A Shade of Vampire 65: A Plague of Deceit

by Bella Forrest

  He was tall and athletic, his hair short, light brown, and curly, his muscles struggling against a white silk tunic. I hadn’t seen him wear such royal garb since we were back in Nevertide. That grin slitting his face from ear to ear made me burst into tears.

  “Varga…” I breathed.

  My brother was standing right in front of us, his hands up in a defensive gesture, smiling and surrounded by a golden aura—the feelings of joy and love that flooded him like they did me. Varga wasn’t just alive and well...

  He’s here!

  Elonora

  I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks as I ran toward him. I threw myself in my brother’s arms and held him so tight, as if the world was about to end.

  What am I thinking? The world is most definitely about to end!

  “Hey, Sis,” Varga said softly in my ear, as I held him close.

  I cried like a little girl, touching his shoulders, his back, his chest, squeezing his arms and cupping his face and kissing his sharp cheeks as I thanked all the stars and deities, both old and new, for bringing my brother back to me.

  “You’re alive… I’ve hoped and prayed, but… you’re alive!” I croaked, as he tightened his embrace and kept me close.

  “Dude… You have no idea how good it is to see you!” Hunter said, as the rest of the group reached us. “We weren’t sure if you were still alive or dead after the fleet came down. Hell, we didn’t even know you were up there!”

  Varga didn’t let go but did give Hunter a friendly nod before he frowned, clearly confused. “Didn’t our vitals show up? They were tracking us from Harper’s ship.”

  I shook my head. “They cut off all transmissions, wireless or otherwise, not just comms and Telluris. The moment you reached Strava’s atmosphere, all the vital monitors went red. All we had were the manifests for each ship. We didn’t know whether you’d made it or not.”

  He smiled gently, then pressed his lips against my forehead. “Oh, come on, Sis. Did you really think I’d be so easy to kill?”

  “No, I just thought it would be a pain to save your ass!” I replied, and playfully pushed him back, making him laugh.

  Kailani and Hunter both took turns hugging him.

  “Glad to see you’re out here, but… Varga, we saw the Perfects intercept every single escape pod. How’d you get away from them?” Kailani asked.

  “I didn’t,” Varga replied with a shrug. “I was captured. I was put in a diamond dome, an annex to Ta’Zan’s colosseum, with the other prisoners, including Derek and Sofia’s group. I was there for a while, until we got some of the Faulties to help us escape. Unfortunately, I was the only one who made it out, mainly because we tweaked the plan without Amal knowing. She betrayed us and got the others in our crew brought back to the dome.”

  “Amal… Amane’s sister,” Kallisto gasped.

  Varga stilled, wide-eyed, as he looked at her. If I didn’t know any better, I could’ve sworn he was already smitten. Not that he didn’t have a reason—Kallisto was a beautiful creature, despite her hybrid features. In fact, the pale green scales on her shoulders and upper arms, along with the fins on her lower back and ankles, gave her a certain… charm. Her big yellow eyes were fixed on my brother, her long black hair cascading down her back.

  “I see you were quick to make new friends,” Varga muttered, a smile lazily stretching across his handsome face.

  Raphael cleared his throat, politely demanding our attention. Now that the ladies weren’t fawning over him, but my brother, he felt ignored. His ego was bigger than I’d imagined, but, in Raphael’s case, it was actually kind of cute.

  “You escaped from Ta’Zan’s colosseum,” Raphael said, scowling at Varga. “How? That place is highly secured, well beyond an outsider’s capabilities.”

  “The Faulties helped us, I told you,” Varga replied. “Isda, in particular.”

  “She’s still there,” Kallisto murmured, drawing Varga’s attention once more.

  “You know her?” he asked.

  She smiled, and my brother’s aura flared in a million colors. I’d seen this before with him—whenever he met a lady that tickled his senses. In fact, I’d observed the same phenomenon in Nevis, when we first laid eyes on each other. This had to be what that fabled “spark” between people looked like, on the emotional spectrum.

