by Iris Walker
What was once empty was now shining with a deep yellow glow, slithering inside like molten gold. The veins of color were deep orange, snaking across the glass and pulsing each time Charlemagne moved it to inspect the contents. His eyes were wide with triumph as he stepped towards Calliope and thrust the vial out in front of her. “You couldn’t do it, but I did. I figured it out. Now, you’re nothing to us. This was the only thing that made you important.”
“How did you do it?” Calliope growled, her face a show of despair and defeat.
“Robin was the key. The marks, they channel the energy, they contain it so she doesn’t combust on command, and the vial required the same such design. Now, it maintains complete integrity, even in the presence of all this power.”
Calliope sunk against the invisible prison cell. “You’ve done it,” she whispered. The words were barely audible.
“What-” Robin began, struggling to inflate her heavy lungs. “What is it?”
Charlemagne turned, his eyes flaring with success. “This… this is all the magic imbued into vampires concentrated into a well of pure, unpolluted potential. This is the powerful life force that heals them and keeps them living forever. It’s an unlimited source of energy for casters, the power of a thousand suns, all contained in this one vial. Imagine, just imagine, the kinds of beings we could make with this at our fingertips.”
Icy fear prickled across Robin’s skin as she realized the implications of someone like Charlemagne having that much power at their disposal. Or Xerxes. She shook her head, eyes wide in concern.
“Now that we have this, the equivalent of Jadzia’s Comet, we can complete the ritual that you failed to finish, dear sister,” Charlemagne said in a chilling voice.
“Stop it!” she hissed. “You don’t know that Robin will survive. Her cells were unraveling!”
“It will work,” Charlemagne returned in a cutting tone. “And even if it doesn’t, as I said before, we’ve got another conduit on the way. Get comfortable, and enjoy your last few hours of life, Calliope.”
The caster walked up the stairs, leaving Robin, Calliope, and the twitching woman on the ground in darkness and solitude.
Reykon
They’d moved into the kitchen, with Reykon sitting on a modern chair made of stainless steel and some fancy plastic polymer. Chadwick pulled out a tome with dust practically billowing into the air each time he moved it. Reykon didn’t recognize the symbols written on each page, nor most of the pictures, for that matter.
“You’re using a book?” Reykon muttered. “That doesn’t exactly instill confidence.”
“Relax. I know what I’m doing, I just want to make sure. If you’re going to be my bodyguard, I want you to be juiced to the max.”
Reykon rolled his eyes and glanced at the window, looking at the cityscape in the distance. “Where are we?” he asked.
Chadwick stirred from his studies and peered outside. “I think that’s… um, Miami? It moves around, you know.”
“No, I don’t really know. This whole place is trippy. We just came from Foxborough, Massachusetts,” he said, confusion tingeing his voice.
“Yeah, that’s one of the focus sights,” Chadwick mumbled, looking at the book again. “There are several energy vortexes all over the world. The two in America are Foxborough and Sedona. We use them like red bull.”
“Red bull?”
Chadwick sighed and looked up at the ceiling, trying to formulate a better answer. “Okay, you know how the human astronauts used the moon as a slingshot?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like that, for casters. Being at or near the vortex supercharges us, so we’re able to cast more powerful spells or teleport greater distances.”
“Huh,” Reykon said.
“It’s all very scientific, I assure you,” he said, tapping the book with two fingers. “Right. I think I’m ready.”
Reykon’s chest tightened and he reminded himself of why he was doing this, and who was waiting for him. Who was depending on him. “So, this is it, then? You’ll reverse the pledging ceremony with this?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Okay, just… well, give me a minute.”
“Sure thing,” Chadwick said, looking a little uncomfortable. “I’ll just, go grab something.”
Reykon pressed his hand against his forehead, rubbing the ache that had spread across his temples. The pledging ceremony was the second most important day in a strongblood’s life. The first would be the day you had the honor of laying your life down in service of your House, if it ever came. Even though it was nearly a century ago, Reykon relived the day of his pledging ceremony with perfect clarity.
