“Knock it off,” Shufah warned. “It’s a good plan and it’ll work. But getting inside is the easy part. We have two objectives we must… MUST accomplish. Suhail cannot reach the Watchtower, and the High Council cannot become Divine. There are many ways to accomplish these missions. The price of each is blood.”
It was clear what Shufah meant. No matter what, someone was going to die.
Shufah continued to talk, but Celeste couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. A ringing filled her ears, subtle at first, but quickly grew into a warbling siren. The smell of citrus fruit and blood filled her nostrils, swirling together into a saccharine aroma that made her head spin.
The already darkened parking lot settled into an inky fog that swallowed up her companions. Celeste watched in horror as those around her vanished one by one, and she realized the fog wasn’t enveloping them. It was eating them.
Celeste stood alone in utter darkness, yet she could still see herself without hindrance. The warbling siren weakened to a dull whistle that set her teeth on edge and filled her head with warm liquid pain.
A sound like wind rolling through the mouth of a cave echoed to her over a great distance. But it wasn’t the wind. It was a voice.
The voice was singular, not the collective Watchtower. The mind speaking to her was disheveled, scattered, and in great pain. Fear and panic permeated the air like a foul stench. Celeste had the sensation that the speaker wanted to reach out, yet was trying, with great difficulty, to keep the Watchtower from listening.
Fractured images forced their way into Celeste’s mind. It was as if she had stepped beneath a cascade of molten lava.
Though she clenched her eyes shut, she saw a map of the world. The kind where the globe peeled into a mangled collection of parabolas. Three dark spots suddenly appeared on the map, like fire pressed to paper, yet the map didn’t burn.
One spot rested in South America, somewhere in Brazil. The second spot settled in the subcontinent of India. The third spot appeared at the northern tip of Africa.
The map suddenly expanded, as if Celeste were hovering over the actual Earth. The expanse of land beneath her was too large for even her vampiric eyes to take in all at once. The sensation of floating, as though she were drifting in space, made her want to vomit.
A hissing drifted up from the dark spots, and Celeste’s skin went as cold as a corpse’s. The spots didn’t like her watching them. Didn’t want her to see them. Were warning her to stay away. But the mumbling voice that had broken into her mind groaned out two words: “Seek. Destroy.”
The map flickered out of existence, like a fluorescent bulb at the end of its life. This terrified Celeste more than anything she had witnessed, for every time the map vanished, she found herself alone, floating in an endless black space.
The time that the map was present grew shorter, and the blackness grew longer. Just before the map blinked out of existence for good, Celeste noticed a fourth and much smaller spot on the map. It stood out against the blue of the Pacific Ocean… and it was moving westward.
Then the map vanished for good, and Celeste plummeted. Not down. There was no down. Her body accelerated like a comet through the void, turning her stomach into mush. This time, she did vomit.
The voice shouted out in the darkness, repeating a series of numbers over and over and over again. Celeste wanted to shout back that she didn’t understand, but her mouth was full of blood.
A light appeared before her, like a bright blue star set light-years away. Celeste fell toward the light, which grew larger and brighter until she could see that it wasn’t a star at all.
It was a young girl with pale skin, and brown hair styled in a fancy bun. She wore no shoes, but donned a beautiful blue dress.
Celeste collided with the young girl and it felt as though all of creation exploded. The next thing she remembered was opening her eyes, lying on her back in the middle of the parking lot, with her friends looking down upon her with utter fear.
Chapter Four
It was just another plush yacht to the unobservant eye, but look close enough and you’d see the difference.
The prison cells, each with thick steel walls, in the lowest deck were the first clue that something aboard this ship was amiss. There were sixteen cells in total—five along three adjacent walls. His cell, though in the same room, stood alone on the remaining wall.
The High Council were afraid he would escape—like he had the Ice Sanctuary—free the other fifteen prisoners and lead a mutiny.
