“By all means. I look forward to sinking my teeth into her again,” I replied.
Vesta, Ridan, Ben, and Kallisto handled the three remaining Perfects. Dmitri, Kailani, Leah, and Samael took on Oriphiel. They all had a score to settle, and with Araquiel inconvenienced by Raphael, we had a slight advantage.
The fight unraveled rather quickly from that point onward. Elonora and I kept Douma busy—on top of her existing distractions. She still caught glimpses of Oriphiel going against Dmitri, Kailani, Leah, and Samael. She clearly had a soft spot for Dmitri, and it worked to our advantage, while she also kept an occasional eye on Araquiel and Raphael.
The Perfect brothers clashed. Every tackle, every punch, and every kick was accompanied by thunderous thuds and crackles, as if they were two threads of lightning crashing into one another in the sky. At one point, they both spread their wings out and took flight, continuing their fight in the air.
We were lucky that Douma still had the device that prevented her from using her wings, but the others in our crew weren’t that lucky. Nevertheless, our swamp witch was reinvigorated by the prospect of an alliance with Raphael. Whatever was going on inside her with the Word, it brought out some stunning displays of magic.
Kailani whispered various spells, combining their dynamics to deliver crippling pulses of energy at the Perfects who tried to use their lightning speed and flight to hit her and the others. Our team was incredible at this point, with the boys taunting the Perfects on the ground, the girls launching various types of attack, and Kailani waiting for the right angle and distance to launch one of her pulses.
I heard Oriphiel’s wings break, approximately fifty feet up in the air, just as she’d prepared to dive and strike. She landed with a painful crash, sending grains of white sand flying everywhere.
At the same time, Elonora caught Douma by surprise and slashed the back of her knee with her soul-eater. Douma yelped from the burning pain, losing the use of her left leg in the process. I darted toward Douma, just as Elonora caught her wrists and brutally pulled them behind her with a twisting motion.
Douma cursed under her breath as I grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back. I tore into the side of her throat and drew as much blood as I could, while Elonora sank her fangs into her shoulder and did the same. The more and the faster we drank from her, the slower Douma got.
“You will pay for this… I swear…” Douma grunted, struggling against Elonora’s hold.
The tables had turned now. In the span of a few minutes, Douma had stopped being the most powerful out of the three of us.
Raphael and Araquiel tumbled back down onto the beach, rolling and kicking and punching each other with spine-tingling viciousness.
“How many times am I going to have to beat it into you, Little Brother?” Raphael asked, then served Araquiel with a jaw-breaking left hook.
“You’re a disgrace!” Araquiel hissed. “You let us all down!”
“I chose freedom! Just because you’re all subservient little worms with too much power on your hands doesn’t make me in any way responsible for your misery!” Raphael replied.
Araquiel’s claws came out, and he slashed at his brother. Blood sprayed out from Raphael’s chest, and, for a second, I thought we’d all be in serious trouble again. But it was over quickly. Raphael didn’t even seem bothered by the deep cuts across his chest. Instead, he caught Araquiel’s wrist and broke it with a single, sudden twist.
Araquiel growled in agony, but Raphael wasn’t done. His own claws came out, and he drove them through Araquiel’s torso. He pulled back, releasing a gush of crimson blood. Araquiel stilled, his eyes wide and glassy, and his mouth gaping. Raphael got up, grabbing Araquiel by the hair on the top of his head and pulling him up, as well.
Then, as if slicing through a watermelon, Raphael’s long and sharp claws separated Araquiel’s head from his body with a single cut. The body floundered, collapsing in the sand.
For a second, we all stopped, stunned by what we were seeing. Even Oriphiel was speechless.
“No…” Douma murmured. “Dammit, Raphael.”
Raphael didn’t seem bothered, though. Blood was smeared on his handsome face, but we could all see the grin blooming and revealing his perfect white teeth. He looked at us, breathing heavily.
“Okay, who’s next? I’m craving a midnight snack and can’t waste any more time with my idiot siblings,” he said.