Borshel Thraxos, their training supervisor, had ensured that they were all perfectly presented, hair slicked back, tingling anticipation in the air. Strongbloods weren’t permitted to access their abilities prior to the ceremony, held back by a magical wall that the casters set deep in the subconscious from infancy. The pledging ceremony represented those first steps to becoming a powerful warrior, to becoming whole and complete. It was a transition into their true potential as an important member of a royal vampire house.
They’d all been so bright-eyed, in their billowing red and black formal cloaks, swords hanging in jeweled belts at their sides. To his left was Reed, and to his right was Serafina, both equally daunting warriors, and their whole trio was an inseparable group that trained together, ate together, slept together, and talked under the stars for hours on late, introspective nights. He still remembered the way Serafina’s wide eyes sparkled as the master of their house stepped down the stairs, adorned in his finest robes.
A stab of guilt and longing cut through him as he thought of Magnus Theudemar Demonte, facing each one of them individually and speaking those words, committing them into his service. Reykon could still recite the vow he’d given to the master vampire, his master, word for word, after nearly a hundred years ago.
Magnus had been different, then.
He hadn’t been so paranoid, so confused and drunk with power. He’d been intimidating, strong, and absolute. A wide smile and a boisterous laugh and wealth a plenty, cast around to all those who were near him. As much hatred as Reykon harbored for the stranger his master had become in such a short time, he held equally as much fondness for the person Magnus had been before.
Before the power grubbing, and the caster’s influence.
Before his obsession with Robin.
The pledging ceremony was more than the chance to finally get to use your abilities. It was a rite of passage, an acceptance into something great. Something bigger than yourself. A souse, in their world, was a family not contingent on blood, but on choice.
And he was about to erase that.
He was about to take it back, to separate himself from the coalition entirely, and become something new. Something that had no real place.
It scared him, truly, and for a moment, he hung there in that fear, reminded of what Robin must have gone through. Her experience had to have been exponentially worse; he’d had a lifetime to familiarize himself with the inner workings of the paranormal world, and she’d been given a matter of days before being molecularly altered by magic and thrown into a brewing war.
But where did Reykon have to go, now?
Magnus was a human, and since they’d been separated, Reykon had no clue where he was. Even if he did know Magnus’s location, what claim did the man have to House Demonte? Magnus was no longer a vampire. The next in line was Cain, and he’d been spreading his destruction around all the other Houses for weeks now.
Reykon didn’t feel a shred of loyalty to Cain Demonte, other than loyalty to knocking the vampire off his seat of power for good.
In a sense, he was already ‘free’, whatever that meant. It would be a good thing, to explore the limits of their race, before they’d been given to the vampires. Especially if he was to be on the run with Robin, he’d need the advantage.
Reykon drew in a deep breat
h, nodding to Chadwick, who’d come back in the room.
“I’m ready.”
“Alright,” he said. “So, I’m just going to need you to call up your abilities.”
Reykon exhaled slowly and drew on that well of power laying dormant inside of him. The red symbols grew, embedded into his skin, shining with a fiendish glow. Exhilaration and power coursed underneath his fingertips, and he spread his arms out, controlling the steady burn of strength.
“Right,” Chadwick hummed, running his fingertips on Reykon’s skin, just like he’d done with the book.
The caster’s eyes zeroed in on those symbols inscribed on his arm, and the crackle of magic grew crisp in the air. Chadwick mumbled a few words, under his breath, a stream of magical mumbo jumbo that Reykon didn’t understand. After a few moments, Chadwick opened his eyes and checked the book again.
“How long does this take?” Reykon asked, watching as his red runes faded and then disappeared, as they always had.
“What?” Chadwick asked, looking up from the book.
“How long does it take?”
“That’s it. It’s done.”
Reykon frowned, flexing his fingers. “That can’t be it. I don’t feel any different.”
