by James Somers
“I see you survived your house fire, Oliver,” Black said. “Come to repay the gesture?”
“We can’t destroy you, Black, but at least we can destroy the city you want so badly,” Oliver said.
“Do you really think so?”
“We can try!” I shouted as I fired off a series of lightning bursts.
The strikes hit Black head on, but he barely seemed bothered. As he sought to defend himself, Oliver began the spell that would bind the angel to himself. Black hit me with lightning of his own and fire and a crushing shockwave that sent me tumbling inside my bubble across the palace lawn. Parts of the building began to crumble in the fire and collapse inward.
Oliver worked with his hands in movements too quick for me to follow, muttering a binding as he did so. Something happened. The force of Oliver’s spell began to take hold, and Black noticed. He launched an attack on Oliver. Still safe within his Extension bubble, Oliver completed his work.
Up on my feet again, I ran toward the angel, throwing fireballs like those I had seen Oliver creating earlier. Black waved them away, sending some to drown in the Thames while others were redirected into Westminster. I remembered our battle with Southresh in Tartarus and called for the river to help.
Water breached the banks like a great serpent under my command then smashed into the angel, knocking him down for the first time. He had been merely annoyed before. Now, he was approaching a rage. He got back to his feet instantly, throwing his hands up so that the ground beneath me obeyed his will. Concrete and earth erupted in a strafing line that caught me up within its fury. Once again, my Extension saved me, as Oliver had said it would, but I felt weaker every second I fought with Black.
Black vanished then reappeared almost instantly with a great fiery sword in his hand ready to strike down Oliver. A portal opened behind Oliver, within the Thames, as he finished his binding. It appeared as a giant whirling vortex. Black paused, apparently confused. Oliver took this window of opportunity and leaped toward the vortex.
My heart sank within me, realizing that Oliver would now be trapped within that terrible prison of angels for the rest of his life. As Oliver fell through the portal, ready to be swallowed up by oblivion on the other side, Black was pulled after him. However, he resisted, stopping in his tracks, pulling against the power of the vortex. Oliver was yanked back from the mouth of the swirling whirlpool, but now hung in midair above the river.
I instigated another attack, though I felt my energies ebbing away. Somehow I had to weaken Black enough to allow Oliver his chance. The portal already had hold of him, but Black would not surrender to its power. I pounded at the fallen angel with everything I could manage. He deflected what he could while still trying to pull against the vortex that held Oliver and him through the binding.
Black threw his fiery sword out over the river at Oliver. He intended to kill the man he was bound to in order to break the binding spell. I gave up my last vestiges of strength in a bolt of lightning that arced away from my Extension, striking the flaming sword and knocking it away where it was swallowed up by the Thames.
Furiously, Black retaliated, hitting me with a volley of white hot energy that decimated my Extension and drove me through the dirt of the palace yard. Just as he prepared again to kill Oliver and break the spell upon him, a burst of bright light erupted. The good angel had arrived once more.
The only time I ever saw fear in Black’s eyes was in that moment looking upon one of his own kind come to stop him.
“My lord, what are you doing here?” Black cried.
“Ridding myself of you!” the angel cried back.
Black attempted a defense, but the good angel waved it aside as if Black were me attacking him. He then struck Black with a furious response—an explosion of raw power that sent him reeling backwards toward the river and the swirling water of the portal.
I watched as Oliver dropped through first. However, Black was still fighting to survive. Great dingy wings unfurled from his back, beating frantically in hopes of sending him aloft. But the yawning portal, having already firming taken hold of Oliver, now had him in its grasp.
Steadily it drew him in, meter by meter, until his cries were swallowed up in the deathly silence of the prison awaiting him. The portal snapped shut instantly, and a great influx of water rushed into the vacuum where the vortex had been a moment ago, sounding with the force of a thunderclap. The good angel stood upon the shore watching it all transpire.
I had crawled up from the pit dug by my arrival on the palace lawn. Limping over to where the angel stood, I asked him if this meant we had won.
“Black has been imprisoned in Tartarus,” the angel said. “He can be no further threat to you, or London.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You arrived just in time to stop him from getting away with his plans.”
He smiled knowingly at me. “It was my pleasure, Brody. That was my purpose.”
“There’s just one thing I still don’t understand,” I said.
“What would that be?” he asked.
“When Black saw you…why did he call you lord?”
The kind smile he’d been wearing a moment before slowly transformed into a sinister grin. His eyes glittered with dark light. My previous feelings of hope and joy, while standing in his presence, slowly dimmed to fear and despair.
“You aren’t sent by God, are you?” I asked.
“Did I ever say that I was?” he replied.
Suddenly, the light he emanated had become shadow. I felt like a dying animal in the desert, peering up at circling vultures ready to devour. How had I not seen through his veil of deception before?
“Who are you?” I asked.
His grin disappeared completely.
“Someone not to be trifled with, young man,” he said. “Someone who will not be denied the fulfillment of my plans simply because a rebel like Black chooses to assert himself.”
