by D. N. Hoxa
“Then what the hell are we waiting for?” Kai took off her jacket, her green eyes on fire. I saw it the second they began to change. Her eyes had always changed first when she shifted.
Same as the first time, it was breathtaking to watch it happen. Her face lines became sharper as her skin rapidly filled with orange and black hair. It happened so fast, you found it hard to even trust your eyes. A blink later, Kai was replaced by her leopard, a green-eyed, dreamy creature that reached all the way up to my waist.
I turned to Kyahen who, like the rest of us, could barely tear his eyes away from Kai. “Do you think you could get Everett and Edison to join us?”
His answer was his disappearance. No words were needed. I took out my weapons, and I filled my lungs with air. Without allowing myself to think, I pushed the wooden door open and stepped into the yard.
***
Did I say yard? It was a fucking garden in there. As soon as I stepped inside, the scenery changed. I couldn’t even feel relief that I’d been right. I was too busy freaking out at the view in front of us.
It was perfection. Flowers of all kinds and fountains of naked men and women surrounded me. The path was set in yellow stones. The sky was purple, giving everything around us a strange hue. It was like I’d stepped into a fucking fairy tale.
“What the hell?” Big Mike said from behind me, but I was still too stunned to speak.
The bright red and white roses smelled heavenly. The large trees on both sides of the narrow path provided the perfect summer shade. It was so surreal, that for a second, I wondered if I was back at the Base, asleep and dreaming.
“Is it real?” Naomi breathed as she bent down to touch a pretty orange flower I had no idea what to call.
“Don’t,” I said, finally coming to my senses. This wasn’t a dream. It was Samayan’s way of knocking us out of it. Why else would he have bothered to create such place? “Don’t touch anything. We don’t know what this is yet.”
It could be an illusion, just like the small house we’d first seen had been. It could have been full of magic, designed to kill us. But I doubted it. Samayan didn’t want me dead. At least not yet.
With a deep breath, I took a step forward. Silence. My senses stretched, but I was far too alert to focus on them properly. When nothing happened and I didn’t drop dead, I took the next step. And the next…
The group followed me soundlessly. Samayan’s island in Necterram hadn’t scared me half as much as this place. There, I knew exactly what to expect. Here, I had no clue.
We walked for about five minutes. Then, we saw the hill. No more flowers, but fields of perfectly even grass stretched in front of us at the end of the stone path. At their end stood a hill, too perfectly created to be natural. On top of it, we could barely see a few pointy roofs. When my senses reached them and felt all there was to feel, my knees trembled.
I’d spent a lot of time imagining the energy that would come off Samayan. The whole world kept insisting that he was too strong. Too powerful. Invincible. And I never believed any of them. Not until now.
Now, as his energy overwhelmed my senses and seemed to take me over completely, I believed.
Samayan didn’t feel like a vampire. He didn’t feel like a strong vampire, either. He felt like a new kind of vampire, one more powerful than anything currently walking the earth. But that wasn’t all. He felt like the Nephilim, too. And he felt like a warlock.
None of it was what knocked the breath out of me, though. It was the sheer magnitude of all those powers individually and then combined. They existed in both states, as singles, and as a whole that could potentially destroy a fucking universe.
“Star?” someone called.
I wished they hadn’t. I wished they’d left me in that state where I wouldn’t be able to breathe.
“He’s here.” My voice was weak. My whole body was weak. So much power…
“He is?” someone asked. They sounded scared, too. As scared as I was. For the first time in my life, the thought of running actually crossed my mind.
A low growl came from my side, and I looked down to see Kai’s green eyes.
“He’s too much,” I whispered, my face completely numb.
Another growl, this time louder, as if to tell me she didn’t care. She wanted to get going already.
The face of my mother appeared in front of me. She’d said that it was okay, no matter what I decided to do. Surrender or fight. But she’d never mentioned giving up. Running like the coward that I was.
