by Tijan
It was dark outside, but with my new inner creature, I was seeing in the dark as if it were light. The house in front of us looked like a place that’d be in a horror film, though. Vampires were all around us. On the front porch area, standing around the pillars built into the house. Behind us. I glanced around, and they were even on the gate and a wall that surrounded the compound.
Glancing up, Kieran had been watching me.
He did not seem disturbed at all.
Me? I was perturbed. I stayed away from vampires as a general rule. They tended to like my carotid artery a bit too much for me. I could feel their energy, and it never sat right with me.
I mean, I stayed away from most supernatural beings, with a few exceptions like Nikki, whose demonic side was unnaturally happy, except for nights like tonight. Dissension night. And family members like Ralph, because he got it. He understood.
We always felt like prey.
As a whole, we weren’t really aggressive either, which evolution-wise didn’t help us.
A grand black door opened, and we went inside.
A vampire fell in step in front of us, and Kieran followed.
It was an old house, with a ballroom on one side and a room with a fireplace on the other. A grand stairwell wrapped up in front of us. We bypassed pretty much everything, going to the back of the house, which seemed to take forever because I was clocking forty vampires that we passed. They were looking down at us from the second floor, and staring at us as we went past, then coming out to congregate in the hallway.
Creepy as fuck.
The room we were shown into looked like a large hall that had more pillars holding up the ceiling. A podium with three large stairs was at the back of the room, complete with a throne. The chair was big enough to sit four people, and the back of it almost touched the ceiling.
A lone body lounged on the chair. Gee, overkill much?
I couldn’t tell if he or she was a female or male. He had feminine features, so her face looked soft, but the energy was masculine. They rose, and as their eyes saw me, they lit up. “You’ve brought me a gift, Kieran.”
She had a soft, feminine tone, and she clapped her hands together. “I’m so excited. And it’s a newly born energist. Even better.”
Kieran didn’t spare me a look. “For you? I thought she’d been sent from you. I found her in my nightclub.”
She paused, her head cocking to the side. “You own the new demon bar, Bass. Such a trite establishment. I don’t know why you’d want to own that building.”
“Right. Because you wouldn't want to own the opening for where the demon masters submerge? I have a hard time believing that.” He stepped aside and nodded to me. “She came to me in the oddest chain of events, and since at the heart of it was one of yours, I was sure she was a present from you.”
What?
The vampiress still didn’t move. She seemed almost like a statue, and she touched her chest with a dainty hand. “Please, Kieran. I’m riveted. Tell me more.” As she spoke, she turned her hand, and one of her nails cut her own skin. She drew a line down between her breasts, leaning back in her chair. Blood began to pool out, and with a flick of a wrist, she was descended upon by three other vampires. All who sucked from that trail of blood, and as they sank their teeth into her, she gasped, grasping the back of one of the vampires’ heads.
The sexual and hunger-filled energy rolled off all of them, and as the first wave of her energy rolled over me, her eyes were studying my every reaction.
She did that on purpose.
I had to steel myself against how my own creature started stirring, awakening again, but she only wanted Kieran.
He was right. One taste and she wouldn’t be sated with anyone else. This was going to be a dilemma, indeed.
She’s testing you, seeing how I react to you. Quell your beast.
What’s her name on the throne?
Quessadiline.
Quesadilla just climaxed up there.
The ripples of it left her body, but a fourth vampire joined the tasting, and as he did, he moved to crawl up her body. She leaned farther back, holding the back of his head now as he positioned himself between her legs.
“Should we give you a moment?” Kieran’s voice almost sounded bored. “Or should I take this as an insult to my visit?”
The fourth vampire thrust inside of her at his second statement, but as fast as that happened, the four vampires were thrown away from her. She pulled at her clothes to cover her and sat up. “I do apologize. I couldn’t help myself. A little fun with your new pet, Kieran.” She fluffed her hair and relaxed back. “Now…tell me how you feel she was a gift sent by myself when I insist she’s a present given from you.”
“Your vampire seduced her boyfriend.”
Wait. What?!
He kept on, “And she did this at a time when this energist would find them.”
Is this true? I asked him.
He ignored me, his jaw tightening. “And she was given persuasion by your vampire to pack her things, to leave her boyfriend, and to go and see her best friend, whom you insured was working at my nightclub tonight. On a night you knew I’d be there. So, yes, Quessadiline, I do fully believe that this energist was a gift from you.”
“Why would I send you an energist? They’re like toys to us.”
“They’re also used as weapons of distraction, and you knew I had kept two others with me centuries ago.”
My knees gave out at the reminder of how old Kieran was.
“You were hoping to distract me tonight because I know that while I took the time to travel to see you, you sent thirty vampires to attack Bass tonight.”
A hard glint appeared in her eyes, and Kieran was right.
I saw it. The satisfaction that rolled off of her was pure evil.
