The white aura of the man became a fiery red. Cracks of lightning exploded all around them. “Victor is dead. I am the Monster.”
In the instability of his own shattered mind, Sebastian could not reach Celeste or any other augurs, but had instead connected with another damaged mind. Victor could not control the gift of sight he had got through the theft of flesh from various augurs, and he very much despised any invasion into his mind.
“Please hear me and I will leave you be. Jerusa Phoenix, the girl with the ghosts, still lives. But she is in great pain. Terrible agony. Just like you. Please, find the others from the cemetery. Tell them they must set Jerusa’s ghost sister free.”
A blast of ice surrounded and infiltrated Sebastian, breaking his concentration. The Monster’s fiery aura snapped out of existence, and the actual world came crashing in around him like a landslide.
Sebastian sprung into a sitting position and scuttled to the corner. The humans stood in his doorway, spraying the puddle of decomposition down with a water hose.
The fools had interrupted him while explaining to Victor just how to set Alicia free. He wiped the freezing water out of his face and laughed, despite the grim situation. Their fates all now rested in the hands (and mind) of a madman.
Chapter Eight
Taos released a long string of curse words spanning a dozen different languages. Being surrounded by a horde of savages always brought out the best in him.
They had come prepared to battle Hunters, Stewards, and even the diminished High Council themselves. Not to mention, killing the Watchtower was going to be no small task.
Instead, they walked right into an ambush set by Suhail.
If Shufah’s evil twin was already here, it was a good bet he had already assimilated the Watchtower. And that meant game over. With the most powerful augurs at his disposal, he could unleash his army with only a snap of his finger.
Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he didn’t think this was so. Something was off here.
If Suhail had set a trap for them, why wasn’t he here to enjoy the spoils of his victory? Why leave that witless waste of fangs, Conrad, behind to give the orders? Why not assimilate Conrad into the savage horde?
The savages pressed closer, not in a furious blitz, but in slow, methodical steps. That wasn’t a good sign.
“They’ve regained consciousness,” Shufah said. “All of them.”
Taos scanned the crowd. Perhaps it was only the innermost ring that had regained consciousness, and the others were still mindless. But in his heart, he knew it wasn’t true.
He recognized too many faces, both vampire and human. These savages hadn’t been transferred here. They were the inhabitants of the Ice Sanctuary.
The noose of savages drew ever closer. Blood-clotted eyes and venomous teeth were everywhere. The vampires pressed their backs to one another, preparing for the attack. Taos’s arrogant nature usually piqued at moments like this, but even he realized their luck had finally run dry.
Taos reached down, took Celeste’s hand, and pressed it to his mouth. She rubbed his face with the backs of her fingers. He wished they had time for more, but there were a couple hundred flesh eaters to kill, and he was the only one skilled enough with fire to get the job done.
“Tighten up,” Taos called to his friends. They condensed their huddle as small as possible. He clapped his hands and twin orbs of fire appeared, hovering over each palm.
The savages cried out from the pain the light caused them, but they refused to retreat an inch. Taos tossed the fireballs to the floor, then spun his hands above his head. The orbs each made a path around the vampires, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise, expanding upward into two circular walls of fire.
At Taos’s command, the walls exploded outward, catching the closest savages off guard. The stench of burning flesh filled the air, screams of agony shook the room, and billows of hot ash snowed down upon them.
Taos wasn’t sure how many savages he had killed in the blast, but he knew it wasn’t enough.
Roars of fury echoed from floor to ceiling until the tumult bled into an earth-shaking roll of thunder. Taos wanted to cover his ears, but his hands were busy controlling the fire. One slip of concentration and the burning walls would collapse upon their master and his friends.
He commanded the fire to invade the savage ranks further. He couldn’t hope to kill them all this way, but perhaps he could plow a path back to the dungeons.
The fiery rings expanded outward another couple of feet, but then stopped as though they had reached the outer walls of the Great House. Taos closed his eyes, pressed hard with his mind, but the fire could go no further.
