Jack sucked in air through his teeth and unleashed a series of focused Kendo strikes, none of which landed. If he could just force Pierce into the corner, where he couldn’t dodge, maybe…
Pierce appeared in front of him and slammed his knee into Jack’s stomach. The blow resonated through him, making his teeth slam against each other and lifting him upward off the ground. Jack fell to one knee and gasped, trying to pull himself together before Pierce could issue the finishing strike.
He looked over at Katie in the empty moment before the fight was over. He pleaded with her with his eyes, all but begging her to intervene. She looked horrified, but still had her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as though she was physically holding herself back.
It gutted Jack to know that she wasn’t going to come to his aid. Well, as much as anything could still gut him after the blow he’d just taken to the stomach. He thought of what the mirror had shown him and how chaotically his relationship with Katie had evolved. It was to the point where she was willing to watch him die rather than actively take his side in a fight.
The scepter hissed through the air like a baseball bat on track to hit a home run. Jack’s body was still stunned from the strength of Pierce’s last blow, but he had a secondary means of reacting. He gathered the blood essence inside of him and hastily formed it into a desperate spell.
Jack cast Shadow Form and slipped past the scepter at the last second. He reappeared in the darkest corner of the room, which was behind Pierce and to the right. He’d been hoping that it would give him a few seconds to recover, but Pierce immediately turned his way and threw himself into a lunge, stabbing the point of the scepter at his head.
Jack rolled out of the way. The scepter pierced through the head of the 14th century vampire lord depicted in the painting behind him. Jack reached out with his free hand and seized one of the heavy stone busts as he stood up, using his vampiric strength to hurl it in Pierce’s direction as a projectile.
Pierce ducked under it. The stone bust shattered as it hit the wall behind him, splashing a few shards of stone and dust onto Katie, who’d been nearby. Jack swore under his breath. The treasure vault was too small and too illuminated for him to fight as effectively as he wanted to. But he suddenly realized that he had another option.
Pierce surged forward on the attack, and Jack gave ground. He slipped out through the open doorway that led back to the previous chamber. It was dark, it was open, and it was littered with bones, all of which he could use to his advantage.
“There is nowhere for you to run to,” said Pierce.
“Oh, trust me,” said Jack. “I’m not running.”
He felt a sense of familiarity in the chamber’s darkness. It was where he belonged. Katie had called him a monster, and now, with her already opting out of intervening on his side, there was no reason for him to hold back. He was sick of playing by the rules.
Jack let Pierce follow him out into the darkened chamber. The only illumination came from the torch by the far entrance and the electric arcs occasionally crackling across Pierce’s body. It left Jack with several options.
He channeled his blood essence and used Shadow Form, fading into the darkness and reappearing behind Pierce. Pierce was ready for him, but that was what Jack had been expecting. They exchanged a few quick strikes, Spectral Sword deflecting off Zedekiah’s Scepter, and then both of them pulled back from each other.
“This is a waste of my time,” said Pierce. “I’m through playing with you, Jack.”
He raised his free hand, and white energy began to coalesce within his palm. Jack tried to rush forward to interrupt the spell and ended up taking the entire blast directly to the chest.
It didn’t hurt, which was a bad sign. Jack was knocked off his feet and through the air, dimly aware of what would happen if he collided with one of the chamber’s stone walls at the wrong angle. He used some of his blood essence to enter Shadow Form to kill his momentum, rather than to execute a flank.
Jack let out a low cry of pain as he rematerialized. His chest was on fire, and though his clothing had not been singed, the flesh underneath felt blistered, on top of the damage to his ribs and muscles that the concussive force of the spell had caused.
“That was a fraction of my strength,” said Pierce. “I could destroy you in an instant, Jack.”
“Then why don’t you?” he muttered.
Pierce chuckled.
“You really don’t understand a thing about how this artifact works, do you?” asked Pierce.
