A Shade of Vampire 63: A Jungle of Rogues

by Bella Forrest

  “If Abaddon is so good, why didn’t Ta’Zan send him out earlier?” Corrine replied.

  Amal smirked. “You’ve seen and heard Abaddon. I told you. He’s unstable. He’s feral and violent. He gives in to his primal instincts. And he’s terrible with Father’s rules. The Perfects he’s with, Araquiel included, will hold him back from killing your people. Abaddon was kind of a last resort for Father. Araquiel and his team are more than capable of getting such a menial job done. Or so we thought, anyway.”

  “And you think Araquiel and his team will manage to stop Abaddon from hurting our children?” I asked, working overtime to keep my breathing even and my mind calm.

  Amal thought about it for a while, then looked down, as if afraid to face me. “I’m not. I’m sorry. You see, the problem with Abaddon is that he’s very good at catching people, but, once his rage is set off, he’s almost impossible to control. The only one who’s able to instantly calm him down without using any extreme force is Father. But there’s a reason behind that, which I cannot divulge.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that Abaddon can and will probably catch the entire group, and, if he’s annoyed or angered, he’ll flip out and kill them?” Vivienne concluded, not bothering to hide the horror that gripped her.

  Amal nodded. “At the same time, there’s still a chance your people will escape. A slim one, but it’s still there. The more encounters they have with the Perfects, the better they get at eluding and fighting them. On top of that, they’ve got Kallisto and my sister with them—the latter being highly trained and resourceful. If she’s decided to help them, they may have a chance.”

  “You don’t sound too positive about your sister,” I replied, curious to understand the seemingly complicated dynamic of their relationship. She talked about Amane in ways that reminded me of the old days, back when Lucas and I were sworn enemies.

  “She ran away,” Amal said. “She left me here. It’s hard to forgive that. But I’m mature enough to acknowledge her capabilities. They’re well above the average Faulty.”

  I was even more curious now, remembering what Isda had told us about Amal and Amane. Two halves of a brilliant whole. Amal didn’t know I knew. Perhaps it was time she did. I wondered how she’d react if she knew we’d gotten Isda to tell us about her and her sister. The poor Faulty hadn’t meant to tell us, but Sofia had a way of getting information out of people without them realizing it. My genius wife called her tactic “mentalism.”

  “I’m told you are twins,” I replied.

  Amal froze. “Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But I do know that you two were quite the scientific miracle, and that you’re astonishing together. You’re brilliant when you’re apart, too, but the closer you are to one another, the smarter and sharper you become. I also know you’re very important to Ta’Zan, but it doesn’t take a genius to notice that.”

  “My sister and I are important, yes,” Amal admitted. “We helped Ta’Zan with his genetic work.”

  “You helped him create the Perfects?” Sofia asked.

  It was Amal’s turn to nod. “This is all I can tell you now,” she said. “I can’t stay any longer. I’ve got more rounds to make.”

  She turned to leave, but I couldn’t stop myself. I caught her wrist and held her back. “How can we kill a Perfect? Do you know?”

  She stared at my hand for a while, then scowled at me. “You’re foolishly naïve if you think I’m ever going to tell you such things,” she whispered. “Be thankful I’ve said this much, but don’t expect me to betray my father or his mission. It’s not in my nature. My sister may be different, but I won’t turn against my father.”

  Claudia chuckled. “Oh, honey. The moment you set foot in this place to tell us what you’ve just told us, you betrayed your father. I mean, you can delude yourself into thinking this is just a harmless misdemeanor, but I’ve heard Ta’Zan speak. I know how his mind works. If he finds out you were here, he’ll be furious. And you know it. This is your first step in rebelling, Amal. From here on out, you either go all the way or you confess your sins to your father. There’s no in between, sweetie. Don’t delude yourself. Your sister definitely rubbed off on you.”

  Amal was seething. She jerked out of my grip, pressing her lips into a thin line as she gave Claudia a dark and spine-tingling scowl. She certainly knew how to intimidate, if she wanted to.

