by Sofia Daniel
“Did you kill Micalla or not?” she asked.
Casting my mind back to that fateful day when the oath I had made with Nero had forced my hand, I said, “I didn’t kill your daughter.”
“I could snap your neck right here,” she snarled.
I tried reaching out my power to her empty soul-star chakra, but only a slither of magic came out. Black energy from the scorpion collar lashed out like the mouth of a frog and absorbed my energy.
With a yelp, I pulled it back into my body.
Lady Mantis smirked. “You aren’t quite so cocksure now, whore.”
Anger flared across my skin. She was surprisingly ungrateful, considering Radu had had unfettered access to her body and blood. I turned to her, my lip curling. “Your lord intends to make me his mate. I’d watch that mouth if I were you.”
A lash cracked against Lady Mantis’ back, making her arch. The vampire noblewoman turned around, revealing an eight-year-old girl with her hair arranged in two bunches of pretty ringlets.
The little day-walker scowled. “Father said you should dress her, not make insults and threats.”
Lady Mantis dragged me by the hair into the bedroom. The stench of burned flesh filled my sinuses, making me gag. Ignoring the massive corpse smoldering on the bed, she strode to the wardrobe on the left and flung the door open. “I’m not a lady’s maid.”
I glanced down to check for Zarah’s remains. Thankfully, someone had removed her body.
After snatching the nearest summer dress and slipping it over her head, she rifled through the wardrobe. “Does Proust’s stupid bitch wear anything but florals?”
Lowering my gaze to the ground, I sighed. We had all underestimated the day-walker children. I’d thought that Dracula had used them as cannon fodder, but they had infiltrated the hunters and used their energy-draining weapons to defeat them from the inside.
As Lady Mantis arranged her hair into an updo and secured the style with long, wooden pins, I turned to the little girl. “Who was in the tank?”
Grinning, she rocked back and forth on her heels. “A decoy bred to look and smell like Lord Dracula.”
My lips tightened. The paranoid, old vampire had probably snuck into the academy on foot or crossed the wards in the hearse as a double-bluff.
“This will have to do.” Lady Mantis tore my black dress off my body and shoved a cream dress over my head. “Pull your arms through the sleeves!”
“I can’t move,” I muttered. As soon as Dracula freed me, I would wring his neck.
With an annoyed huff, the little day-walker girl adjusted the shadows so I could finish dressing, then she dragged me by the shadow behind her out of the suite and through the hallways like I was a sled. Lady Mantis walked at my side, her nose pointing to the ceiling.
We reached the dining room, where two little boys about five or six pushed open the doors, revealing Dracula at the head table. The seat on his left lay empty, but an exhausted-looking Captain Tanar slumped on his right.
The little girl released the reins on the shadow, bobbed into a curtsey, and scurried away, leaving me in the aisle between the vampire and frumosi sides of the dining room. If Dracula’s shadows weren’t holding me up, my entire body might have slumped with defeat.
Lady Mantis walked around the back of the head table and stood behind the empty seat. Dracula waved her to the far end of the table, and she plonked herself next to a relatively healthy Professor Proust.
Dracula stood with his arms stretched out in a manner reminding me of Radu. “Welcome, my future mate. It is time to form our bond in front of valued witnesses.”
“No!” I tried digging my heels into the ground—anything to stop getting close to Dracula, but the shadow beneath my feet propelled me along.
I bared my teeth and snarled. Even if Dracula wanted to bond with me, it wouldn’t work. There was more to the process than the exchange of sex and blood and vows. The old vampire took control of the shadows, lifting me through the air and into the empty seat.
“Colleagues,” he said, sounding infinitely relaxed. “We have prevailed against the scourge of hunters and defeated Radu cel Frumos. This is a fortuitous day for the Vampire Parliament!”
The vampires in the room gave a smattering of applause.
My nostrils flared. Was he going to take credit for Radu’s death now?
The doors opened, and vampire students trudged into the room and took their places around the dining tables. I’d expected them to be relieved at having been freed from captivity, but most looked defeated and annoyed.
I couldn’t blame them. These vampires had been brought up to believe that they were at the top of the food chain. This had even been reinforced by the vampires abducting frumosi and explaining that we were a race of consorts, breeding stock, and blood whores. Radu had proven that we were nothing of the sort.
I glanced around, looking for frumosi students, former knockers, surviving hunters, anyone who might help me escape my predicament, but all I saw were haughty little day-walkers amidst a sea of exhausted vampire faces.
“But first, we will all drink,” said Dracula.
The doors opened, and Vampire guards herded in a group of quaking, frumosi students. Many of them still wore their nightclothes.
Nobody moved toward the supposed sustenance — not even Lady Mantis.
“What is wrong?” asked Dracula. “Drink these people and be merry.”
A silence stretched out. A few of the vampires stole glances at the frightened frumosi and grimaced.
“Why do you refuse my gifts?” asked Dracula.
“If I may?” Professor Proust raised his head.
“Go ahead.”
“Many of the students here were either fed upon by the hunters or watched their classmates victimized—”
“Then this is your chance for revenge!” Dracula boomed.
Still, nobody moved.
