Abomination

by Sean Stone

  Richie sighed heavily and turned away. “It’s no longer a simple case of fighting the soldiers. Now we have to find their bombs and render them useless. How are we supposed to that?”

  “I spoke to Bradley and he told me that all of the bombs are being linked to one master trigger. He doesn’t know where that is yet, but when he does he will tell you and you’ll only need to fight your way to that place and take control of the trigger. The only real problem is him finding out in time,” said Arthur, forcing himself to look into Richie’s eyes even as he delivered the horrible news.

  “And the fact that Eloise will have all her soldiers gathered in this one place,” Richie growled.

  “That too.”

  “How do I communicate with Bradley?” he demanded.

  “Here,” Arthur said, offering Richie the mirror that communicated with Bradley’s. “It will glow and heat up when he calls.”

  Richie stared at it for a moment before taking it gingerly in his fingers. The sternness about him melted away as he slipped the mirror into his breast pocket. “This fight is the most important fight I will ever have fought. It’s not about power. It’s not even about revenge, not really. It’s about survival. Not just for me and my Clan. Not just for your Coven or any of the others here in this town. If we lose this fight Eloise will roll out this perverted version of justice across the country and if we can’t win here then nobody else stands a chance.”

  “If I may,” Jacob said stepping forward toward them. “Whilst we’re fighting Eloise where will you be and what will you be doing?”

  “Jacob raises a valid question,” Richie said.

  “Eloise is not the only threat in town. An ancient jinni named Apophis is here. He’s far more dangerous. We’ll will be fighting him.”

  “You mean to tell me that this one jinni is more dangerous than Eloise and her army?” Richie said in disbelief.

  “Apophis killed Nickolas and he did it with hardly any trouble,” Arthur told him and watched the scepticism flee from his face.

  “My lord,” Richie said in shock. “What of Ramsay Aramaya?” he added hastily.

  Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know. Two vampires were down when I left. The oldest one was killed by Nick. The others…” Arthur shrugged, he didn’t even know who was who when it came to the Aramayas.

  Richie nodded, but there was a definite uneasiness to him. “Good luck to you, Arthur, you need it more than I.”

  Arthur gave a polite nod in response and then turned and left the throne room. Now came the difficult bit, returning to the Winters Research to figure out how to kill Apophis. And then letting his daughter walk into that fight to do the deed.

  “What now?” Jacob asked after Arthur had left.

  “As soon as night hits send runners to the other groups and tell them the situation. They need to hold fast until we figure out where the main switch is. Send our best guys looking. If they come across any bombs they are to disarm them if they can.” Richie had four groups of vampires gathered in locations around town, ready to launch the attack at his word. “Charles,” Richie turned to Charles who looked up like a startled deer.

  “Richie?” he replied, shuffling over to where him and Jacob were standing.

  “Is there any way you can find this out? Sneakiness has always been your forte.” It was a trait which he despised, but at the same time he appreciated its usefulness.

  Charles shook his head nervously. “I’m afraid that I had no way of getting close to Eloise. She despises vampires and would kill me on sight.”

  “Pity,” Richie muttered and began walking away. He motioned for Jacob to accompany him. As he left the throne room the six vampires guarding the inside followed at a respectful distance. “This fight won’t be easy.”

  “I don’t think anybody expects it to be,” Jacob replied. “But everyone is ready to fight for you.”

  “I don’t want them to fight for me, I want them to fight for themselves,” he said. There was a pause before he changed the subject. “I’m sorry I didn’t promote you earlier.”

  “It’s fine. Time isn’t an issue for us,” Jacob said politely, though Richie knew he’d been waiting decades for a promotion.

  “It isn’t fine. You have always been one of my most devoted and loyal followers. I was always so scared that if I spread the power among too many elders then they’d rise up and force me out one day. I only gave Charles his position because he had information I needed.”

  “If promoting Charles didn’t cause a rebellion then few things would,” Jacob answered. Charles had never been a popular face in the clan. Richie was surprised that Ramsay hadn’t grown tired of the irritating man and killed him.

  “You’re more popular than Charles by far,” Richie said. They reached his rooms and stopped outside the door.

