by Lily Levi
Felix stood and paced out against the outer rocks from where we sat. “So we have an accord then, yes? The Master is not long for this earth - has he spoken to any of us? He is silent. He is watching. He is waiting for his true heir to take the throne.” His pale eyes flashed. “One of us.”
I stood. I could not destroy them now, not alone, but I could point out their flaw in hopes of drawing more time for myself… and for Serena - in hopes of confusing them with the truth.
“The others have broken the contract with hell,” I said slowly, measuring my words as they came. “Nikolai and those who side with him have broken the rules of the hierarchy. The Master has not flayed them into the ground for it.”
“My, my,” said Ivan, interrupting me. “So eloquent. I nearly forgot you were more than hateful grunts and heavy threats.”
I bared my teeth at him, unable to help myself. “There is no punishment for abandoning the contract of the game. Who will force the others to give their blood - their lives - to Serena’s killer?”
Felix laughed. “The Master will, of course.” He clicked his fingers together. “It’s still his game, after all. It always has been and it always will be, right until the end. He won’t forsake us to hell’s demented fury. No one wants that, not even hell itself. It upsets the balance of things, do you understand?” He cocked his head at me. “You know best the power of the Master’s command, don’t you, Cain?”
I turned my back to them and scanned the mist-hidden sea for the boat against the long, rocky shore. Perhaps they were right, but I couldn’t let them kill Serena.
Was it love?
A strange chill crawled over my skin. No, it wasn’t love. It was an instinct I couldn’t place. I wanted to protect her - I needed to protect her. There was something about her that had to go on, come the others, come hell itself. If I was built to be commanded, then perhaps something commanded me even now; not the Master, not Pollux, but something else.
But how to question a thing that could not be seen or known?
But I liked the thing, whatever it was or whoever it was, if it was there at all. It did not demand my fury. I felt at rest. Peaceful, even. I did not want to lose it and something told me that losing Serena would mean the end of my peace, whether the Master upheld the rules of the hierarchy or not.
Ivan drew near. “It’s a confusing game, isn’t it?”
“Hateful,” I said.
He patted my back. “So are you, brother.”
I grunted at this.
“But stick with us,” he said. “And no matter what we’ll let you have a little fun with Serena before we draw our proverbial straws.”
I stared down at him. It would be so easy to grab him by the neck and throw him down into the sea. But he would claw his way back up. He was not so weak as Orlando, and the others would be against me in no time at all. I couldn’t take them all at once, it simply wasn’t possible. Instead, I turned away from him and set my gaze out to sea once more.
My eyes caught onto a rock, bobbing strangely in the water. But it was no rock. My heart slowed at seeing her.
Her long, dark hair swirled in the foamy waves around her and it took everything I had not to rush down from the side of the cliff and swim out after her. I held myself steady with what strength I could muster against my own greater instinct to protect her. I simply watched.
She moved slowly through the waves, away from the boat and from Nikolai and the nest of lesser vampires, with a small boy in her arms, weighing her down. She was rounding the land through the water, but would have to climb back up onto shore in time. I only hoped that none of the others had seen her.
I turned back to the other four, still speaking amongst themselves, fools all.
She would be mine. I would protect her against all things, against all the world and all of hell with it. Protecting her would protect the peace I had found. I felt that much to be true, though I couldn’t have said why.
“Serena,” I whispered. Her name was such a sweetness on my tongue which had known nothing of the kind. “Serena.”
Remus
I had watched her go with the strange little boy in tow. If Theron would kill me and the others were content to watch him do it, what duty did I have to them any longer?
Traitors, the lot of them.
I touched my neck, sore from Theron’s unnecessary wrath. “Watched her fly away,” I said smugly. “Just took off right into the air. Any of you have a cigarette?”
“Remus,” Darius screeched. “Selfish bastard, selfish, selfish!”
“Tell us,” Theron said. He reached out to touch my shoulder and I pulled away. “I’m sorry, Remus, If Nikolai has true intentions, it’s a decent enough plan. Which way did she go?”
I grabbed onto the boat’s railings, struggled up to my feet, and wiped the hair back from my face. “I’ve always liked you, Theron,” I said. “You’re not a complete piece of shit. But you crossed a thick line pretty well.” The same couldn’t be said for either Pollux or Darius. They had always been absolute garbage. Pollux was a sneaky, back-winding weasel and Darius had the sanity of a firestorm.
Zane let himself over the side of boat with great ease and back down onto the rocky shore. “Come on,” he shouted. “I believe Nikolai and why shouldn’t I? How many thousands of bottles of vodka have I shared with him? The monster means what he says. We can survive this together, all of us. But we need to fucking find Serena.”
“What of Ambrose?” I asked, hoping to stir them further.
Zane glanced behind him and back up the cliffside. “We find Serena and bring him around. Easy. But we’re not the only ones looking for her now, are we?” He started down the shore, but none moved to follow. He was going, as bad luck would have it, the way I had watched Serena climb over the side of the boat.
“Come on, assholes!” he yelled back over his shoulder.
“Nikolai!” Darius cried out, hands on either side of his mouth. “Nikolai!”