The ceiling cracked, raining chunks of stone down upon them. It had been a fool’s dream to think this group of savages wouldn’t have assimilated at least a few Hunters. Taos recognized the work of telekinetics when he saw it.
As powerful and blood-hardened as Shufah and the Furies were, they had no hope of redirecting the falling stone. Taos threw up his hands, extinguishing the twin walls of fire, and sent a great fiery comet soaring straight upward. The stone and fire collided with a concussive blast that sent vampires and savages alike tumbling to the floor.
Molten debris fell all around them. The savages regained their feet faster than the vampires. It was going to take more than Taos’s fire to win this fight.
The small group of blood drinkers reformed their backwards huddle, prepared to explode into the horde with abandoned fury.
Unfortunately, the savage telekinetics had a couple of seconds head start.
A powerful crushing force surrounded them, constricting the group together as though a giant, invisible serpent had snagged them. Taos found his hands pinned to his stomach by Celeste’s chest. There was no way for him to conjure fire without burning her.
Taos glanced over his shoulder at Thad. “How ‘bout you lob some rocks at them, or something? I can’t be expected to do it all.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” Thad fired back. “Has to be connected to the ground.”
Taos wanted to make a sarcastic remark about the ground surrounding them on all sides, but he could no longer fill his lungs with air. Besides, he could tell by the way Thad’s face clenched, the focused way he tilted his head, that the kid was already giving it his best shot. Taos prided himself on being a jerk, but he didn’t want the kid to spend his last moments trying to come up with some lame comeback.
Shufah gasped, drawing in one last breath. “Taos, burn us. Don’t let us become savages.”
The weight of Shufah’s last request dwarfed even the telekinetic stranglehold crushing them. She was right. The savages didn’t intend to kill them, but to assimilate them. It was better to burn than to be slaves to Suhail’s whims.
Celeste twisted to better see Taos’s face. She smiled, but it couldn’t overtake the sadness in her eyes. She turned her head to the side and buried it in his chest.
Taos closed his eyes. The savages were advancing on them with caution, as though they suspected a trick. He shut them out. The sound of their growls. The stench of their rot. He needed to focus. To burn another took a measure of concentration. To burn yourself, along with those you love, needed the fervor of a madman.
The heat pooled in the palms of his hands.
What happened next happened so fast it was jarring to the senses. The telekinetic stranglehold broke, and the group tumbled to the ground, gasping for air.
Unyielding darkness swallowed the ambient light from Taos’s fires. The shrieks of the savage horde, which had been deafening, were now vastly muted by multiple levels. The floor was no longer the polished marble of the great hall but the rough cut stones of the dungeon.
And they weren’t alone.
Taos sparked a fire. He wasn’t surprised to see the man standing before them, but he was concerned. Only a Divine Vampire could teleport, and Silvanus was the only Divine that had a reason to come looking for them.
The vampires slowly stood to
their feet. There was no point in running. They had a better chance of survival back up top with the savages than down here with Silvanus.
Shufah stepped forward. “Jerusa’s death is my fault, not theirs. I sought the Necromancer alone. Kill me if you must, but please, spare the others.”
Silvanus’s eyes softened. “We’ll talk about that later. First, though, I need to take care of the savages. Stay here. I’ll be back.”
Taos sprang forward, reaching out with his hand. He stopped just short of touching Silvanus’s shoulder. “Wait. Take me with you. I can help.”
Silvanus looked as though he wanted to say no, but instead he reached out and took Taos by the wrist. “So be it. But if you die, it’s on your own head.”
Then, before Celeste or the others could argue, Silvanus transported them back upstairs, dead center of the savage horde.
The savages sprawled backwards, more likely out of shock than fear. Either way, Taos didn’t plan to give them even one second to regain their bearings.
Taos rushed into the horde, screaming with rage, a set of fiery battle-axes appearing in each hand. He sliced through the savages, turning a dozen or more into piles of ash before they even knew what hit them.