  “You should stop deluding yourself first, Claudia,” Amal replied. “I know my place in this world. I know the extent of my transgressions. You, on the other hand, are still holding on to the false hope that you might be able to do something. That you might stop what’s coming. You won’t, Claudia. You’re all doomed. It’s only a matter of time before you see it, too.”

  She rushed toward the exit, then slowly opened one of the double doors and snuck out. We stood there for a while in heavy, mind-crushing silence. I wondered if all hope was lost, indeed. What if we were fooling ourselves? What if every step we took, every effort we made dragged us back to the same ending? What if Ta’Zan was going to win, after all?

  Then, I remembered the presumably Hermessi-related dreams. Corrine was right. Those weren’t random. They weren’t a coincidence. My son and my daughter were still out there, stringing the Perfects along. They’d made allies, too.

  No, there was still hope. We could still do something. I could feel it in my gut.

  “Twenty bucks she’ll be coming back again to tell us more,” Lucas said, grinning.

  Claudia laughed. “Took the words right out of my mouth. I’m telling you, she’s got the makings of a rebel. She just needs to come to terms with it.”

  “She’s already taken the path,” I whispered. “She simply needs to acknowledge it.”

  It wasn’t going to be easy, especially for someone who had been brainwashed into thinking there was nothing else besides Ta’Zan and his plan. I figured we had our work cut out for us, but Claudia and Lucas were right: Amal was trying to reach out.

  It was our duty to show her a different way of life and to bring her to our side.

  Kailani

  We agreed to keep the waterfall cave as our safe return point, in case things went awry at any point during our journey to find Raphael. We packed our backpacks and geared up, leaving the cloaking spell in place inside the grotto. It could come in handy later.

  I distributed a batch of invisibility paste to everyone on my team, as well as Kallisto and Amane, before we set off.

  “You two are probably on the most-wanted list,” I said, as they examined the small plastic pouches.

  “We’re good,” Samael replied. “You all definitely need to stay under the radar, but we’re okay. Perfects usually just growl at us and swat us away like flies. Kallisto and Amane here, on the other hand, they’ve pissed off a lot of people.”

  Kallisto chuckled. “In retrospect, I feel very good about that.”

  “Okay, we’re getting close to midnight now,” Rose interjected, putting her invisibility paste supply away and taking out the map tablet. We all gathered around her so we could see the neighboring islands. “Where is the last known location of Raphael?”

  Samael checked the map carefully, then pointed at a small island approximately eighty miles north of our position. It was on the edge of the Perfect territory, a couple of miles west of the last known diamond colosseum to have been erected over the past couple of days.

  “Here,” he said. “This is where we saw him last, yesterday morning. He was moving farther to the west, though.”

  “That’s fine,” Rose replied. “We’ll go there first, then catch his scent and trace him to his new location. Provided he doesn’t put in too much effort to hide his tracks.”

  “He was ejected from Ta’Zan’s compound.” Leah sighed. “I doubt he gives a damn about anyone coming after him, and frankly, I also don’t think the Perfects would waste their time chasing him down.”

  “Or their lives, for that matter,” Samael said. “Raphael is extremely
dangerous, even to his siblings. They wouldn’t put themselves at risk simply out of spite.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “How do we get there?” he asked. “It’s going to take some time, given how we have to stay out of sight. We can’t go through all our invisibility paste supplies in just one trip.”

  “I agree,” I replied with a nod. “I suggest we do the underwater tunnels to cover larger distances between the islands, with ten- to twenty-minute breaks in between. Nevis and Vesta will be putting all the work in for that, and they’ll need to recover after each session. I’ve seen the toll it takes on their energy.”

  “That’s cool,” Vesta replied. “Can you zap us across the smaller distances, then? We can combine teleporting with underwater tunnels, so you, me, and Nevis share equal loads.”