Dracula turned to Professor Proust for an explanation.
The thin vampire added, “The purpose you gave me for this academy was to raise the next generation of vampires on something other than human blood.”
“So?” Dracula snapped.
“I wager that a diet of sangria combined with their traumatic experiences has put them off drawing blood from another living being. Especially those they consider classmates.”
Dracula rubbed his chin. “This is most disturbing.”
“My Lord,” I whispered.
He turned to me, a smile playing under his thick mustache. “What is it, my dear?”
“This mating won’t stick.”
His thick brows furrowed into a deep ‘V.’ “Why not?”
“This collar is restricting my magic.”
Dracula reached around and unclasped the scorpion collar, which fell onto the table. “Is this better?”
“Yes.” Sliding a tendril of magic under the tablecloth, I eased the scorpion collar toward me, so it dropped onto my lap. Then I twisted away from Dracula and let the collar fall on the floor with a quiet thud.
While Dracula changed the subject with a self-celebratory speech, I stared straight ahead and stretched a tendril of magic along the head table. When it reached Lady Mantis, I maneuvered it around the back of her body and pulled out one of the wooden pins in her hair. The vampire noblewoman stiffened but kept her composure.
With the greatest of care, I floated the wooden pin behind the head table and pointed it at the chakra that glowed green in the center of Dracula’s chest—his heart.
“The acquisition of this powerful frumosi mate will herald a new era in vampirism,” he said. “We will no longer need to hide from hunters, as my new weapon will defeat all our enemies, including those with the potential to become our predators.”
My stomach dropped. Dracula’s plans had downgraded from using the frumosi as familiars to wiping us out.
Chatter spread through the dining room as others came to the same realization.
Pushing every ounce of my magical powe
r into the strike, I hurled the wooden hairpin deep into Dracula’s heart chakra. Fiery, orange light swirled around the wood, but it settled back to green.
Dracula turned to me, his crimson eyes cold. “You will learn, my darling mate, that Lord Dracula cannot be killed.”
“I’m not your mate.”
The vampire swept the empty goblets off the table, filling the air with the clang of metal hitting marble. He wrapped a meaty hand around my neck and slammed me flat on the tablecloth.
The back of my head crashed onto the wood, and pain radiated through my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut and winced.
“First, I will take you,” he growled, baring the largest set of fangs I’d ever seen on a vampire. Crimson covered the whites of his eyes, and his pupils narrowed into reptilian slits.
“No!” I reached out with my magic and twisted it around Dracula’s lower chakras, blocking the flow of energy to his private parts.
The vampire grimaced and squeezed tighter. “Then we will exchange blood. If you do not say your vows, I will reach deep into your mind and force you to say the words.”
A sob caught in the back of my throat. The only way I knew to kill a vampire was to push my magic into his soul-star chakra. This would overload his heart chakra and cause intense pain or an explosion. But the wretched vampire had hidden his soul, so I had nowhere to attack.
I tried pushing my magic directly into his heart chakra, but it merely absorbed the power.
“Why don’t you just die,” I snarled.
Those terrible fangs protruded from his monstrous mustache, making me wonder if he’d stuffed his soul underneath all that facial hair.
“Dracula is unkillable, he said. “You will learn that over the centuries, my precious mate.”
“There’s a reason why Dracula cannot die,” said a sharp, female voice.
Dracula raised his head. “Pearl?” he loosened his grip on my neck. “How did you break out of your enchantment?”
“You made a mistake when you sent me to the Sanguine Academy to become a knocker.” Resentment dripped from the onion woman’s voice.
Dracula released my neck and drew back. I rolled to the front of the head table, jumped down, and landed on my hands and knees.
Standing in the aisle was the onion woman, still clad in her black knocker dress and white apron.
She glanced at the ten-year-old day-walker we had met in the limo. “I see you’ve turned our son into a soldier.”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Your mother,” said the onion woman.
At the same time, Dracula said, “Ignore this madwoman, General Mollusk. She is jealous that she failed to qualify as my mate.”
The onion woman’s eyes softened. “Did Dracula tell you he sent me here to become a knocker?”
The boy’s shoulders hunched up to his ears. “Father told me you were dead.”
She nodded and folded her arms across her chest. “I expect he said the same to the rest of you day-walkers. Every few months, a frumosi girl comes here sobbing about her baby, only to become transformed into a knocker. This so-called father of yours deprived you of love because he wanted to make you his personal guard dogs.”
“Lies!” Dracula sent a shadow in the onion woman’s direction, but it crashed on a dome of iridescent magic.
“I know every single frumosi sent here by Dracula. Many of them are your mothers.” She turned to the little girl who had dragged me through the hallway. “Would you like to meet your mummy?”
“Do you know her?” she asked.
“Traitor!” Dracula’s shadow lashed at the girl, knocking her off her feet.
General Mollusk scowled, looking like the onion woman whenever she found me irritating.
“Fathers don’t strike down their daughters for asking questions,” said the onion woman. “Dracula doesn’t love you. He only loves himself.”
None of the children rose to Dracula’s defense or made eye-contact with the fiend. I crouched in front of the head table within the vampire’s blind spot, my heart pounding and urging me to do something—anything to help the onion woman defeat Dracula.