  “Yes. We worked and lived together for a long time, before the great sleep,” Kallisto said. “She’s a good soul. Perhaps too good for this world, if you ask me. The strongest of my brothers used to push her around when no one was looking, and she never said anything. She loves us all, even those of us who do her wrong.”

  “She’s not that crazy about her more… advanced brothers, though.” Varga chuckled. “The Perfects are way too brutal to the Faulties still serving Ta’Zan. It’s why some of them, including Isda, rebelled. We had a plan, you see. Derek, Sofia, and a few more from the founders’ crew, along with myself and Heath, were going to escape and find you guys.”

  “So, what happened?” I asked.

  “We planned it all out. The Faulties staged a diversion, while Amal got us out of the diamond dome, where Ta’Zan is keeping all the prisoners. It’s on the southwest side of the colosseum. You can’t miss it, it’s friggin’ huge,” Varga said. “We got out, but, as soon as we did, Isda took me away from the group… and it was a good thing she did, because the others didn’t make it out. We did suspect potential sabotage, but it still sucked when it happened.”

  “What about Derek and the others?” I replied. “Are they okay?”

  Varga nodded. “Ta’Zan wouldn’t hurt them. He needs their genetic material. They’re most likely back in the dome.”

  “How’d you get here, then?” Hunter asked. “How’d you find us?”

  Varga crossed his arms, proudly raising his chin.

  “Isda guided me, more or less. She gave me some cool black dust to hide my tracks from Perfects and told me to keep going east, saying that I’d find you,” he said. “For a while, I did just that, but I realized that I needed more than just a relative direction to get to you, Sis,” he added, wearing a warm, brotherly smile. “So, I started sneaking around and eavesdropping on Perfects, here and there. I listened to the gossip from up to a mile away, thanks to these bad boys.” He chuckled, pointing at his ears.

  “And they led you here?” Raphael replied, still in the dark regarding how my brilliant brother had found the right path to us.

  “Well, not exactly. But you guys were sighted here and there. The deeper I got into the woods, I came across some Faulties, too. Some of them tried to hunt me down and bring me back to Ta’Zan, but I shook them off rather quickly. A couple, I tortured. Not proud of myself, but it did get me results. A few hours ago, one of them saw you, Lenny,” he said to me. “With this crew. He said he kept his distance because Raphael was with you. From there, I kept going and using my True Sight, until I spotted you from the other side of this island.”

  “And here you are,” I sighed, tearing up again.

  “Here I am,” he replied. Movement behind me caught his eye. “You do know this guy’s got the hots for you, right?” he asked bluntly as he pointed a finger at Nevis, whose breath I could almost feel, tickling the back of my neck.

  I froze, my cheeks catching fire. My eyes were dangerously close to popping out of their orbits, as I gave my brother a horrified look. This was Varga—one minute, the loving, wonderful brother, and a foot-in-mouth idiot, the next…

  I slowly turned my head and gave Nevis a brief, over-the-shoulder glance. Our eyes met, and, for a moment, time stood still. Nevis was livid and embarrassed, and clearly unsure as to how he could get himself out of this, since everyone was now staring at us, half of them grinning along with my brother.

  This was an awkward moment, to say the least.

  “I am Nevis, prince of Dhaxanians and an ally of GASP,” Nevis said, in his formal manner of breaking the ice.

  “I am Varga, prince of
Nevertide and all-around-pain-in-the-ass-brother,” Varga replied, and shook Nevis’s hand. Frost spread from Nevis’s hand, stretching up Varga’s forearm, prompting my brother to let out a squeal.

  “I think he got the message,” I mumbled, giving Nevis a warning look.

  He smirked, then withdrew his hand. The frost melted away, leaving Varga’s arm free and red from the cold. My brother laughed, scratching the back of his neck.

  “I told you humans were way too basic for you,” he said to me. “It’s good to see you’ve stepped up the ladder in terms of boyfriends.”

  Kailani let out a laughing snort.

  “He’s not my boyfriend!” I retorted, clenching my fists. “I swear, Varga, you’re already making me wish you’d never escaped from that diamond dome!”

  “You’re still a terrible liar.” He chuckled, then wrapped me in a hug again.

