A Shade of Vampire 90: A Ruler of Clones

by Forrest, Bella

  “A further word of advice, Thayen,” Brandon said, his voice low so as not to be heard beyond this room. “About taking interest in a Valkyrie: they’re passionate entities. Wondrous things, really. But scorn them, and they break. They lose themselves and turn into something awful.”

  “Whoa. Where’d you get that idea—” He spoke over me, firm in his approach despite my horrified expression, since everyone else could hear him, too.

  “Listen to me. The Valkyries and the Berserkers are not made for romance. We don’t understand sentiments like love. It doesn’t belong to us, so we don’t know what to do with it when we experience it,” he continued. “The Valkyries in particular, can be very intense. Ultimately, you wouldn’t be able to handle someone like Myst.”

  The silence was heavy for several seconds, and painfully awkward. My face burned, and I would’ve liked nothing more than to throw something blunt and heavy at Brandon’s head. Who the hell had said anything about love? Myst was, at best, an ally.

  “I see the way you look at her,” he added, further prodding me, though he sounded honest in his approach. “You’re in over your head, kid, in more ways than one.”

  “And you’re a colossal jerk,” Astra muttered. The Berserker gave her a confused look, but she didn’t deign to clarify her statement. Maybe he’d figure it out on his own. Or maybe someone would explain it to him, but it certainly wasn’t going to be me.

  “Okay, just to prove I’m not a colossal jerk, but rather just a monumental one,” he chuckled, then turned serious in the blink of an eye, “here’s me giving you a valuable piece of intel. Your invisibility magic only works to hide you from the living, not from those of the spirit realm.”

  “We kind of imagined that already. Our invisibility magic never worked against Reapers and ghouls, either,” I replied. “It makes sense.”

  “So, use it wisely. Freely against the clones, of course, but watch your hinds nonetheless,” he insisted, raising an eyebrow.

  A minute later, Myst returned with a sour look on her face, while we got our collective breath back. I hadn’t heard anything that suggested danger, but my nerves were still stretched beyond their usual limits. This place was wearing us out in more ways than one. It pushed me and kept me struggling too close to the edge, often threatening to throw me over and cast me into the black pit of death. I wasn’t even sure what would become of our souls if we somehow found our end here. Were there any Reapers in this alt-Shade? I doubted it. Surely Myst or Brandon would’ve said something. They probably had the power to see what we couldn’t.

  “Well? What is it?” I asked the Valkyrie as she rejoined us around the black powder schematic. I noticed my heart beating faster again.

  She shook her head faintly. “Nothing. I thought I heard something, but… nothing.”

  “Are you sure?” Astra replied, eyeing her curiously.

  “I am. Perhaps I’m anxious. My mind less sharp. I don’t know.”

  It wasn’t uncommon in this place. We each felt different in our own way. Angry and nervous. Walking on pins and needles while we struggled to survive and make some sense of this complicated madness. We’d yet to find the answers we’d come here for, but I had faith in us.

  My friends had faith in me.

  We’d get through this or go down swinging. Our enemy was not unbeatable. Once we found out more about them, we could figure out how to bring them all down and burn this place to the ground. For me, for Astra, for Myst and her lost sister, for Richard, for my friends and family… for our beloved home.

  Thayen

  The alt-Shade’s extension was identical to the one back home, aesthetically speaking. It stretched out onto a dark blue ocean beneath the starless, vapid sky. It was made of black steel beams and thick glass, each pane fitted with a frosting feature that offered full privacy within. The houses were mostly one and two-level villas lined along the massive metal walkway, and there were potted palm trees and waxy ferns growing between each residential structure.

  Toward the center of the extension, the buildings grew taller, but then descended back to one or two levels near the far end, which happened to be our destination. I felt uneasy just looking at this place. The sand was diamond-white and smooth, the wind brushing over it and combing sparkling dunes beneath the peculiar glow from above. The ocean lapped lazily at the shore. It looked both inviting and luxurious.

