“It’s OK, Lipton,” Kalista responded, and for the first time, there was a smile in her voice. She shot a quick look at Jesse, a smile curving the corner of her lips. “I have a pal here watching over me to make sure I don’t fall.” Kalista realized that all her feelings of animosity for Jesse had been a waste of energy. After all, Jesse had practically saved her life moments ago, and she didn’t seem like such a bad person after all. Who knew … maybe one day Kalista and Jesse could be great friends?
“OK, that’s good to know,” Lipton said with a chuckle. “I’m going to continue flying. Please hold tight.” Still hovering in the air and wings flapping, Lipton took off where he’d left, zooming across the air as though the incident of Kalista’s near-fall had never happened. After flying for almost half an hour, Lipton heaved a huge sigh, feeling like he was about to give up. His strength was ebbing away, and it was exacerbated by the fact that he was carrying another extra body on his back. He knew that if he kept flying like this ceaselessly, he would eventually lose his strength and collapse.
“What’s that in front?” Jesse said all of a sudden.
Lipton tilted his head slightly upward and trained his eyes at the front. What he saw brought a sense of relief over him, and he felt like whooping.
Looming right ahead of his was a grand foyer, with a circle-shaped floor, surrounded by white cloud columns. He’d finally found it after what seemed like an eternity.
“We found it!” Lipton declared victoriously, pumping his fist in the air, but trying not to exert too much force in case it made his body tip to one side and caused one of the women to slip off and fall. He wouldn’t want to reenact that scenario again if he had a choice. “The place where the Peak is, and also where the secret chamber lies …” Lipton accelerated forward, unable to contain the excitement that was bubbling within him.
He finally reached the foyer, and he gently landed on the ground, bending his body so both Kalista and Jesse would be able to alight with ease.
“We’re here now,” Kalista said, her eyes roaming her surroundings. “So now what?”
“We’re going to have to look for the secret chamber where Catan keeps his source of dark powers,” Lipton said authoritatively. “It’s concealed behind one of these walls …” Lipton’s eyes wandered around him, trying to guess which one of the walls around him would lead to Catan’s secret chamber.
The walls stretched around them in circle, dotted with three passageways. Lipton and the women had just come out from one of the passageways into the foyer. There were six white columns surrounding them, merged with the malls like glue. Lipton surmised that one of the walls between the columns would lead to Catan’s secret chamber … but the question was … which one was it? He couldn’t possibly ask Kalista to bleed out several times just to try out on all the walls. She would bleed profusely and could end up … dead. They had to utilize Kalista’s Urukan blood sparingly. And they had to be doubly sure which one of the walls was worth using the blood on.
“How are we going to decide?” Lipton mumbled to himself, pacing back and forth around the foyer. His gaze flicked upward to where the Peak was, and it was so tempting to fly up there and out of this Maze of Doom. But they couldn’t just leave yet. They needed to find that secret chamber, and fast.
“Wait,” Kalista began to say. “I’ve read about something about the Pulse in the Urukan Bible a long time ago. I don’t exactly recall what it said … but it said something like every dark energy having the Pulse. It means that you can sense it pulsing when it’s in your presence. If what I read is true, then we need to sense the Pulse, which emanates from the secret chamber. That way, we can tell where it’s coming from …”
“Just how are we going to do that?”
Without responding, Kalista darted over to one of the walls, and leaned her body against it. Cupping one of her ears, she pressed it against the wall, listening for the Pulse. When she couldn’t hear anything from that side of the wall, she moved on to the next, and when the same thing happened, she moved on to the next. There was one last wall to try, and she prayed that this time it would work. If it didn’t work, then it would be impossible to tear down all the walls with her blood. She would bleed out to death if she had to use all her Urukan blood on the walls.
Heart pounding with a sense of both dread and anticipation, Kalista pressed her ear against the last wall, praying hard that she would hear the Pulse. But then again, she could hear nothing, the same silence like she had heard from the previous walls. Dejection sliced through her, and she knew that hope was slipping away.