Jack couldn’t deny that, even though he loathed Pierce for his insufferable gloating. He didn’t know what he was up against beyond the fact that he knew it could inflict injuries on him that he couldn’t heal from. He was fighting in the dark. And two could play at that game.
He took a slow breath and gathered the blood essence he had left to draw from. It had been a while since Jack had last fed, and he was running low. But he knew that if this idea didn’t pan out, he would lose, regardless.
“It scared you when Mira bit you,” said Jack. “Didn’t it?”
Pierce didn’t answer, and his smile wavered slightly.
“Vampires,” said Jack. “We’re all about fear.”
“You think I’m afraid of vampires?” scoffed Pierce. “Ridiculous…”
Jack flashed a grin that showed his fangs. He formed a Spectral Hand tendril out of the back of one of his shoulders, lashing out against the torch near the chamber’s entrance. It fell against one of the bone piles littering the floor and snuffed itself out in a manner of seconds.
The only light left in the chamber came from what little spilled over from the treasure room, along with Pierce’s glowing electrical aura. Jack extended more tendrils out, a second, a third, all the way up to a dozen.
He pulled the darkness in underneath him, using Shadow Levitation to rise up into the air. And then, he began to spin his tendrils around him in a violent, swirling circle.
The skulls and bones on the ground began to move along with him, tumbling through the air and rattling as they banged into each other. Jack poured more of his blood essence into his magic, reaching out with more tendrils and pulling the remnants of the fallen ancients toward him. He floated in the air, surrounded by a whirling tempest of darkness and death.
Katie was right. He couldn’t deny it, not looking at himself now. He was the monster, and Pierce, with his sacred scepter and bright aura, was the crusader attempting to put him down. Jack started laughing, the sound of it overlapping with its own echo and adding to the sinister chorus of rattling bones.
Pierce looked visibly unnerved, but he still charged forward, leaping into the air and attempting to bypass the bone tempest to strike directly at Jack. Jack sent a salvo of skulls and bones into Pierce’s face. They didn’t do much physical damage, but having human remains showered against his eyes and mouth was enough to interrupt Pierce’s attack.
Pierce fell back toward the ground. Jack followed after him, propelling himself into a downward strike using his Spectral Sword and Shadow Levitation. Pierce dodged to the side and whipped the scepter at Jack’s head. He ducked under it and floated back into the air.
Katie was standing at the doorway to the treasure room. She looked distressed, and like she’d decided that she couldn’t just stand back and watch anymore. But she didn’t say anything as the two of them continued to clash against each other.
She couldn’t make the choice, and how could she? Was it a choice between good and evil? Or was it a choice between two people she cared about? Or maybe, it was no choice at all, just a case of action and inaction, with grave consequences and no set meaning.
“You don’t scare me, monster,” said Pierce, who was taking slow steps backward, despite his declaration. “And I know what scares you! Your bitch of a broodmother will die, and then we’ll see how much of a fight you put up.”
“No!” Jack dropped to the chamber’s floor, almost tripping over a skull as he charged after Pierce. Pierce
was faster than he was, with the power of the scepter aiding him, and made it through the door of the treasure room first.
Jack charged in after him, and then slid to a stop. Volandar stood in front of the back doorway Jack had seen when they first entered, flanked by two of his vampires, with several more behind him.
CHAPTER 35
For a few tense seconds, nothing happened, and nobody moved. Katie was standing next to Mira, who was still on the ground with her hand pressed over her bleeding wound. Pierce was the closest to the room’s center and seemed unable to decide whether Jack or Volandar posed the greater threat.
“Did you really think you could steal from me without repercussions?” shouted Volandar.
Jack took a slow step to the side, trying to get closer to Mira and Katie.
“Pierce?” he said, in a mocking tone. “I’m pretty that question was directed at you.”
“Zedekiah’s Scepter was a weapon intended to slay vampires,” said Pierce. “I’m returning it to its original purpose.”