“Really?” Chadwick asked, a scowl crunching his eyebrows together. “Well, I know I did it right.”
Reykon stood, pushing the kitchen chair back and examining his hands once more. Like a light switch, his world went black and the cold ground rushed up to his face.
Lucidia
Things had been going well for them, until Darian decided he couldn’t wait for a little snack because the house party they’d had with Clotho had left him ‘weakened’. Long story short, the guards had been alerted to their intrusion after they’d found an ancient vampire master fang-deep in one of the purebloods and hadn’t been too happy about it. They raced through Nero’s stronghold, taking turn after turn as quickly as they could. Lucidia had already dispatched two of Cain’s strongblood guards, who’d made the foolish mistake of attempting her in hand-to-hand combat. Their blood now dried on her knuckles, where the glowing red symbols that channeled her power had risen and then faded.
“This way,” she hissed, pulling Darian down another corridor.
“Where are we going? I do not remember this section.”
“It’s newer,” she said quickly, ducking and glancing around the corner, checking for any other foes. Footsteps quickened, echoing out behind them, and they advanced. “Don’t need blueprints to figure out where they keep the cars.”
They moved quickly, steps barely sounding out against the smooth stone floor, until Lucidia saw a door that looked like standard garage-entrance material. With a silent, clandestine-trained hand, she opened it and they slipped inside.
Large metal lights came on automatically, and Lucidia turned, scanning the box of keys on the wall for something that resembled an SUV.
“You’re quite resourceful,” Darian observed, casting a glance back at the door for a moment before turning towards the rest of the garage.
“Yeah, well, strongbloods handle this arena, so organization’s pretty much the same no matter where you go.”
“Astute observation.”
Lucidia pressed the fob and heard a beep somewhere in the back reaches of the large parking structure. After the experience they’d just had in the cavern, she’d never been so enthused about the smell of rubber and stale gasoline. About ten feet away from the only car with blinking lights, Lucidia felt a prickle of alert race across the back of her neck. She froze in place, mid-stride, and held a hand out to caution Darian. “Someone’s watching us.”
Darian’s head quirked to the side like a bloodhound listening for a squirrel. “You’re correct…” he muttered, a confused expression forming on his face as he turned to one of the black sedans, five down from the end. “There.”
Lucidia frowned and side-stepped, her shoes barely sounding out against the concrete.
She neared the sedan, sleek and shining under the white fluorescent floodlights. Lucidia snuck around from the other vehicle and stepped out quickly, looking to surprise their assailant.
But she could find no trace of a peeping Tom in the car.
Her eyes narrowed, just as she saw a glimmer of movement from the trunk. She heard the click, immediately recognizing the noise as a crossbow being fired. A split second later, a rush of wind shot past her as Darian caught the bolt mid-air. Irritation crashed over her and she pushed past Darian, throwing the trunk lid open and zeroing in on the weapon. It only took her a second to push the crossbow away from her vital organs, and a second further to yank it out of the hands of their assailant.
After that, it got a little strange.
Because the ‘assailant’?
An eight-year-old girl, crouched in a trunk with an even younger boy. Just as Lucidia let the crossbow clatter to the ground, a confused scowl forming across her face, the girl let out a banshee wail and sprung, landing on Lucidia. She felt a sharp pain in her arm, and Lucidia reared back, grasping the girl’s shoulder and wincing in pain.
“Did you just stab me?” Lucidia hissed, wrenching the pig-sticker out of the girl’s hand. She thrashed, trying to break free of the grip, yelling to let her go. Lucidia didn’t waste any time wrapping her arm around the girl’s shoulders and clapping a hand across her tiny mouth. Another minute and she would have woken the whole castle.
Fun-sized Rosie the Riveter didn’t take too kindly to that, but it gave Lucidia enough time to glance at Darian with a confused expression, trying to wrestle the girl into a hold. He narrowed his eyes and moved over to the boy, pulling him out of the trunk.
