Nocturne

by Natalya Capello

  She pushed at its stomach, but it was stronger than her. With each slurp from the creature, she grew weaker. Ilia needed to hurry. That was if the other one hadn’t attacked Ilia. They might die here. This wasn’t how she wanted to go. Lost in a forgotten place. Would anyone know to come looking for them?

  Arryn shouted her name.

  I’m sorry, Arryn, I got you into this.

  A loud growl sounded from above her and the female was ripped away. Lorelei sat up, clamping her hand to her neck. The male with the ripped open face was on top of the female. They grappled and clawed at each other, snarling. Lorelei stared at them with her mouth hanging open. Were they really fighting over her for food? Ilia’s song reached a crescendo and two balls of flame flew over Lorelei and slammed into the creatures. They shrieked and separated as the fire raced across their bodies, consuming them.

  Arryn was at her side. He knelt beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “I…I think so.” She allowed him to pull her to her feet. “What happened to the other one?”

  He nodded to the fallen body, half obscured by the sarcophagus. “Headless.”

  Her throat ached as she swallowed. “Good to know.”

  The creatures continued to shriek and race around the room in panic. Arryn stood in front of Lorelei with his sword raised, prepared to bat them back if their dash came their way. Lorelei’s gaze fell on Dae. She would be killed if they trampled her now.

  Lorelei pushed past Arryn and sprinted the few feet to Dae. She lay on the ground with her arm twisted behind her in an odd angle. Lorelei bit her lip. She didn’t know the extent of Dae’s injuries. If she moved her now, she might cause more damage. She had to think of a way to protect her from here.

  She could sing.

  Lorelei shuddered. A wind song would buffer the creatures from coming their direction. The thought was risky. Her song could backfire on her and Dae or mess up Ilia’s song.

  The female slammed herself to the ground and slapped at the flames as it rolled around. The male barrel towards Lorelei and Dae. Damn, she didn’t have much of a choice. Her voice rose in a quick cadence as she concentrated on shifting the air around her.

  A tiny whirlwind rose up with Dae and herself in the center. She locked her gaze on Dae, trying to focus her mind on protecting the girl.

  Please, no visions.

  The male slammed against the wall and went flying back, bouncing against the ground. The fire in his chest flared. He let out a shriek.

  Darkness danced on the edge of Lorelei’s vision and the sensation of falling began.

  Please, no. Just need to hold out for a little longer.

  Ilia’s voice rose above Lorelei’s and the fire flared on both creature until they were just blackened figures in the center, twisting and convulsing. The stench of charred flesh filled the room. Lorelei let her song go and the wind dissipated. She rested her hands on the ground and stared down at her blood hitting the marble as she panted.

  Footsteps sounded on the floor. Ilia knelt beside Dae and stroked her arm.

  “Will she be all right?” Lorelei asked.

  Ilia bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. It’s going to take a lot of Aether for me to heal her. I may not be able to attend to your wounds.”

  Lorelei sat back and pressed her hand to her neck. “I’ll be fine. I just need some bandaging.”

  “I can do that,” Arryn said from behind her.

  He grabbed his backpack from where he had dropped it at the beginning of the fight and brought it back to her. He pulled a roll of gauze and a bottle of alcohol.

  “That seems like a waste,” Lorelei said, eyeing the bottle.

  “Not if it prevents infection from setting in,” he said. “Now lean back so I can get a look.”

  Lorelei tilted her head back, staring up at the barely visible vaults of ceiling, which was also violet marble. Arryn’s fingertips brushed against her shoulder and moved up her neck. Even under these circumstances, it sent a delicious tremor through her. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach and a familiar ache began in her loins. Perhaps when they were bandaged up and Dae was all right, the two of them could find an empty room and a bit of privacy.

