by Nazri Noor
We scattered. The vampires leapt into the fray, tearing into the homunculi with fists and fangs, and springing back when they found that the creatures were equipped with strength that far surpassed human bounds. Diaz shouted as he flung spells across the room, scarlet beams of energy blasting homunculi off their feet.
Sterling, Asher, and I stuck together in our own unit, our backs towards each other for protection. I knew I heard Sterling attempting to strategize, but it was hard to make anything out over the roar and clamor of battle.
More of the homunculi were pouring into the room with each passing minute, replacing those slain by the might of the coven. I glanced at my palm, then the door, waiting for the right moment to tear my wound open, to pay the blood price I needed to give in exchange for the magnified eldritch power of the Dark Room.
Between studying and waiting for an opening, I somehow picked it out. A single homunculi had stayed out of the thick of battle. Now it strode confidently for the center of the room, something at its throat pulsating like a distant star.
It was a gem. A shining, white opal.
“No,” I said, the dreadful realization prickling at my skin. “Diaz. Get your coven out of here. Now.”
I could tell he heard from the way his eyes bore into me for the fraction of a second, but he turned back to the battle, forging on in fury. I tugged on Sterling’s jacket.
“Sterling, you need to get the fuck out of here.”
“I can help,” he said. “No way I’m leaving. These are my kind, and – ”
“Asher,” I shouted. “Your pendant. Use it on him.”
Asher clutched Carver’s amulet, scanning the room, and found exactly what I saw: the homunculus, its jewel glowing rhythmically, like the timer on a bomb.
“Oh shit,” Asher said. He ripped the necklace off his neck, wrenched Sterling by the collar, then smashed the jewel into his forehead. It shattered, issuing a tiny puff of smoke.
Sterling clutched at his brow, his teeth bared. “The fuck are you doing, Mayhew? If you think for a second that – ”
Sterling vanished before he could finish his sentence, teleported instantly to the Boneyard through the smashed jewel’s enchantment. Asher stepped to my side, clinging to my arm.
“You did the right thing,” I said.
“It’s happening.” He pointed at the homunculus. “Look.”
“Diaz,” I screamed.
Too late.
The gem at the homunculus’s throat shone stronger, brighter, until it flooded the entire room with the force of its brilliance. But this wasn’t the smothering light that Thea had once used to blanket the entire city of Valero in a shroud of white. This was something more natural, and more dangerous.
Sunlight.
Twelve voices screamed in dire agony as the raw fury of the sun itself flooded the room, its rays reaching every corner of the underground lair. Those same twelve voices were throttled into grave silence as the blinding light receded. I removed my hand from my eyes. Where the vampires of the coven once stood were only piles of dust. Diaz fell to his knees, his mouth open, his eyes huge with disbelief.
I ran to Diaz’s side, pulling Asher with me. “Stay close,” I said. “Don’t move.”
I reached for the shards of broken gemstone in Asher’s hand, using their jagged edges to carve a fresh line in my palm. I scanned the room for the thirteen or so homunculi still remaining, marking their places in my mind’s eye.
Everywhere but here, I thought, looking at my feet, reaching to the ethers, to the corners of the chamber my soul called home. Bring terror to this world, just, everywhere but here.
Spears of blackest night erupted from the shadows, each skewering a homunculus from spine to skull. Even from where I stood I felt their muscles twitching against my blades, the warmth of corrupted blood running down their razor edges. I felt, too, the tide of warmth running down my palm, the sticky, slick red of my own blood as the Dark Room drank its share of my life force.
I snapped the door shut. The blades vanished, and twelve, thirteen bodies slumped to the floor, lifeless.
“Holy shit,” Asher muttered. “You killed them all.”
He caught me as I stumbled, my knees stinging as I crumpled to the ground. Through bleary eyes I surveyed the room, the panoply of corpses littering what was once the coven’s home, what used to be Nirvana.
But one of the corpses was moving.
