A Shade of Vampire 65: A Plague of Deceit

by Bella Forrest

  “Did you hear that, Caleb?” I asked.

  “Yes. Yes, thank the stars, but why can’t I hear her?” he replied.

  “She’s cautious,” Ben said. “She’s using our Telluris link to communicate. The earpieces aren’t working too well where she is.”

  “But where is she?” Lumi groaned.

  “She… She said to use the tracking spell. They were attacked, and they had to flee. They’re still in the weather cluster, but they’ve run out of serium batteries. None of their tech works, and she doesn’t know her coordinates,” Ben explained, repeating what Rose was telling him.

  “At least she’s okay,” Derek chimed in from afar. “Go get her, kids. We’ll be here, quiet in the background, while you do what you have to do.”

  Lumi nodded slowly, then resumed preparing the tracking spell. The rest of our enlarged group gathered around us, while Nevis refused to let go of my hand. Something had definitely changed between us, irreversibly. He’d kissed me with so many people present, too. I figured royal etiquette would’ve prevented him from doing that, but, then again, we were still fighting for our lives on a completely foreign planet. The old rules didn’t really apply.

  “How much longer?” Hunter asked. “I’d like to get back to my sister.”

  “Hold your horses,” Kailani said, then proceeded to mix the spell ingredients inside a tin bowl.

  Lumi motioned for Raphael to get closer. “Snap your fingers and give us some fire, pretty boy,” she commanded.

  Raphael’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t object. Instead, he smiled with genuine bewilderment and came down to one knee, ready to set the spell composition on fire.

  “Once this goes up, we’ll have to keep up with it,” Kailani said.

  We were all ready for the sprint. I’d done it before in GASP training sessions, anyway, as part of the preparation for on-the-ground missions. I’d aced the obstacle course chase, and I was confident that I could easily keep up with the glowing light, once it was launched and it began its tracking of Rose.

  The sound of branches breaking made my blood freeze. I looked around, and swallowed my resolve altogether. This was nowhere near over, but rather getting worse.

  Cassiel emerged from the woods, but he wasn’t alone. There were hundreds of Perfects behind him, an entire battalion sent out to take us down. What Cassiel was doing with them, however, I didn’t know.

  “What the—” Raphael blurted, his eyes wide when he saw them.

  We all stilled, the air suddenly heavy and thick enough to cut through with a knife.

  “What’s going on here?” Varga asked, confused by this unexpected sight.

  Granted, Perfects weren’t the actual surprise. Cassiel seemingly leading them was cause for concern and confusion. After all, he’d helped us with the comms blockers. Plenty of questions about all this darted through my head, but I couldn’t find an answer for any of them.

  “It’s much easier if I have you all together. And I mean all of you. Outsiders and traitors alike,” Cassiel said, wearing a satisfied grin.

  “Hold on. This doesn’t make sense,” Raphael answered, his brow furrowed. “You helped us!”

  Cassiel shrugged, while the five hundred Perfects lined up behind him in groups of fifty, their stern eyes fixed on us. There were too many of them, even with our witches and dragon and pulverizer pellets.

  “When I found you and your little group, I knew I’d get a lot farther if I played my cards right and got you all in one place, instead of picking you off, one by one. I’m just being practical, here,” Cassiel retorted. “Besides, I saw those nifty guns of yours, and I figured I’d get more people involved to keep you busy so you wouldn’t turn me into ashes. I may be superior, but I am not invincible.”

  “That’s rich,” Douma said.

  “Dude! What the hell! We fought side by side!” Varga snapped.

  One quick look at Ben, then Lumi and Draven, and I knew we were on the same crappy page. We couldn’t fight all these Perfects. They were too strong, too fast, and too many—we didn’t stand a chance. Our side was nowhere near ready to deal with such a large number. We’d learned our lesson where the size of the army was concerned from the fleet attack. We sure as hell weren’t going to make the same mistake again.

  “We did, but I decided I was safer if I kept my distance from that witch of yours. I certainly don’t intend to be burned to a crisp, like my fellow Perfects and those poor Draenir boys, the next time she flips out,” Cassiel replied.

