Smoke, Vampires, and Mirrors

by Dima Zales

  They’re watching the very show we just left behind, and no wonder.

  When was the last time they showed genuine miracles on TV?

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” one lanky teen says to another. “Real superheroes. How can this not be a hoax?”

  “You saw that hot chick fly,” his friend says. “There were no wires or anything. This shit is real, I’m telling you.”

  Am I the hot chick in this conversation, or is it my mother?

  “You wanted to glamour someone?” Nostradamus says to Lilith as soon as he turns up. “Why don’t you go and glamour those humans to leave?”

  She saunters over to the TVs, and the people gasp. They recognize her as one of the superheroes they just saw on the screens.

  I half-expect Lilith to drink their blood, but she must be too full from earlier because she merely glamours them to leave, as Nostradamus suggested.

  “Did you leave your pet werewolf behind?” I ask Nostradamus, looking around for Marius.

  The seer nods somberly. “If I didn’t, he would’ve died in vain.”

  He puts such emphasis on the “in vain” part of that answer that I get a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  I’m almost sure Nostradamus has foreseen people in our party dying “not in vain.”

  “Leave and don’t come back,” Nostradamus says to Eric and the rest of the teleporters when they bring Roslin and the last of the crew. “It’s very important.”

  When they poof away, Nostradamus says, “Everyone, hide behind the arcade machines so when they arrive, they don’t see us until it’s too late.”

  “Where will they be?” I ask. “We need to know their viewing angle.”

  Nostradamus points at the very center of the room. “The gate will open there.”

  We all spread out and duck behind the arcade games.

  “Here is the plan of action,” Nostradamus says from behind the Galaga machine. “Dirk is Tartarus’s grandchild, the one responsible for the stable gate that’s about to open. He’ll arrive first. He must be eliminated quickly, or Tartarus will be able to escape.”

  “Leave him to me,” Vlad says from behind the Multipede.

  “Great,” Nostradamus says. “The other two critical targets, besides Tartarus himself, are Lug, the probability manipulator, and Heph, the force field master.”

  “I can deal with the trickster,” Chester says from behind the Missile Command. “Should be a no-brainer.”

  “He’s more powerful than you,” Nostradamus says. “But don’t worry. I will help you.”

  “How will we know who’s who?” Lilith says from behind the Space Invaders, and I hear the whoosh of the gate sword activating.

  “Heph and Lug will stand out as the two spawn who look like what they are. The rest of them will have Tartarus’s ability to appear as someone you revere,” Nostradamus says. “Aside from that, Heph doesn’t look traditionally human, and Lug is the one with the wild eyes.”

  “I wonder who I’ll see the rest as?” Lilith mutters.

  That’s a great question. Who does the evil incarnate revere?

  Lucifer, maybe?

  As in, the devil, not my cat.

  “There’s no more time left,” Nostradamus says urgently. “Roslin, your goal is to make the earth swallow the gate—and as many of Tartarus’s allies as possible.”

  “I’ll do it,” Roslin says gravely from behind the Defender.

  Suddenly, I feel an extremely strong rush of anxiety. It’s as if someone not only walked over my grave but also nuked it for good measure.

  Doing my best to stay calm, I peek from behind my hideout.

  The air in the middle of the room shimmers, and a gate materializes there.

  A gate that looks just like the ones in Jaylen’s illusion. The orange plasma glow is fainter than that of the permanent gates, clearly weaker.

  My heartbeat spiking, I watch as a man steps out—and I can’t help but gape at who it is.

  Chapter Thirty

  Logically, I know this is Dirk, the teleporter who created the gate. Nostradamus said he’d be the first to come out.

  What I see, however, is Criss Angel—the TV magician who made such a strong impression on me when I was young and, well, impressionable.

  Does that mean I revere him? I guess it’s close enough. I mean, I do admire the hell out of the guy—but then again, I almost equally respect every famous magician, and countless underground ones as well.

  The weird part is that, at one point, I had a crush on Criss Angel. Now, though, I feel nothing as I look at him—and not just because I know this is a villain’s minion instead of my idol.