  Yet out came clone guards with pulverizer weapons on their shoulders and silvery bracelets with incandescent purple displays, which they checked every five minutes. Their ammo had to be limited, considering we’d destroyed their armory. I counted at least a dozen posted along the main entrance to the extension—a giant archway made of black steel in the shape of swirling, tangling vines with glass shards for leaves. They moved in a simple circular pattern, ensuring the archway was never unprotected. It was the only access point into the extension, aside from a swim through the ocean. But the latter would make too much noise.

  Wearing our invisibility magic and red lenses, Astra, Viola, Jericho, and I crouched behind one of the last redwoods that overlooked the beach before the extension. We had a good view of it from here, and we could see the guards’ locations across the entire strip of white beach. Brandon and Myst stayed with us, unseen to the clones. They watched and listened for a while.

  “Seems like a busy office building,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, I’m expecting middle management to come out with their lattes and complain about Sheila from accounting,” Jericho replied, and I had to stifle a chuckle while both Brandon and Myst gave us confused glances.

  I shrugged away their confusion. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “How do we go about this?” Viola asked, looking at me. Brandon opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it.

  “We know where they’re keeping our friends. For now, we need to observe guard movements. Before you teleport us directly to that housing unit, we have to make sure there aren’t guards around. The last thing we need is to be spotted in the middle of an extraction.”

  Myst nodded once. “Give me two minutes.”

  A moment later, she vanished, and I knew she was headed over to where she’d last seen our friends. Myst was an arresting creature. I couldn’t deny that. Brandon gave me a soft nudge and a quick grin. “Remember what I told you.”

  “You are such a killjoy,” Astra grumbled, glaring at him.

  He offered a careless shrug in return. “Punishment comes in many shapes and sizes.”

  “So, that’s what you’re doing with me? You’re punishing me?” I asked. He didn’t respond right away. His fiery blue gaze wandered across the beach as the clones kept moving. Fortunately for us, the archway was not our only point of access—not while we had Viola with us. Myst and I had discussed the idea of retrieving the scheme of the runes that had been carved onto the Daughter’s body. It was needed in order for the Valkyrie to break the sigils that stopped Viola from using all her powers. The clones had taken precautionary measures with magic we didn’t understand, but we should be able to reverse it with the right information.

  Myst was our best chance at setting Viola free from the runes’ limitations. Those sigils couldn’t be broken randomly, since, according to Brandon, it could end up killing her or worse. He’d warned us against trying anything that didn’t involve the original scheme. For now, however, our focus was on Isabelle, Voss, and Chantal. They’d been here for too long already. They were vulnerable, and we had to get them out.

  “I like pushing buttons,” Brandon finally confessed, his voice barely a whisper. “Tell me I can’t do something, and that is exactly what I will do. Tell me I’m forbidden to enter a certain room, and I will tear down the walls that surround it.”

  “Pretty sure that just makes you a contrarian, not so much a punisher,” Astra said with a slightly amused sigh. “That gets old pretty quickly, just so you know.”

  “Worry not, I always have fresh material,” he said, chuckling. His humor faded
as soon as Myst reappeared by our side. My skin tingled, as if her sudden presence had lit up every atom in my body. “Well?” Brandon asked.

  “I think they’re still in there,” the Valkyrie said. “I heard voices that sounded like theirs. Unfortunately, each of these units is warded against my kind, so I couldn’t look inside. I couldn’t even touch the doorknob.”

  Astra frowned. “They know you might try to get them out.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, watching vampire doppelgangers as they walked along the shore, the water splashing against their boots and turning the white sand gray with every small wave. “Viola, take us there. We can try the lock if you can’t get in yourself.”

  The Daughter took my hand and reached for Astra’s. Jericho touched my shoulder, and Myst caught my other hand. For a second, I lost my breath altogether. Her touch was electric, sending unreadable signals through my body. My skin tingled with delight. If Brandon was right, and I was infatuated with the Valkyrie, it would only spell trouble in the future. But maybe this was just my fascination regarding her species, a new creature that had briefly become the recipient of my interest and perhaps affection. Maybe I was just childishly excited by being so close to an entity from another realm—but if that were the case, why didn’t my heart skip similar playful beats whenever Brandon was around? No, that wasn’t it.

