A Shade of Vampire 66: An Edge of Malice

by Bella Forrest

  Of course, the challenge was Amal. She was still loyal to Ta’Zan and would never willingly help us. So, I wondered what Amane had in mind to make sure our plan worked. She’d only told us to trust her, that she knew how to handle her sister. She’d been around us long enough for us to do that, but still, I was curious.

  “At least I’m still by Father’s side, doing what needs to be done. I don’t need your biting sense of humor for that,” Amal said. “And you… you were brave to sneak into the colosseum the last time, I’ll give you that. But the second time around? Darling, you should’ve known you’d get caught.”

  “Who caught me?” Amane asked.

  Amal smirked. “You’re definitely dumb, even when you’re next to me, if you think that I’m letting you out now.”

  “You do realize I knew exactly what I was doing when I came here, right? That I could’ve stayed back, right? That I knew you’d sense your own mind expanding, the moment I set foot in this place. Right?”

  The realization made Amal’s forehead smooth, her jaw nearly dropping. Since they both got significantly smarter the closer they were to one another, it made sense that they’d feel each other as the distance between them shortened. Amal must’ve felt that her sister was around, yet there were no guards coming. No ambush. No Perfects surrounding us.

  “Amane… She knew you were coming,” Elonora said, her voice low and her gaze fixed on Amal. “But no one’s here to take us away.”

  Amane nodded. “I know. She thinks I’m an idiot. She hasn’t seen me in two weeks, and she’s already forgotten how my mind works, I guess.”

  “What makes you think there aren’t Perfects ready to lock you up as soon as you leave the sanctuary?” Amal asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Amal, you have to stop this,” Athos interjected. “You don’t want to hurt your sister. At least admit it. You’re just angry she came here.”

  “You shut up!” Amal hissed.

  “Amal. Why are you still in this place, working for Ta’Zan?” Amane asked, crossing her arms.

  “Because you left!” Amal replied. “You left me behind!”

  “You know why I did that. You should’ve come with me,” Amane said, her brow furrowed. “We’re sisters. Our bond is stronger than anything.”

  “No, you broke that!” Amal spat. “You! I did nothing!”

  “And that’s the problem, Sister. You did nothing, while innocent people died. You said nothing, while our Faulty brethren died. And you continue to do nothing, while Ta’Zan builds more Perfects and prepares to infect the entire universe with his spite,” Amane replied, shaking her head slowly. “But this ends now.”

  “You know nothing, Amane. You have no idea what I’ve been doing.” Amal sighed.

  “I need you, Sister. We have to stop them.”

  “You’re a little too late for that,” Amal replied.

  “Hm. So you’re going to do this the hard way, then,” Amane murmured.

  Amal looked confused. But her sister didn’t give her a chance to reply. Amane dashed forward and drove her fist into Amal’s stomach. The move startled us all, and we prepared to intervene. Amal extended her claws and slashed at her sister’s abdomen, but Amane jumped back, then swerved to the side and pushed two fingers into Amal’s neck. The hit was swift and shockingly effective.

  Amal’s eyes rolled into her head, and she passed out.

  Amane adjusted the red lens over her eye and motioned for me to help. “We’re taking her with us,” she said, breathing heavily.

  “What the hell just happened?” Elonora croaked, her eyes wide. “I swear, my brother and I occasionally fight, but nothing like this.”

  “Hey, remember the night I came back from military training?” Varga replied, chuckling softly. “We took our playfighting to a pretty aggressive level.”

  “Oh. Right. Mom and Dad had to summon the guards to split us up. Right…” Elonora mumbled, her cheeks burning pink.

  Nevis blinked several times, clearly surprised. “It got that rough?”

  “She nearly broke my arm!” Varga replied, shrugging.

  “You made my nose bleed!” Elonora retorted.

  “Ah, so this isn’t the first sibling scuffle you’ve seen,” Amane cut in, smirking.

  “Hold on, we’re taking her with us?” Dmitri asked.

  “Yep,” I replied, then picked Amal up and put her over my shoulder, as if she were a sack of potatoes. She was light, her flesh toned, yet soft. In more than one way, it felt as though I were carrying Amane. It was weird, but it also made me stifle a grin, as I looked at Amane and noticed the glimmer of jealousy in her orange eyes.