Pollux moved in front of me and pushed a long finger into my chest. “So you get into a little fight and you throw yourself a pity party? I have always wondered why the Master chose you to be one of us.”
I pushed his hand away. “Fuck you, Pollux,” I said. “Fuck you.”
Theron and Darius jumped over the side of the boat and hurried to follow Zane down the shore, but Pollux only leaned in closer to me, his mouth at my ear.
“I’m going to find her,” he whispered, pacing his words as though he were sharing some great secret. “And when I do, I’m going to kill her, because fuck you and fuck your socialist garbage And after that, I’m going to enjoy with such pleasure watching you and the others be forced down to your knees in front of me by the sheer will of the Master himself. And then, do you know what then?”
I didn’t need to guess. I knew what it was he wanted to say, base creature that he was. “You’ll take my blood, but not before I take yours,” I said and wasted no time in razoring my teeth into the side of his neck.
Pollux’s scream curdled the blood already in my mouth and seeping down my bruised throat.
His rough hands wrapped themselves around my shoulders and my body was thrust backwards through the cold air before I could unhook my fangs from his skin, drawing back a chunk of his flesh.
The back of my head hit against the corner of the boat’s cockpit and my vision went black for a quiet, harrowing moment. “Pollux,” I said, spitting out his flesh. “Fucking Pollux.” I reached out to help myself back up, but a swift kick to my chest sent me back down again.
“Worthless,” Pollux breathed from above me, his voice ragged. He kicked at me a second time and I rolled away before his boot could strike me again.
“Pollux!” Nikolai’s voice carried down the rocks. He was near.
Pollux turned to answer.
I pulled myself back up to my feet and wasted no time in grabbing the back of his head and swinging him off to the side, bashing his body against the railings and bending them outwards.
He slumped against them.
“Traitor!” I yelled. But had I expected anything different of him?
Nikolai descended down the rocks with his shit-eating hound on one side and Ambrose on the other. The thousand or more lesser vampires from Gauter’s nest followed close behind, like a frozen, pale wave washing over the cliffside.
I stepped over the side of the boat’s railings and tried to lower myself down to the shore, but my feet never touched the rocks.
Pollux dug his bone-hard nails into my exposed wrists and lifted me upwards with a strained grunt. He tossed me back down onto the deck like a ragdoll. “Weak,” he spat, eyes glowering. “The Master only pitied you.” He laughed. “Do you miss your mommy? Do you miss your daddy?”
Muscles aching, I strained to shove him away from me and back against the rails. “Don’t,” I growled.
He sidestepped me. “Poor Remus,” he said, breath short. “Poor baby Remus. Shame he left you alive. Do you think he laughed at them while he killed them?”
Of course he had. The Master had killed them both without a single flicker of remorse in his eyes - it was what I had been told and there was no reason not to believe it.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “Go back to hell,” I said.
Nikolai neared the boat with Ambrose and Gauter at his side, boots crunching against the hard sand between the rocks. His hellhound Hecate let out a low growl from the deepness of her throat, coated in cold saliva.
“Gentleman,” he said, eyeing us with a fascinated curiosity. “Ambrose has agreed to join our… cause.”
Ambrose lifted his chin at us and I couldn’t help but feel mildly fascinated at Nikolai’s work. To bring Ambrose around - what had he said?
“Oh?” I drew myself down from the side of the boat and Pollux followed. “How fortunate as Pollux was just about to leave our cause.”
“A quarrel between brothers,” said Nikolai, waving his hand to dismiss me.
“Where’s Serena?” asked Ambrose. He swallowed back something, perhaps words. “And the others, where did they go? Can’t a vampire have a little chat once in a blue moon without the world falling apart behind him?”
“She left us,” said Pollux. He pointed at me. “And Remus watched her go.”
“Which way?” asked Nikolai, face hardening. He examined the deck above and the hardness melted into concern for his little lover, Darius. “And Darius,” he added. “Where is he?”
Ambrose leaned in as if he would be able to hear my answer better, should I give it.
I stared at Pollux who had attacked me; at Nikolai who had let his dog tear at my face; at Ambrose who had done nothing short of ignoring my existence as an heir beside him; and at Gauter and his thousand-numbered nest, their pales eyes resting upon mine with no wavering of fear in their faces. I could let them hunt over all of Iceland for her, but when she was found, they would forget about me again. In any case, Darius and Zane had chosen the correct path after her and she would be found soon enough.
“Which way?” Nikolai asked again, slowly, as though I hadn’t understood the question.
I had never had anything of value to offer any of them until now - and such a simple thing, too.
“That way,” I said sullenly and pointed in the direction I had seen her dip into the water with the strange child-like zombie in her arms. Nikolai’s plan for a shared rule was the best option we had.
They turned away from me as one and the world was as it had always been beneath the skin of Remus the Forgotten.
Serena
It wasn’t the sea that chilled me to the bone. It wasn’t even the knowledge that they were looking for me again, all of them, the twelve remaining spawn heirs, a thousand lesser vampires, and a single giant dog I could only assume had pawed its way up from the deepest, darkest pits of hell.
No, it was none of that. It was the child who clung to me against the frozen waves and insisted on whispering into my ear above the quiet splash of water.
