Catherine whipped his feet from under him and he slid through the undergrowth, before coming to a stop.
“Please, do not kill me!”
“You murdered my brother!”
“No! It wasn’t me, please,” he begged, holding his hands out in weak defense. “I did not do it!”
Catherine glared down at him, so young, maybe even the same age as Liam. Had they known he was her brother? Had they done it on purpose? She gripped the dagger tighter and with a roar, stabbed him through the chest over and over again, until his eyes dimmed and his body stilled.
Steps neared, but she did not stop, unable to draw her eyes away from the blood.
“Catherine. Catherine!”
Her hand paused and she turned to see Tula approach. He knelt down beside her and wrapped his hand around hers, stopping the dagger.
“Enough,” he ordered. “You have done enough.”
She let him take the dagger and they straightened, but she shook her head. “No, Tula, it is not even close to enough. I want his head on a spike,” she roared. “I want the Master to know my pain.” She turned towards the direction in which the vampire had been heading, and her eyes glowed fiercely in the night. “This is not over until I bring him to his knees and destroy him.”
Tula did not say a word, but she saw him stare at her, her body covered in blood and her hands shaking with anger. She would bury Liam, and then she would save Bastian, and put an end to the Master.
Chapter 8
Bastian tried to shake off the two vampires that held him as they walked, but the chains bound around his body held tight. He needed to see if Catherine had survived. Earlier he sensed her despair and reached out, but since then she was cut off from him. Fear filled him. Had she been captured or worse…Desmond and the others killed her. Haddie moved in line with the others up ahead and Bastian frowned, wondering if he should try again to gain her attention and break the hold the Master had over her.
“Fretting over your lover?” Antoinette hissed beside him, leering.
Bastian hissed back. “You and your Master are the ones who should worry.”
“Oh, and why is that?” She reached out a hand, running her fingers down his face, until he jerked away.
“They left hours ago,” he told her. “Why have they not yet returned? Perhaps they are lost, or perhaps they are all dead.”
Antoinette’s eyes narrowed, and he grinned despite the worry filling him. She opened her mouth to reply but her words were stilled when they broke through the trees and the walls of the fort came into view. Bastian expected them to turn away from it, but the Master led them straight towards it, and when the large gate opened inwards, his feet missed a step.
“What is this?” he asked loudly. “How are we here?”
The Master stepped to the side and motioned the others onwards. When Bastian neared, he fell into step beside him and smirked. “You did not think I would come to the new world, build an army, and not fortify a place for myself, did you? I come from the Roman age, Bastian. Strategy is everything.”
“But the men here, you cannot control them all,” Bastian argued, as they stepped inside and he saw the bustling of a few hundred milling about. He brushed past them all with his senses, listening for heartbeats, and froze as the gate slammed shut behind him. “Vampires.”
The Master laughed. “Yes, most of them at least. It took time I will admit, but now I have a fort to protect my troops. Come, the others should be arriving.”
“Others?”
Bastian was dragged forward through the center of the fort, towards another gate leading out to the docks. A large three-mast ship anchored offshore, but several longboats made their way inland and even more were still being launched from the ship. Nearly a hundred vampires approached, and from the glimmer in the Master’s eyes, they were all under his control.
“This is not possible,” he whispered. “One man cannot be in the minds of so many.”
The Master shrugged. “Depends on the man, Bastian. You would be amazed at what a little willpower can do.”
Bastian stood on the dock, watching the boats draw closer, and tried to count them all. A hundred coming in, added to the number in the fort. Nearly five hundred vampires all under the Master’s control. It had to wear on him, break him down, make him vulnerable. It might even be the Master’s only weakness, but that was not Bastian’s only worry.
If Catherine came for him here, she and the others would get themselves killed.
There was no more hoping, no more praying. Bastian was doomed, but he’d be damned if he would serve the Master. Dying sounded like a better option and he’d take as many with him as he could.
The vampires guarding him turned him back towards the main fort, when the Master winced and Bastian fell to his knees. A roar ripped through Bastian’s mind, a roar filled with rage and despair.
“Catherine.” He groaned as she let loose another scream. She was alive at least, but whatever had happened had broken something within her. The woman he had left behind to stay safe, was barely hanging on by a thread to her humanity. He straightened the best he could against the chains, and yelled at the Master. “Do you realize what you have done?”
“I have done nothing but try to bring her to me.”
“You pushed her to the edge! You think she will listen to you now?” Bastian laughed, shaking his head as he felt everything Catherine had done. “All you did was create a monster, and now she is coming for you.”