It was a pleasant thought, but one well out of the grasp of even his brilliant, scheming mind. First, the steel was too thick to break through. Maybe one of the true ancient vampires, if given enough time, could deal enough damage to dislodge the door. His tiny frame, however, made that a moot point.
Second, even if he escaped, he had no way of freeing the other fifteen. The doors were held fast by biometric locks that only respond to blood samples from one of the three Council members.
Third, the other fifteen prisoners were fresh fledglings, born of the bite, denied even a single drop of blood, except maybe their own. The fledglings, mad with starvation, would most likely feed on him as soon as the door opened.
Last, they were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Where could he go? If he made it topside, and also somehow timed it when the sun wasn’t up, what then? Just bail over the side and swim? Knowing his luck and swimming skills, he’d just get swallowed by an orca.
Footsteps, barely audible through the thick metal (or maybe he just psychically sensed them), approached his cell. Three vampires and one human stood outside his door.
Othella, Cot, and Mathias—the three surviving members of the High Council—were the only vampires running free aboard this ship, so he didn’t need to be the most powerful augur alive to figure out who it was.
The human, however… most likely one of the infected human slaves running the yacht for the vampires.
The Dwarf’s face flushed hot at the memory of the night that incessant blabber-mouth of a fledgling, Thad Campbell, revealed the secret of the Divines to the High Council. He could only imagine how differently this might’ve turned out had he been able to keep his trap shut.
A coal of anger flickered in his heart, but Sebastian refused to feed it. The boy was stupid, no doubt about that. But the fault lay with him. He should have never revealed the secret to anyone. The burden had been so great, though. And as annoying as Thad was, he was Sebastian’s only friend.
It had been a brief and wonderful reprieve, being free of the Watchtower prison and roaming the world with Thad. But happiness was fleeting, and he had traded a figurative cell for an even worse literal one.
The whir of the biometric locks drawing back cut through his nervous system like a dentist’s drill. The airlock broke with a pop and a puff of fresh air filled the small space. Though he didn’t need to breathe, he still enjoyed the sensation. It had been two weeks since the door had last been opened and the air in his cell had grown hot and stagnate. He inhaled the cool aromatic breeze, relishing the scents of wood and leather, brine and blood.
The blood belonged to Mathias this time. He stood in the doorway, with Othella and Cot behind him, licking the tiny healing puncture wounds on the palm of his hand. It took only a few drops for the biometric locks to analyze, and even less to send Sebastian into a crippling pang of blood thirst.
He could only imagine what those fifteen poor wretches in the other cells were enduring.
The fledglings were already mad with starvation, but the High Council were constantly feeding from them, burning and cutting them to speed up the stone cloak.
Much to Sebastian’s chagrin, it seemed a good plan. It had worked on Jerusa Phoenix. Every injury she had sustained after the stone cloak had started only caused the disease to spread faster. And though the foolish High Council believed they had burned the girl to death in the cemetery, the truth was, they had only completed her metamorphosis.
Jerusa was f
ree, Suhail was still alive, and the world was doubly doomed.
“Wake up, you little rat,” Mathias snarled.
“I’m not asleep. I’m thinking. You know, there is great freedom in using one’s brain. You might try it sometime.”
“And what are you thinking of?” Othella asked. “Your next act of treachery?”
“Treason is a matter of dates. Or so I’ve read. Can you read? I’m sure not. No, I was simply contemplating your death.”
Othella darted into the cell almost too fast for Sebastian to see. She kicked him in the side, lifting him from the ground, and sent him crashing into the back wall.
That hurt more than he expected.
The Dwarf hunkered on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his mouth, waiting for his ribs and sternum to realign.
Though he was old in the blood—nowhere near the four plus millennia of the High Council members, but far from a fledgling—it took a bit for his body to fully heal. With the force of Othella’s kick, it was a wonder he hadn’t exploded like a toad dashed against a rock.
Cot slipped into the cell, knelt low and lifted Sebastian’s chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “Speak to us out of turn again and I’ll pull out your tongue. You wouldn’t be the first to suffer such a fate.”