  I let him hold me, still thankful that he was here, with us. “What about Grandma and Grandpa? Were they okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Grandma Claudia is as feisty as ever. She gave this dude, Abaddon, a Columbian necktie.”

  We both laughed this time. But my brother was quick to get back to the business side of things, as he gripped my shoulders and pushed me back to measure me from head to toe.

  “What?” I murmured.

  “I’m glad to see you’re okay. Ta’Zan sent Abaddon after you,” he said.

  Raphael sighed, resting his hands on his hips. “Yeah, you don’t have to worry about him anymore,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?” Varga asked.

  “He means this.” One of the Draenir accompanying us came forward, holding his weapon up for my brother to see.

  “And who are you?” Varga asked, getting more confused with every second that went by.

  “Ah, you’re way behind on what we’ve been up to,” I said, giggling. “These four strapping young lads are Draenir, my dear brother. Some actually survived that terrible plague that we thought wiped them out. Raphael helped us find them.”

  “That would be me,” Raphael replied, raising a hand. “Perfect. Wayward son of Ta’Zan. Yadda, yadda.”

  “Oh, yeah, I heard something about you. The Perfects hate and love you at the same time. The Faulties are terrified of you. You’re quite the living legend, and less than a month old. Consider me impressed,” Varga said.

  Hunter stepped between us, bringing the focus back to the situation at hand.

  “Tell you what. We’ll catch up once we finish this job and move on to the next comms tower.” He sighed. “I’d love nothing more than to get the hell out of here before more Perfects show up and catch on to what we’re doing.”

  “What are we doing, exactly?” Varga asked.

  Raphael pointed at the comms tower. “There are ten of these all around Ta’Zan’s archipelagos. We’re taking them down, one by one. They’re the ones blocking all your communications, and they’ll take a long time to rebuild, once we destroy them. So, you be a good brother and keep Lenny here company, while I go up there and start screwing with my father’s work.”

  We backed away from the palm tree as Raphael reached its base and prepared to climb up and start clipping the circuits with a small knife. We turned around to face the surrounding woods, instead, but the sight that was waiting for us knocked the air out of my lungs.

  A Perfect was simply standing on the edge of the clearing, leaning against one of the palm trees, his arms crossed as he looked at us. A flicker of amusement lit him up—his eyes, one blue and one green, seemed to glow under the moonlight.

  “Eavesdropping is rude,” Nevis said, his tone clipped as he raised his weapon and pointed it at the Perfect.

  Raphael scoffed. “You probably know by now that attacking us won’t get you anywhere good.”

  “Oh, crap,” Varga gasped, apparently recognizing the intruder, who gave him a sly grin in return.

  “You know him?” I breathed.

  “Cassiel…” Varga managed, his eyes wide.

  My brother’s aura took on a concerning shade of yellow. A citrus tinge of pure fear. There was something about Cassiel that inspired dread in Varga, and that made me feel uneasy. Nevertheless, we all pointed our weapons at him, the lateral switches fixed on the pulverizer pellets.

  All I needed was one shot to terminate him and keep my brother safe. He’d done so much for me in the past. This was the least I could do.

  “I take it there’s something special about this shmuck that has you so on edge?” Raphael asked Varga, his gaze fixed on Cassiel, who stood still and said nothing, simply watching our exchange.

  “He’s an upgraded Perfect,” Varga said. “Fresh out of the lab. Ta’Zan says he’s well above the Perfects he’s made so far.”

  “Ta’Zan can burn in hell, for all I care,” Raphael hissed. “And this one can join the previous specimens in permanent death!”

  Cassiel chuckled. “You were so easy to tail, Varga. That dust you got from Isda is virtually useless, when I’m the one chasing you, but can’t blame the poor girl. She couldn’t have known.”

  “You’ve been following me,” Varga concluded, his voice shaky.

  “I was going to reveal myself much later, but I figured you guys were having such a good moment here… I just had to step in and ruin it.”

  I moved forward, one finger settled on the trigger.

  “I would love to see you try,” I said.

