The demon spat and cursed the dwarf, threatening him with all sorts of horrible punishments. Sebastian wanted to quip back at the vampire, but he was breathing too hard to speak. He climbed on the cart, and slid on his back beneath the massive vertical crossbow. He pedaled the double crank, drawing back the thick bowstring along with the long, specially designed bolt, until it would go no further.
With everything locked into place, Sebastian fastened his left hand to the release lever with a leather strap. With his right hand, he took out his dagger. He closed his eyes, breathed deep, then plunged the blade into the side of his neck.
The pain was brilliant. The dwarf clenched his crooked teeth, twisted the dagger once, then yanked it free. The blade slipped from his grasp as hot blood gushed across his fingers. The sound of the vampire’s curses dulled. The flickering torches dwindled. The strength spilled from his body and his left arm dropped, dragging the release lever with it. The bolt shot forth with incredible force, piercing the vampire through the chest and imbedding itself in the stone ceiling. The creature let loose a howl of pain that seemed to shake the entire cavern. The vampire’s blood poured through the specially designed, hollow chambers of the bolt, and rained down upon Sebastian’s face, filling his gapping mouth.
The vision drifted away, giving Thad the sensation of falling. Sebastian’s room returned. The lights were too bright, bringing on a headache of migraine proportions. Thad rolled off the cot onto the floor. He crawled along, disoriented and nauseated, until he bumped his head into the wall. He heaved a few times, but didn’t vomit. The sickness passed quickly, but in its absence, the pain of his back returned.
Thad managed to climb to his feet, wiped a string of drool from the corner of his mouth, and pointed a stiff finger at the dwarf. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“My apologies,” Sebastian said, his eyes distant and unfocused. “But I felt it was something that you needed to see.”
“Next time, let’s do it the old fashioned way. You tell me a story and I’ll take your word for it.” Something was wrong with the dwarf. He continued to stare off, as if entranced. He stood stiff, his hands limp at his sides. Thad reached out to touch the dwarf’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Sebastian’s tiny arm shot forth in a blur. He caught Thad by the wrist, then pushed his hand away. “Please, back away. I need a moment. You are disrupting my sight.”
Thad did as he was told, moving as far away from the dwarf as he could. A strange energy filled the room, and he felt as if he were suddenly in the midst of a great crowd. Voices were everywhere. Not loud, or even audible. More like whispers from a fading dream. Sebastian gasped, startled by some unseen image. He blinked several times and looked around the room like he had forgotten where he was.
“What was that?” Thad asked.
“A message from the Watchtower.”
“Why could I hear them?” That wasn’t exactly right. “Or at least sense them?”
“It’s one of the many reasons the Stewards keep me around. I’m not only a powerful augur, but I tend to amplify the gifts of other augurs.”
“Does that mean I’m—”
“It’s doubtful,” Sebastian cut in. He seemed agitated by something. “Merely a byproduct of my various talents. Had I not been showing you my past, I doubt you would have noticed a thing.”
“What did you see?”
A dark cloud passed over the dwarf’s face. “Suhail and his army. The Watchtower think they know where he will be.”
“That’s good,” Thad said, but the fear in Sebastian’s eyes brought a wave of doubt. “Isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“No more riddles. Just be straight with me.”
“Okay, but it won’t improve your mood. The Watchtower hasn’t been very successful tracking Suhail or his army of savages. We locate a few here and there, but something has changed. Savages tend to move across the landscape like a pandemic virus. But now they hide in shadow, attacking in secret. And we cannot see them, even when they feed. Why do you suppose that is?”
Thad shrugged his shoulders. The movement hurt more than he anticipated, but he tried not to let the dwarf see him wince. “I don’t know. They’re good at hide-n-seek?”
Sebastian snorted a short, unimpressed laugh. “Ah, such wit. Yet, you’re not far from the truth. But how does one hide from the Watchtower?”
Thad thought about it a moment. “Well, you’re hiding the truth of Jerusa and Shufah, so I suppose you’d need a powerful augur.”