This wasn’t the first time we’d seen Araquiel’s head separated from his body. But the speed and grace with which it had been done was simply out of this world. In fact, it put Abaddon’s savagery to shame.
But Douma was determined not to have this fight end with her in cuffs again.
She took advantage of our short pause and slashed at my stomach. Liquid heat expanded through my entrails as I fell backward. I tried to get up, but she’d done quite a number on my abdominal muscles.
The Perfect blood was quick to heal me, but I still was a couple of seconds too late, as Douma elbowed Elonora in the face, then moved to slit her throat with her claws.
“Lenny!” I heard Kailani scream.
The tables had turned a little too fast for me to process what was happening. Douma had weaseled out of our hold and was about to deliver a crippling blow to Elonora, when a sword flashed through the air and sliced her head off.
I blinked several times, shocked by the rapid change of players. I hadn’t even seen Dmitri when he ran toward us and decapitated Douma with his soul-eater. He, too, was perplexed. Elonora exhaled sharply. The remaining Perfects had fallen.
And, before Oriphiel could even make another move, Ben removed her head, too.
A handful of seconds flowed by ever so slowly, as the scene of this battle came into full focus. We’d actually done it. Even with Abaddon and Douma both on the loose, albeit not simultaneously, we’d done it.
Granted, we’d had Raphael to help.
Elonora
Dmitri was motionless, unable to take his eyes off Douma’s severed head. His aura burned in shades of red. He felt horrible, and it confirmed what I’d already been suspecting. He liked her, and killing her, even temporarily, took its toll on him.
Raphael dragged Araquiel’s body closer to the others, along with his head. He did it with the ease of someone who’d made a habit of collecting his brothers’ body parts to move them around—kind of like carrying watermelons to the market.
“Decapitation takes a few hours to fix, but if you burn the bodies, too, that’ll give you an extra twelve or so hours. You’d be looking at an entire day without these critters tailing you,” he said.
Ridan and Ben brought the other Perfect bodies closer, to the point where we had a significant pile of corpses gathered between us. As Amane had told us before, the Perfect bodies didn’t burn completely. Their nervous systems were programmed by Ta’Zan through the original blueprint to put the fire out before it got too deep. Upon further clarification, she’d told us that it involved the release of a fire-repellent enzyme through the blood system, which gradually killed the fire, preserving the Perfect’s body and, in most cases, the memory chip, too.
Dmitri didn’t move, until Raphael tried to place Douma’s body with the others, too.
“No, don’t!” Dmitri snapped. “She’s been with us for a few days, now. She heard our conversations. We can still use her.”
I rushed over to Nevis’s side to give him some of my blood and the last of my healing potions, while Rose, Ben, Ridan, Kallisto, and Kailani took care of Hunter, Zeriel, Amane, and the others. They’d taken some serious hits, and we were all running out of healing potions. Hopefully, Caleb and River would send us some more as soon as they got our latest message. Some hours had passed already, and we’d used Vesta’s and Ben’s blood, too. That had been a risk, since they were already exhausted, but we did use the last of our replenishing potions, too, in order to have them fully functional with Abaddon and his cronies on our tails.
Raphael chuckled, cro
ssing his arms as he looked at Dmitri. “You’ve got the hots for my sister.”
“What? No. That’s crazy!” Dmitri blurted. “I just think she’s more useful as our prisoner than as our hunter.”
“Dmitri does have a point,” Rose replied, helping Zeriel up first. Her blood, infused with Perfect and Faulty energy like mine, worked like a charm.
Kailani used the last of her potions on Hunter, covering and bandaging his wounds, while Rose spared more of her blood for Amane and Vesta. Leah and Samael were back on their feet, as well. I still couldn’t believe we’d survived a full-on Perfect attack, despite our exhaustion. Then again, we’d stumbled upon Raphael, the absolute game-changer.
“Douma is fast enough to kill Abaddon, but she is also smarter than the average Perfect,” I said, my bleeding wrist pressed against Nevis’s lips. My heart throbbed at the sight of him so severely wounded, but it had become a regular occurrence during our Stravian adventure. Each time hurt, but as long as there was breath and a pulse, we could fix him. Dhaxanians were remarkably resilient, after all. I felt him stir as he drank my blood. The Perfect and Faulty infusion almost immediately brought a little color back to his cheeks, while I pressed a dry cloth against his abdominal wound.