  “Sure. And we’ll use the invisibility paste where needed, particularly across the beaches,” I said, checking the satellite map. “I see there are some islands up north with barely any vegetation, and they’re on our route to get to Raphael’s last known location.”

  Samael grinned. “I take it this isn’t your first time sneaking around.”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s basically what the last three or so days have been like. Hiding and running. Constantly looking over our shoulders and employing every single trick in the book to avoid detection,” I replied.

  “Speaking of which,” Amane muttered, then loosened the tie around her black satchel and scattered some of the dark, shimmering dust she’d used to throw the Perfects off her tracks. “Best to be prepared.”

  With the fire out and the moon rising bold and bluish above the pond, we climbed down from the cave and went deep into the jungle, headed north as we followed Samael, Rasmus, and Leah. Kallisto and Amane stayed at the back, while our crew and one prisoner paired up in a double file to make our trek easier.

  Hunter stayed by my side, occasionally stealing glances at me. I was beginning to feel rather awkward, especially since he immediately looked away whenever I turned my head. Our eyes only met for a split second before he chose to focus on the obscure wilderness around us. My heart thumped simply from being around him, and I sometimes found myself gazing at him, admiring his broad frame and the way in which the moonlight brought out the deepest of blues in his eyes.

  “Let’s do a water pocket first,” Vesta suggested as we stepped onto the beach.

  She and Nevis took the lead, their hands moving in smooth, circular motions as they parted the turquoise ocean and opened the waters to create a frozen liquid-walled space for us to walk through. Samael, Rasmus, and Leah were impressed, but not shocked.

  We all went in, headed for the nearest island, four miles to the north, while the pocket closed behind us.

  “Some of the Perfects have this water ability, too, but they’re more focused on its brutality, rather than its functionality,” Rasmus said. “I like what you’re doing here,” he added, gazing at the plethora of little red-and-yellow fish swarming all around the tunnel. It looked as though someone had cut a slice through the entire ocean, giving us an in-depth view of its wonders.

  Somewhere in the distance, giant whales with black-and-white stripes swirled around, their magnificent forms generating new currents that rippled through the nearby banks of triangle-shaped fish. It rattled and confused them, which made it easier for the whales to then swim back and open their enormous mouths, swallowing thousands of fish at once.

  “They only feed on the small stuff,” Leah said to me, noticing my wide eyes as I stared at the whales while still moving through the tunnel. “Maybe sometimes they grab something bigger, but nothing past the four-foot mark. I think it has something to do with their digestive system. They don’t do large prey.”

  “So, we’re not on their menu,” Dmitri concluded.

  He had a chain linking his wrists to Douma, who was trying to keep up as she walked behind him. I’d carved a series of entrapment spells into three pairs of already-charmed cuffs, which I’d brought over from Calliope. Two of the pairs held her wrists, their chains interconnected, while the third pair held her ankles. The purpose of all these precautions was, of course, to stop her from trying to break free.

  Dmitri also had his soul-eater handy, and Douma had already been told what would happen if she attempted to escape. She’d rolled her eyes at us, but, in the end, she’d complied, moving quietly behind Dmitri, who occasionally glanced at her. There was a curious glimmer in his eyes that made me smile. Douma was incredibly beautiful, so it didn’t come as a surprise that Dmitri seemed attracted to her. It was written all over his face, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

  Rose and I had also noticed that Douma was more tame and obedient in Dmitri’s care, so we agreed to let him keep an eye on her.

  “No, we’re definitely not what the pashmiri would eat,” Leah replied.

  “That’s what you call them? Pashmiri?” I asked, and Leah nodded. “I’ll definitely want to know what you call the other animals around here, but let’s save that for a zoology conversation later, after we’re done kicking Ta’Zan to the curb.”

  “They’re great animals, actually,” Samael interjected. “They may seem big and threatening, but they’re really very gentle. Even friendly. Some of the Perfects taunt them, but they just swim away.”

  “Further proof that Perfects are jerks,” I concluded.