She smiled slowly as she preened. “Why would I do that tonight? Of all nights?”
“Because you knew four of the six masters would be above earth today, and it was your first move against taking charge of the underworld.”
Kieran was calm. I pricked at the inside of his head, and he shoved me out. Okay. Maybe he wasn’t totally calm, but he was giving that impression…at least his energy was all calm.
Quessadiline stood up from her throne, and she stepped to the edge of the podium.
A cruel smile teased over her face. “Maybe I have done all of that, but you said thirty before, Kieran.” A pause. “Try three hundred.”
A wave of smug and sick triumph flared around the entire room, and I could feel others’ emotions join in from the hallway. They were all listening to us. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know much about vampires on purpose, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if there wasn’t a telepathic connection between them all.
She threw her card down.
“No, Quessadiline. I said thirty because that’s how many I left alive.”
Kieran just swept the whole deck.
11
She/I
A snarl erupted from Quessadiline before she attacked.
After that, it was pandemonium.
I had no idea what was going on, but it was all happening at the same time.
Kieran met Quesadilla, as vampires from around the room launched at me.
Not aggressive: me.
Them: very aggressive.
I noticed more vampires streaming in from the hallway, but I was snatched backwards and looked up. Kieran had a hold on me.
Fight!
I don’t know how. I mean, I threw a fork at the vamp bitch who seduced my ex.
Let your creature loose.
How?!
I had no clue how he was holding Quesadilla off, but she looked frozen in mid-air. It was remarkable, and he was doing the same with the other vampires. No one could get to us, but whatever hold he had on them wasn’t going to last. They were breaking through, inch by inch. That much I could feel. And everyone here was immortal…but I wasn’t.
I couldn’t stay here for the rest of my life.
Use your energy. Take theirs.
Eat them? I was revolted.
No. You don’t have to eat everything.
There was a joke there, but I was refraining.
He kept on. You can literally take their energy.
I can?
You are so severely unschooled. How are you still alive?
You have a right to be frustrated, but I didn’t choose to walk into Vampire Quesadilla’s campus. You brought me here knowing what I wasn’t capable of.
A guttural growl was coming from him.
No.
I looked down.
That wasn’t a growl, that was the floor shaking.
I glanced outside. The wall was starting to crumble, and the trees were shaking violently.
Nope. Not the floor. The earth was shaking.
Seriously, who was this guy? I knew it was his creature rising, and here I was thinking there was no creature I knew that could rise like his could. A lot of beings were underground, but none that I knew that had a body above the surface.
Whoa!
I yelled in my head, my entire body jerking.
Stop. He was in my head, and he was speaking to my creature. She’s clueless. You need to wake and hel—
HOLY FUCKING HELL!
She rose and she rose fast.
She hurled herself from wherever I’d been storing her, and after that, I held on as things happened, things I did, things that I knew I’d never forget.
I rose in the air, or she rose in the air, and as if I was watching myself from outside of my body, she shot her hand out. A command sparked from her eyes, and she pulled the energy from every single vampire in the room. Not just the room. Energy was streaming in from the hallways, and a back door was thrown open. More energy burst from it.
As I watched, as she took the energy and seemed to harness it around us, the vampires dropped to the ground.
They had no energy left. The more they exerted, she took it, and she was using it to fuel herself/us and Kieran. Because of it, the ground stopped shaking, and whatever creature he had inside wasn’t rising any longer.
He inhaled the energy, and I watched as it went through his body.
He leapt, a sword materializing in his hand as he did, and he made one motion with it. He completed the motion at the same time that he dropped to the ground.
A second later, he waited, stepping back toward us/her.
She/I was still draining the energy from the vampires, but we watched as Quesadilla’s head slowly fell off her body.
Before our eyes, she crumbled to the ground. The rest of her vampires crumbled as well. I felt all of their hearts stop…and I was waiting.
I glanced at Kieran. “No dust?”
A flare of annoyance flashed over his face, just as the sword vanished from his hand. “This is not a fucking television show.”
“Oh.”
My voice sounded weird. It was a mix of hers and mine. Hearing her voice now, and not in my head, was surreal. As fast as she rose, she returned back to where I kept her, and she was purring like a cat now.
“I thought you said I didn’t need to eat their energy.”
He was walking across the room for a phone that had dropped from Quesadilla’s body. He spared me a look as he bent for it. “You didn’t eat their energy, but you used it to fight them. Your creature will be sated for five years on what they gave her tonight.”
Oh. Good to know. I guess.
“How’d you know all that stuff, about the vamp who seduced my ex?”
“I didn’t. I was reading her mind.”
Oh.
Wait.
“She sent three-hundred vamps to that club.”
He gave me a grim look. “She did.”
“Would they die like these did when you killed her?”
He was going through her phone but looked up at me. “I didn’t kill her.”