She was about to pull back when she heard a pounding sound. Could it be from her own heart? After all, she knew that her heart had been pounding like drums from the anticipation and fear she was experiencing. But it couldn’t be from her heart. It didn’t sound like it was coming from her own heartbeat. Kalista took another deep breath and pressed her ear against the wall again, just to be sure. Sure enough, she heard a rhythmic pulse from the other side of the wall, which sounded just like a human heartbeat, but with a slight hissing sound.
Kalista’s expression lit up. “It’s the Pulse. I’m hearing the Pulse! Catan’s source of dark powers is inside there!”
Both Lipton and Jesse darted over to the wall where Kalista claimed she had heard the Pulse coming from. They pressed their ears against the wall, chests rising in anticipation.
“Yes, I hear something,” Jesse admitted, looking sideways at Lipton, who was also listening in on the Pulse. “It sounds like a … pulse, with a slight eerie hissing sound. So this is known as the … Pulse?”
Kalista nodded a little too anxiously, as she knew that they were getting real close to Catan’s secret chamber. “Right as rain. OK, you guys, stand back. I’m going to use my blood on this wall. “
Lipton and Jesse retreated away from the wall, giving Kalista some space. Kalista looked at the blood-stained arm, where she had bitten earlier to draw some blood for the wall which had sealed her inside her room. Kalista didn’t like to inflict more injuries on herself, but she had to do it once more to tear down the wall which led to Catan’s secret chamber. Steeling herself, her body tensed up, Kalista took a deep breath and bit into her other arm, gritting her teeth hard as the pain sliced through her. Blood oozed out from her arm, and without hesitating, she rubbed her bloodied arm on the wall in front of her, as if she was sketching something on the wall. Once she had smeared there Urukan blood on the blood, she took a few steps backward and gazed at the wall, waves of anticipation surging through her. She watched as her own blood came to life, spreading across the wall like a slithering snake, forming a tree branch-like pattern on the wall. Once the tree-like pattern had completely covered up the wall, the blood shimmered, making a slight hissing sound, burning into the wall like acid, and slowly tearing it apart.
“Wow!” Jesse gasped in awe, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Lipton was speechless, watching as Kalista’s Urukan blood tear down a cloud wall for the second time.
Moments later, the wall was swallowed up by the shimmering blood, and it soon vanished away, revealing a dark chamber with an ancient-looking gray-colored urn sitting in the middle. The urn was ten feet high, with a diamond-shaped glass window encrusted in the center, bordered by silver linings. Behind the window, there was a burning greenish fire inside, casting patches of jade glow on the window.
“That’s where he keeps his source of powers!” Lipton remarked, his eyes scanning the chamber. The chamber was empty except for the urn which stood purposefully in front of him. The room was dark, partially illuminated by the green fire that was burning within the urn. “Destroy it and we destroy Catan … hopefully.”
“How are we going to destroy th-th-that thing?” Jesse asked, mesmerized by the green glow on the urn. There seemed to be life burning within that urn, burning with unadulterated darkness, and the thought of it sent chills down her spine.
Lipton clenched his fists, tensing up his body. He would try to d
estroy the urn the old-fashioned way, using his physical strength. Mustering as much energy as he could, he sprang toward the urn like a hawk, wings arched high, and smashed his body against the urn, with so much intensity that he howled in pain when the impact cracked his bones.
“Ahhhh!!!!” Lipton wailed, collapsing on the ground, pain slicing through him like razor-sharp knives.
“Lipton!” Both Jesse and Kalista cried, dashing over to Lipton’s crumpled body on the floor.
“Are you OK?” Both the women asked at the same time, as if they were telepathically linked.
Lipton’s only response was an agonized groan, and he thrashed around the floor as the pain throbbed through his body.
“He’ll recover,” Jesse said confidently. “He always does. We need to give him so time for the pain to subside …”
Kalista glanced at Jesse. “You seem to know a lot about him.”