  “What about Douma?” Dmitri asked. “We came here for Douma, too!”

  “We’ll get there, hold on,” Amane replied, then shoved an invisibility spell pouch in Amal’s mouth, forcing her to swallow. A few seconds later, Amal vanished.

  Amane took hers as well. Once we were all unseen, we could breathe a little better. However, I was still wrapping my head around Amal and Amane’s obviously complicated relationship. We knew that it was strained, but we had no idea it could go to such extremes.

  “You were always planning to bring her back with us, huh?” I asked.

  Amane nodded. “Nothing I say or do will convince her to help me,” she said. “But if she’s my prisoner, she can’t do anything. I can build the device by myself. I just need her close to me for my brain to operate at the speed and level necessary for such a design.”

  “Hey, whatever works,” Elonora replied. “But Dmitri’s right. We need to find Douma.”

  “We will. And I know where to take both Douma and Amal,” Amane said. “There’s a Draenir lab not far from here. I can do my work from there, and it’s a good hideout. Rest assured that, as soon as they start looking for Amal, they will track us back to base camp.”

  “But they won’t track us to this lab?” I asked.

  Amane shook her head. “It’s extremely well hidden, surrounded by running water. Remember, the Perfects can sense me and Amal. We’re lucky in here because they can’t tell us apart when they feel us nearby. But, once we walk out of here, we’re bait. We’re about to leave with one of Ta’Zan’s most prized possessions.”

  “We should get going now,” Dmitri said.

  “Agreed,” Raphael replied. “Let’s go find Douma. I think I know where she’ll be.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “I know this place, remember?” Raphael said, smiling.

  He led us out of the natural sanctuary. Elonora and Nevis followed, with Dmitri and Varga behind them. Amane and I were last, with Amal on my shoulder. Kallisto stayed close to Athos in front of us, keeping a blade to his throat. That seemed to annoy him.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Athos mumbled. “I’ve got Amal here. I am not running away.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t trust you, and, frankly, I find the way you look at Amal a tad creepy,” Kallisto replied.

  That part was true. I’d seen him light up at the sight of Amal, but his gaze then darkened and became irritatingly persistent, much like that of a predator stalking its prey. We knew he had quite a crush on her, but we couldn’t exactly quantify it until we saw him with her.

  I was going to ask Elonora about him, later, but I was willing to bet that Athos had the potential to become quite a stalker, if left unattended. Nevertheless, he wasn’t a problem. For now, he was an ally, a Faulty who wanted to get out of here as much as the rest of us.

  “Hold,” Raphael whispered, his arm shooting out to his side.

  We froze once more, this time faced with something that none of us had expected. We’d stopped in the middle of the hallway, Perfects and Faulties passing us by. Ta’Zan was coming toward the sanctuary, accompanied by four guards. He was headed straight for us.

  “Oh, damn,” Varga mumbled.

  I could almost feel his dread—it echoed mine. We knew it was him from the moment we saw him. The long gray hair, the bejeweled tunic, the bodyguards
, and the overall air of doom that seemed to follow him. The descriptions we’d heard were true. One could feel the end simply by looking into his strange eyes. One blue, one green, like his Perfects’.

  “Do not move,” Raphael breathed.

  “We’re invisible,” Elonora replied.

  “Just don’t risk it. Wait,” Raphael hissed.

  We didn’t move a muscle, watching with horror as Ta’Zan came closer, stalking through the hallway. He wore a permanent frown, and his Perfect guards looked equally worried. They all stopped in front of the sanctuary, several feet away from us.

  “Wait here,” Ta’Zan said to his guards.

  He went inside the sanctuary. I exhaled slowly, watching his tall figure behind the double diamond doors. He stood in front of the greenery, his head moving around. Was he looking for Amal, maybe? She had, after all, come down here to collect toxins for him. I didn’t peg him as a micro-manager, though. He could’ve just waited for her.

  The doors opened again, and Ta’Zan came out. He was livid, his nostrils flaring.