  She winced at the twinge of pain when he touched the skin around the bite. Cold reality flooded through her like a shock of ice water. They’d just fought some sort of monsters. Fomorians, most likely. There wouldn’t be a safe place to enjoy Arryn’s touch. She’d given that option up when she’d decided to come down here. She let out a loud sigh and squeezed her eyes shut as he applied the alcohol to her neck.

  “Were those things Fomorians?” she asked.

  “I think they were vampires,” Ilia said.

  Lorelei blinked, playing with the weird name in her head. “Are they a type of Fomorian?”

  “It’s possible,” Ilia said. “No one really knows if they are. They have to subsist off of the living and they can change others into vampires, but it’s not like the way the Miasma infects.”

  Arryn wrapped the gauze around Lorelei’s neck with the edges tickling her skin. The sting of the alcohol began to fade. Ilia was wrapping her own chest with a set of bandages.

  Ilia gently lifted up Dae and moved her arm to lie at her side though it stuck at an odd angle. It was definitely broken.

  “Feeding off the living, So, that’s why it was drinking my blood?”

  Ilia held one finger up and started singing the same song she sang when she was healing Arryn. She moved her hands over Dae. The bruises that covered Dae’s body began to recede and the arm straightened out to normal. The filaments of her transparent wings began to regenerate.

  After a few moments, Ilia leaned back and drew in a ragged breath. “She’s going to need to rest and so am I.”

  Lorelei glanced at the smoldering bodies. The flames had died down, leaving a few embers flaring on the burnt husks.

  “This isn’t the best place,” she said. “Maybe we should go back?”

  “The room behind us is the statue. I managed to subdue it, but I don’t think I completely shut it off.” Ilia glanced at the bodies. “Which I think could be a good thing. That may be what was keeping these vampires trapped.”

  “The necromancer didn’t bring them?” Arryn asked.

  “I doubt it. Only a powerful necromancer could control a vampire. This many I think would try even the most powerful. Vampires have their own leader, or mother, they follow.”

  Lorelei raised an eyebrow. “They have a mother? How? These things aren’t living.”

  “I’m not exactly sure how it works. I’ve only heard stories. She’s known as Daan, the Mother of Vampires,” Ilia said.

  Lorelei sighed. “So, we can’t go back and we can’t stay here. Looks like we need to move forward and find a safe place to rest.”

  Ilia nodded. All heads turned to the door that led beyond. It either opened up to safety or their doom.

  With Ilia exhausted and Dae injured, it felt their doom was imminent.

  6

  Arryn pushed Lorelei back and opened the door. Lorelei peeked from out behind him, holding her breath. What would be waiting to jump them from this point?

  The hallway outside of the door was wide with six alcoves. Dust-covered statues of sidhe males in plated armor stood in the alcoves. The far end of the hall opened with a stone archway. Foot prints trailing back and forth had disturbed the dust on the marble floor.

  Arryn let out a breath. “Looks pretty safe.”

  “Good,” Lorelei said, trying to brush past him.

  He grabbed her arm. “Even so, I’ll go first. You’re still wounded.”

  Her hand went to the bandage on her neck. Other than lingering lethargy, she’d almost forgotten about it. Ilia slumped against one of the walls with Dae cradled in her arms. Arryn was right. Out of all of them, he was the most fit to move first.

  “Fine,” Lorelei said, trying to settle disappointment rising in her.

  It w
asn’t that she didn’t appreciate Arryn’s protectiveness, but it still felt stifling, even when it was warranted, like now. She swallowed it down. Partners were supposed to share the burden. And if they were to be married eventually, they would be partners.

  Arryn strode across the hall to the archway and peeked out with narrowed eyes. After a moment, he waved his hand for her to come forward. Lorelei’s boots scraped against the stone as she walked through the hall. She stopped at the first statue with her stomach tight. The last room with a statue had been a trap that sent her spiraling into a hallucination. What did this one hold?

  The sidhe was made of marble with tiny red veins running through it. Its hands rested on its scabbard with the right over the left as it looked down its nose at her.