The horde dispersed, spinning away from him, trying their best to come at him from behind. The savage pyros fired burning projectiles at him, but Taos swatted them out of the air. Five savages made a run for him while the fire distracted him. Brave but foolish. Taos cut them down with one quick swipe.
Taos spun on his heels, heaving his axes at a pair of pyros. Each axe caught a pyro in the chest, then dissolved into a puddle of napalm that consumed the screaming beasts.
Taos clapped his hands together, conjuring the blazing broadsword. He sliced side to side, catching a few more of the slower savages, but missing more than he cared to admit.
A blow only slightly more pleasurable than being hit by a comet smacked Taos in the chest, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the far wall. The invisible force crushed him against the wall hard enough to buckle the sheetrock and wood studs until his body smashed against the thick stone of the outer wall.
Then the pressure intensified.
Damn telekinetics, Taos thought.
They were going to squash him like a bug. The outer stone cracked and groaned, but held its place. The air fled from Taos’s lungs, his blood seemed to boil under the pressure, and his bones battled hard to maintain their form. Just before his vision failed, he watched a line of savages advance on him with greedy eyes and slobbering maws.
Then everything went fuzzy.
The savages screamed as an intense heat blanketed him from head to toe. There was a split second—though Taos would never admit this to anyone—where he thought he had died, and the savages were screaming with victorious delight. The sweltering heat was his descent into the underworld. But then, the crushing pressure vanished in a blink, and he fell face-first onto the filthy marble floor.
Taos’s eyesight returned at once, but he wasn’t quite ready to climb to his feet and rejoin the fray. Instead, he sat crouched on hands and knees, panting as a smile stretched across his face.
Silvanus bulled his way through the horde with a speed the savages couldn’t outrun. His clenched fists were wreathed in flames (which he used to hammer and punch any vile flesh eater within his reach), turning them all into smoldering heaps of ash. Every time the horde attempted to disperse, Silvanus teleported across the room, right back into the most cluttered mass of them.
Taos regained his feet, swaying a bit, but remained standing. “Hey, save some for me.”
Silvanus had laid waste to most of the savages. Only about thirty remained in the great hall. He glanced over his shoulder at Taos. “The telekinetics are ash. Most of the pyros, too. Think you can handle the rest?”
“With one arm behind my back.”
“Good, cause several savages managed to slip out into other parts of the house.” Without another word, Silvanus vanished.
“That’s one handy little gift.” Taos turned and sprayed a group of advancing savages with a wave of fire. About a dozen fell to the floor, squalling in agony, before the flames devoured them.
Taos conjured the fiery bow once more. He darted around the room, plucking a string that wasn’t really there. It didn’t matter. The incendiary arrows flew just the same. Within a matter of minutes, he had finished off the remaining savages.
Or so he thought.
At the top of the grand staircase, Taos glimpsed the vampire Conrad. Had Taos been a more introspective person, he might have wondered why Conrad hadn’t tried to escape. Taos vaulted up the stairs, three risers at a time, and slid to a stop just outside a ring of savages.
There were five savages standing in a circle, their arms outstretched toward one another, their fingertips almost touching. None of them tried to attack him. In fact, none of them even turned to look at him. The five savages faced inward with their eyes closed, their withered lips and exposed teeth chattering as though they were whispering some arcane language.
He didn’t know what to make of it and stood thunderstruck a moment by the uncanny situation. It mattered little to Taos what the savages were up to. The only thing he cared about was not allowing them to finish.
Taos burned the savages where they stood, choosing to spray the group with fire rather than waste precious time on the arrows. The savages remained exactly as they were, not a howl of pain or even a flinch of discomfort until the fire consumed them.
A knot settled in Taos’s stomach. He snapped his head toward Conrad, who backed up a few steps but didn’t run. “What were they doing?” he asked with a growl.
