They could defeat eight savages. But not her brother. Suhail vanished, as if to solidify this fact, reappearing in front of Conrad and Alicia. He pointed at the vampires, and the Watchtower savages charged.
The vampires rushed forward to meet the savages. Taos ignited his flaming broadsword, roaring with fury as he pulled it above his head. He swiped left, then right, but as fast as he was, the savages were faster. Taos missed with every strike before being knocked forward by a glancing blow to his back. He stumbled forward, his sword still burning, and rolled to the side, barely avoiding being bitten.
“They’re still augurs,” Celeste called to the group. “Precognition. They can predict your attacks.”
The Furies moved with the grace and precision of a well-rehearsed ballet, leaping, pirouetting, and dodging as the savages infiltrated their ranks. Venomous teeth snapped mere inches from their flesh. The three were fast, but four of the Watchtower savages pinned them in.
The Monster tore through the swampy sand like a juggernaut, his mouthful of fangs bore in defiance. He smashed into the four savages, his long arms and broad fists sweeping side to side. Two of the savages evaded his attack. The other two he blasted backward, nearly to the water.
A deep hum quaked through the sand, washing away the footprints, and erasing the lines of battle. The sand swirled upward from Thad’s feet, climbed up over his body, cocooned his head, transforming the vampire into a hulking golem holding a war hammer in each hand.
The sand golem stomped forward with slow, thudding steps. Thad smashed the hammers down, unfortunately missing the savages, but scattering them.
The Furies and the Monster attacked, concentrating their combined efforts on a single savage. He could evade three of them, but not the fourth.
Megaera dropped low with a sweeping kick, breaking the savage’s legs. Then the vampires quickly rolled away as Thad brought the sand golem’s pillar-like foot down on the injured savage, smashing him into pulp. The savage immediately turned black and bloated with spores. Thad delivered a slow but powerful kick, sending the swelling savage soaring far over the waves.
Shufah, Taos and Celeste joined, striking at the plump woman who had taken charge of the reduced Watchtower during Sebastian’s absence.
The woman was fast for her size, swooping low to duck Shufah’s punches, leaping high to hurdle Celeste’s sweep kicks. Preoccupied with predicting Shufah’s and Celeste’s attacks, Taos brought his burning sword down on the savage, cleaving her from clavicle to pelvis.
Thad swiped at another savage. He missed, and she jumped onto his chest and began burrowing through the sand. The hammers vanished from the golem’s hands, replaced by a thin but very solid spear, which he used to skewer the savage through the chest.
The sand spear expanded outward, shredding the savage into several smaller chunks, before encapsulating them. Thad chucked the bloated savage—sand and all—out over the rolling waves.
Shufah and Celeste snatched another savage by the shoulders, pinning him to the sand as he thrashed and snapped at their faces. Taos shifted the sword in his grip and thrust it through the savage’s heart, burning him to ash in mere seconds.
The three remaining Watchtower savages formed a triangle around Thad’s sand golem and extended their arms outward. They opened their withered lips, and though no sound passed their venomous teeth, a deep pressure erupted inside all of their minds.
Shufah clutched her head, more to keep it from exploding than to quench the pain. She dropped to her knees, blood tears rushing from the corners of her eyes.
The Furies tumbled atop one another like fallen trees. The Monster clawed at his own face so hard that he ripped off his newly acquired ears. Taos’s fiery sword died in his hands, and he dropped backward in the sand. Being an augur, Celeste dropped to her knees, doubled over and fainted.
They were only collateral damage, though. It was Thad and his sand golem the Watchtower wanted out of the way. Thad’s twenty-foot-tall sand similitude arched backward in a silent scream. Then the golem broke apart like a sandcastle caught by high tide, tumbling down into a heap, mostly burying Thad, leaving only his left shoulder and arm exposed.
Shufah, Taos, and Alecto stumbled forward, fighting through the daggers in their brains, meaning to tackle the savages before they attacked the unconscious Thad.