Pierce faced off against Volandar and his vampires. More of them came down into the treasure room, crowding into the space around the door leading to the surface. Jack crouched down next to Mira, trying to think of a way to get them out of there.
“It’s my weapon,” said Volandar. “Not yours.”
“I beg to differ.” Pierce ran a finger along the length of the scepter, flashing a dark smile.
Volandar snarled and hurled himself forward, with two of his lackeys moving alongside him. He swiped a claw at Pierce, who stepped out of the way. The limitations of the small room meant that the only place for him to retreat to was back into the bone chamber. Volandar and most of the vampires with him immediately followed, but not all of them.
“Time for us to go,” whispered Jack. He lifted one of Mira’s arms over his shoulder, and she let out a tiny gasp of pain.
“Something… isn’t right,” whispered Mira. “My injury is affecting me more than it should be. Both in how freely it’s bleeding, and… in the pain.”
Jack frowned and took another look at her shoulder. He couldn’t tell much from the gash, other than that it clearly hadn’t started healing. He caught sight of her eyes and almost had to do a double take.
Even in the sunlight, when Mira wasn’t able to use her vampiric abilities, her blue eyes normally still had flecks of rust red within them. Except now, they were a uniform blue, like the surface of a deep lake on a calm day.
“Don’t worry,” said Jack. “Just focus on your breathing.”
He helped her to her feet, and then almost ran straight into the vampire Volandar had left to guard the door leading to the surface. The vampire took a step toward them, intent on performing the task he’d been left to. Jack couldn’t fight him and help Mira at the same time, but maybe he didn’t have to.
“Katie!” he hissed. “A little help?”
She still seemed stunned and unsure of herself, but she glanced up as Jack spoke. The look she gave him and Mira was the same unnerved, disgusted scowl he’d seen so many times before. It made him want to shout at her and point out how the situation they were in was entirely Pierce’s fault for going rogue. But there was no time for that or for airing out the emotional baggage brewing between them.
Katie nodded and hurried over, sliding to take Jack’s place underneath Mira’s shoulder. The vampire surged forward to attack them. He was fast, but Jack’s encounter with Pine had taught him the best way to kill a vampire as a blood mage.
Using his Spectral Hand tendrils, he seized the vampire by the arms and held him out straight. The vampire snarled and snapped his teeth at Jack like a rabid dog. And so Jack put him down like one, stabbing his Spectral Sword forward through the vampire’s chest. It might have been a wound the vampire could still eventually recover from with accelerated healing, but it was enough to remove him from their path.
The stairs leading to the surface were thick with dust and cobwebs. The battle being waged in the chamber behind them illuminated the first few feet with flashes of bright light, along with shaking the steps underneath their feet. Jack let Katie and Mira walk ahead of him, and kept his attention focused behind them, in case one of the vampires decided to give chase.
The stairs exited out of a rocky cliffside and up to an open clearing. It was the middle of a moonlit night, and Jack was unsure whether that was something that would work in their favor or not. If Volandar and his vampires defeated Pierce, they would immediately give pursuit. And if Pierce won…
Another plume of dust shot out of the stairway they’d just exited, along with a flash of bluish silver light. Jack swore under his breath and moved to help Katie with Mira.
“Let’s head for the trees,” he said. “If we’re quick enough, we can loop back around to the keep and use the car Mira rented to escape.”
“We have to go back and help Pierce,” said Katie. “We can’t just fucking leave him!”
Jack stared at her for a couple of seconds, trying to keep his frustration from pouring out in a salvo of four letter words.
“Did you miss the part where he was trying to kill me, Katie?” asked Jack.
He started helping Mira, who was still clearly in pain, toward the trees. Katie let out an exasperated noise and reluctantly followed alongside him. They found a hiding spot as soon as they were out of the clearing, dropping down amidst thick, leafy bushes, where they could watch without being found. Trying to escape any further would have been pointless, given how slowly they’d have to move while helping Mira along.