That was because giving up wasn’t an option. My little sister was in there, in that building with the pointy roofs. Aaron was in there, too. I couldn’t feel them—Samayan’s power overran everything else that place held—but I knew in my bones that if I ran now, I’d lose both of them.
The choice I’d made before I took my army to Necterram had been right. I was going to fight. Yes, I was scared. No, I didn’t believe I could defeat Samayan. But I sure as hell believed I could try.
For the sake of my sanity, I shut my senses down. No point in freaking myself out even more now. We were there. I’d wanted to find Samayan for so long. Now, I had.
With my weapons in front of me, I took one last look at the group. They were all scared. They were all ready. The thought that I was never going to see any of them again almost brought me to my knees for the second time.
“It’s been an honor fighting alongside you,” I said. “Once we get in there, if it gets too much, you are all free to leave. Save yourselves to fight another day. This doesn’t have to be the end,” I added, just in case I died quickly. They needed to survive and figure out a way to go after Samayan again.
“We leave together, with Samayan’s head in a bag,” said Arturo.
“Hell, yeah,” Big Mike said.
I had to fight the urge to send them all back right away. With a deep breath, I started forward.
I walked at first, not allowing myself to think about how powerless I felt. But as I grew closer and closer to the hill, I began to jog, then full out run. Kai stuck by my side the whole time, and the rest followed right behind. Cold sweat created a fine layer all over my skin. Adrenaline began to invade my body, and as if my senses were confused, they started to play the image for me in slow motion.
Up the hill we ran, and the pointy roofs turned from the size of a needle, to the size of a fucking whale. It wasn’t a building under them. It was a castle, much bigger than even Lyndor, and it looked brand new.
Black flags with nothing on them lined the way from the top of the hill to the entrance of the castle. Nobody was there to greet us. No army, no Samayan—not even Vladimir was there. So they were that sure they were going to beat us.
Of course they will, the ugly voice in my head said.
“We’re being watched,” Frosty said.
I had no doubt we were. The wooden gates stood proud in front of us. Closed. As soon as we stepped into them, they were going to come. And we had no idea how many.
A howl sounded from far away. Goosebumps covered my arms.
“It’s Kyahen,” Jack said.
I didn’t turn to look. I was still looking at the castle as the tingling sensation grew stronger and stronger inside my bones. What was it?
“By the Queen,” Kyahen whispered right next to my ear, but I didn’t even have it in me to jump. When even a fairy like his royal assness was impressed at a sight, you just knew you were probably never going to see anything like it again.
And I would be glad not to. If I could just figure out what it was that kept making my bones shake…
When Kai wrapped her animal’s tail around my legs, I looked down to see both Edison and Everett, their wolves bloodied but with no wounds in sight, growling at her. So that’s where the howl had come from. I was going to tell them to play nice. We were all on the same side here, but I couldn’t. A lump formed in my throat as I realized what was whispering to me from afar.
Illyon.
I could have cried in joy. Th
e White Book of Wisdom was in there, in that castle, and it was calling out to me. It could sense me, too. With my eyes closed, I tuned everything else out and focused only on my sun-shaped, golden necklace. It was so close to me, I could almost touch it. It fueled my dimming fire with every breath I took. It gave me strength. It gave me hope.
And it also gave me an idea.
As the group behind me argued about the best way to get inside the castle still breathing, I focused on the ground beneath our feet. Earth. It was a hundred percent earth, and it sang to me as it always did, now that I could feel Illyon trying to pull me out of the hole I was stuck in. The stones of the castle whispered their song, too. Stubborn, cold, but perfectly reachable. Only then did I really understand the power that Illyon gave me, and the power I gave it. We were more connected than I could have imagined, and I’d never had any reason to be afraid of it.
“Maybe we should try to go around back,” Frosty was saying.
It was a stupid idea. No matter what way we got in, they would be waiting for us. We had next to no chance.
“Can you transport us inside?” Jack asked Kyahen.
“I’ve never been inside,” Kyahen said. “Too much protection.”