The savages—still augurs, as Celeste warned—sensed the approaching assault. All three turned at the last moment. All three met their attackers with open arms. All three sank their venomous teeth into vampire flesh.
The wraiths formed a smaller, more densely packed shell around Jerusa and the Necromancer. And now that the shell no longer covered the entire sandbar, there were a lot more wraiths free to attack the intruders.
Sebastian rushed for the shell—a madman’s desperation—but a wraith slammed through him, knocking him backward.
Sebastian was no stranger to pain. He had experienced every demented variation imaginable. This was a pain, however, so blindingly fierce, so spiritually invasive, as to swallow all others. In the depths of his addled mind, he imagined being pierced through the chest with a frozen pickax, then having a tuft of his soul dragged through the exit wound in his back.
He finally came to rest on his back near Silvanus and Danielle. They bent down and yanked him to his feet.
“What is he doing to her?” Silvanus asked. There was madness and fear in his eyes. A look that struck a chord of terror in the tiny vampire.
“He’s swapping bodies with her.” He spoke these heavy words with an apologetic tone, looking up at Silvanus from the tops of his eyes.
Silvanus gawked at him. “What? How can he do that?”
A wave of wraiths shot toward them, and the three of them dropped to the sand just in time to avoid being hit.
“He can do it,” Sebastian said through a mouthful of grit, “because she’s vulnerable to it. His magic has touched her once. That makes her open to it again.” He slammed his stubby fist into the sand. “I should’ve foreseen this. I knew he would double-cross me, but I never—”
Another wave of wraiths swooped at them. They rolled to the side, then jumped to their feet just before the wraiths struck the sand where they were laying.
“I don’t understand what any of this means,” Danielle said after regaining her balance.
“He’s forcing her soul out and taking her Divine body for his own. When he does, all her powers will be his. Can you two leap inside the dome?”
The Divine Vampires vanished without answering. There was a tense moment when the shell of wraiths buzzed in agitation. The derelict wraiths gliding through the air turned their attention back to the shell. Then, as silently as they had gone, Silvanus and Danielle reappeared.
The Divines sprawled on the sand, out of breath and nearly out of strength. “No. Good,” Silvanus panted. “The wraiths won’t let us get to the Necromancer.”
A black plume of living shadows erupted from the top of the shell, blotting out the stars. The Necromancer controlled the wraiths now, and he would tolerate no more interference from the intruders.
“We have to leave right now!” Sebastian clawed at Silvanus’s arm. “Leap us to Howland Island.”
“No,” Silvanus roared. “I won’t let him take her.”
“That’s insanity,” Danielle shouted at almost the same time. “Suhail’s there.”
“You’re right. Suhail’s there. And so is the human host that imprisons Alicia. It’s the only choice we have now. We have to free the ghost before the Necromancer thrusts Jerusa’s soul out for good.”
Danielle took Sebastian by the hand and extended her other to Silvanus. Silvanus gave one last rueful look at the shell of wraiths, then completed their tiny circuit.
There was another moment of breathless weightlessness. The stars changed position in the sky, and the ground took on a different texture.
Sebastian looked about at the battlefield of Howland Island and his heart sank.
Thad was par
tially buried in a heap of sand. The sides of Victor’s face poured blood. Celeste, Megaera, and Tisiphone were all three on their knees, wailing in abject misery. Worst of all, Shufah, Taos, and Alecto were all three on their backs, each with a savage atop them.
Sebastian charged the savages, but his stubby legs were too slow. Silvanus and Danielle leapt the distance, beating him by several seconds. They ripped the savages away, crushing their skulls, and tossing their bloating bodies out to sea.
Suhail darted forward, closed half the distance, but stopped near the upturned wing of a fighter jet sticking out of the ground like a gravestone.
Conrad followed his master, carrying the human who struggled like a baby during a tantrum. He growled and snarled at her, but did nothing to harm her. Suhail simply glared at the Divines with malevolent delight.