  She counted for ten seconds and nothing happened.

  “It would probably be better if you didn’t wait,” Ilia said as she trod behind her.

  Lorelei nodded and hurried across the room to where Arryn was standing in the archway. Another hallway greeted her, and this one split left and right. The left ended in a pile of broken stone. It looked like the ceiling had collapse long ago, judging from the massive amount of dust coating the debris. The right ended in another intersection. Across from the archway where she stood, one lone door stood intact, though Lorelei had some major reservations about the condition of the room.

  “Let’s go right for now.” Lorelei waved her hand for Arryn to go first.

  He stalked to the intersection while Lorelei and Ilia waited at the archway. “The right looks like it has another door and the left seems to open up to a larger room.”

  Lorelei turned back to Ilia. “Should we check the smaller rooms for a place to rest?”

  “It might be best,” she said. “There would be less of a chance for us to get ambushed.”

  “Unless something is already there,” Lorelei said.

  “Good point.” Ilia glanced down at Dae and bit her lip. “Maybe we should scout around.”

  “I’ll do that,” Arryn said. “The two of you wait here with Dae.”

  “You’re not going alone.” Lorelei rested her hand on his forearm. “I’ll go with you.”

  His jaw tightened at he looked down at her.

  She spoke before he had a chance. “I know you want to protect me, but you won’t be able to do that if you end up dead. We barely made it out of that last encounter and all of us had to work together.”

  “Fine.” His eyebrow twitched and he waved at the door across the hall from the archway. “We might as well check this one.”

  He strode to the door and swung it inward. With a nod almost to himself, he turned back to Ilia.

  “This should work for a place for you to stay,” he said.

  The inside of the room didn’t look much better than the hall. It could have been a sitting room at one point. However, the citadel’s fall and time had all but destroyed the furniture inside. Shards of wood, covered in centuries of dust, lay strewn across the floor. Lorelei wrinkled her nose at the staleness that radiated from inside.

  Ilia glanced at the room with a sigh. “It will have to do for now, but please see if you can find a better place for us to rest.”

  “We’ll leave the door open,” Lorelei said.

  Arryn turned toward the intersection and headed to the right. Lorelei hung at the corner so she could keep a better watch on him and still watch the hall where Ilia was. He clutched the handle and pushed the door open, gazing inside a few moments before shutting it with the shake of his head.

  “It’s not much better than the other,” he said.

  “Let’s check the left hall.” Lorelei stepped forward. “Maybe there is a small area we can clean up.”

  Arryn rushed forward to move in front of Lorelei as they continued down the left path. After a few steps, the right side of the wall stopped, opening up to a much larger room. The lights of their lanterns bounced off large rust-covered braziers set into wide, marble pillars.

  The hall continued forward for ten more feet until it forked to the left into a wider hall. Arryn’s light cast shadows off two pillars, thinner than the ones in the large room. The hall they were in would have continued if not for the large pile of stones that blocked it another ten feet from the left hallway.

  Lorelei pointed to the large room. “I think that might be the throne room. Should we try there first?”

  Arryn turned her direction with a deep frown. “I don’t like this. We’ve gotten this far and haven’t run into this necromancer yet. Where could he be?”

  “Further in, I guess,” Lorelei said.

  “What is he even here for?” Arryn threw his hand out at the hall behind her. “I mean, all we come across is dust, statues, and rubble.”

  “And vampires,” Lorelei said. “Don’t forget the vampires.”

  Arryn shuddered. “Do you think that could be it?”

  Lorelei bit the inside of her cheek and stared at the hall behind him. Ilia had said that necromancers couldn’t control vampires. Had this one found a way, somehow? Still, the ones they’d passed had been still in their sarcophagi. If the necromancer had passed them, he or she had left them undisturbed.

  A shadowed figure stepped from the hall to the left and rushed at Arryn with metal blades glinting in light of Lorelei’s lantern.