“If they let us in so far, they’ll probably let us go through the front doors,” said Naomi.
“No, they won’t.”
I know I wouldn’t have. The only reason Samayan had let us in was to get us all alone inside his territory, right where nobody would be able to find us. Help us. Smart guy.
“So what’s the plan?” Arturo asked me.
I turned to face them. “I’m going to bring the castle down.”
Laughter was what I expected from them. Instead, they just looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had, but Illyon was still whispering in my ear, and I was going to take what I could get.
“Then what?” Kyahen said, shaking his head at me. “You’ve already lost too much strength. You can barely stand.” And here I’d been sure nobody could see my body shaking.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I insisted. I would be as long as Illyon was close to me. It was going to guide me through it all.
“Lie,” the fairy said. “You’re not going to make it inside if you try to do this. This castle is massive.”
“Agreed,” Jack said.
The rest of them nodded. I knew they were only concerned for my wellbeing because of Samayan, but damn it, it sucked either way.
“We’re going to get killed before we pass the threshold,” I hissed. They had to realize that. Kai did. Her growl said so, too.
“Then bring the door down,” Big Mike said.
“The door?” I turned around again and looked at the castle. The entrance way was big but it was nothing compared to the rest of the castle. If I could just bring down the area around it, it might give us enough time to get inside while the people who waited inside tried to get away from the falling stones.
“The door,” they said, almost in unison, and Kai growled.
The door it was.
I put my weapons away and I took a few steps forward until I was right in front of the doors. Its black-tinted windows mocked me. I ignored everything else around me the best I could, and I put my hands forward. Illyon was still there, still as strong as it had been, still too far away for both our liking. I promised it I was going to get it back very soon, if it stuck with me until I did. My blood seemed to be boiling when I began to connect to the earth again. When I focused all of my attention to the stones of the castle, the wood of the doors, the ground they stood on, the air surrounding them, I felt more alive than I had ever since my necklace was stolen. I vibrated, and though strength leaked from my every pore, it didn’t matter. I was going to do this.
Reaching out to the doors and the stones that surrounded it, I pulled my hands into fists as my mind tied around them tightly. I inhaled deeply and brought my arms back fast, and I pulled each stone out of its place with my thoughts.
The ground beneath my feet shook. Every cell inside my body screamed in protest. Something wet dripped down my nostrils and my feet no longer held me. I fell down to my knees. A loud growl. An even louder howl. I pried my eyes open to see the damage I’d done. The doors of the castle were gone. The stones around it, for about twenty feet on each side, had fallen down, too. It looked like a bomb had exploded on the inside, and now people were running out. A leopard and two wolves ran to meet them, but two vampires had already cut down the first wave of the enemy.
A hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me up. Kyahen looked down at me, cursing under his breath. Or was he? Warmth spread up my arm, and it was coming from his fingers. A second later, dark blood came out of his nose.
“Kyahen?” I said as I touched my lips and my fingers got red, too.
“I’ve loaned you my strength,” the fairy said. “Do not let me down.”
He disappeared from in front of me too fast for me to catch it, and while whatever he’d done to me spread all over my body, I was completely disoriented.
By the time the view in front of me was clear again, all of the group were in front of the ruins, fighting Samayan’s vampires. Cursing under my breath, I drew out my swords and I ran, expecting my knees to buckle.
To my surprise, they didn’t. No, they were strong. As strong as they were when we first started this. Whatever Kyahen had done, it just added one more debt I had to repay to him, but one I would be happy to.
The first vampire who met my sword turned to ash in a blink of an eye as I cut off his head. Kai had already made it into the ruins, jumping from one broken stone to another, clawing and biting her way deeper into the castle. A howl right next to my left ear almost deafened me, and I turned to see Everett, biting the shoulder of a vampire and throwing him back like a sack of potatoes. He then looked at me and howled again. I knew exactly what he meant. Without a word, I ran forward and followed Kai.