  I was attracted to her. There was no point in denying it.

  It sounded like a terrible idea, however, based on what Brandon had told me. But my body wasn’t listening. My soul was blinded, too. I wasn’t sure my brain could override these feelings, but I’d have to try.

  The Berserker took Astra’s hand in his, a faint pink shimmer fluttering across her face when she stole a glance at him. It was so quick that I doubted anyone else noticed. Her light was never too bright when he was close, and he was still inclined to take a couple of steps back whenever she used it, but never in a way that showed it affected him. It only seemed to bother him a little, which wasn’t strange, considering he was a being of darkness. He had a certain immunity to Astra, as opposed to Haldor and his shadow hounds, however, who winced at her faintest glow. I wondered if this was about luminosity in general, or if it pertained solely to Astra.

  An instant later, Viola had teleported us to the far end of the extension. Here, the narrow alleys between glass houses were crowded with palm and leafy plant pots made of white porcelain. They’d been freshly watered, and I could smell the wet dirt beneath the layer of decorative pebbles. The ocean whispered all around us, waves splashing against the support pillars beneath. A salty wind brushed past us, and I could almost taste it on the tip of my tongue.

  It was quiet.

  I heard footsteps leading away and down the central alley. Looking toward the source of that sound, I saw five clone guards. They had pulverizer weapons hanging over their backs and sheathed swords strapped to their leather belts, and they were all wearing the GASP uniform. The mere sight of these creatures was an insult to everything we stood for. It made my blood boil.

  “So far, so good,” Brandon mumbled, looking around cautiously. Every glass panel of every unit in our vicinity was frosted white. We knew we were taking a chance by getting so close—someone could see us from inside any of these holding cells if they had red garnet glasses handy—but we had no other choice. “Can you get in?” the Berserker asked Viola.

  She tried, her violet eyes burning brightly for a second, but it didn’t work. “No. It’s warded against all teleportation abilities.” That included hers, not just the Valkyrie and the Berserker. “I guess we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Time to go Mission Impossible,” Jericho whispered, smiling at me.

  I carried a lockpicking kit in my back pocket at all times. It was a small thing—a leather case the size of my palm with three slender metallic pins, to which Amal and Amane had added magi-tech circuitry that allowed one end to change its shape and adapt to virtually any lock in existence. The set didn’t work against death magic, of course, but it had a good rate of success in any other circumstance.

  Feeling Myst and Brandon’s curious eyes on me, I took out one pin and blew gently against its sharp tip. It lit up white, activating the mechanism inside. Carefully, I approached the door in question, while Astra and Viola watched the faint silhouettes beyond the frosted glass panes. There were three, and none were moving. We had a minute to get this done, tops. None of us wanted to be there for any longer than necessary. Every second we spent so deep within enemy territory put us at risk for serious trouble.

  I slipped the illuminated pin into the lock and listened to the delicate whirring of magi-tech shifting the metal into something capable of opening the door. I heard the first click and grinned, but my good humor vanished as the door swung open before the second and equally important click. Normally, I needed three clicks for confirmation. This was way too soon.

  Astra gasped, and I found myself standing before a mountain of a man, dark shadows oozing off him and phosphorescent blue eyes peering right into my soul. I jumped back, holding my breath and praying to all the gods that maybe this Berserker hadn’t seen me. That maybe the click had caught his attention, and nothing else. Technically speaking, he couldn’t see us.

  “You know, it’s bad manners to show up uninvited,” he said, his gaze still fixed on me.

  “Crap,” I murmured, realizing that he absolutely could see me.

  “Torrhen,” Myst managed, her eyes widening. It made him laugh.

  “Did you really think you weren’t expected?” Torrhen replied, then snapped his fingers. A cold wave blew through me like an electrical current. I felt something snap inside me, and suddenly we were visible again, our magic rendered useless by the Berserker’s simple gesture.