“Moon,” he breathed.
I wished I had had a way to signal to Ambrose - even Theron - to say goodbye, but the risk was too great. I had seen my window to leave their game behind and I had taken it for good or for ill.
I pulled us through the water as silently and quickly as I could manage, but we weren’t going anywhere because there was nowhere to go. There was never anywhere to go. They always found me. When had they failed in that?
“Moon,” said Amun. “Buh.” He released one hand from my arm and I grabbed it back so as not to lose him beneath the waves.
“Buh?” I said, breathless from swimming. I kicked my legs harder than I would’ve liked and aimed us nearer the shore. We would have to get back up onto land before long, no matter the consequences.
“Bah,” he cried and I winced at the sound so close to my ear.
“Please,” I said, dragging us through the water.
“Bur,” he said, long and low.
I reached out my arm and pulled us another pace through the icy waves.
“Bare,” he moaned.
“Bare?” I asked, drawing us closer to the shore and its high cliffside, littered with boulders and smaller rocks.
“Bare,” he said and let go of me again to point ahead of us at the shoreline.
I followed the length of his arm and scanned the side of the land’s wall. “Bear,” I said, understanding. Bear. He’d spotted a cave.
The narrow opening called out to me and I pulled us towards it, saltwater lapping into my mouth.
It wasn’t long before my boots touched the rocks beneath the waves. I wrapped my arms around Amun, picked him up, and tread through the shallow water as fast as the growing soreness in my legs would allow.
I kissed his forehead and set him down on the shoreline. Cold water ran from his sodden clothes, but there was no time. I pulled him along the gray beach and into the slender mouth of the cave.
“Bear,” he said. His small voice echoed against the close walls.
“There’s no bear,” I whispered, still wary that we had been seen. I pulled him further into the cave until the light melded in with the shadows and I could only just make out his little frame.
I paused and listened to how the waves licked at the shore outside and how our clothes dripped seawater steadily onto the rocks at our feet. I shivered, but not because I was cold.
“Serena.”
Cain.
His voice clasped at my spine and my legs stiffened at the sound of my name.
“Moon,” whispered Amun.
My heart thundered into my ears, pounding out any other sound or thought except for run. I picked Amun up and hurried further into the blackness of the cave, stepping as soundlessly as I could, though it wouldn’t have mattered what sounds we made. Cain was stronger than the others - didn’t I remember how easily he’d destroyed Orlando? - and his senses would be sharp.
But I didn’t stop.
“Moon,” Amun cried, clinging to my side.
I pressed my hand gently against his mouth. “Quiet now,” I whispered into his ear. “Quiet.”
I stepped lightly between the forms of rocks and dips in the cave floor that I could still just barely see, pushing out the toe of my boot before each step to make sure we didn’t fall. There was no time for falling. There was no time for anything.
“Serena.” Cain’s voice echoed behind us making it difficult to tell how close he was. He had seen us enter the cave though, that much was certain.
The shadows moved gradually from black to gray the further we went. There was the sense of something opening, like a widening of the space around us, and the better I could see, the faster I moved.
It wasn’t long before the narrow causeway flumed out into a sudden, wide cavern, tall and dripping with blackened stalactites.
Light filtered down in long, cold pillars from holes in the earth high above. I searched the perimeter for another break in the rock wall, but the sides of the open cavern had been smoot
hed out. Despite how impossibly large the room was, not even the shadows could make me believe that there was another way out.
“Serena.” His voice was soft but firm… and right behind us.
I closed my eyes, kissed Amun’s forehead, and lowered him down onto the ground beside me.
“Yes,” I said, turning slowly around to face him.
His large frame blocked the only way out. He stared at me with eyes, pale and searching. He did not lunge for me, but he stood blocking the only way out that I could see.
I took a quick breath. “I know what you want, but please, let him go at least,” I said, glancing down at Amun, his hand in mine. “He hasn’t done anything to any of you.”
“Buh,” said Amun, pointing at him with one short arm. “Bear.”
Cain looked over his shoulder. And, finding nothing there, he stared back at the boy. The hard angles of his face cracked apart. Laughter filled the cavern. “Bear,” he said, his voice full of a strange character that I wouldn’t have imagined to be living beneath his violent, bitter flesh. “My mother called me ‘bear’,” he said, stepping down into the dripping cave.
I moved back.
He stopped beneath a ray of hard light and narrowed his eyes at us as if to see us better. “You’re afraid,” he said.
I said nothing. If I was afraid, it didn’t matter.
I squeezed Amun’s hand and hoped he would understand what I wanted him to do. “Run,” I said, pointing to the now-clear opening behind Cain. There would be no other chance and Cain wouldn’t follow him, at least I didn’t think he would. It was me he wanted, wasn’t it?
Amun pulled his hand from mine and I let it drop.
“Run,” I said, but he only walked slowly away from me, barely lifting his feet from the ground.
“Serena,” said Cain.
“Please,” I said. I half-expected him to lunge out and snatch the boy up to tear him straight down the middle, but he only watched him go as peacefully as a dog watches doves on a fence, with as little interest in him as Amun now had in return.