  Once we reached the next island, we moved through its jungle to get to the other side and head farther north. Amane’s senses tingled whenever Perfects and Faulties were close—specifically less than a mile away. She helped us steer through the woods and get as far away from the hostiles as possible.

  We did a pretty good job of keeping a low profile during our journey. I teleported the entire group twice from one island to another, then let Nevis and Vesta take the lead again through underwater tunnels. Halfway through the trip, we found a splendid atoll, with dozens of small islands sprinkled along the beltway. The water in the middle was deeper than in other parts and extremely cold toward the bottom, so we had no choice but to consume some of our invisibility paste and let Nevis create an icy path directly across the top of the atoll.

  We moved fast to avoid detection, sprinting toward the next big island. A rocky cliff rose from the middle of it, its base surrounded by lush greenery.

  “That’ll be a good spot to stop and rest for a little while,” Rose suggested, pointing at the island. “Two of us can climb to the top and keep a lookout for any airborne Perfects, and Lenny can stay on the ground.”

  “Kale and I will go up,” Hunter replied.

  That made my cheeks flare, and I mentally chided myself for reacting like this. What the hell was I so excited about? I had enough on my plate as it was. We were currently the most hunted creatures on a foreign planet, the universe and our lives were on the brink of destruction, and my swamp witch apprenticeship was insanely weird and difficult to handle, given our circumstances. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have changed a single decision I’d made, specifically the one regarding my apprenticeship. As insecure and as unstable as my connection to the Word was, it was still better than nothing, and it had saved our asses a few times already. On top of that, I had to deal with my feelings for Hunter, too, while looking for my grandparents and the rest of our Shadian family. Needless to say, my hands were full.

  As we reached the cliff island, and Nevis made his icy path melt and vanish into the ocean, I made an internal decision. Of all the issues I was dealing with, the simplest one to resolve was Hunter. I had to do something. I had to see if there could be more between us or not. If I had an answer to that, maybe everything else wasn’t going to seem as dire and as difficult as it did in that instant.

  Rose and the rest of our crew settled at the base of the cliff, passing some fruits and nuts around, which we’d harvested along the way. Elonora kept her True Sight on and scanned the island’s ocean-level surroundings, while Ben checked the map and added notes from our journey so far—obstacles encountered, Perfect act
ivity, and other details that would come in handy if we had to go that way again.

  I followed Hunter up the rock, while Samael and his Faulties set up a small fire beneath the sprawling crown of a cedar-like tree. We couldn’t see it from above, unless the wind blew and moved the branches, revealing the occasional amber flicker.

  We climbed all the way to the top, where the rock was flat and solid enough to hold the both of us in a seated position. We had to stay close to each other, with only a couple of solitary shrubs to hang on to, in case we slipped. My heart beat faster. Not because of the height or the slight balancing effort required not to fall off, but because of my close proximity to Hunter.

  We didn’t say anything for a while, spending a few minutes contemplating the vast beauty around us. We could see dozens of islands scattered across the trembling ocean. The sky looked bigger than ever, almost black, and riddled with stars. Above us, the bluish moon shone, casting its azure light on everything in its path, turning the beaches into large swaths of sapphire dust.

  “It looks so calm,” I murmured, gazing at the ocean.

  “Look over there.” He pointed somewhere to the southeast.

  In the distance, about forty, maybe fifty miles from our location, flash-bangs crisscrossed the sky above a diamond colosseum. They were tiny, and their sonic booms were faint echoes from where we stood. He then showed me another Perfect settlement, farther south. Then a third. And a fourth. The Perfects were certainly spreading fast, establishing their territories and constantly expanding the borders as they built new homes.

  “Oh, wow,” I breathed, noticing a flurry of flashes swirling around a diamond colosseum on one of the southern islands. I could see it being erected in real time, as the moonlight flickered across its stretching crystal walls. The Perfects were insanely fast, able to build such magnificent structures over short periods of time.