  “That isn’t hard to accomplish.”

  “No. Jacob my point is the others like you. They respect you. They listen to what you say. You managed to keep the Clan secretly loyal to me even whilst I was incapacitated.”

  “Not all of them,” Jacob replied, ashamed.

  “That couldn’t be helped.” Richie looked at the guards and made sure they were a safe distance before continuing the conversation in a whisper. “When all this done I’m leaving.”

  “What?” said Jacob, eyes wide in alarm.

  “Ssh!” Richie hissed and pulled him around the corner where there were no guards. “There’s nothing in town for me anymore and I can’t stay and be reminded of all my mistakes. Everything I’ve lost. Every night when I walk these halls I see Victor and Isabella. I should have been more understanding with her. Perhaps if I had addressed her feelings for me properly she might not have acted so… rashly.”

  “Richie, we learn from our mistakes and we move on. We don’t run away,” Jacob said plainly.

  “I’m not running Jacob. I’m moving on. There is nothing you can say that will change my mind. I have to go and when I do go I’ll leave the Clan in your hands.” Richie had been considering his future a lot since being rescued and this seemed like the best option.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” Jacob confessed. He clearly wanted to argue about Richie’s decision, but knew it would achieve nothing.

  “You don’t have a choice. Besides we might all die yet,” Richie said and cracked a smile. He patted Jacob on the side of the arm and then walked around the corner and into his rooms. He heard the guards move to the outside of his door and was ashamed at how their presence relaxed him. Fear was something he’d never been troubled by before, but since his torture at Ramsay’s hand he was fearful that something might return him to that state. The sooner he had the confirmation of Ramsay’s death the better. Nick had promised that Ramsay would no longer be a problem for Richie, but Nick was dead. His promise was no longer binding.

  “Security in this place has increased since my tenure.” Ramsay’s voice was hoarse and aged but his nonetheless. Richie’s heart thrummed painfully in his chest as he turned to look at the figure sitting in one of his antique armchairs. The corner was dark and all Richie could see was a shadow, but he knew it was him. He looked at the door, considering running for back up, but that would make him look weak.

  “Do you think you can outrun me?” Ramsay asked, the same mocking in his voice as always.

  Richie stepped away from the door as if to a prove a point. “How did you get in here?” he asked. As Ramsay said, the place was heavily guarded. Even if he’d killed all the guards somebody would have raised the alarm. The guards changed three times an hour.

  “You know I can manipulate vampires’ minds. I can make them see what I want them to see and miss what I want them to miss,” he said slowly. Too slowly. Something was not right about him.

  “So you survived your fight with Apophis and your first thought was to come back here?”

  “This is my Clan now, it’s where I belong,” he replied, a hint of laughter to his voice.

  “This is not your Clan. A
nd your Cult is long gone. Left when you and Michael did. Where they went I don’t know. I doubt they managed to leave town, though. Maybe you should go and catch up with them.”

  “You’d like that wouldn’t you? No, I think I’ll stay here. They answer to Michael now anyway.” Ramsay stood up and stepped into the light. Richie gasped before he could stop himself. Ramsay looked completely different. His skin was pulled tight across skeleton, revealing his bones like he hadn’t fed for centuries. His eyes, once red, were now a dull and faded shade of burgundy. His dark hair was coarse, wiry and grey. He wasn’t even stranding up straight, he was hunched like an ancient old man.

  “Not my usual handsome self?” he said.

  “What happened to you?” Richie asked, all fear gone, replaced by revulsion.

  “Blackwood,” Ramsay said with loathing. “Were he not dead already I would kill him myself. He sucked the very power from my father that Osiris put in him. Sucked it from us all. He never finished the process with myself or Michael, but my father… withered like old fruit.”

  “That’s what happened to us,” Richie said, finally understanding why he and his entire Clan collapsed on the night Nick had taken Ramsay and Michael after Apophis. All vampires were descended from the Aramayas therefore they were all effected by Nick’s spell. Had Nick been successful he might have ended the entire race. Where Richie had recovered without injury Ramsay had not. Ramsay must have been too close to Nick at the time.