Rose nodded. “She killed Abaddon once before, but she knew she was outnumbered, so she didn’t oppose us much when we put the cuffs back on. This second time around, however, there were more of her people still standing. She felt empowered to turn on us.”
“I had to let her go,” Dmitri muttered. “Abaddon was going to kill us all.”
“No one is saying otherwise, buddy,” Hunter chimed in, now sitting up, with Kailani right next to him. Their auras glowed bright gold whenever their eyes met. Relief burst through her when Hunter regained enough strength to get up on his own, despite the severity of his wounds.
“Then you’re not as dumb as my brothers made you out to be,” Raphael replied. “Douma and I are the only ones who can kill Abaddon, almost effortlessly. Araquiel’s skills don’t necessarily lie on the physical combat side of things. He’s more of a strategist.”
Dmitri kept staring at Douma, and it nearly broke my heart. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“Ah, hell. Stop apologizing!” Raphael said. “She would’ve maimed you all and dragged you back to Ta’Zan without regrets. She’s a liability, at this point. That is, if you’re determined to survive and do something against Ta’Zan.”
“Wow, you don’t call him ‘Father’ anymore either,” I murmured. I’d already noticed how Amane and Kallisto had ceased to refer to Ta’Zan as their father, shortly afterward followed by Leah and Samael. It was a sign of emotional detachment, proof that they’d separated themselves from their maker, in an irreversible way.
Raphael shrugged. “He made me. But I have no reason to consider him my father. He used me from the very beginning. I was never his son.”
“Then we’re on the same page here,” Amane said, as Ridan helped her up. “We should talk.”
“We should burn all these bodies, first. All of them,” Raphael replied, raising an eyebrow at Dmitri.
“We could still use Douma!” Dmitri said.
“At least admit you like her. You reek of guilt already for having chopped her head off. Even I can see it,” Raphael said, irritated. “Own it, man.”
Dmitri’s shoulders dropped. “She’s not a bad person. I mean, I don’t blame her for doing what she did. If I were her, I’d probably do the same.”
“This is war. Sympathy will get you killed,” Kallisto interjected, her brows furrowed. “Nevertheless, I agree. Douma is more useful to us in chains than free to hunt us with the rest of these psychos.”
Amane cleared her throat. “We could try something, then.”
We all looked at her, but Raphael was the one who immediately realized what she had in mind. “Look at you, out in the wild and still eager to cut us open.” He chuckled.
“What’s he talking about?” Dmitri asked.
Nevis opened his eyes. His lips stretched slowly into a weak smile. I brushed my knuckles against his cheek, then checked his stomach wound. It was going to take a while for it to fully heal.
“We need a safe place for a day or so,” I said.
“Which is what I’ll need, too, if I’m to do this,” Amane replied.
“Do what, exactly?” Dmitri insisted, raising his voice.
“Remember the memory chips?” she asked.
A second or two passed in absolute silence. I could almost hear the realization kicking in, like a tidal wave crashing into the rocky shoreline.
“You want to extract the memory chip out of Douma. Have her start from scratch,” Rose murmured, her eyes wide with fascination.
“She wouldn’t remember anything she was taught. She wouldn’t remember us,” Dmitri continued, frowning as he looked down at Douma again.
“She wouldn’t remember that she needs to hunt you all down and bring you back to Ta’Zan,” Raphael concluded. “Yeah, might as well do it. I’ve never seen a wiped Perfect before, anyway.”
“Like I said, we need a safe space,” Amane said.
Raphael grinned.
“Then let me escort you all to my little summer crib,” he replied, then motioned at the Perfect bodies. “But first, let’s toast those bastards before the healing process begins.”