The girl grew even angrier, thrashing with all her might. Lucidia leaned down and shook her, just enough to be jarring but not enough to hurt. “Don’t scream,” she hissed sharply, before letting her hand up.
“Leave him alone!” the girl cried, angry grunts sounding out as she fought against Lucidia.
“What were you doing in a trunk?” Lucidia countered, voice harsh and commanding. “Other than waiting to shoot us?”
The girl ripped herself free of Lucidia, stepping backward and facing both of them. “My name is Indigo Draxos, and that’s Lewis Easton, a pureblood to Master Trenton Nero. We’re loyal subjects of House Nero, and we’ll never accept Master Cain into this House, so if you want him, you’ll have to get through me.”
Lucidia’s eyes widened slightly at the realization that she was talking to a strongblood in her own bloodline (not that they’d ever done cross-house reunions or anything), and the child of a substantive pureblood family. They must have evaded the intruding forces and hidden out, waiting for…
For someone from House Nero to find them?
Lucidia’s spirits sunk for the little warrior. They knew just from walking through the castle that nobody was launching a rescue effort or a mutiny any time soon.
“We’re on your side,” Lucidia said. “We’re not with Master Cain.”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “I – I can’t trust you. That’s what the others said.”
Darian turned to the side, casting a glance backward at the door. “We must go.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Indigo insisted, setting her jaw.
Darian took a step towards her and touched a single finger to her forehead, faster than she could react. “Sleep,” he said quietly.
Lucidia nearly had to do a baseball slide to catch her before she fell to the ground. Darian had already lifted the boy and started for their SUV.
End of conversation, she supposed.
She didn’t want to wait for whatever guards Darian had heard to reach them, so she decided to follow, glad that they could move stealthily again.
“I would have dodged that arrow, you know,” she grumbled, hoisting the girl up and lugging her over to the SUV.
Darian raised an eyebrow, a slim smile across his face. Lucidia loaded Indigo into the car quickly, and took the driver’s seat, gunnin
g the engine with a satisfying roar. They peeled out fast enough to see smoke in her rear-view, screeching through the maze of cars and rows of tactical vehicles. Lucidia took a left, a small cage coming into view.
“The exit is-”
Lucidia waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Detour. You got one, now I get mine.”
Darian gave a small shrug of approval.
Lucidia came to a screeching halt and hopped out of the car quickly, running towards the gray caged-in supply closet.
Next stop: guns and ammo.
Lucidia’s eyes lit up at the massive weapons stores that House Nero had left vulnerable. Their cage wasn’t even locked. Lucidia herself had publicly beaten a strongblood in charge of security for that offense.
She started pouring weapons into a duffel, amassing more than what they needed, and taking a few collector’s items for her own personal stores. She was just about to return to the car when her eyes fell on a slim black nightstick, and next to it, the newest in the line of cutting-edge weapons that had come out just before she’d broken off in search of Robin. She’d only had the extreme pleasure of using that weapon once before, and she intended to remedy that number.
“Lucidia,” Darian called.
Time to go.
She quickly grasped the two weapons and sprinted back to the SUV, flooring it just in time for three bullets to thud into the impenetrable rear windshield. They peeled out of the garage, blinded by piercing afternoon sunlight as they left red dust in their wake. Lucidia could just make out four figures racing after them on foot, sorely outmatched. A couple more bullets thwapped against the metal, loud in her ears, shaking the entire SUV.
She cast a glance back to the children. They hadn’t even stirred.
“Are they okay?” she asked.
“They’re just sleeping,” Darian said in a simple, calm tone.
Lucidia raised an eyebrow. “I’ll bet you get a lot of requests for babysitting, huh?”
He laughed softly, checking the side mirror and then settling into the seat.
“Don’t they need, like, car seats or something?”
“I’ve met entire tribes and civilizations that threw their children into the raging ocean to see if the gods would will their survival. I believe, despite common opinion, they shall be fine with just the seatbelts, as long as you don’t crash us.”