  And I meant it. We’d come too far. There weren’t enough upgraded Perfects in the world to stop us from what we’d set out to do. Hell, there weren’t enough regular Perfects. Armies could descend upon us, and I would still find a way out. We’d been through enough.

  This madness had to stop.

  Dmitri

  We were about ten miles deep into enemy territory, using Vesta and Ben’s fae abilities to sneak through underwater pockets as we moved from one island to another.

  We emerged onto a thin strip of beach, the turquoise ocean lapping at our boots as we moved farther to the southwest. Amane had the map tablet, leading us toward areas that were most likely populated with rogue Faulties. More than a week had passed since they’d been abandoned by their maker, and, based on the known emotional reactions to such loss, the Faulties were ripe for picking.

  This side of Ta’Zan’s occupied archipelagos wasn’t as crowded with Perfects. We occasionally ducked and hid beneath tree crowns or in bushes whenever we saw them fly overhead, but we’d managed to keep a low profile so far.

  “Are we certain to find rogues around here?” Vesta asked.

  Amane checked the map tablet. “Pretty much, yes. I can’t speak in absolute terms because the Faulties cannot be clumped together in a certain behavioral matrix, especially the ones who were basically left behind. But the terrain and weather conditions along this side of the archipelago are favorable to settlement.”

  I looked around, my eyes narrowed as I checked the jungle to our right. “Hm… Yes, I see what you mean. The woods are rich in fruit and wild animals. I can hear a sweet water stream not far from here, either. I smell Faulties, too… the lemony scent with a tinge of ammonia. They still have that, from the cave pods, even days later.”

  “It’s a shame we don’t have Lenny with us, to scan the place and tell us where to find them.” Zeriel sighed.

  “Unfortunately, she’s out there restoring comms and stopping Perfects from getting to space,” Ben replied. “I’d say she’s got her hands full already. We can make do with our crew to find a bunch of abandoned Faulties, I’m sure.”

  “I wonder if they’ll help us,” Douma murmured, staying close to me.

  “We’ll need to give them a good reason,” Amane said.

  “A free society and the right to a good life isn’t attractive enough to these people?” Zeriel asked, shaking his head.

  “They don’t really know the concept,” Amane explained. “They only understand what Ta’Zan taught them. That they’re superior to the Draenir but inferior to the Perfec
ts, and that their position on the food chain is fixed. They don’t fathom much beyond a life of servitude. They love Ta’Zan almost blindly.”

  “True, but so did Kallisto, remember? Leah and Samael, too, until they understood that Ta’Zan would never take them back,” I replied. “I am positive that the others will see things the same way, too. We just need to get them to stand still and not try to capture us for a second or two, while we explain it all.”

  Zeriel chuckled. “Ah, yes, the old, ‘Please stop trying to cut me while I tell you about the wonders of democracy!’ routine, right?”

  The Tritone king was a creature after my own taste. Light in his humor, way too young for the amount of responsibility that he’d inherited, yet fierce and ready to defend what he loved, regardless of the cost. Granted, it was his humor that really made me giddy to have been put on the same team as the dude.

  Vesta occasionally stole glances at him, but only when he wasn’t looking. Their scents were quite powerful when they were near each other—my wolf nose picked up on the slightest change in their organic chemistry. They were definitely attracted to each other, but neither seemed brave enough to make a move. In their defense, we were running for our lives on a hostile, foreign planet, but, then again, if it weren’t for Strava, they might not have even met.

  “So, Zeriel, tell us, is there a lady waiting for you back home, on Calliope?” I asked, looking to stir them both up. It worked, as Vesta gave him a sideways glance that burned with curiosity. She’d probably thought of asking the same question, but didn’t know how.

  Zeriel smirked. “There’s an entire lagoon of marvelous creatures awaiting my return.”

  “You mean fish?” Amane asked, prompting Ridan to burst into laughter.

  “Sort of,” Zeriel replied, making me double over this time.

  The only one who didn’t seem amused was Vesta. She kept walking, gradually moving from his side and getting closer to Amane and Ridan, instead. Zeriel noticed her discreet departure, his grin fading. His ego had gotten the better of him, and it was hilarious to watch.