  “Look out!” Lorelei shouted as she yanked Arryn towards her.

  Arryn stumbled into her. The blades sliced into the space he’d been standing with a whoosh of air. Arryn pulled away from her and spun around with a look of shock on his face.

  Lorelei gasped at the figure that stepped into the light. She was female, if Lorelei could call it that. Her alabaster skin was covered in stitches from her face to her neck and bare shoulders as if she was a patchwork of flesh sewn together. Her long black hair hung partially over her face and flowed down her back. Her neck was covered by a collar that held up the bodice of a black sleeveless dress with a flowing skirt that was short in the front and long in the back.

  “What is that thing?” Arryn asked.

  “I have no clue,” Lorelei said.

  The creature stared at them with completely black eyes and raised two long, thin swords in a fighting stance.

  Arryn pulled his sword from its sheath and stepped in front of Lorelei. “Get back to Ilia and barricade the room.”

  “Like Gehenna I will.” Lorelei pulled her own blade. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

  Arryn stepped forward and swung his sword in an overhead swing at the creature. It brought both of its own blades up to block and metal clanged against metal. Lorelei darted to the right and around so she came up to the creature’s side. With a quick jab, her rapier bit into the female’s side. The creature’s head jerked in her direction. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Was she mute?

  Arryn raised his sword and brought it down for a second strike. The female parried his blow with the blade in her left hand while her right hand slashed at Lorelei. The blade cut into Lorelei’s hip. A sharp heat spread through her thigh and Lorelei bit back the cry of pain. She brought her own sword up in a backward swing and knocked the other away before in could slash through her stomach. With a grimace, Lorelei pushed the sting in her hip to the back of her mind. It was just a cut. She needed to focus on eliminating this thing before it killed them.

  Lorelei spun around to the backside of the creature. Arryn’s foot shot out in a kick aimed at her stomach just as Lorelei struck in an upward slash at her back. The creature ducked to the side and leapt into the air. She flipped over both of them and landed in the throne room. She raised her swords in her fighting stance, waiting.

  Lorelei gaped at her, panting. She glanced at Arryn whose chest heaved as he drew in breaths.

  “I think she might be playing with us,” Lorelei said.

  “Let’s show her how serious we are,” Arryn said.

  He charged the creature with his sword raised in the air. The creature met him halfway and their swords met with the spark
of metal and a ring that echoed through the deserted throne room.

  Lorelei glanced at the throne nestled in the shadows of the back wall as she sprinted forward. Her leather skirt swung around her legs as she twirled behind the creature and struck it in the shoulders. The creature brought her leg up and kicked back, landing in Lorelei’s stomach. The air rushed out of Lorelei’s lungs and pain burst through her center. She took a step back, one hand going to her abdomen as she tried to suck in a breath through her tightened lungs.

  The creature ducked under Arryn’s next swing and slashed him in the chest. The blade cut through his armor and left a trail of blue blood in its wake. He winced but his mouth pressed in a hard line.

  The creature dropped low and kicked out at Arryn, catching him in the side of his knee. He staggered to the ground. Lorelei’s heart sped up and she rushed toward the creature. The creature spun her direction and lashed out at her with the left blade. It cut into her arm and chest, deeper than the wound on her hip. She staggered back. The creature spun and planted a kick in Lorelei’s chest that sent her flying backward. Her breath was knocked out of her as she hit the ground. The world swam for a few seconds.

  Panting, Lorelei rolled over and pushed herself to her knees. Dizziness rushed through her like a whirlwind. The creature ignored her and swaggered toward Arryn. It raised both its swords and rammed them into his shoulders. His scream bounced off the wall.

  Lorelei’s heart leapt in her throat. No.

  The boom of a pistol rang out and the creature jerked back. Her head turned in the direction of the hall. Ilia stepped into the throne room from the hall, already reloading her pistol.

  Lorelei hopped to her feet, sweeping her sword up in her grip, and rushed towards the creature.