I almost could not utter my next question out of fear for what the answer might be. “Are you the Devil?”
He laughed out loud then—a terrible sound that seemed as much roaring lion as laughter in my ears.
“Why did you help me?” I asked. “Why not destroy me?”
He stopped laughing then and stooped down to my level. “All in good time, boy. All in good time.”
A shockwave erupted from him that sent me tumbling backward. I landed heavily on the concrete and nearly lost consciousness. By the time I managed to sit up, both Lycean and Sophia were there with me, asking me if I was in pain or in need of medical attention.
The angel, whom I had once supposed to be sent by God, was gone. Yet his machinations had come to pass. Black was in Tartarus and out of his way, as well as Oliver. He was free to carry on unhindered toward the inevitable course of his own plans.
Helplessness
Charlotte stood at Stonehenge unable to put into the words the heartache she felt. The stone arches that had once stood for millennia were now reduced to rubble. Now she understood what trap Black had meant when he had sent Tom after her father in Greystone. No doubt he had made it through somehow. Tom had always been quite clever. But Black had then destroyed the only portal she knew of in and out of Greystone.
Charlotte sank to her knees in despair. Her father and her people were now trapped without a way to sate their ever present thirst. Greystone would become a house of madness if something was not done to release them.
None of the ancient portal arches had been left standing. Not that she could have mustered a new portal if she had wanted. Vampires did not possess such abilities. But she could find someone to do it.
That was the answer. Oliver had the power to create portals almost anywhere. Surely, he could recreate the portal into Greystone here. And if not here then somewhere, somehow.
Charlotte jumped to her feet again. This was not over. There was still hope for her father and Tom and the other Breed. She had to find Oliver, and the only place to start was where she had last se
en him. Tidus.
She sprang into the air, her form changing to the raven almost instantaneously. Rapid wing beats carried her aloft where her course turned toward York. She had been deposited there by Oliver’s portal. She only had to utilize its trace elements to deliver her back inside King Lycean’s throne room again.
The fires that burned Westminster Palace and the Clock Tower had finally been extinguished by using the river in the same way I had used it to attack Black. Much damage had been sustained, but considering the alternative, I felt that it had been necessary at the time and a good plan.
The only problem was the nameless angel. He had deceived us all into thinking he was sent by the Almighty to aid us. He could have been anyone. But I felt like I knew exactly who he was. Whatever his plans, it would be bad.
Lycean had escorted Sophia and me back to Tidus that same night where I received much attention to my various cuts and scrapes and bruises, having been beaten nearly to a pulp by Black’s furious replies to my feeble attacks. I wanted nothing so much as to sleep for days on end. However, once I had received medical treatment and been sent to bed, I lay awake remembering all of the terrible events I had recently witnessed.
I wondered specifically about alternative courses of action that we might have taken to avoid this end. Had it really been necessary for Oliver to plunge into the depths of Tartarus in order to save the city? And the angel, whom I had foolishly assumed was good, why had he seemed at times to help me? In hindsight, it must have always been to accomplish his own evil purposes. Any seeming good had only been a means to some evil I didn’t know about yet. And why would that angel want Black imprisoned?
A cursory tour of the city, two days later, found all of the captured mortals back in London. They had returned, switching places with their doll counterparts. However, no one seemed to know quite what had happened. There was much confusion of mind, as well as unanswered questions. A great number of people had apparently died, for many bodies had been found in White Chapel. Strangely they had been nearly drained of all their blood. Still, it was White Chapel, and the authorities assumed some mass riot had taken place for unknown reasons.
Quite a bit of destruction of property had also occurred, though no culprits had been found to explain it. It had seemed, according to the press, that looting had occurred on a mass scale throughout London. This may have even been the mysterious cause of the fires that damaged so much of Westminster Palace. Of the culprits, only their burlap sacks had been left behind, strewn throughout the streets and homes of London’s confused citizenry.
Ultimately, we were helpless. We had not realized all that was taking place. And we had not taken any road other than the one we now came to see the end of….And was it really the end? Somehow, I thought not.
Charlotte had arrived at Tidus within Lycean’s outer throne room, desperately searching for Oliver. Kron had brought her before the king grudgingly, but at least he had. Things were happening that we didn’t have answers to. Sinister had rescued her from Black shortly before we stopped him at Westminster, but he and his vampire warriors had been destroyed in the process. Charlotte took the news about Oliver’s sacrifice pretty hard when I told her. She seemed to care little about London’s salvation.
“It was the only way to trap Black in Tartarus,” I said.
“We need him,” Charlotte insisted. “The portal to Greystone has been destroyed.”
“What do you mean?” Lycean asked.
“Stonehenge has been reduced to rubble,” Charlotte said. “It was the only known portal between Greystone and the mortal world.”
“Pardon my saying so,” Lycean said, “but your father and the other Breed being trapped in Greystone is good news. They were Black’s allies, as you well know. The mortal’s are safer with them there.”
Charlotte fumed at Lycean’s comments.
“I don’t understand,” I admitted. “Why would your father become allies with Black?”