The dwarf smiled a devilish grin. “Or many lesser augurs working together.”
“But why would augurs help savages?”
“They wouldn’t, unless they were one in the same.” Sebastian sighed when Thad didn’t understand. “What do you remember of Kole?”
“I try not to think about him.”
“Fair enough. As a vampire, Kole had the touch of fire. Did that gift leave him when he turned savage?”
The tumblers began to line up in Thad’s mind. “No, it didn’t. After he fed a couple of times, he could make fire just like before.”
“That holds true for all savages. They keep the powers gifted to them by the vampire spirit. Suhail and his army have taken out many of the Hunter squads. Some believe they were killed. I do not. I think they were specifically chosen to be turned. And with every squad that has gone missing, it means the savages have gained another set of telekinetics, pyro-kinetics, and an augur.”
“And the savage augurs have been hiding the rest of the horde from the Watchtower.”
“Correct. But the question is, why can we see them now? Do you believe it’s just a momentary lapse in their defense?”
Thad shook his head no. “It’s a trap.”
“There may be hope for you yet,” the dwarf said. “Suhail wants more Hunters to fill his ranks. And I sense that’s not all he wants.”
“He wants Jerusa.”
“You may be right, but I don’t think he wants to turn her. He wants to punish her.”
Thad moved toward the dwarf, but stopped short of touching him. “You have to warn her.”
“It’s out of my hands now.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Watchtower has already informed the High Council of Suhail’s location. I have been summoned to a meeting. I can tell them of my suspicions, perhaps stall them for a day or two, but Marjek and Heidi will persuade the others to authorize an attack. I cannot risk sending a message to Celeste. I came too close to losing my hold on the Watchtower when I revealed my past to you. If the Stewards discover that I’ve been hiding information from them, they will punish me with more than whips. If Jerusa is who I think she is, then she will find a way to survive.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then we’re all doomed anyway.”
CHAPTER NINE
Silvanus moved along the soft, loamy bank of the swamp, relishing the silt and mud squishing between his toes. He had lost his shoes a few months back, somewhere in the great Northern woods. Not that it mattered. Nothing hurt his feet, though he still didn’t care for the cold. But it was warm here.
He knelt down, watching the little bit of sunlight that could push through the mossy canopy above glitter-like molten gold on the water’s surface. A large cottonmouth snake swam in front of him. With incalculable speed, Silvanus reached out, snatching the cottonmouth by the tail. The viper cinched its body up tight and struck. It caught Silvanus around the wrist with its large, open mouth, but the beast’s fangs couldn’t pierce his indestructible flesh. Silvanus held the snake up high over his head, and the serpent turned its fury upon his face. The poor creature attacked again and again, never daunted by its inability to bring harm upon its captor. Silvanus admired the snake’s spirit. In the beginning, he’d been just the same.
“You did fight well,” Silvanus said to the snake. “I’m sorry about this.” He closed his eyes, shivering a bit as the simple beast’s life force e
mptied its body and became one with his own. He hated killing the snake. Hated killing almost anything. But the thirst for life had returned and he needed all that he could get.
A gator surfaced not far away, all but its eyes hidden beneath the water. It watched Silvanus, sizing him up as only a top predator can, calculating the price of an attack. Was Silvanus worth the effort? Or were there easier meals traveling the swamps? It was a good-sized gator, lot of life, and Silvanus tried to look as weak and helpless as possible to draw him in.
“Don’t you grow weary of feeding on animals?” The voice was deep, strong, echoing from tree to tree. The gator retreated with a great splash.
Silvanus sat in the mire, then turned to the owner of the voice. He called himself Keenan. Like all the other Divine Vampires, he had no memory of who he had been before hatching from the black shell. Keenan was a well-built man, with piercing eyes, and the darkest skin Silvanus had ever seen. He had a boyish charm that in no way matched his manly voice, and was handsome to a fault.