We missed one. Scratch that. We missed two. They had feigned death, completely bypassing my assault by blending into the piles of fallen human thralls. The homunculi rushed Diaz, grabbing his arms, one slugging him in the face to stop his words mid-incantation, the other reaching into its shirt to pull out another opal amulet.
Asher broke into a sprint. “No,” I shouted, too winded, too exhausted to chase him, or to even summon another blade from the Dark. Diaz and the homunculi vanished in a flash of white light before Asher could even reach them. He skidded to a halt, shielding his eyes against the radiance, cursing under his breath.
“I could have gotten them,” he shouted. “I almost got them.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Not your fault. We’ll find him.”
“How?”
A pillar of flame exploded in the center of the room. I groaned, clenching my wounded hand as I searched my body for any reserves of fight I could muster. Then the flames cleared. It was Sterling, Carver, and Gil.
Gil spun in a circle, his eyes wide. “What the hell happened here?”
“This was a massacre,” Sterling said. “I could have helped. I should have stayed.” He glared at Asher, his eyes full of accusation.
“You would have died,” Carver said, his voice heavy with authority. “Asher did the right thing, Sterling. Do not fault him for saving your life.”
Sterling said nothing, his fist clenched. Asher was quiet, too, but he stuck his hands in his pockets and kicked at the ground.
Gil bent down, sifting through the ashes, sniffing at his fingers. “This is insane. These were all vamps, all killed by sunlight. I can still smell it.”
“They were murdered,” Sterling growled.
“We have to find them,” I said. “They killed every vampire in the coven, then they took Diaz. I don’t know what they’re going to do with him, but we have to find him.”
“Latham’s Cross,” Sterling said. “That’s our best bet.”
“Then that’s where we’ll head.” Carver swept his hand across my back, and I felt the warmth of his magic seep into my skin, the flow of blood from my palm slowing, then stopping. “This is the best I can afford for now,” he whispered. “We’ll need the rest of our energies to fight.”
I nodded, staring into his eyes, the words forming in my mouth even though I knew he didn’t need to hear them.
“Thea’s behind it all,” I said. “It’s been her all along.”
Carver beckoned for us to approach, and we gathered around him in a tight circle.
“Then we’re going to find her.” He gestured with his hands as he cast a sending spell, trails of amber fire dancing at his fingers as he worked. “And we’re going to kill her.”
Chapter 26
Latham’s Cross was the closest graveyard for miles around the city. It sat on the outskirts, and based on the homunculus’s description, was our only real lead on where to find Thea and the rest of my clones. Drained as I was, I steeled myself, readying body and mind for the inevitable search throughout the graveyard.
We didn’t have to look very far.
The sending spell teleported us to the edge of the cemetery. The pillar of eerie white light humming up on a hill gave away Thea’s position. There was no point questioning her adherence to the Veil.
She’d abandoned any pretense of hiding the arcane underground from the normals a long time ago, the way she’d forsaken her humanity. Briefly I wondered whether Latham’s Cross had a night caretaker. Knowing Thea, he would have been dead long before we arrived.
The open space, the grass,
so many gravestones – it just made the night feel colder. The small dose of healing Carver had granted me was enough to staunch the bleeding, but my palm still felt wet.
I flexed both my hands, testing if I still had the strength left to swordfight with Vanitas. Just in case I had no magic left to give, just in case I needed him. I checked on my backpack, keeping pace with the others as they rushed for the hilltop.
“I’ll rip her heart out through her throat,” Sterling said. “I’ll crush it to a pulp and watch her die.”
“Steady,” Gil said, clapping Sterling on the back. “Keep your head on straight. You’re no good to us if you go wild.”
“Says the werewolf,” Sterling muttered.
“Enough,” Carver said. “There. Do you see?”
We were close enough to be heard, and certainly close enough to be spotted, but the element of surprise wouldn’t have helped us anyway. Stealth was pointless. Thea would know we were coming, which explained why she had a horde of homunculi gathered on the hill.
