all he wants. If you take her down again and reset her—Ouch!”
His collar was burning. “End of the line?” I asked, slightly amused.
“Yuk it up, Brother. I’ll bring one of these back as a souvenir and put it around your neck for a few days, and we’ll see how you handle it,” Jovi retorted.
“You have a point, though,” I said. “Douma is fair game, now. She can come after us all she wants. I’ll just take her down and reset her, a million times over, if I have to, until it freakin’ sticks.”
“Or, and it’s just a thought, we could just kill Ta’Zan and get it all over with,” Varga replied.
“Yeah, even better,” I replied with a grin.
Ben reached us, struggling to stand against the rising winter winds. My back was almost frozen, and I nearly fell sideways when a stronger gust smacked me. Varga gripped my wrist, then helped me up. Despite his earlier complaints, Varga had a higher resistance to subzero temperatures than me. I’d been toughing it out for a while now, and it was time to go back into the shelter.
The look on Ben’s face, along with his words, confirmed it.
“Rose called a meeting. We’re all needed inside,” he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.
The shelter rose proudly about fifty yards back, its icy tips reaching for the gray sky. The snowstorm intensified, each flake feeling like a needle jammed into my skin. I was the first to dart toward the shelter, and Ben and Varga followed.
“Say no more!” I quipped, grunting as I made my way back through the rising snow.
My brief conversation with Jovi had certainly helped. I planned to speak to Aida the next chance I got. The Blackhalls worked better together than apart, and there was nothing better than the voice of family to guide me out of the darkness I’d allowed myself to sink into.
This wasn’t the time to sulk! Douma was out there, and she needed me. Period.
Elonora
Gathered around the campfire and nestled between the tall, icy spikes of our natural shelter, we were all ready for the next stage in our campaign to take out Ta’Zan and stop the destruction of our worlds—as well as his. Whether he liked it or not, Ta’Zan’s mass production of Perfects would soon have a negative impact on the environment. No matter how ethical Ta’Zan thought he could be, the math didn’t lie.
Too many Perfects in too little time equaled a natural disaster for Strava. I’d been carrying this thought in my head for days now, especially after I’d seen how quickly their diamond colosseums had spread.
Half of my mind, however, was occupied by Nevis’s kiss. I’d yet to wrap my head around that, but my heart and my soul sure didn’t mind what had happened. His taste lingered on my lips, and I had to work overtime to stifle the occasional smile whenever I remembered that incredible moment. I was head over heels for the guy. I had no idea where we were going with this, but it felt so good and soothing to be around him that I didn’t want to let go. On top of that, Nevis had a way of stirring me, of making me want to do more, to be better at everything I endeavored to try.
We kept stealing glances at each other, and he refused to let go of my hand, even when we sat next to Rose and Ben by the fire. Hunter was sitting next to us. Kailani had settled on Ben’s left side, putting distance between her and the white werewolf. She was still mad at him for not telling her the whole truth about her last Word-mode incident. I hoped they’d kiss and make up, though. They belonged together, whether they knew it or not.
Dmitri looked a little better, a glimmer of iron resolve settling in his greenish eyes. He’d stopped moping over Douma and seemed more focused on the solution, rather than the problem. Varga was my rock, giving me an occasional wink and smile, as if telling me, “I can’t wait for us to go out and kick some Perfect ass, Sis!” in his own, boyish way. Varga was older than me, but, somehow, I’d gotten the adult part better than he had.
I stared at the fire for a while, watching the air ripple as the heat of its flames spread outward. The ice spikes of our shelter were too big and thick to suffer any damage. Granted, some drops were falling from the top, but the fire wasn’t nearly big enough to compromise this beautiful, natural structure made solely out of frozen wa
ter. The spikes formed a wall around us, sheltering us from the crippling winter winds outside. The exterior was cold enough to keep the structure intact, despite the bundle of warmth inside it.
“We’ve made it this far,” Rose said as Araquiel and Amane were the last to join the large circle around the fire, which had been started inside a carved hole in the frozen ground. We could see each other clearly from one side to the other, one big band of creatures from all walks of life, coming together for a common reason: preventing Ta’Zan from wreaking havoc throughout the universe. “It’s time we take things further,” she added. “The first part of our developing plan was successfully completed. While it wasn’t flawless in execution, and we lost some good people along the way, we’ve managed something here. But it’s not over. It’s nowhere near over.”
“Well said, sister,” Raphael replied, stifling a chuckle.
“We have a week or so as a window for us to get closer to the center of Ta’Zan’s empire and deliver the crippling blow,” Rose continued. “We’re not going to be able to pull the same trick twice on his ships and his comms blockers. This is our only shot to end this before it gets out of hand.”
“Before Ta’Zan truly becomes unstoppable,” Ben added, looking at each of us, his brow furrowed with concern and determination. Not once, since he’d been here, had he lost sight of the main goal. The man was like a rock, unmoved and unbroken, no matter what came at him.
“Our biggest problem, right now, is the Perfects,” Rose said. “There are too many of them, and their numbers continue to grow, every day. We cannot reset them like we did with Douma or… Araquiel.” She sighed, nodding toward the Perfect, who was quiet. But his eyes, one blue and one green, glimmered with curiosity. “It’s a complicated process, and we cannot possibly perform the memory chip removal surgery on thousands of them at once.”
“No, but we can do something else, instead,” Amane interjected. “I’ve been thinking about a solution over the past couple of days. I feel like I’m close to a resolution, but I need to stimulate my brain into processing everything at a higher speed. I may have a solution for a mass reset of the Perfects, non-surgical and effective. But I don’t have a detailed plan, just some good theories.”
A Shade of Vampire 66: An Edge of Malice Page 2