I looked at the head that had rolled from her body. “How more dead do they have to be?”
“Her body and head will need to be burned, as well as all of the vampires here. She might be dead. She’s connected to them. If one lives, she can survive off that one vampire until a new body’s been made for her.”
“What?”
Holy crap.
“They’re like the scourge of the Earth. How do you know—never mind. I don’t want to know. I’ll get depressed from the answer, no matter what it is.” As I was talking to myself, he used his phone to make a call.
They answered, and he said, “I need Quessadiline’s entire compound burned.”
“You got her?”
“I got her.”
“Got it.”
He hung up and made another call as he started to leave the room.
I hurried after him, and I was running since he was moving so fast.
The front door was opened and we stepped out, the vehicle still there and his driver waiting.
The second call answered and Kieran said as he got inside, “You have three-hundred vampires heading to Bass. We’ll be too late.”
I was moving around to my door when his words hit me.
I had known. He said it inside, but my knees locked when it registered.
Nik.
Nik was at Bass.
Three-hundred vampires against those demons? Demons didn’t have ‘connections’ to keep each other alive like vampires did. And I knew demons better. They’d hiss and fight. They had superhuman strength at times. Some could use magic, but most couldn’t. It was something the masters kept to themselves, so no one rose to challenge them.
Nik was going to die.
Once our vehicle was on the way, I turned to him. “My best friend is at stake. I don’t give a fuck what you are, but whatever you are, unleash him. Now.”
We were speeding away.
He turned to lock eyes with me, and after we traveled a little farther, vehicles sped past us. They slowed, turning into the compound.
I had a feeling we’d be seeing flames soon too.
I didn’t care.
I only cared about Nikki.
“What are you?”
“I’m a dragon.”
12
Harry Bahls’
There were stories and movies galore about dragons, but in the real supernatural world, they didn’t exist. No. That wasn’t true. Two were known to have existed, and they were almost as old as the Earth. Almost.
It was rumored that a fight broke out among the two dragons, and that’s how the seven continents were formed, from their fighting. It was also known that one dragon won, killing the other, and now the dots were connecting because that dragon was rumored to exist in the Eastern Hemisphere.
It made sense.
It was how he could do what he did against Quesadilla, because killing a vampiress was nothing to sneeze at. But he did it, granted, he had some help from me, but it was almost a joke because he could’ve killed everyone in that compound without my help.
He was watching, waiting for my reaction.
“Why did you use me back there? You could’ve killed all of them without me raising a finger.” And without the perceived threat of his creature rising.
Why?
Humiliation sliced through my chest.
“Because you need to play catch-up on your training.”
He wasn’t even lying about his lying.
“And now?” I was trying not to sound bitter here, but I was. “You can be at Bass in no time. My friend can teleport five feet. A dragon is so much more powerful than any demon master.”
“Yes. I could, but I won’t.”
“Why?” I cried out. “She’s my best friend.”
“And she’ll survive. They’ll all survive.”
“Oh. Well, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
I just eyed him. Wariness was overtaking me.
He added, “You’re going to kill the vampires for me.”
“What?”
“I have colleagues who are
holding everyone for us. They started their attack. I was too late in reading Quessadiline’s mind to make a call, but people I know got there in time before too many were killed. The demon masters have already gone back underground.”
“Of course,” I bit out. Typical demon.
The drive back took forever.
Or maybe it was because I knew I’d have to do what I’d done back at the compound, and this time, I knew the stakes. Or the lack of stakes.
Why he was doing this, I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. I was sure it had to do with ‘his plans’ for me, but I remained mad the whole drive back.
Or, I tried.
This was me.
I thought my best friend was going to die, then I found out she wasn’t, and she so wasn’t because a fucking dragon lord didn’t want the demons to die. He could snap his fingers and probably all the vampires would be burned where they stood, but no.
My training.
I had to kill the vampires instead.
But yeah, back to me, because not only was I not an aggressive person, I also didn’t—couldn’t—stay mad. I lacked the energy, which the irony was not lost on me. It was how I was built. It’s why I wanted to get drunk tonight and why I threw a fork at the vampire seducer bitch. Even picking up that fork and hurling it at her vagina, I felt bad about it.
I should’ve thrown harder. And not felt bad as I did it.
But yeah. That was me. The same me who reached between two cushions and pulled out the whiskey bottle from where I stuffed it.
“It’s been spelled.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, took that cap off, and guzzled as much of the beverage as I could.
The bottle was ripped from me, and his hand was around my throat. He wasn’t saying anything, but I felt a burning spreading from him to me. He was evaporating the spell as it trickled down my throat.
It moved slower than the liquid. Good to know for the future.
Once he got the last of the spell, he opened his window and tossed the whiskey out of it.
Damn. I’d been hoping to get drunk at least. I was due. This was a truly shitty Halloween.
“Can I get some music turned on?”
“No.”