  Apparently, now that I’ve had a taste of Nero, I’m ruined for all other men, no matter how good at stage magic they are.

  Two more people step out of the gate.

  One is Lug from Nostradamus’s memories, and the other must be Heph.

  Wow.

  Saying Heph doesn’t look “traditionally human” is like calling a drekavac unpleasant-looking. Heph is vaguely humanoid, but has more in common with a grizzly bear than a person. Given that Heph is the result of a breeding program, Tartarus probably forced someone to procreate with something that was even more bear-like than this—a frightening thought.

  The next people to step out of the gate all look startlingly familiar. One guy is David Copperfield, another is David Blaine. The next pair look like Penn and Teller, while the following two are Siegfried and Roy. As I watch, open-mouthed, A-list magicians keep coming and coming, followed by some slightly less known ones. There are even some long-dead stars like Dunninger, and folks who left a mark as writers of magic books—like Tony Corinda, who wrote the classic 13 Steps to Mentalism.

  The next person to walk out of the gate can only be Tartarus. Who else would I perceive as the man I truly revere, to the point where I even have a poster of him hanging in my room?

  With those signature triangular eyebrows and a mysterious gaze that seems to penetrate your very soul, Tartarus is Harry Houdini.

  Grr. If I needed another crime to add to Tartarus’s infinite list, I’d add “tarnishing the great man’s image.”

  Tartarus/Houdini and the rest of them begin to spread out to make room for more arrivals.

  Roslin must spot Tartarus as well, because the floor of the arcade begins to shake and rips apart in the middle of the room—swallowing the gate along with a bunch of Tartarus’s spawn.

  Yes!

  Except Tartarus himself and a large number of his henchmen remain.

  Too many, unfortunately.

  Roslin isn’t done, though. The asphalt outside the building begins to shake and rise. A moment later, the space around us gets darker because all the windows and doors get covered by the earth—blocking the way out.

  “Get that earth mover,” Tartarus shouts and points at the Defender machine, behind which Roslin is peeking from.

  The henchmen point in the same direction as their progenitor.

  Purplish arcs of energy flow from Roslin to each of them.

  Screaming her lungs out, Roslin shrivels up and turns into a raisin-like shell.

  A spike of adrenaline hits my brain, causing a strange feeling to come over me. I become hyper-aware of my surroundings.

  Using my peripheral vision—and maybe seer powers—I can tell exactly what’s happening all around me, even places I don’t have a good angle on.

  Is this something new I can do, thanks to my blindfold/ lottery performances on TV?

  Whatever it is, it will be handy—same with faster speed and the rest of the boosts.

  “Attack them!” Nostradamus yells from behind his hiding spot. “Don’t let them take us out one by one like that.”

  Right. They may outnumber us, but if we attack all at once, it will prevent the ganging-up scenario we just saw.

  “I know that voice,” Tartarus mutters, his gaze jumping all over the arcade. “Dirk, be ready to—”

  Before Tartaru
s can finish that sentence, Vlad leaps from behind the Multipede and pierces Dirk/Criss Angel’s shoulder with his lance.

  Dirk grunts in pain, then teleports away—taking Vlad and the lance with him.

  The rest of us rush at the energy suckers with a war cry, with me setting my sights on James “the Amazing” Randy.

  Besides being a magician and mentalist, James Randy is a debunker of paranormal claims, so it’s kind of ironic that he—or someone who looks just like him—is going to fight me, a genuine vampire/seer/trickster. I dodge Randy’s swipe with a speed I never managed in my training with Thalia, then break his jaw with a punch.

  Wow.

  I doubt Thalia will be able to beat me so easily anymore. Or at all.

  Getting Randy in the solar plexus, I punch him out, then kick his unmoving body a few times for good measure.

  What’s impressive is that I’m still hyper-aware of the room and what’s happening everywhere, with attention to spare.

  This will be extremely useful for my magic performances—assuming I survive this and get to do them.

  Dirk reappears near the pinball machines, and as soon as he does, Vlad rips the lance out of his opponent’s shoulder and sticks it into Dirk’s thigh.