Sebastian hadn’t been present when Marjek and the High Council mutilated the Furies for tipping off the Divine Vampires, but he had seen the trophies showcased in the Ice Sanctuary many times. And as much as Sebastian wanted to blast back with a hyper-sarcastic retort, he desired to keep all of his parts—no matter how disfigured they were—even more.
He nodded to Cot that he’d behave… for now.
“Good boy,” Cot said, patting him on the head as though he were a dog. He stood up and wiped his hand on the wall. “We picked up a treat for you from a passing boat. We can’t have you taking on the stone cloak. At least, not yet.”
Cot slipped out the cell as Mathias forced a quivering, sobbing man through the door. The man stank of sweat and fear. His skin was well leathered from the sun, creased and lined, making him appear older than he really was. His clothes were stained with blood and torn from his abduction from whatever fishing boat had the misfortune of drifting past this yacht of death.
Sebastian rose to his feet, but still only measured to the man’s waist. It would’ve been polite if the High Council had forced the man to kneel, but they wanted the added pleasure of watching the Dwarf fumble with his kill.
Mathias shoved the man forward, and he stumbled further into the cell. Sebastian started for the man’s legs, intending to trip him and scurry up to his throat like a wild beast.
But he stopped mid-step.
Though the Dwarf had been a prisoner for centuries—forced to use his powers to not only spy on other vampires around the world, but to enhance the gifts of the other Watchtower vampires—it had afforded him a somewhat luxurious life. The longest he had ever gone without feeding had been when on the run with Thad. The cheerful faces of Othella, Cot, and Mathias watching him brought a knot of anger to his throat.
He was not a beast. He was not their entertainment. And he would rather starve to death inside the shell of the stone cloak than give them one second of enjoyment at his expense.
Sebastian stepped up to the frightened man and extended his hand. The man flinched so hard, it seemed, for a moment, that he might fall backward. Sebastian gave the man a genuine smile, trying his best to hide the dangerous fangs lurking behind his lips, and extended his hand further.
The man reluctantly extended his own and gently grasped the vampire’s much smaller hand. The man’s fear waned a bit, and a tiny flicker of hope stirred within him.
This impressed Sebastian. Shaking the Dwarf’s hand was no small thing. Not only was he a dangerous apex predator (which the man could sense), he was also grotesquely hideous to look upon. While the vampire spirit usually perfected a person’s beauty—even the poor souls the Stewards deemed unworthy—for Sebastian, it had only enhanced his deformities. Most refused to let their gaze linger upon him, let alone touch him. In fact, this was the first time in his long life that anyone had shaken his hand.
Othella kicked the man in the thigh, shattering his femur. The man dropped with a shout of pain. Othella caught a handful of his hair and held him suspended before plunging her fangs into the side of his throat. The man’s eyes went wild with fright, his body convulsed, and within a matter of seconds, he was dead.
Othella dropped the man on the floor like a bag of trash, and he fell onto his side, still clutching Sebastian’s hand.
As the man’s fingers slid from his hand, white hot embers burned behind Sebastian’s eyes. In any other circumstance, he probably would have fed from the man with little hesitation and no remorse, but killing the man was just Othella’s way of taking any bit of enjoyment from Sebastian.
The Dwarf pushed forward with his mind… hard. The three members of the High Council clutched the sides of their heads as if a great pressure was building within their skulls. They wavered on their feet, yet remained standing.
Sebastian would have to remedy that.
He pressed harder, forcing himself into their wretched minds, drilling, burrowing down deeper and deeper. Droplets of blood fell from Sebastian’s nose, splattering on the floor at his feet.
Mathias dropped to his knees. “Stop, you vile imp! Stop!”
Cot fell to his left, cracked his head on the steel jam of the cell door and spun stiff-legged out of sight.
Othella remained standing, her malevolent eyes boring a hole through him. She clenched her teeth, exposing her fangs, yet she wouldn’t relent.