Standing not far away was Ronan, the other Divine that was charged with keeping Silvanus from escaping. Ronan’s skin was not colored too differently from Silvanus’s. But whereas Silvanus’s hair was curly, Ronan’s was long and straight, like black corn silk. To call him Native American wasn’t quite right, seeing as how he had awakened as a Divine long before they had settled in North America. But it was fair to say his people had evolved into what is known as Native Americans.
“Have you chosen a new name?” Ronan asked.
“My name is Silvanus.”
“A blood drinker gave you that name,” Keenan said. “Get rid of it. Take on a more modern name. A human name.”
Silvanus stood up and adjusted his clothes. They were worn and ragged. Dirty and faded. They had once belonged to Jerusa’s friend, Foster, when he had been human. Now they were ready to rot off of him. “I like my name, but yours could use some work.”
Keenan chuckled, but Ronan didn’t seem to find it as funny.
Silvanus looked around, peering between every tree in this claustrophobic landscape where everything seemed to be green and wet. Foster had died the night Silvanus had killed the savage, but his spirit lingered with Jerusa. The day the Divines had taken him captive, Silvanus had seen Foster’s transparent spirit lingering nearby. The ghost hadn’t returned since. Perhaps, the last drop of Jerusa’s unique blood had finally left him, and now he had no more connection to her. Or maybe she was dead.
A surge of anger rose from the darkest part of Silvanus’s soul. Foster wouldn’t have come to him unless Jerusa had been in trouble. No matter how much he fought, no matter how much he begged, the other Divines wouldn’t allow him to go to her. He hated them for that. They could see beauty and wonder in all things, except the blood drinkers. The betrayal of the Steward clung to them like burning tar, and the many centuries had done nothing to diminish their spite.
Silvanus had the sudden urge to conjure fire and hurl it at them, but he was too weak. The Divines had drained all the life force they could from him. He couldn’t make fire, couldn’t vanish to a new location without their help. They never left him alone. Two of them were with him always, keeping him away from humans and vampires, anything he might feed from to renew his life force.
“How long are we going to do this?” Silvanus asked. “Until the world crumbles and time fades into nothingness?”
At that exact moment, two other Divine Vampires stepped from the murky shadows of the swamp.
“If need be,” Laura said, answering Silvanus’s question. “Or until we can trust that you have truly forsaken the blood drinkers.” Laura, the first Divine Silvanus had ever met, stood on a small, miry island. Her pretty face was pinched in a scowl, and Silvanus wondered if she always looked that way, or if it was only when she was around him.
The other Divine was a distinguished looking Hispanic gentleman with thick salt-and-pepper hair and tightly trimmed beard. He called himself Hector, and he looked very out of place in the primeval swamp wearing his expensive suit and shiny shoes.
“Hello, Laura,” Silvanus said. “I see your opinion of me hasn’t changed.”
“No,” she said flatly, then looked to Keenan and Ronan. “We have him now. You may go.”
Keenan and Ronan vanished without so much as a goodbye. Silvanus would see them again in a few weeks. Perhaps not the same pair. They tended to argue and barter for who had to watch him.
Laura strolled over the edge of the water, her eyes drifting from the dead cotton mouth to Silvanus. “You look disgusting.”
“Thanks. It’s good to see you, too.”
“How long do you plan on wearing those rags?”
“I’m not exactly allowed to go shopping. Besides, why do you care? If you could have, you would have drained me of all life and burned my corpse. Why do my clothes offend you?”
“Don’t blame me. You sealed your own fate when you created a blood drinker. You’re not one of us. You never will be.” Good thing she didn’t know of the time he let the three vampires, known as the Furies, feed from him.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Silvanus said in exasperation. “I didn’t feed from Jerusa out of a desire for blood. She had been—”
“I know, I know. Bitten by a savage,” Laura interrupted. “You drew the poison out of her, and replaced it with your own blood to save her. It’s all very touching, and I don’t care. We evolved past being blood drinkers, and it’s forbidden to return. You have broken the only law we hold to.”