  With a yelp, Dirk starts sucking the energy out of Vlad, who begins screaming in a very un-Vlad-like manner.

  Uh-oh. How much does the energy suck stuff hurt? I’m not looking forward to finding that out.

  Dirk rips the lance from his leg, breaks it in half, and tosses the bits to the side. Vlad leaps at him and wraps his hands around Dirk’s throat.

  Unable to shake the vampire off, Dirk teleports again.

  Throughout the room, the other vampires are attacking the magician-looking Tartarus spawn.

  Heph—the bear-like one—waves his hands, and an arc of blue energy surrounds him, causing his skin and clothes to shimmer blue.

  “Stop him from casting more shields!” Nostradamus yells.

  Nero is already on it.

  In a blur, he appears in front of the bear guy—who, in that moment, casts the blue energy on Tartarus himself.

  Crap.

  With my improved eyesight, I can see where the blue energy went—a stone in the necklace Tartarus is wearing. A stone that looks just like the one that was used as a polygraph machine during the Council meeting.

  A stone that can harness a Cognizant’s power.

  To support my theory, the stone shines and casts the same shimmering blue glow over Tartarus that surrounds Heph.

  Nero’s claw slices at Heph in a gesture I’ve seen many times before. This is my dragon’s signature attack that usually results in chunks of flesh flying around.

  But not this time.

  With a nerve-stinging sound of nails on a chalkboard from hell, Nero’s claws break.

  They regrow instantly, but there isn’t even a scratch on Heph’s body.

  Nero’s claws can’t penetrate the force field shield.

  With a bear-like growl, Heph punches Nero in the face. Nero flies back and slams into the Punch-Out!! machine, breaking the machine into little pieces.

  Meanwhile, one of our vampires attacks Tartarus and finds the shield there as impenetrable as Heph’s.

  Tartarus focuses his attention on his attacker by sucking energy from him, and soon, the vampire is on his knees, screaming.

  Double crap.

  I was right. That stone in Tartarus’s necklace makes him invulnerable.

  How are we going to kill him now? Oh, wait. Nostradamus said the gate sword can penetrate these force shields.

  I look at Lilith, the person currently wielding the sword.

  She’s hovering just above the floor and has her goddess glamour in full force.

  It doesn’t help. Instead of worshipping her, Tartarus’s spawn attack my mother en masse, and as they do, she shreds them into bits.

  “Help me attack Tartarus!” Lilith yells at me.

  Did she just send some of her luck powers my way? Because in that exact moment, Randy gives me an opening—so I punch through his breastplate and puncture his heart with my fist.

  Jumping over the dead body, I leap toward Lilith, but a new magician gets in my way.

  One I have a sex-toy named after.

  David Copperfield himself.

  “Give up now, and instead of the breeding pits, you can be mine,” faux-Copperfield says in a creepy version of the great man’s voice.

  “No, thanks,” I growl, and head-butt the guy.

  Typically, this maneuver causes stars to dance in one’s vision, but it does no such thing to me.

  I recover instantly and kick Copperfield’s leg, breaking it with a loud crunch.

  “Bitch,” he snarls, pointing his hand at me.

  Energy streams from my body into his hand, and I learn why someone as tough as Vlad was screaming from this.

  The pain is almost on par with that of the Rite. It’s a searing and nauseating sensation that seems to permeate every single cell in my body.

  More than anything, I want to curl into a ball and fall on the floor shrieking and crying.

  But I don’t.

  Extending my fangs, I rush forward to rip into Copperfield’s neck.

  The pleasure of drinking my enemy’s blood dulls the pain of the energy suck, and soon, he stops sucking all together—which is when I break his neck.

  The insane thing is that I’m still aware of my surroundings through all that.

  Dirk teleports again and exchanges some blows with Vlad before jumping to a new location.

  Nero recovers and punches Heph in the chest. The bear-man’s head slams into the CRT-TV of the Pac-Man machine, but not a single shard of glass so much as scratches his skin, thanks to the force-field barrier.