  I froze on the spot, unsure what to do next. I hadn’t expected this. Or, more accurately, I had hoped this wouldn’t happen.

  Myst and Brandon revealed themselves. There was no point in hiding, since Torrhen could obviously see them. He smiled broadly, as if they were just two friends who’d come to visit, friends he hadn’t seen in a long time. “It’s an honor to see you both,” he said. “I was wondering when you would finally join forces. It’s futile, either way, but I’m sure you’re more efficient when working together.”

  “What is going on here?” Astra whispered, pale as a sheet of paper.

  “Torrhen has the all-seeing eye, so to speak,” Brandon sighed. “I didn’t know he was here. Otherwise, I never would have allowed you to come.”

  “The all-seeing eye,” I mumbled, trying to take in as much as I could about this colossal Berserker. He was huge, much like Haldor, with broad shoulders and a black, messy mohawk that was a few inches too long and was hanging slightly to one side. A third eye had been tattooed onto his forehead. The iris glowed blue, much like his gaze.

  “Nothing gets past me,” Torrhen chuckled. “Not walls, not magic, not steel nor concrete nor sigils and wards. Nothing. I see everything.”

  “Even things he doesn’t want to see,” Brandon said. “It’s made him neurotic.”

  Torrhen shot him a cold glare. “You have to answer to HQ for what you’ve done. How many more passes do you think you’re going to get before they tear Hammer to shreds, huh?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve gotten away with it so far,” Brandon replied dryly.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Myst warned the all-seeing Berserker. “You’ve picked the wrong side, Torrhen. It will not end well for you.”

  He didn’t seem to care. “Well, you’re a lone little Valkyrie lost in a realm you cannot escape from, completely cut off from Order. And your living friends here are on HQ’s most-wanted list. If anyone will have to deal with a shoddy ending, it’s you. And them,” he said, nodding my way.

  I knew Isabelle, Voss, and Chantal were right behind him inside that glass unit. But we had one hell of an obstacle to deal with, in order to get to them. And this guy talked about offing us like it was just another day at the o
ffice.

  We hadn’t come into this expecting everything to go smoothly, but I would’ve liked a slightly easier time at getting my friends out of this hellhole. As chills tumbled down my spine under the all-seeing eye’s troubling gaze, I knew things were about to get bloody, fast.

  Unless I did something bold. Or stupid. Or both.

  Tristan

  Unending was not the first Reaper ever made.

  This newly discovered fact had yet to fully sink in. It had rendered her silent. At first, I’d been tempted to suspect Anunit of lying, hoping it might only be a trick to get us to do what she wanted. But the Reaper’s record so far said otherwise. The first trial had revealed the existence of soul fae, whom Death had declared extinct ages ago. The second trial had revealed the existence of a man she’d gifted with immortality, death magic knowledge, and a scythe of his own—all of which went against every beratement she’d pummeled Unending with regarding Erethiel. This third trial was bound to be just as scandalous, if not more so… and what would be more scandalous than revealing that Unending was not Death’s first creation?

  No, Anunit had spoken the truth. We were simply struggling to accept it.

  Unending’s anger simmered just beneath the surface, coming off her cool skin like heatwaves, an odd sensation to experience beside an entity from the realm of the dead. Her galaxy eyes were darker than usual, the stars within turned dim with heavy thoughts. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and I was unable to reach her telepathically. She was too enraged to even talk to me.

  It made me angry too.

  Angry that she was being hurt and lied to again, by her own maker. Had I not been a mere vampire, I would’ve gone after Death for this, if only to deliver a rebuke worthy of her terrible behavior. Alas, I couldn’t do anything, and that only made it worse. Unending had been brought up to believe she had been Death’s first “child,” a most precious being with a most precious talent. The hardships she had endured over Erethiel and the Aeternae of Visio had been more than enough, damn it. Unending had suffered too much already. Where would this end?