“Yes, I do,” Jesse said with a slight smile curving her lips. “Let’s give him some space to recover. In the meantime, what are we going to do about the urn? I can sense its powers all the way from here. It’s so dark that it kind of … terrifies me. I don’t want to be in its presence any longer. The sooner we destroy it, the better it is.”
Kalista didn’t reply, but instead, stared at the urn, which contained Catan’s source of dark powers. She could still hear the beating sound of the Pulse emanating from the urn, and it sounded like the heartbeat of evil. She just had to find a way to destroy it, and not the physical way which Lipton had demonstrated earlier.
Lipton finally recovered, and the women helped him get back to his feet.
“How are you feeling now?” Kalista asked.
“I’m still in pain,” Lipton responded. “But the pain has eased up a bit, and it’s more tolerable now. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I can deal with a bit of pain.” He ended the sentence with a playful grin on his face, which made Kalista smile. He turned his gaze at the urn, and disappointment filled his eyes. “I don't think I can physically destroy that urn. See what it did to me?”
The three of them were silent for a moment, staring at the urn which stood there like an invincible devil, burning with evil darkness. If they did not destroy the urn soon, Catan would return soon, and then they would have no chance to destroy it, and their plan of preventing the Apocalypse from happening would fail.
All of a sudden, Lipton growled in pain, collapsing on the floor again and thrashing around.
“Lipton!” Jesse cried. “I thought you’ve partially recovered! Has the pain come back?”
“No!” Lipton howled. “It’s Catan. He’s going to manifest soon! I’m trying to suppress him but he’s getting stronger and stronger! You guys better hurry to find a way to destroy the urn, or if that’s not possible, I want you guys to escape this place through the Peak to safety! You guys better act fast now! I’m trying to hold Catan back from manifesting!”
23. Invincible
Heart pounding in her chest, Jesse flicked a panicked glance at Kalista. “What are we going to do? Shall we escape through the Peak now?”
“I’m not leaving until we destroy that urn!” Kalista protested. “We’ve come so far to find this urn, and I’m not going anywhere until I see that urn destroyed.”
“But how are we going to destroy it? We don’t have the means to do it. The safest bet is to get out of the Maze of Doom, and find Maggie, who’s a powerful Enchantress. She could probably figure out a magical way to destroy that urn.”
“But we don’t have much time left! Even if we did find her, we wouldn’t come back in time to destroy urn. By the time we come back here, Catan would have discovered our plans and by then he would have moved his source of powers to another secret place, far from out reach. That’s how smart Catan is. I know how he thinks and if that happens, we wouldn’t stand a chance against Catan anymore.”
Jesse heaved a huge sigh. Kalista had a point. But how were they going to destroy the urn for good? Jesse felt her head throbbing in pain as she thought hard.
“Your blood!” Jesse exclaimed, eyes widened. “Why haven’t I thought of that earlier? We can use your blood against the urn! You’ve seen how the magical strength of your blood has torn down the walls. What if it can also … destroy the urn?”
Kalista gasped, feeling as though her heart had leapt to her throat. “B-but … we’re talking about destroying an urn which contains the source of dark powers, and you can imagine how powerful that is. I don’t think my blood is strong enough to take down that urn. There are limits to the supernatural abilities of my blood too, you know …”
“I know … but we wouldn’t know unless we try. Your blood is our only last chance. Lipton wasn’t able to take down the urn, but maybe your blood can. You just have to try!”
Kalista sighed. Jesse could be right. What was there to lose anyway?
“Alright, I’ll do it,” Kalista finally gave in, and edged closer toward the urn, her heart pounding in rhythm to the pulse which emanated from the urn. She broke out in beads of sweat as she neared the urn, so near that her nose almost touched the diamond-shaped glass window. She squinted against the bright glow which radiated from inside, and she took a deep gulp. It was now or never. She lifted her right arm, and saw that her blood had dried out. Drawing her right arm close to her mouth, she braced herself and bit into the clean flesh of the upper part of her arm, and cried in pain as blood oozed out again.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she rubbed the bloodied part of her arm against the glass window, hoping that would do the trick. She staggered a few steps backward, and inhaled as much air as she could into her lungs. Draining her own blood had made her partially weak, but she was still able to hold on. Seeing that Kalista was almost keeling over, Jesse rushed to her side and supported her by wrapping her arms around Kalista.