  “I thought a bit of blood might fix me up, but…” he spread his arms wide to demonstrate the lack of improvement to himself. “I thought, perhaps I could steal the power from other vampires and restore myself by drinking their blood. Not a bad plan, eh? And even if it doesn’t work, I’ll still get to kill you.”

  Ramsay ran at Richie. Before Richie would never have been able to match Ramsay’s speed, but clearly Ramsay had not thought to test his new predicaments effects on his vampiric abilities. Richie stepped to the side and easily avoided the ancient vampire. All fear for his nemesis vanished in that moment.

  “It looks like your age has finally caught up with you,” Richie said and laughed.

  Ramsay turned to face him, his face contorted in horror as realisation dawned on him. He’d walked into a fight that he could not win. Richie lashed out, striking him in the face and Ramsay screamed as he crashed to the floor. Guards burst into the room in time to see Richie’s foot smash into Ramsay’s face sending blood spraying across the floor.

  “You have no idea how satisfying this feels,” Richie told Ramsay who was now sprawled on his back across the floor.

  “I bet it’s not half as satisfying as the time I spent torturing you,” he said and spat a mouthful of blood onto the exquisite rug.

  “Oh, believe me it is.” Richie released all his fury. His fists rained down on Ramsay’s face again and again, reducing it to a lump of misshapen flesh. The sound of Ramsay’s cries was music to Richie’s ears. He never thought he would hear the ancient vampire cry and the sound was more delicious than hearing Mozart perform live. “I could do this all day,” Richie admitted. “But I have other matters to attend.” He stood up and crossed the room to cabinet in the corner. From inside he took a nine-inch wooden stake and carried it over to Ramsay who had made no attempt to move.

  “All those centuries you spent looking for me. Just so you could kill me and for what? Because I left to have a life of my own? Pathetic.” He raised the stake high and brought it down hard. Ramsay said something unintelligible and Richie stopped, the point touching his heart. “What was that?”

  “You were my friend,” Ramsay said, his voice resigned to his fate. “The first vampire I ever turned. I thought we’d be partners in everything, but you only had eyes for my sister. She stole you from me.”

  “That’s why you became so cold towards me? Because you thought I wouldn’t be your friend because I loved your sister?” Richie said in disbelief. “I could have been both your friend and her lover. We could have all been happy together.”

  Ramsay shook his ruined his head slowly, it had healed enough for Richie to see the sadness on his face. It was the first time he’d seen an emotion that wasn’t filled with hate. “You don’t understand. I loved you, Richard. I always loved you. But you never even looked at me in that way. Only had eyes for her.”

  Richie had literally no words to describe the shock he was reeling from. All this time Ramsay had been broken-hearted. His hatred for Richie had been born out of love. “I had no idea.”

  “That’s because you’ve alway been a moron, but I suppose I was a bigger one. For what it’s worth I don’t think I ever would have killed you, Richie. I don’t think I could ever bring myself to do it.”

  “No. What you did was far worse,” Richie said, anger setting in as he recalled all of Ramsay’s crimes. “You murdered my friends, stole my Clan and then paralysed and tortured me. Death would have been kinder.”

  “I did it because I love you,” he said weakly.

  “That isn’t love, you sadistic fuck.” Richie forced the stake into his heart and watched with a jaded satisfaction as Ramsay withered away completely before him. He sat for a long time staring at the corpse of Ramsay Aramaya and thinking about all he had revealed in his final moments.

  Chapter 36

  Kristen teleported to the house they’d all shared with Nick before they’d parted ways, but found it had been burned to the ground. She looked around, found an undamaged house of similar size just up the road and decided to take that one instead. As she forced her way into the house an elderly couple emerged to investigate the noise.

  “Terrorists!” the old man shouted seconds before Kristen murdered him and his wife.