The stones I’d put down still hummed with energy, the same energy I’d released from my chest. The release that had left me down on my knees. Had it not been for Kyahen, I wouldn’t have made it to my feet, but now as I ran, I felt in complete control of my body, more in tune with Illyon than before, now that I was closer to it. I sniffed it like a wolf as I jumped and cut through vampire flesh with my swords. And when I finally passed the broken stone and wood, I found myself in a wide hallway.
Kai growled as she looked around at the soldiers dressed in black that surrounded us. All vampires. All under the potion. Their eyes were silver, their fangs long, but they never moved a single muscle. I didn’t think Kai and I were that scary. No, something else was holding them back.
That something else was the strongest vampire to have ever walked the earth, and when he spoke, his voice vibrated in the hallway, bringing goosebumps to my arms.
“My dear Raven. You made it.” He clapped his hands.
My senses were everywhere, but he let out so much energy, from close up it was almost impossible to pinpoint his exact spot. He showed himself soon enough, though. His soldiers to our left began to pull back like a fucking curtain until we could see behind them.
A few stairs led to a perfectly square room with long, black-tinted windows and a long wooden table in the middle. A table I’d seen twice before, while in the Fifth Dimension when I met the Council. Not so happy memories, but Samayan sat in the middle of it just like he always had. He was really there. No illusion this time. I could even feel the bones in his body.
It didn’t help that he looked even scarier in person, or that he was surrounded by soldiers, and by some of his strongest allies. To his right sat Seriel, the witch I’d promised Nijaria to kill with my own hands. Next to her sat Karina, her red eyes zeroed in on me like she wanted to make me bleed already. And around them sat the only other remaining men of the Council—a werewolf I didn’t know the name of, who had probably taken the seat after Everett, and a warlock. Everybody else had either left Samayan’s side, or he’d bound himself to them, stolen their power
, then killed them off.
To the side of the table was Vladimir, Captain of the Royal Guards, with three of his own. He was the vampire who had killed Aaron a while ago, and I couldn’t wait to return the favor. He stood beside Azazel, and when my eyes fell on his face, more warmth reached my bones. That was how I knew he had Illyon on his person.
Aaron stood two steps behind the demon, looking like nothing more than an empty shell. His eyes, once as blue as the ocean, were now as black as mine. His skin was pale, his shoulders lowered. He seemed to look right at me, but it was obvious he didn’t recognize me. It broke my heart to see him like that, but then I caught sight of the vampire lying behind his feet, unconscious.
Ella.
It took all of my willpower not to run to her. Suddenly, I was extremely glad she’d turned into a vampire. As a human, she wouldn’t have been able to survive this. She looked dead already, but I’d seen Frosty’s vampires look worse. Nothing my blood couldn’t fix, and I’d give all of it to her, just to get her to open her eyes.
“I saw what you did in Necterram,” Samayan said after he was sure I’d taken all of it in.
With extreme difficulty, I tore my eyes from my sister’s body lying on the floor, and I looked at him. I didn’t need to feel sorry or guilty. I needed all the rage I could get.
“You’re rather amazing, did you know?”
“Is that why you’re hiding behind your table and your minions?” I hissed. The longer I could keep him talking, the more time I would have to figure out a plan of attack. The rest of our group were already behind me. I was not alone.
Samayan laughed a bit, and I was glad to realize I’d already gotten used to the sound during our weird illusion meetings. “I’m not hiding anywhere, Raven. I’m right here. I allowed you to find me, and I was very interested to see how you’d get in. Lovely style. You’re perfect for me.”
Ew. “You’re fucking mad.”
“So you’ll be my better half!” Another creepy laugh.
This is why I hated to talk. It never got anybody anywhere. Swords had a much better language, if you asked me. And guns, too. Though they didn’t work in Necterram, they sure as hell would work here. And I was tired of Samayan’s voice already. I shouldn’t have bothered with a plan. Attack was good enough for me.