Flashes of bright light continued to erupt from the door leading down to the vaults, along with screams loud enough to pierce through the night. The ground shook a couple of times, rumbling with enough force to be comparable to some of the earthquakes Jack had experienced over the course of his life.
The screams slowly died off. Jack was beginning to hope that the battle had ended in mutual destruction when a panicked and panting Volandar emerged from the doorway, running at full tilt. It was almost hard to recognize him. The once proud vampire was now covered in blood, and one of his arms hung at a loose angle, like a sausage link rather than a movable limb.
Pierce walked up the steps slowly, rather than giving a proper chase. He was also covered in blood, though the cruel smile on his face suggested that very little of it was his own. He still had a faint white aura, and small arcs of blue electricity danced across his body like the effects of a disco light. The supernatural effects coursing over him seemed like an elegant contrast to the crimson gore his upper body was spattered with.
Pierce slammed the blunt haft of Zedekiah’s Scepter into Volandar’s head, knocking him completely off his feet. From the way Volandar’s arm looked, Jack was sure that he’d already suffered injuries that he couldn’t heal from, much in the same way Mira had.
A small part of Jack wanted to seize the opportunity. If he could surprise Pierce now, perhaps Volandar and whichever of the other vampires remained could lend their aid in defeating him. But it wasn’t like in the movies. Honor and bravery didn’t matter much when his opponent was wielding an ancient artifact that could counter his own magical abilities.
It wasn’t as though he could trust Volandar either, even given the situation. It wasn’t as though he ever could have, from the beginning. The enemy of his enemy wasn’t his friend if that enemy was also still his enemy, under the current circumstances.
“Corrupted…” muttered Volandar, spitting blood to get the word out. “The scepter… is corrupted, you fool!”
“That isn’t the right word for it,” said Pierce. “Oh, no. Zedekiah’s Scepter is not corrupted. It’s old magic. A weapon with an opinion about what evil is, and how the righteous should vanquish it.”
He slammed the blunt portion of the scepter down on Volandar’s back. It would have been easy for Pierce to finish the vampire, if he’d wanted to. His actions were an echo of his words, as though obtaining the artifact had convinced him that evildoers needed to
be tortured before being destroyed.
“Help,” croaked Volandar. “Please…”
Who was he calling out to? He didn’t look in the direction of Jack and the others, thankfully. But he must have known that they were still nearby.
Jack didn’t consider helping Volandar, not even in passing. If the situation had been different, maybe he would have. He still felt a nagging desire to find out what Volandar truly knew about his father, and it was even more compelling now, after his encounter with the cursed mirror.
But he had Mira to think about. Katie might even be at risk against Pierce, too, given how drunk on power he currently seemed to be. It wasn’t the type of gamble Jack would make, not with other people’s lives on the line.
Pierce stabbed the top of the scepter through Volandar’s neck, which elicited a horrible, gurgling scream. He wiggled the weapon from side to side, tearing through more skin, and then smashed it down broadside to break what remained of Volandar’s spine. Using the scepter’s razor tip, Pierce sawed through flesh, muscle, and bone, creating a gory mess as he beheaded his opponent.
Without any apparent discomfort, he lifted the fallen vampire’s head into the air and stared into its eyes. Jack watched as Pierce silently mouthed the words “thank you” before flinging the grisly trophy into the woods. Pierce was smiling, and he shivered visibly as more of the ethereal electricity danced across his face.
“Katherine?” he called, in a silky sweet voice. “Are you out there? We can leave now.”
Jack’s heart sank as he felt Katie tense up next to him. This was it. She’d make her choice, and unfortunately, it was one that would condemn both him and Mira to their deaths. Painful deaths, most likely, at that. Could he stop her? If he used a shadow tendril, he could hold her in place, cover her mouth maybe.
No. Katie would put up too much of a struggle for that to work. The decision was hers to make, and strangely, Jack felt a small sense of relief at that. He’d done his part. He’d gotten them out of there, at least.
Emerald Keep Page 21