They stood in a large ring, facing outwards, like sentinels, guarding the wavering beam of light in their midst. A white figure moved among them. I couldn’t find Diaz, but I couldn’t spot an altar, either. I decided that it was at least a good sign.
“Asher, to the rear,” Carver said. “Dustin, you follow behind me. Sterling and Gil, to my side.”
We formed wordlessly into a loose cross as Carver instructed, a flimsy arrowhead with him at its center. I counted at least forty homunculi from the half of the circle facing us alone. I couldn’t make out how densely they populated the hill. For once I wished we had the Lorica for backup.
“Follow my lead,” Carver said, stalking up the hill. Twenty, forty pairs of eyes turned to follow us, but the homunculi didn’t move from their positions. They might have been waiting for us to approach striking distance. Maybe Thea had given them instructions to stand their ground.
Carver spoke a word that was somewhere between a hiss and a shriek, then flicked his hand in a narrow arc. Pale fire cascaded from his fingers, lancing across the front ranks of the homunculi, filling the night with the horrific crack of breaking bones. Some bent over double, others collapsed to the ground, but none, not one, showed any signs of pain. They only stared at us, every mouth frozen in an awful rictus grin.
“These things are messed up,” Gil said.
“You think so? They all have my face. Try that on for size.”
I reached over my shoulder, digging into my backpack’s pocket dimension for Vanitas. Maybe it was a reflex. I knew he still couldn’t fight on his own – and truthfully I had no guarantee that he ever would again – but having him in my hand made some strange difference. I felt armed. I felt almost prepared.
The homunculi parted, or at least the ones facing us did, creating a gap in their ranks. Slowly, like some demented empress, Thea strode forth, calm, confident, regal.
It was only through the traces of her facial features that I could recognize her. She must have completed the transformation that the Eldest had intended. Plates of gleaming white chitin covered her torso, arms, and legs, like armor. Her eyes were totally black, completely insectoid, reflecting the light from their many facets, like shards of obsidian. And in place of hair her head had grown horned protrusions, twisted into the shape of an ivory crown. Yet if this was what the Eldest had planned for her, then Thea should have considered herself fortunate. I remembered Agatha Black, and I shuddered.
As she approached, I caught a glimpse of what looked like junk, piled into a heap on the hilltop, just at the base of the pillar of light. The light hummed and whistled, giving off a dissonant, alien melody. As we neared the top of the hill I saw what the junk really was: all the trinkets, relics, and magical artifacts that the homunculi had gathered for their White Mother. This was another one of her rituals.
“Come now,” Thea said, her voice drifting down the hillside. “Let us not be so violent with each other. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
The flatness of her voice, her outright mockery drove a spike through my heart. I gripped Vanitas harder, my hand slipping over his hilt from sweat.
“We haven’t come to talk, abomination,” Carver said, his voice booming. “We have come to exterminate your filth.”
“Ah,” Thea said, her eyes glittering with malice. “Then let us speak in your language.”
She snapped her fingers. Two of the homunculi emerged, dragging Diaz between them. One punched him in the stomach. Diaz fell to his knees. Thea grasped him by the hair, then settled her talons across his throat.
“Let him go,” I shouted. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“On the contrary: he has everything to do with this. Come closer, and I kill him.”
Gil growled, his claws extending as the flesh of his fingers burst into spurts of gore. Sterling was visibly shaking.
“Enough of this stupidity,” Carver snarled. He slashed his arm in a wide arc, and the hillside glowed with a burst of orange light. Every homunculus toppled to the ground, asleep.
Thea was unimpressed. She placed her hands on Diaz’s temples, her luminescent talons framing his face. For a moment, he screamed. And then silence. He opened his eyes again. They were totally blank.
Thea raised her head. “Serve your purpose, blood witch.”