  A hammer knocked me right in the stomach, as I gave Kailani a sideways glance. Hunter, Varga, Raphael, and I were the only ones who’d known, until now, that Kailani’s blackout had also killed the four Draenir on her team. And now, she was aware, too, and it ravaged her.

  However, she didn’t cave in. She refused to allow devastation to pull her back in what was possibly the single most crucial moment in our mission on Strava.

  “I’d love to flip out right now, though,” Kailani muttered, a muscle ticking nervously in her jaw.

  “So… you found us, you hung out with us, you helped us, you vanished. And now you’re back to, what, take us back to Ta’Zan?” I asked.

  Cassiel raised an eyebrow. “Only if you don’t put up too much of a fight. Otherwise, I’ll stop wasting time and blow you all to pieces.”

  This had been an elaborate ploy from Cassiel, to say the least. He’d certainly had us fooled, asking to have his tracker removed so he could work with us against Ta’Zan. I felt sick, seconds from retching, as I understood the extent of his scheme, and the gravity of his betrayal.

  Rage quickly took over, and I got a sudden urge to simply tear his head off. Such betrayal wasn’t just unforgivable. It warranted a death sentence in any corner of this entire universe. I had to give him credit, though. He definitely was superior to the other Perfects.

  He’d fooled us all, hadn’t he?

  Kailani

  The tracking spell was out of the question at this point.

  We couldn’t lead any of these bastards back to Rose and the rest of the Draenir. I kicked the bowl with my foot as I got up, then shot Ben a sideways glance.

  “Ask Rose to give you as many details about her whereabouts as possible,” I whispered. “We’ll use what she knows to pinpoint her location.”

  Ben nodded, then muttered something under his breath.

  Cassiel took a step back, resting his hands on his hips. “I mean, it was fun hanging out with you, guys and gals. You’re nice and smart and whatnot, but my father wants you, dead or alive, and I intend to carry out his order.”

  “Then you’re just another mindless drone,” Elonora hissed.

  “Better than dead meat, like you, I figure,” Cassiel replied.

  Vesta moved closer to Ben, keeping her eyes on the Perfects, who were a mere signal away from attacking us.

  “If ever there was a time for us to ask the Hermessi for help, this would be it,” she said.

  “They might respond,” Ben replied. “I could try reaching out to them.”

  “There’s no time,” I said. “We need to get as far away from here as possible.”

  “North,” Ben answered. “We head north.”

  Rose had given him all the information we needed to look for her and the others, without bringing five hundred Perfects along with us. My blood was boiling. I’d been carrying this uneasy feeling with me since the blackout. Hearing Cassiel confirm my biggest fear from that incident only made me more eager to burn Ta’Zan and all those who killed for him, to destroy them, to remove every trace of them from this universe.

  I felt horrible, too. The lives of four Draenir were on my conscience now. Their blood was on my hands, because I’d been unable to control myself. Worst of all, my friends knew, and they didn’t tell me. Hunter knew. And he didn’t tell me.

  “Cassiel, I thought you were smarter than this,” Raphael said, his frame tense and his muscles twitching from sheer anger. “You of all people know what it’s all ab
out. We talked this through. You understood everything I said. It made sense. So, why are you doing this? Is it pure subservience?”

  “It’s much more than that,” Cassiel retorted.

  “Enlighten me,” Raphael sighed. “Because I’m at a loss here! What could possibly get you to obey Ta’Zan and hurt innocent people? Do you really think the universe is yours for the taking? That others don’t deserve to live freely?”

  “You’re stalling,” Cassiel said. “We’re done talking.”

  “It’s time we start running,” Lumi mumbled. “North. As fast as you can. Kale, the fae, and I will hold them back.”

  “Elonora, go with the others. My frost will delay the hostiles,” Nevis said.

  She chuckled nervously. “In your dreams. We fight together.”