  She walked through the nearest door into the spacious living room and threw the holdall down on the floor in frustration. She’d killed James. She’d actually killed him. She took several deep breaths to try and steady herself, but it did no good. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She hadn’t wanted to kill him. He wasn’t supposed to leave her. Why did people keep leaving her? There was a tacky looking bar in the corner of the room witch she strode over to. There was no vodka so she settled for rum which she drank neat from the bottle. James had brought it on himself. He couldn’t expect her to just stand by and let him leave, surely? He was smarter than that. She was more angry with herself for being stupid enough to trust him. To trust that he would stand by her forever. She’d known that Dean was trouble from the moment he’d turned up. Maybe she should kill him too. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with ruining her life. Living with the pain of seeing his father die in front of him was a better punishment. A more fitting one.

  She flicked her wrist aggressively and sent out the signal to the other warlocks. There were more pressing matters than Dean Tenson to concern her now. Nick needed to be avenged and she had the key to doing so. Several cracks signalled the arrival of her friends.

  “So, eight has become seven,” Cole said, looking around at their remaining members.

  “Was his death necessary?” Julian asked, one bushy eyebrow raised questioningly.

  “It isn’t for you to worry about,” Kristen muttered.

  “We have few rules. Not killing our own is one of them,” Julian chided.

  “That is our concern.” She pointed at the bag.

  Lucian bent over and pulled out the five bottles from the bag, passing them around the group for each member to inspect.

  “Jinn bottles,” Julian said, observing the red and gold one in his hands.

  “They contain the five original jinn,” said Kristen and then she retold everything that James had told her.

  “The assumption is that these original jinn, as you call them, will willingly tell us how to kill their brother?” Lucian asked sceptically.

  “They hate him. He took control of their kingdoms and forced them to serve him,” Kristen explained.

  “However, jinn refuse to murder their family no matter what,” Julian argued.

  �
��The way I see it, there’s no harm in trying,” said Alanis. “The jinn are enslaved to whomever opens the bottles. They will only be freed if it is wished. We have nothing to fear.”

  “Wait, what? Wishes?” Wyatt asked in confusion. “My jinn knowledge is pretty non-existent, but I thought the whole three wishes thing was fiction?”

  “You thought wrong,” Julian informed him. “The master of the jinn is granted three wishes. It is believed that that caveat was added to the curse to stop any one person from enslaving a jinni for too long. Unfortunately, some clever bugger discovered that he could command a jinni simply without wishing and his commands would be uncounted.”

  “The problem there is that you can’t command a jinni to do anything major,” said Lucian.

  “Correct. You can tell them to wash the dishes, but you can’t force them to do anything magical without wishing,” finished Julian.

  “So, we can order them to give us the information we need,” said Kristen smugly. “Where should we begin?”

  “You captured the bottles. You should have first pick,” said Peter.

  “I agree,” Kristen said, smiling. “I’ll have that one Jules.” She held her hand out for the red and gold bottle. He raised an eyebrow pointedly and refused to hand it over. “Sorry. Julian.”

  “That’s better,” he said and passed the bottle to her.

  It was a lot lighter than it looked. It weighed almost nothing at all. She didn’t waste time admiring the art work of it. She grabbed the crystal stopper and pulled it out with a pop. At first nothing happened, then a thin wisp of red smoke wafted out of the bottle and floated across the room. They all watched the wisp as it travelled to the centre of the room and began to expand. Instinctively they formed a circle around it, closing the newcomer in. The red smoke grew larger and larger and slowly began to form a person, although not a normal person by any standard. The figure towered taller than the room would allow and it had to stoop over. It’s arms and chest were humungous, as they took on a more solid form gigantic muscles appeared on the red body. As the head formed yellow eyes glowed and dark horns twisted out of its forehead. Black hair sprouted and hung long. Just before the red smoke turned totally solid there was a pop and suddenly a far more normal and far more human man stood before them. He was still tall, seven foot or more, but his skin was no longer red, but bronze and he looked no bigger than an average body-builder. His eyes were still yellow and his long hair still black. His horns had almost completely vanished. Two tiny points pricked out of his forehead, from a distance they would go unnoticed. He was dressed in simple black clothing, plain trousers and a tight-fitting t-shirt. Around his neck hung a heavy silver chain and hanging from it was a large glowing red crystal like the one that had been stoppering the bottle.