Conrad’s eyes sparked with madness, and a tiny demented giggle broke deep in his throat. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Taos shot forward, snatching Conrad by the throat. Conrad winced with pain, but he didn’t fight.
Conrad had at least a century on Taos. He was a blood hardened Steward of Life (though a low level one). His physical strength, most likely, well exceeded Taos’s. He hadn’t been recruited into the Hunters, so he probably didn’t have any special gifts… unless he had been smart enough to hide it from the High Council. Yet, he seemed content to dangle from the noose of Taos’s iron grip.
Was this a trap? Taos didn’t think so. Conrad seemed deflated. Defeated. Not by Taos, but by some terrible truth he alone was privy to. He had no desire to fight. He wanted to talk. Needed to talk.
“Why are you still alive? Why didn’t Suhail turn you?”
His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. Blood tears poured down his cheeks. “I don’t know. He told me to stay. To wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For Shufah.”
“Why?” Taos tightened his grip. Conrad grew more agitated with every breath. He didn’t want to burn him before getting some answers, but he might not have a choice.
“To give her a message.”
“What message?”
“The message isn’t for you.”
Taos considered trying to beat the answer out of him, but he could see it would be no use. Conrad may seem like his mind was a broken hourglass, vomiting the tiny grains of sanity upon the floor, but Taos didn’t buy the act. He was up to something.
Taos changed tactics. He released his grip and backed away from Conrad. “What happened here? Where are the High Council? Where are the Watchtower?”
Conrad spat out a gritty laugh as he rubbed his throat. “I was hoping you knew.” He threw his hands up in the air. “The High Council abandoned us. Lied to us. Carried off the Watchtower and had the Hunters butcher the Stewards.” His words came out in bitter little spurts.
Taos’s mind reeled. He thought to call Conrad a liar, but there was a desperate truth in his eyes. “Why would they do such a thing?”
“Suhail wondered the same thing.” Conrad tittered like a lunatic and it reminded Taos, strangely enough, of the time he visited his own father in the sanitarium after rea
lizing his beloved son was now a blood-drinking fiend.
Perhaps it was the negative mood swing that sometimes broods after the adrenaline high of battle, or maybe it was the fear festering in Conrad’s eyes. Either way, Taos suddenly had just about enough of Conrad’s company.
Taos drove his fist into Conrad’s face as hard as he could. Conrad’s teeth cracked together like thunder, his head snapped backward hard enough to pull his feet off the ground, and he fell—still laughing—onto his back.
Conrad’s vampiric reflexes were honed enough that he should’ve easily evaded Taos’s over-telegraphed punch. He had let Taos punch him. Wanted him to. But why? What was he playing at?
An almost imperceptible change in the air stole Taos’s attention, alerting his already tweaked senses that several beings had just entered the great hall and were sprinting toward the staircase. He spun on his heels, fire kindling between his fingers, prepared to incinerate the first creature foolish enough to step foot on the balcony.
Three blurs—one white, one red, and one black—shot past Taos with such speed that, had they been enemies, he would have been dead long before even realizing it. Instead of killing him, the blurs merely knocked him off balance.
Shufah appeared on the balcony, followed by Celeste and Thad. It was then that Taos understood what he had witnessed. Three blurs, three hair colors.
“Where’re the Furies going in such a rush?”
No one answered. Shufah’s fierce eyes remained tethered to Conrad, who watched her with an amused, yet mangled, little smile. Celeste, relieved to see Taos alive, couldn’t speak. Thad panted like a fat dog unaccustomed to running with the pack.
Taos repeated his question.
“We’re not sure,” Celeste said. She eyed Conrad warily, as though she weren’t sure she should speak around him. “They were terribly agitated in the dungeons. They just suddenly broke away. So, we followed.”
“Where’s Silvanus?” Shufah asked, never taking her eyes off of Conrad.
“I don’t know. Some of the savages escaped, so he went to take care of them.”
The Savage Vampire (The Perpetual Creatures Saga Book 5) Page 9