  Electricity crackled in the air as our people moved backward, gradually preparing themselves for the sprint of a lifetime. Nevis, Lumi, Elonora, Douma, Dmitri, Amane, Hunter, Ridan, Vesta, Zeriel, Ben, and I took a defensive position, ready to take five hundred Perfects head on. We had no plan to fight, but rather to hold them off, to summon nature itself, if possible, to stop them from coming after us.

  Varga tried to get to Elonora, but she motioned for him to stay back. “Lead the others. Take Raphael with you.”

  “You’re joking,” Raphael gasped. “You can’t fight them!”

  “We don’t intend to,” Lumi replied, a grin splitting her face from ear to ear as she set her sights on Cassiel. His aura trembled slightly, a multitude of colors flaring simultaneously. Deep down, he feared her.

  He’d met me, but he’d never faced a real, full-fledged swamp witch.

  “Go,” Cassiel muttered.

  As if their heels were set on fire, the Perfects charged us, all at once. All hell broke loose, while most of our group darted in the opposite direction, led by Raphael and Varga. The Faulties, the Draenir, Avril, Heron and his wards, Draven, Serena, and the others ran, as fast as they could. The ground shook beneath our feet, the Perfects’ feet thundering through the jungle.

  Lumi and I released a flurry of clear energy pulses—swamp witch magic that I’d already picked up from the triple tome. I saw the air ripple as they expanded into wide, invisible shields. The Perfects slammed against them. Hunter, Dmitri, Amane, and Elonora fired the pulverizer weapons.

  Nevis slammed his fists into the ground. The thickest frost I’d ever seen burst from his knuckles and spread outward. Within seconds, ice covered hundreds of square feet, most of it sneaking beneath the invisible shields and stretching upward, encasing the Perfects’ ankles.

  Ben and Vesta took out their lighters and released a brutal firestorm, while Ridan blew his flames toward our enemies. Lumi then moved her hands as she gripped every Perfect she could without touching them, and whispered a deadly spell that broke all their bones. They collapsed on the ground, like limp bags filled with bone shards. She managed to take out dozens like that.

  I didn’t have that level of skill, and I didn’t want to risk slipping into another Word blackout, so I cursed under my breath and drew my pulverizer weapon. I started shooting.

  Clouds of ashes burst here and there, but still… There were hundreds of them, all strong and perfectly capable of ripping our heads off if they got close enough. Cassiel stood back, watching carefully as the attack unfolded.

  “We have to go,” Lumi shouted. “Move back! Now!”

  We didn’t wait to be told twice. The Perfects were coming, like a friggin’ herd, their claws out and eager to tear us apart. I really didn’t want to discover what supernatural abilities they’d gotten from our people’s genes, but, then again, they weren’t going to make this easy.

  I swallowed my dread and my fears and my anger, and I turned them into the energy I needed to run. We pulled back and bolted after the others. Wings fluttered behind us—the Perfects took flight and shot over and in between the trees, coming for blood.

  Lumi and I threw a variety of defensive spells at them. Ben and Vesta summoned their fires once more and shot them backward and upward. Nevis switched to his pulverizer weapon, firing at will along with the others.

  We followed a narrow trail through the jungle, heading north.

  But the Perfects were catching up. Some, in fact, even flew past us and landed like rockets on both sides of our group, rocking the ground and throwing some of the Draenir and Faulties off their feet. This wasn’t going to end well, unless we figured out another way to shake them.

  In the back of my head, I was already thinking about the Hermessi.

  Please, for the love of everything that’s good and beautiful in this world, help us…

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Cassiel flying at a higher altitude, observing this monstrous chase without interfering. I found it strange, but, then again, maybe he was waiting for us to get tired and slip up, and then he would pick us off one by one while his soldiers attacked us and kept our pulverizer weapons busy.

  Ben and Vesta were both praying to the Hermessi. I could hear them both, pleading in the strangest unison. Somehow, my lips started moving in the same fashion, pleading with the Hermessi for salvation. They were all we had left.

  “Please… Whatever you want, we’ll do it. Help us. Please. We believe in you. We want to protect this world.”

  Before we knew it, the three of us were uttering identical words.

  “Hermessi… Hear us out… We’re opening our hearts and souls to you. Please, help us!”