Shufah, Taos, and Alecto clutched at their bite wounds, writhing in pain, no doubt already feeling the searing savage venom invading their blood streams. Shufah and Alecto were ancient, and Taos old and blood hardened. They could fight off the change for a little while. But not forever.
A spurt of hatred welled up in his throat, such as he hadn’t felt in a long time, and he turned toward Suhail, not really sure what he was about to do.
Silvanus caught him by the shoulder, his grip like iron. “Don’t. He’ll kill you.”
“Do I deserve any less?” he hissed. “Besides, he’s not my target.”
Silvanus looked to Danielle, and they exchanged a resolute look. “I’ll take him. You take her.”
“That’s suicide,” Sebastian said with a distant echo of concern.
Silvanus nodded. “So it is. I’ll not take no for an answer.”
Danielle nodded back. “I’m ready. Let’s finish this.”
The Divines started forward, but Sebastian grabbed Silvanus’s arm. “Your actual name is Demetrius. I had the Hunters take you just after you became a vampire. They sealed you in an iron coffin and placed you on a ship. The ship sank in the Mediterranean Sea, and there you remained for almost half a millennium until a group of human treasure hunters found you.”
He considered this information for a moment, a tiny smile creeping across his mouth, then simply said, “I think I’ll stick with Silvanus.”
Silvanus and Danielle exploded toward Suhail. Suhail opened his arms wide, the dangerous umbilical cord protruding from his navel.
It all happened in the literal blink of an eye, yet the moment somehow lasted a lifetime.
Just before impact, Danielle leapt from Silvanus’s left, reappearing to his right. She shoved him hard to the left, redirecting him away from Suhail and into the path of Conrad.
Danielle fell into Suhail’s open arms, and he clamped his mouth down upon her shoulder. She shrieked in pain but snagged Suhail’s cord behind the deadly barb just as he fired it toward Silvanus. He pulled his teeth from Danielle’s flesh, reaching out for the other Divine, but it was too late.
Silvanus hit Conrad and the woman, the blue inferno of hellfire already burning around him. Conrad went up like dry grass, and the wind carried his smoking embers out over the waves.
Suhail tried to shake off Danielle, but she wrapped her arms and legs around him, refusing to let go.
Silvanus sent the hellfire into the waves, instantly turning the sea water to steam. The steam rolled inland, blanketing them in an impenetrable fog.
But Sebastian didn’t need his natural eyes to see.
The hellfire blasted through the waves, washing down over the mortal woman. She uttered one quick cry, more from relief than pain. Her body, bones and all, turned to ash in an instant. And in her place, stood a young girl with brown hair.
The ghost wore a blue prom dress and no shoes. A broad, mischievous smile touched her face, then she vanished.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The first thing she remembered was the feeling of being suffocated. The sense of having something solid—like stone—swallowing her whole, digesting her while still alive.
After that, came the void. A deep, dark pit every bit as constricting as the suffocating stone. And she hadn’t been alone in that darkness, either. There had been savage wraiths.
They had pushed her. Pulled her. Forced her to hunt. To kill. She wished these memories had remained in the black void, forever hidden, but she could recall every face she had destroyed, even if she couldn’t yet remember their names.
It was then that she realized that she was falling. Not up or down. Just away. Falling away from her own body, as though, somehow, stripped from her living form. She could see him right now, with her waking eyes standing before her empty body. A man that she should know. Not his face, but the black, wretched soul he pushed inside her vacant form.
The man was powerful. The strange words he spoke seemed to drive her farther and farther away. She tried to find something to hold on to. Something to stop the man and his vile words, but there was nothing.
Nothing.
Then she heard a voice, soft, like a distant whisper, and a shiver rolled out from the core of her soul. The sense of falling ceased, and the darkness flickered with crackles of light. The man halted his strange chants, pulled his eyes from her empty body, and looked about in startled fear.
The voice spoke again. Closer this time.
… Jerusa…
Who? She knew that name. But from where.
… Jerusa Phoenix…
The shiver became a quake as a sudden realization filled her. Jerusa Phoenix. That was her name, wasn’t it? But who had spoken it to her?