“But I didn’t even know you existed then. How could I have known?”
Laura fixed him with a scourging glare. “And had you known, would you have let the girl be turned into a savage?” Silvanus didn’t answer. “Your feelings for the blood drinkers are a weakness we cannot afford. They are vile, untrustworthy creatures.”
“I understand why you feel that way, but not all blood drinkers are evil. Jerusa is my friend and she needs my help. Please. Let me go to her.” Silvanus looked from Laura to Hector, who pretended to be distracted by the return of the large gator.
“It’s forbidden,” Laura said. “Besides, it’s unlikely she was found acceptable by the Stewards. They don’t allow vampires with scars to live. I’m sorry.”
“Jerusa is not dead!” Silvanus punched a Bald Cypress tree drinking from the swamp next to him, and it exploded into a thousand fiery splinters. The act drained what little strength he had, and he nearly fell over into the water.
Hector caught him just before he slipped into the murky depths. A crackle of life, like tiny bolts of lightning, passed from Hector’s fingertips into Silvanus’s body. It wasn’t enough to revive him completely, more like a sip of water to a parched throat. Hector pulled Silvanus to his feet and left him leaning against the ravaged stump of the Bald Cypress.
“Are you done with your tantrum?” Laura asked.
Silvanus didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. It’s not that he hadn’t considered that Jerusa was gone. He thought about it every day, and every day he convinced himself that she still lived. That he could sense her presence somewhere in this strange world. But with each passing day, it became more and more difficult to believe. He must find a way to escape. He had to know, either way, what had become of her.
“Come on,” Laura said. “Take our hands. It’s time to go.”
“Where are we going?”
“A bit closer to the city. Hector and I need to feed, and you need some new clothes. I can’t stand the smell of those rotten rags any longer.”
Hector took hold of Silvanus’s left hand, Laura his right. The three of them stepped forward, Silvanus yielding to their wishes, and moved from the swamp into the heart of an ancient looking cemetery.
It was a beautiful, mysterious place. Ornate mausoleums stood in tightly packed rows, and it seemed as though they were walking in a city built for the dead. The hands that had erected these weathered statues and memorials were long dead themselves, yet their work had endu
red to become something more than their intended purpose. This was a solemn place, but not a sad one. There was a spirit of defiance fused into the stone structures. In a way, the mortals found a way of tasting the immortality that eluded them.
The golden sun drifted low in the western sky, casting long, grasping shadows upon the ground. There were humans in the cemetery, but they were few in number. Hector and Laura made sure to steer Silvanus in the opposite direction. He understood their reasoning, but it was unnecessary. In order to have enough strength to escape them, Silvanus would have to take tiny bits from several. Feeding from one or even two humans would give him the life force he needed, but would be a death sentence for them, and no innocent creature would ever die by his hand again.
Even if he had all his power back, escape was futile when the other Divines could sense his presence and transport themselves to him. There was no place in the world to hide.
The three of them stopped just as twilight broke, cocking their heads, listening to the many voices of the great city nestled in the swamp. Silvanus had seen the blood drinkers behave in a similar way, but he dared not say that out loud.
Laura turned to Hector. “I’ll go first. I won’t be long. Watch him close.”
“I will,” Hector said. “Just get going so I can have my turn.”
Laura scowled at Silvanus, and he shook his head. “Just go. I have no plans to escape.” Her face pinched in scrutiny. “I don’t get to feed until you do, so go. I’m starving.”
Laura made a step forward, then vanished.
“Why does she hate me so much?” Silvanus asked Hector.
“Who am I to say?” he said with a shrug. “To my knowledge, she doesn’t really like anyone. To her, you’re not much better than a blood drinker.”
“Yeah, I get that. Is that how you feel?”
“I have no love for the blood drinkers,” Hector said as he studied the detailed carvings on a limestone mausoleum. “But I don’t hate them like Laura does. I just find them…disgusting.” He glanced at Silvanus from the corner of his eye. “No offense.”
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