  “Add that to the list of creepy,” Elonora breathed, giving us a stunned look.

  Some of the Faulties were picked off from the sides and dragged away, screaming. Ridan and Nevis shot fire and ice all around us, in an attempt to stop the Perfects from taking anyone else. Then, the strangest thing happened, as we kept running.

  The ground started shaking.

  This wasn’t because of the Perfects running like bulls, hot on our tails. No, this tremor was different and, in a way, quite familiar.

  A strange flutter excited my heart. My breath hitched, and my head became lighter than a feather. Something was happening, and I was willing to bet all the money in the world that it had something to do with the Hermessi.

  Elonora

  This whole Hermessi prayer thing was pretty much our Hail Mary, our last attempt to make it out of here. The Perfects were relentless and began displaying their other abilities. Fire rained down on us. The roots of trees around us stretched and burst through the ground, tripping some of our people.

  Those who fell were then at risk of abduction.

  Zeriel and Dmitri took their swords out, hacking and slashing at every single root that curled up before us, in an attempt to ease our race down the grassy path.

  Cassiel didn’t bother to attack us, though. He let the Perfects do most of his work, while he flew overhead and watched us like a hawk. With adrenaline pumping through me like a tidal wave on a loop, I pushed out barriers left and right, forcing some of our attackers back.

  Ours was a group effort, but it wasn’t enough.

  At one point, Douma flew out and started cutting through a large number of spines and torsos. The Perfects started falling like apples, ripe for picking. The more of them went down, the easier it was for us to run and lose them. But there were still so many.

  When the ground started shaking, however, my gut instinct was to brace myself for what came next. Strange sounds erupted from the jungle. Thunder clapped from the clouds above. It was as if nature itself was getting angry.

  Looking over my shoulder, I spotted Dmitri about to stay behind as he looked up, searching for Douma. “Run, Dmitri! Keep running!” I shouted.

  He gave me a brief glance, then increased his speed, as if he was running over hot coals.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

  The ground split open ahead, right in front of our group. It kept splitting, creating a gash through which our people inadvertently started tumbling.

  “What in the—” Raph
ael croaked, before the earth swallowed him whole, too.

  I tried to reach out to Nevis before we all went down, but didn’t make it. I didn’t want to move aside, because I knew this split had the Hermessi’s prints all over it. This was our escape. Our way out of here.

  Nevis, Lumi, Kailani, and the rest of our crew disappeared below. I jumped in next, and the darkness of Strava’s bowels enveloped me. I heard Dmitri’s roar as he fell after me. Looking up, I saw him plummeting. Above him, Douma was flying toward us, headed for the crevice. Cassiel intercepted her, snatching her away like a bird of prey.

  “No!” I managed, before I landed on my back.

  I thought that would be it, but the earth kept moving.

  We rolled and tumbled through a moving pocket in the dirt, strangely similar to the method that Vesta and Ben had used to travel on the bottom of the ocean—only they, too, were being thrown around like rag dolls, with absolutely no control over this.

  We seemed to be going deeper, too, and the temperature dropped. I caught a glimpse of Nevis trying to catch my hand, but he was gone in the blink of an eye, another body kneaded into the mass of limbs and heads that was being tumble-dried in the damn ground.

  Layers upon layers of minerals flashed passed me. Pink, purple, and blue, shimmering like polished gemstones. Serium glowed past the tips of my fingers, as I tried to stop myself from falling and rolling and generally having absolutely no control over my body or the laws of physics.

  Nothing worked. We were pushed through a layer of icy water—an underground stream. The chill quickly subsided, as the temperature suddenly spiked. I could hear Varga and the rest of our group crying out, gasping, grunting, screaming, and shouting. They were going through the same nauseating motions.

  At one point, I saw droplets of hot, red lava seeping out.

  Then, we were pushed upward again. We were like tiny puppets inside a giant, invisible marble that dragged us through the center of Strava, through multiple layers of dirt, stone, crystal, lava, water and oil, serium and minerals, and everything else that the earth kept out of sight.