Sebastian lashed out at her with his mind, ripping and tearing at her thoughts. It wasn’t beyond his powers to annihilate another vampire’s mind, yet he had never tried out of fear of the Hunters. But there weren’t any Hunters on this ship. These three gluttonous buffoons were so greedy for power that they destroyed every Steward or Hunter that had the ill fate of hearing Thad reveal the Divines’ secret.
Their minds were laid bare for him to see. Every trick, deceit, transgression and sin manifested itself to him.
“Shall I show you your doom?” Sebastian wasn’t sure if he actually spoke the words or if they were just in his mind. Either way, the three could still hear him. “Look and see what your endless parade of depravity has purchased you.”
First, he gave them a glimpse of Suhail, and what he had done to those remaining at the Ice Sanctuary. They were fighting him, so it was difficult to make the vision clear. He didn’t know if they fully understood just what Suhail had become, but their combined fear and revulsion at this vision filled the air.
Next, he showed them Jerusa Phoenix, no longer a weak human, no longer an impressive vampire, but now an unstoppable Divine Vampire with the mind of a savage, and an instinctual vengeance for those that had wronged her.
Cot and Mathias shouted with pain and rage, but Othella growled like an injured wolf.
Sebastian’s legs wobbled. His body trembled terribly. Every muscle burned with agony. He had underestimated just how strong the three of them were.
He tried to focus, but the surrounding room had vanished in a hallucinogenic collage of nightmare images, thoughts and raw emotions. The minds of the other beings on board the ship were leaking through his defenses.
He couldn’t keep this up much longer. He might’ve had the strength had he fed from the human, but then he would’ve been their little performing monkey, and they would’ve sealed the door while he was swooning from the blood.
The odds were stacked against him, but this was his one and only chance to escape.
If he pulled back from Mathias and Cot, he might have enough telepathic force to shatter Othella’s mind. That would allow him to dart past her, but the other two would rebound fast, most likely snatching him up before he got very far.
Or, he could disperse the blast to the three and hope that it crippled them long enough to get off this accursed ship.
Neither choice was promising… but one of them would bring an eternal smile to his dying face.
Self-preservation came naturally to the Dwarf. A proud coward through and through. But a strange fiery streak of defiance suddenly burned deep within his tiny heart. It seemed the boy, Thad had rubbed off on him more than he had realized.
It didn’t matter if he escaped, or remained locked up for all eternity. It didn’t matter if they starved him into the stone cloak, or even staked him to the ground to await the sun. Retribution was all that mattered now.
Time for Othella to feel the sting of death.
Sebastian shoved back on the intruding voices, creating a space to work. He released Cot and Mathias, who both groaned with relief. He willed the invisible force of his mind into a great sword too large for the finite hands of flesh and blood creatures. A gargantuan rapier with which he would pierce Othella’s mind and end her bloody campaign upon the Earth.
The Dwarf, though a fierce telepath, lacked the speed and physical strength of other vampires. Had he struck a moment or two earlier, he might have hit his mark. But the force wasn’t yet powerful enough, his mental sword not yet sharp enough. He wanted to kill Othella, not just debilitate her.
Othella beat him by mere seconds.
The harpy witch shouted so loud that the sound reverberating inside the tiny metal cell ruptured Sebastian’s eardrums. The pain both shocked and distracted the Dwarf just long enough for Othella to bridge the tiny gap between them.
Sebastian might’ve been the most powerful augur in all the world, but Othella had several millennia of blood hardening over him, and a mind full of pitiless cruelty. There was a reason a band of rebellious vampires or a rogue army of Hunters had never overthrown the High Council.
Othella slashed diagonally downward with first her left hand, then her right, her sharp fingernails leaving the Dwarf with an X-patterned gash across his sternum that went straight to the bone. He stumbled back, his mental hold broken by the jarring pain, but she continued her attack.
The Savage Vampire (The Perpetual Creatures Saga Book 5) Page 4