  I instinctively caught Amane’s hand in mine, as if to comfort her, or maybe myself. We were standing in front of our greatest enemy, and we couldn’t do anything against him. Too many Perfects followed him, willing to kill us all and more, in order to further their maker’s agenda. This wasn’t the right time to launch an offensive.

  No, we had Amal and devil-vipers with us, and we had to get Douma out. For now, however, we were frozen in the middle of a hallway, surrounded by an enemy that was unaware of our presence.

  Ta’Zan raised his right hand and pressed a small button on a slick white bracelet that was tight around his wrist. We were all forced to wait, now, until Ta’Zan moved again. My stomach was the size of a marble, while rage flowed red hot through my veins. But my torment was nothing compared to the look on Elonora’s face.

  She had her gaze fixed on Ta’Zan, her hands shaking on her pulverizer weapon. Her index finger moved gently over the trigger. I knew what she was thinking about, but it wasn’t going to do anything unless we swayed the Perfects in our favor. We’d already talked about this. We knew what we could or couldn’t do in the event of bumping into Ta’Zan.

  But this was about to get much worse. Cassiel emerged from a side corridor, all muddy and covered in blood. By the way he was panting, I could tell that he’d really rushed to get here as soon as possible. I figured the button that Ta’Zan had pushed was meant for Cassiel.

  As Cassiel walked toward Ta’Zan and his Perfect guards, I couldn’t help but look at my people. They were all stunned and paralyzed by dread, yet burning on the inside with anger and a scorching desire for revenge. These people had taken so much from us, and they were getting ready to take even more.

  In this case, however, we, too, had taken something important. And she was unconscious, slumped over my shoulder. One of Ta’Zan’s most prized possessions.

  Elonora

  “Give me a status update,” Ta’Zan demanded. “You look like hell.”

  His voice alone was enough to make my blood curdle, my spine tingle in the most unpleasant way, and my stomach churn. This creature was my nightmare, the personification of doom and destruction. He had my grandparents and family friends prisoners in his diamond dome, using their genes to create beautiful monsters. Ta’Zan was the end of days, and I was looking right at him.

  Cassiel glanced around, pursing his lips. “I got in a scuffle with some Faulties, but I’ve yet to find the outsiders in the winter-summer cluster. I will, though. We’re almost there,” he said. “I’ll catch them, worry not.”

  “Abaddon said the same, and, if I’m not mistaken, he’s been turned into a pile of dust. Otherwise, I cannot explain why he hasn’t come back yet,” Ta’Zan replied. “Araquiel also promised me he’d catch them, and… well, he’s somewhere out there, while the outsiders continue to soil my world. So don’t tell me not to worry, Cassiel. Deliver.”

  His tone was clipped, and I knew, from his aura alone, that he was boiling. Anger flared red, but so did concern. He feared us, though he never would’ve admitted it out loud. Had we not been capable of destroying him, he never would’ve bothered with our capture. It was the one thought that helped me retain my sanity and composure as I stood there, motionless and invisible, just several feet away from Ta’Zan himself.

  Cassiel wasn’t comfortable, either, but he’d put himself in this position. He could’ve stayed with us and fought, yet he’d chosen to betray us. We’d left him behind. Well, the ground had opened up and swallowed him, which explained most of the dirt on him—but not the blood. The Hermessi had helped him, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why.

  If this was a double game he was playing, I wasn’t sure if he’d survive. At this point, however, I wasn’t rooting for him. Just the opposite.

  “Father, I am doing my best. You know how close I got back on Merinos. Had it not been for the Hermessi, I would’ve taken them all,” Cassiel said.

  “Do not mention the Hermessi ever again,” Ta’Zan growled. “This is a house of science, not nature gods. I made you an Arch-Perfect for a reason. Please stop talking like a Faulty.”

  Cassiel nodded slowly, biting his tongue. He would’ve said more, but he didn’t. He even neglected to mention having met us back in the woods, outside the mountain town. That, I found extremely odd, reinforcing the idea that Cassiel was, in fact, helping us, in his own, twisted way. It didn’t give me any sense of relief, though. He was still dangerous, because he was extremely unpredictable.