  The Tony Corinda lookalike attacks me, and I tear his arm off, then smack him with it, channeling my inner Lilith.

  Tartarus, meanwhile, turns another vampire into a raisin at his feet. Just like three of his brethren, the poor wretch was unable to penetrate Tartarus’s shield.

  And speaking of bodies at people’s feet, Lilith has her own macabre pile—mainly of magician body parts.

  This doesn’t stop more of Tartarus’s spawn from attacking her. So Lilith shish-kebobs them too.

  I’ve got to hand it to my mother. In terms of damage to enemy forces and stylishness of the kills, she’s the most successful of us by far.

  As they agreed before this fight started, Nostradamus and Chester rush at Lug together.

  Of course, there are other spawn in their way—so they have to fight through them, and it’s interesting how similarly their powers manifest in a fight.

  Nostradamus is able to dodge every blow that comes his way thanks to his seer powers, while Chester dodges every blow because, I assume, his luck makes his attackers miss their target.

  “Will you come and help me?” Lilith yells at me, her voice tighter.

  “Trying!” I yell back, and dodge an attack from yet another David—this time, David Blaine.

  The real David Blaine has been stuck into a cube of ice, buried alive, drowned, has stabbed himself with giant needles, and the list goes on. Compared to him, the Tartarus spawn in front of me is a wuss. When I rip out his clavicle bone, he screams in a shrill voice and passes out, which is when I bash his skull in to make sure he never gets up again.

  At the same time, Nostradamus and Chester reach Lug—who grabs the seer and tosses him at the nearby TV wall.

  Nostradamus’s head slams into a TV, breaking the screen.

  He then slides to the floor and lies there unmoving.

  What?

  That’s it?

  Then again, Lug must’ve gimped Nostradamus’s seer sight, leaving him truly blind.

  Nostradamus’s head wound is bleeding profusely, which can’t be good for his health.

  Damn it. Was this part of his plan?

  It’s feasible, because dealing with Nostradamus has cost Lug greatly. Chester uses the moment provided
by Nostradamus’s into-TV flight to pull out a dagger and stab at Lug’s chest.

  Lug’s luck—or martial arts skills—must help, because he manages to take the stab on his forearm.

  Before Chester can rip the weapon out, Lug shoots the energy-draining arc at him.

  I turn to go help my newfound brother, but Lilith yells, “No! Come here.”

  Reluctantly, I move toward her—which is when two more of Tartarus’s spawn, the ones who look like Penn and Teller, block my way.

  “You’re so dead,” Penn says.

  “So dead,” echoes Teller.

  The real Teller doesn’t speak; it’s part of his stage/TV persona. However, behind the scenes, as a magician, he speaks just fine—and this guy nails his voice exactly, which makes me almost hesitate before hitting him.

  Emphasis on almost.

  Executing the thrust Thalia had drilled into me, I punch Teller out right away—then break a few of Penn’s bones before I put him on the floor as well, permanently.

  Dirk and Vlad teleport to where Nostradamus’s unconscious body lies.

  Dirk redoubles the energy drain, and as he does, Vlad’s scream changes.

  He doesn’t sound like Vlad at all anymore—and in that exact moment, he turns into Kit.

  Wait, what?

  That was Kit all this time?

  But how—

  Of course. She wanted to join us, then went to “get Vlad.”

  The person who came back was Kit herself. She must’ve told Vlad they were switching roles in the upcoming attacks.

  There’s a big problem with this. According to Nostradamus’s visions, Vlad is a critical piece of the delicate puzzle that might lead to our already-unlikely victory.

  Does this mean that without Vlad here we have no chance?

  It sure looks like it.

  Before I can freak out about it further, Kit does something I’ve seen her do once before—and it’s no less nightmarish this time.

  She turns into a drekavac—a xenomorph-meets-dementor creature.

  Dirk must be the bravest person in all the Otherlands. Instead of running away or screaming, he grabs a shard of broken TV screen and tosses it at drekavac-Kit.

  The shard slices the monster’s pustule-infested skin, and the scream that follows is as ugly as the drekavac itself.