“Back to what I was saying,” she said. “Dracula cannot die because he has hidden his soul-star chakra.”
“Lies,” he snarled.
“That’s the reason why no weapon can kill you. And your shadows protect you from other forms of death, including being set on fire or left in a sun-lit room. While I was your concubine, I tried every method and failed.”
Dracula threw his head back. “Ha!”
“But there’s one thing you didn’t factor. I found your soul.” She pulled out the canvas of Dracula’s portrait from the entrance hall. The one I’d first noticed after being abducted and brought here. Behind the painted version of the vampire stood an archway filled with a black so deep, it could only be a soul-star chakra.
“Give that to me!” His shadows lashed out, but they clanked against the onion woman’s protective bubble.
Dracula let out a roar of frustration and wrapped his shadows around General Mollusk, lifting him off the ground. “Hand me back my soul, or I will smash your son’s brains against the marble.”
The little general’s eyes widened, and shock slackened his young features. Around him, all the day-walkers gasped and clapped hands over their mouths. I guessed they had never seen this ruthless side of their father.
“You wouldn’t.” The onion woman’s voice shook with uncertainty.
“He is but a tool.” Dracula swept his arm across the room. “I have many more to replace him, but you have only one child.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering what on earth I could do to help. My magic could only pick up the lightest of objects, and everything I’d practiced so far had been focussed on defeating hunters, not vampires.
Pain tore at my heart. I needed my mates. Anything was possible with our combined power, but I hadn’t yet learned how to access it remotely.
“Father,” said the girl who had pulled me into the dining room. “Mollusk didn’t do anything wrong.”
His shadow slapped her hard across the face. “Silence, Sargent Ponderosa!”
The little girl held her cheek, her bottom lip trembling.
“Now,” said Dracula. “Give me that painting, or I will slaughter every day-walker in this room, starting with your son.”
The onion woman’s gaze lingered on the boy dangling precariously in the air.
“I hope you choke on it.” She hurled the portrait toward the head table.
With her protective bubble lowered, Dracula’s shadow wrapped around her neck. “For that act of rebellion, you will watch your son die.”
I lashed out with my magic and set the painting on fire.
“No!” he roared.
Dracula’s dark grip disappeared from the onion woman and her son, letting them both fall to the ground. He shrouded the burning portrait in his shadows, but it was too late. His soul-star chakra settled straight above his crown.
“What have you done?” he snarled.
The onion woman grabbed her son and wrapped him in a protective bubble.
I squeezed my eyes shut and poured every ounce of my remaining magic into Dracula’s soul-star. Instead of his chakras overloading and bursting into a cloud of ash, I set his clothes on fire.
Screams filled the dining room, but no-one moved to help Dracula.
A figure moved through the air and pierced Dracula through the chest with a chair leg, but the burning vampire continued to thrash.
Dante jumped back. “Why won’t this bastard die?”
Raphael rushed up to him and slashed him through the stomach with a broadsword. Dracula screamed, but there was no blood or guts—the flames cauterized the wounds.
Nero threw an ax into his throat, but Dracula only roared with pain. Blood spurted out from the wound and dried up in the fire encasing his body.
“Stand back.” The onion woman slashed her finger with a dagger, presumably to
summon Ademenitor.
“Don’t call him!” I screamed.
“Why not?” she shouted back.
“He has Justine’s body and Radu’s life-force. Any more power and he might break through into our realm.”
Her panicked eyes fixed on the figure thrashing at the head table. Most of the vampire faculty stood down from the dais, not lifting a finger to help. The onion woman turned to me. “What the hell are we going to do about him?”
“Nero, Dante, Raph, Gates!” I shouted. “Join hands.”
The boys raced toward me and got into position. I poured our combined power into Dracula’s soul-star chakra. His shadows drew up around his body, but the flames continued, as they were powered by magic.
Dracula threw back his head and screamed, his shadows floundering, but I pressed ahead. Even if this was the great Vlad the Impaler, who had made a deal with Ademenitor for power, he was still a vampire. And I’d seen hunters reduce them to dust.
Light flared in his soul-star chakra, and power poured into his heart, turning it from green to an incandescent white. I squeezed Nero’s hand, squeezed Raphael’s, and forced them to give me a little more.
A heartbeat later, the flames retreated into Dracula’s body, and the vampire exploded in a cloud of black dust.
Applause filled both sides of the dining room. I breathed hard, gaping at the students. Maybe Professor Proust had been right. The vampires’ time as the prey of the hunters had brought about new compassion for frumosi.
“Well done.” Raphael kissed my cheek, followed by Nero, then Dante, and then Gates.
I blew out a relieved breath. We had done it. We had wiped out the most evil influences in this part of the supernatural world.
Nero’s dark eyes met mine, the pride and determination in them, reminding me of his original plan. One day, after honing our combined powers, we would go after Lord Stryx.
Epilogue
With the columns surrounding its entire structure, the Vampire Parliament reminded me of the Parthenon, except for the gable roof that shielded the outdoor construction from the sun. The final rays of sunlight drenched the west side of its interior, while the east was shrouded in shadows.