“Sanguinare,” Diaz said, his voice low, and flat.
All across the hillside the homunculi wriggled back to wakefulness, screaming, clawing at their faces as blood ran from their eyes, their ears, their nostrils. By the light of the massive pillar atop the hill I could see the grass run red with their blood. Something terrible was happening here, and I didn’t know what.
Thea released Diaz’s temples, and his eyes flickered back to brown. They rolled into the back of his head, and he collapsed to the earth. Thea turned in place, surveying the perfect circle of blood she’d inscribed around the hill, and smiled.
“They serve so many purposes, these homunculi. I needed them to retrieve enough magical detritus for my offering, you see. And what better way to cover my tracks than to use your face, Dustin Graves?”
I stared in horror at the corpses littering the grass, knowing that within minutes, all of them would disintegrate into so much worthless gore. “Then why bother creating so many?”
“I needed their blood. Your blood. And the most efficient way to extract so much of it, all at once, was with a blood witch. Far more practical than butchering them all myself. You’ve proven yourself a dangerous adversary, Dustin. As a sacrifice, you would have been incredibly useful. The blood of your brothers may be inferior, but in great enough quantities, it still makes a suitable ingredient for a grand communion.”
Carver traced patterns with his hands, readying another spell. “You know as well as I that nothing good will come of communing with the Eldest, Thea. They will corrupt you into a useless twist of flesh. Fight us, and you will surely die. Cease your madness now. Surrender.”
Thea smiled. “I politely decline your offer.” She raised her hand. “Kill them.”
From behind her, the pillar’s wail grew even louder, a speck of black in its center expanding, until it opened into a rift. A gateway. Tentacles probed the entrance, ebony and slick, savoring the wet air.
“This shit again,” Sterling said.
Gil’s howl curdled my blood. He’d already gone full dog, speeding up the hillside in his wolf form, a glistening blur of fur and fangs and talons.
The first of the many-tentacled horrors stepped through the gateway, shambling jerkily into our reality. Ah. Of course. I was wondering when the shrikes were going to show up.
Chapter 27
I raised Vanitas, following Carver up the hill. “I wish I had more interesting ways to express just how tired I am of this shit.”
Carver led with his hand, clenching his fist and disintegrating three of the shrikes into powder. “I wouldn’t take this so casually, Dustin. The homunculi might have been inferior copies of
your corporeal form, but arcane blood is arcane blood. Thea has performed powerful ritual magic. We must be on our guard.”
“Understood,” I said, bracing myself to meet the shrikes. Sterling and Gil had corralled them near the line of blood traced by the homunculi, but more and more of the creatures were streaming out of Thea’s portal. I shouted over my shoulder. “Asher. Hang back. Don’t get yourself hurt.”
“I can help,” he said, moving faster, keeping pace.
“Stay out of the way, and stick close to Carver whenever you can.”
“But I can help.”
I admired his tenacity, but we didn’t need anyone else getting hurt tonight. I loosed a battle cry as I charged up the hill, slashing Vanitas in an arc and disabling a shrike, hacking off half of its tentacles in a single blow. Mammon’s demonic craftsmanship didn’t just make Vanitas lighter. It made him far sharper, too. I tried not to think of what the demon prince had in store for me in exchange for the sword’s augmented power.
Neither the time nor the place. I chopped, and hacked, and slashed, wielding Vanitas with renewed confidence. Things were so different on the hill at Latham’s Cross than on the night I had first fought the shrikes. One of them had almost killed me then. But not this time. This time was better. I hadn’t even used my shadow magic yet and I’d already downed half a dozen.
Something felt off. This was – it was all too easy.
In the midst of the chaos, standing by the pile of magical ornaments, Thea watched us with cold, unfeeling eyes. She almost seemed bored. Unthreatened. I hadn’t even seen her launch a single spell. She waved her hand, gesturing at the gateway, and somehow more – impossibly more shrikes poured out of the portal.