  “I will make you proud, Father, I promise,” Cassiel replied. “How are we coming along with the ships?”

  “As you know, we’ve had to start over because of those vermin. But we’ll rebuild them and launch them. We’ll load them up with an army of Arch-Perfects to lead the way,” Ta’Zan said. “The nearest inhabited world is Asturia, in this galaxy. We’ll start with that, as a warmup session. The Perfects will handle colonization, but your superior brethren will lead the attack. I don’t need millions, now that I have you.”

  Bile threatened to rise, irritating my throat. Ta’Zan was using our genes to destroy us. It was such a slap in our collective face, it was damn unforgivable, and it took an unexpected amount of self-control not to pulverize him right then and there.

  I knew of Asturia. We’d yet to study it, but it was on the far edge of the galaxy. We’d only made it as far as Strava’s solar system in our explorations, in our search for a tropical haven. And what hell we’d come across, instead…

  “That sounds good. How many Arch-Perfects will I have by my side?” Cassiel asked.

  “At least a thousand, by the end of the week. It’ll be more than enough, with your capabilities,” Ta’Zan replied. “In the meantime, however, we may have a problem.”

  Cassiel’s eyebrows went up. “How can I help?”

  “I sent Amal down here to fetch me specific toxins,” Ta’Zan said. “She isn’t in the sanctuary.”

  “Perhaps she’s in the hangar, working on the ships,” Cassiel suggested.

  “She never does anything other than what she was instructed to do, Cassiel. Amal is missing,” Ta’Zan said, a vein twitching in his temple. “And her kidnappers are still with us.”

  When he said that, he seemed to be looking in our direction. Ice swallowed my heart and constricted it. Flashbacks of Harper’s stories from Neraka came flooding in. I couldn’t have this turn into another Infernis bonanza. Shaytan had seen them then, even with their invisibility spell, because of his red garnet. This… This had to be different.

  Ta’Zan couldn’t see us, but the certainty with which he referred to our presence made me shiver. “They’re here, Cassiel. I can almost smell them. I don’t know where, but they’re in the colosseum, and they most likely have Amal. She cannot leave this place. Do you understand me?”

  Cassiel nodded firmly. “I’ll put the colosseum on high alert,” he said. “We’ll do a top-to-bottom search.”

  “Use
thermal scanners,” Ta’Zan suggested. “There aren’t many, but they might help.”

  Oh, no, I thought to myself, horror gripping my joints.

  If they had thermal imaging technology, they could possibly spot us, even if we were invisible. The invisibility spell worked on a visual level, mutating our cells and everything we touched, to the point where they could deflect light. It was a highly intelligent optical illusion, but it had no guarantee against thermal scanners. The spell hid what could be seen. Our body temperatures, on the other hand, were something else entirely.

  I caught Nevis’s wrist.

  “We’ll find her, Father,” Cassiel said to Ta’Zan.

  “Stop telling me what you will do. Just do it. Lock down the colosseum. No one comes in or out until the outsiders are found. Check this level first,” he replied. “The scent is stronger here.”

  Cassiel didn’t wait to be told twice. He took out a small device from his ripped tunic, then pressed a button on its side and started barking orders. “Code Black. Code Black. Our house is on lockdown. Intruders are here. Meet me outside the natural sanctuary in sector six, now. All hands on deck!”

  Soon enough, more Perfects would come here. It was getting too hot, too fast. We had to do something. A sense of urgency surged through me, making my fingers and toes tingle.

  “We need to go, now,” I breathed, looking at Nevis, then Raphael.

  They both nodded. We were in boiling water now. The colosseum was about to become a powder keg and a deadly trap. We still had to find Douma, but I had a feeling we wouldn’t be able to keep our promise to Dmitri this time around. We had to get out with the devil-vipers and Amal, our two most important weapons against Ta’Zan.

  We all wanted Douma back, too, but none of us could have foretold Ta’Zan’s intervention, or the fact that he could somehow smell us! This was one of those unexpected hurdles we’d considered, though, and we knew that the protocols would have to change if there was a risk of exposing us. Douma would have to wait.