“I’m feeling a bit faint,” Kalista admitted, her eyes still trained on the blood-stained glass window right in front of her.
“You’ll be alright,” Jesse reassured her. “I promise you.” Jesse followed Kalista’s gaze toward the front, and disappointment constricted her heart when Jesse realized that there was no shimmer from the blood. Did that mean it didn’t work at all?
Lipton burst into a sudden scream again, startling the two women. “I can’t take it any much longer! You guys better destroy the urn … and fast! Catan’s getting wild inside of me, trying to punch his way out, trying to manifest! I’m doing the best I can to suppress him! Please hurry!”
Kalista took a few deep gulps, watching at the blood-stained glass window in horror. Nothing was happening at all!
“It’s not working!” Kalista cried in terror. “The urn should have been destroyed by now! My blood is not shimmering as it should! Maybe I need to apply more blood on the urn! Maybe the urn’s too strong for my Urukan blood. Maybe I need to use more blood!” Kalista was bordering on hysteria, unable to believe that she had spilled some blood for nothing. Kalista was about to bite into her arm once more when Jesse stopped her, yanking Kalista’s arm away.
“Stop spilling more blood, Kalista!” Jesse warned. “You’ll kill yourself if you drain more blood!”
“But it’s not working!” Kalista shot back. “And Catan is about to manifest soon! I won’t let that happen! I won’t!”
When Jesse was about to shoot more words out from her mouth, she heard a hissing sound. She got distracted and swiveled her head in the direction of the urn. What she saw made her gasp, drawing a relieved smile on her face.
“Look!” Jesse screamed, looking like she was about to bounce up and down. “Your blood … it’s shimmering! It’s working!” Jesse continued staring at the shimmering blood right in front of her, as though it were a work of art.
Kalista followed her gaze, and a look of ecstasy filled her face. “I can’t believe it! My blood is finally coming into effect! My Urukan blood is finally going to destroy the urn … for good! Destroy Catan’s source of dark powers!”
The two women were so
mesmerized by the sight of the shimmering blood that they didn’t notice that Lipton was thrashing around on the floor behind them, straining against the pain that was rippling through him as Catan struggled to manifest.
Kalista and Jesse watched as the shimmering blood streaked out into a tree branch-like pattern, lines of blood snaking from the center of the glass window to other parts of the urn. The blood hissed and shimmered, glowing in scarlet shade, chipping away at the surface of the urn, slowly destroying it. The blood spread out profusely all over the urn, covering the glass window and concealing the green flame behind it. There was no more greenish glow emanating from the urn anymore. Instead, the urn was overwhelmed by scarlet shimmer, which wrapped around it like red glowing ropes, shackling it, tearing it apart layer by layer. The sound of the hissing blood magnified as the branch-like streaks of blood spread out like wildfire and covered the urn completely, turning it into a shimmering red urn. The sound of the Pulse, which had been emanating from the urn, had completely disappeared, as though the blood had stopped the heartbeat of the urn, draining the last traces of life away from it. The urn convulsed violently, as the blood slowly melted it away. The urn warped and twisted around, as though it was in pain. The shimmer became brighter and brighter, the glare so intense that it made both Kalista and Jesse squint their eyes. Then all of a sudden, the light intensified to the highest point, almost blinding both the women, and a loud explosion rippled across the air.
Eyes still tightly closed from the glare of the exploding light, both women felt something splatter against their body, something warm and watery. It startled them so much that they immediately jerked their eyes open, trying to see what had happened to them.
“I’ve got blood splotches of my body!” Kalista cried, her eyes running down the length of her body, her heart pounding in chaos.
Jesse also ran her eyes down her body. “I’ve also got blood on my body! Wait … it’s your … blood, Kalista! The impact of the explosion we’ve just heard must have spattered some of your blood of us!”
In Love With A Vampire Page 42