“The mortals that were taken by the dolls were imprisoned within Greystone,” Charlotte said. “Black not only promised my father power in the mortal world, he promised a captive food supply for Greystone kept there by Black’s spell.”
“Then it’s a good thing the spell was broken,” I said. “All of the humans have been returned. None of them seem to even recall their imprisonment, or the dolls attacking them.”
“But the Breed in Greystone will go mad with thirst,” Charlotte said. “A vampire deprived of blood is far more dangerous. There is a balance that must be maintained. Irregardless of my father’s alliance with Black—which I never endorsed—this could lead to either the destruction of my people, or a frenzy that kills many mortals, rather than the few we cull right now.”
My thoughts immediately fell upon the angel who had done away with Black. As cunning as he was, he might take advantage of a situation like that in terrible ways.
“We’ll just have to make sure, somehow, that that doesn’t happen,” I said.
“How, when Oliver is trapped in Tartarus?”
I didn’t have an answer.
“One thing I haven’t mentioned, Brody,” Charlotte said. “Tom also went to Greystone. He’s trapped with what will soon become thousands of bloodthirsty vampires. They will certainly kill him, if they haven’t already.”
“I’ll find an answer, Charlotte,” I said. “I don’t know how, but I’ll figure out some way to free them and set this right.”
The leaves were beginning to change color already in York. A huge estate owned by a very old family with very old money resided in the countryside. A cool wind, that suggested tumultuous weather may be on its way, blew across the well manicured lawn through the labyrinthine hedges.
Within the garden, there was the noise of battle. The crack of steel upon steel and the heavy breathing of combatants locked in contest with one another could be heard. The young lord of the manor thrust against his opponent and missed, but barely. The challenger lunged then dodged away with expert skill, drawing the young man into his spider’s web. At last the killing stroke was delivered.
The young man backed away in disappointment, removing his fencing mask. “That’s the third time this morning you’ve done that,” he said.
“You’ll get it in time, Grayson,” his opponent said. “You must be patient. All things will come to you in time.”
“You keep saying that,” Grayson answered. “But I’m nearly twenty-five already. When will I go to the city to take my rightful place? The Empire needs me now.”
“All things are as planned,” his opponent said. “You will emerge in London when I say that it is time, and only then.”
The man removed his mask. The good angel stood there in his fencing uniform, examining the young man. “That’s enough practice for today,” he said.
Grayson nodded then turned to walk back toward the house.
The angel called after him, “Trust me.”
Grayson paused, turning his head in acknowledgement.
“Yes, Father.”
Sequel Preview of “DESCENDANTS” Releasing January 2013
Alexander
Charlotte stalked along a building ledge overlooking an alley where criminals were wont to come and hang out following their thieveries and other malicious acts. There was a pub nearby, as well as a brothel operating within a rundown tenement. These villains had everything they required close at hand.
Two men had recently committed an armed robbery nearly a mile away in a dark alley within a better neighborhood than this one. The elder gentleman, who was their victim, had been beaten severely in the process. Charlotte had followed them back to this alley, even as constables responding to the alarm of other pedestrians found their trail gone cold.
She felt the hunger burning within her, a thirst that could only be quenched by blood. Charlotte had gone nearly two weeks without claiming a kill. She could bare it no longer. And these two were ripe for the picking.
Charlotte still pr
ided herself on only culling criminals from the great sea of humanity available to her. She meant no harm to those mortals who did no harm to others. Still, the hunger drove her to feed, and she already knew that she would give in to it if necessary.
These two men were armed, one with a revolver, the other with knives. Charlotte had spotted the weapons during the robbery, though they had not killed their victim. She had no fear of harm. No mortal had ever been fast enough to manage even a scratch.
She heard them speaking, their voices relieved that they had eluded capture by the police. They were still breathing hard from all the running they had been doing. Charlotte could hear their rapid heartbeats drumming in her preternatural ears. It was time.
Charlotte leaped away from the ledge, surrendering to gravity’s pull, plunging toward the men quickly and quietly. She was so focused upon her prey that she did not notice the other predators nearby. As she prepared to snatch the first man, a strong arm grabbed him lightning quick and hurled him into the opposite wall.
Charlotte recoiled from the intruder, realizing who it was when he pummeled the second man to the ground with one blow. “Alexander?”
“Greetings, Charlotte,” Alexander said.
He stood nearly a foot taller than she did, looking down upon her with a mixture of amusement and disdain. His muscular frame pressed noticeably against the simple black clothing that he wore. Alexander was a warrior among the Breed and had been one of her brother’s generals during their time under Black’s thumb. But she had not thought that any of her people were still left in London.
She thought to flee, but her first twitch caused Alexander’s arm to snap down upon her own like a vice. “Don’t go just yet,” he said menacingly.
Charlotte now noticed a dozen other vampires in the alley with them, as well as some on the rooftops above. There was no way she could escape. Alexander was revered among her people. She had seen him fight many times and greatly admired his cunning and skill. In many ways, he made a much better leader than her own brother had.