All of a sudden, despite my exhaustion, my own wounds, and my concern for Nevis’s wellbeing, I was filled with energy—the kind that fueled a bold explorer, stemming from scientific curiosity. If we could find and remove the chip from Douma, we could show her a different worldview, from scratch. We could analyze her instincts and choices, without any influence from us, at first.
That was, in fact, key. See what her instincts dictated before teaching her anything.
It was a way to guarantee that she could be naturally swayed in the right direction. Something told me that Douma wasn’t inherently bad. I’d exchanged a few words with her. I’d seen the way she looked at Dmitri when he wasn’t watching.
We could give Douma a shot at a better life.
Draven
The twenty-four young Draenir males took us to their tribe, hidden deep inside the jungle on the east side of the swollen river. I could still hear its waters flowing from a couple of miles away, echoes thundering through the darkness of the woods.
The tribe’s camp was simple and modest, with square tents firmly anchored to the hard ground and covered with layers of animal hides and furs. The Elder Rakkhan had a small cabin made of wooden logs, its porch overlooking the entire camp. There were approximately a hundred Draenir living here—a healthy mix of males and females, as well as children and elderly people.
They tied our hands in front of us for good measure, but we didn’t object. If it made them feel safer, and if it got their Elder to talk to us, we were fine with it. Heron and his wards weren’t too happy with the conditions, but Avril berated them into keeping their mouths shut. I was equal parts impressed and amused by the amount of influence that she had not only over her soulmate, but also over his people.
Wallah led the twenty-three men into the camp, keeping us at the back so as not to startle the others. He stopped us right before we entered their living territory.
“All of you, wait here,” Wallah said. “I must speak to the Elder Rakkhan first and see if he will allow you to enter our camp. This patch of land is sacred to us.”
I nodded slowly. “Do as you wish. We are your… guests here.”
He gave me a smirk, then rushed into the camp, leaving only a couple of Draenir with their high-tech weapons pointed at us, in case we decided to do something stupid. Of course, we weren’t going to, but their peace of mind was our priority.
While we waited, we took a moment to study the camp from its border. Small fires burned outside each cubic tent, elegantly covered by wooden shades to protect the flames from the rain. The children were small and vivacious, running around and giggling, covered in zebra-like furs. The adult
males wore animal antlers on their heads and brownish hides around their waists, while the women settled for woven tube dresses, made with strips of black leather and colored beads.
They had two specific areas designed for various chores on both the west and east sides of the camp. The former had wooden banks, vats and tubs, tables, and a variety of utensils used for cooking and processing vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs, and so on. They also did their laundry a couple of yards farther down, as the camp was right next to one of the tributaries of the big, gushing river we’d landed by.
The latter seemed like a crafts center of sorts, where Draenir were currently busy cutting pieces of wood, beating red-hot metal blades, and weaving new clothes from various animal skins and textile threads. Despite the impressive technology of their weapons, they seemed like simple people who were trying to create a life here on Merinos, smack in the middle of a storm area, with extreme summers and winters tumbling around them.
A group of kids stopped by the entrance, staring at us with wide eyes.
“They must’ve inherited the weapons from the Draenir,” Bogdana suggested. “I mean, the Draenir with all the science and technology, who died in the plague. They must be survivors.”
“Living here, away from the Perfects, in the eye of the storm,” Lumi continued, keeping her voice low. “This is interesting, to say the least. Look at how they live… the complete opposite of the enterprising Draenir we knew of. I doubt these people will know how to make a new being in a high-tech lab.”
“They weave their own clothes,” Serena said, clearly fascinated. “They eat from the woods. They hunt the animals. They build their homes with wood and hides and furs…”
Taeral pointed at the cabin. “That’s definitely the Elder’s place,” he said, just as we watched Wallah go inside, after knocking on the shabby door. “He’s got ‘fancier’ living conditions. So, there’s a hierarchy of sorts.”
“I think the Elder can tell us more, but it does seem reasonable for a tribal community like this,” I replied. “There’s about a hundred of them. In about ten or twenty years, if left undisturbed, they’ll grow to the size of a village. I see they’ve found a way to live here, despite the extreme weather conditions.”
A Shade of Vampire 64: A Camp of Savages Page 10