Someone was approaching fast. Someone Jerusa recognized. A young girl, her brown hair pulled up, curled with blue ribbons that matched her dress, her bare feet visible beneath the hem as she ran.
The girl never slowed her pace. Their eyes met, and just before impact, the name Alicia exploded within her mind.
Jerusa and Alicia fused together with a concussion that thrust out the wretched, invading soul from her empty body, casting it back into the man, and knocking him off his feet. There came a terrible, nauseating moment of vertigo, which hit hard, but faded quickly.
“Alicia?” Jerusa asked and flinched at the sound of her own voice. She opened her eyes, unable to hold back the tears now spilling down her face. “Is it really you?”
And there she was, that same mischievous smile lighting her face. “Who else would it be?”
Jerusa jumped and felt the world spin again. “You can talk? How? I don’t… Say something else.”
Alicia laughed, a wondrous, singsong sound. “You goof. I’ve been talking this whole time. You just couldn’t hear me.”
The smile fell from Jerusa’s face. “Am I dead too? Is that why I can hear you now?”
The ghost shook her head. “Oh, you’re alive. More alive than any other creature has ever been.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have to wake up. Your friends need you.”
“My friends?” Who else was there? Jerusa could remember bits and pieces of the nightmare, but nothing before or after. “I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
Suddenly, a man, middle-aged, but well put together, appeared behind Alicia. “Foster?” Then a woman, thin, wiry, but pleasantly smiling, appeared. “Mother?”
One by one, the ghosts came. The vampires, the humans, their bright auras burning away the darkness like dry paper in a fire. The crumbling void let out a chorus of shrieks, and Jerusa realized the darkness was nothing more than a cocoon of savage wraiths.
As the ghosts returned, and the wraiths fled away, bit by bit, Jerusa’s memory returned to her. Until at last…
Jerusa gasped, her lungs filling with warm, humid sea air. She opened her living eyes and stood in awe. She had once explained to Thad Campbell that the difference from human to vampire was like exchanging a black-and-white TV for a color one. She searched for the right metaphor to explain the switch from vampire to Divine Vampire and found nothing. No words existed—nor ever would
—that could describe the power surging through her new body.
The Necromancer lay on his back, a purple mist-like light dissipating around him.
“You tried to steal my body.”
The Necromancer sat up, shaking the sand from his hair. “You can’t blame me for trying. So, what now? You gonna kill me?” His voice was smug, but there was great fear in his eyes.
“Not yet,” Jerusa said. “There’s one more job I need you for.”
Alicia and Foster appeared next to her.
“You need to hurry,” Alicia said. “Your friends are in a lot of trouble.”
“Howland Island,” Foster said. “All you have to do is think yourself there.”
The Necromancer looked at the spots where Alicia and Foster stood, and she could read the shock not only from his face, but from his vile mind as well. He could not only see the ghosts, but heard them as well.
How strange, she thought. But there wasn’t time to ponder this now. There’d be time to deal with the Necromancer later.
“Howland Island,” Jerusa said (though she was thinking of Silvanus) and vanished.
Silvanus blasted Suhail with a spray of hellfire so intense it turned the sand to glass. At the same time, Danielle poured all of her will into forging a wall of telekinetic energy between them and Suhail.
And yet, somehow, Suhail continued to advance.
Suddenly, there came a distant sound, like a crowd of innumerable voices all speaking at once. It was low, soft, yet, somehow, audible over the roar of battle and the cries of pain coming from the savage-bitten vampires.
The disembodied voices grew closer and louder until they became a quaking thunder rolling all around them. Suhail halted his advancement, the Divines ceased their attack, and even the bitten vampires all fell silent.
Something moved in the distance, out over the water. It approached with such speed that the wake it created fanned twenty feet high on either side. No one spoke. No one moved. Though she was still a great distance out, they all recognized who was rushing toward them.
The Savage Vampire (The Perpetual Creatures Saga Book 5) Page 26