For the first time since meeting him, Bastian watched the Master’s face fall with uncertainly as he snarled angrily. “Take him to his cell!”
Bastian continued to laugh, even as they dragged him away, even when they chained him to the wall and slammed the door shut in his face. He laughed, knowing exactly what was coming for them. Catherine was unstoppable now and though he did not want her to come and die with him, he knew there was no way to stop her. He tapped into her anger and let it overtake him fully, as he fell over the edge of insanity along with her.
***
Far off the coast, a man lowered the spyglass from his eye and spat over the railing. They were close now, so close. He called out a command for his men to make ready. The Order had not spent hundreds of years hunting for this monster to wait patiently for him to strike once more. They had found him and soon he would be taken back to the fortress in Rome, along with the others, and put to use.
They would learn their place in this world, or they would burn.
The Final Battle
Boston 1682 – The Aftermath
The two cloaked figures in the far back of the tavern sat with tankards before them, filled with undrunk ale. They looked on as the crowd of men in their midst talked loudly about their days while women moved amongst them, laughing and serving them all. The night outside was cold, the first taste of winter blowing off the Atlantic, but inside with the fire roaring in the hearth and the liquor flowing, no one noticed the chill set into their bones; or even bothered to realize that the two cloaked beings barely moved. They simply watched. And waited.
They waited for the man to tell them the plan.
There were many of them now, too many to stay in one place, but tonight would be their last in Boston, the last on this God forsaken continent. The figure on the right, shorter than the other, shifted on the hard bench, but a soft hiss from the companion stilled the movement. A woman passing close by shot them a curious stare, she shrugged and continued on her way.
The doors opened wide and a man staggered in, but not the man the two figures hoped to see. He stumbled through the crowd, pushing and shoving as others yelled at him for spilling their ale, but the man didn’t seem to care. He stared straight ahead and when he reached the bar, collapsed against it. His pale face stared straight ahead as the tavern-keeper asked him quietly what was wrong and slid him a tankard of ale. Even from across the room, the two could see his whole body shiver. They could smell the rank scent of fear wafting from his skin.
“I…I come from St. Augustine,” he whispered and though many in the room did not hear his words, the two strangers could, as clear as day.
“There’s been no word from the fort for months,” the tavern-keeper said.
“And I know why. Dead, all dead, so many bodies,” the man told them, voice raising with each word. “I’ve never seen so much blood soaked into the ground.”
“What do you speak of?”
“I speak of the monsters killing them all!” The man shouted and leapt to his feet. “They were ripped apart as if beasts attacked the fort! There’s been no sign of life for months! What could cause such a tragedy?”
Murmurs and whispers circled around the tavern, speculation as to what might have slaughtered an entire fort filled with people, a bustling port for many trade ships. One of the cloaked figures hissed quietly, remembering back to that night and the days leading up to it. There was blood, so much blood it flowed as a river through the fort and out to the ocean.
A night filled with screams and terror. A night that would never fade from her mind…
Chapter 1
St. Augustine 1681
Bastian tugged absently on the chains holding him to the rear wall of his cell. Two days he’d been without blood and two days since he had seen the Master, since he had seen anyone. He was thrown in the cell and left. Part of him hoped they would forget about him and he could find a way to escape, but he knew that was too easy. The Master made him wait, wanted to see what he would do. It was a trick, all just another trick and Bastian could not fail this one.
Since that night when Catherine’s pain tore through his skull, he’d had no sense of her, no whisper of her voice. He cackled in the darkness now, remembering the rage building. The Master had created a monster and if Bastian’s suspicions were correct, those sent to the camp to bring Catherine to the fort did not survive the night.
Keys rattled close by, but Bastian’s hopes did not rise. Instead, he tugged at the chains again, the links clinking against the floor. He sniffed the air and paused. There was blood just outside his door, young blood. His throat burned with a sudden insatiable hunger and he clawed at the ground, digging through the stone as he tried to control himself. A key grated in the lock and the heavy cell door was dragged open, letting in the flickering light of torches. Behind the glare, Bastian saw the Master’s grim smile, his fangs hanging over his lip, with Antoinette and Haddie by his side.
“Bastian, you look terribly hungry my friend,” the Master crooned and stepped to the side.
Snarling, he lunged forward, the chains straining against his wrists so hard the skin broke open, but he hardly noticed the pain from the unbearable burning of his throat. “What have you done to me?” he hissed. The burn was never so intense after only two days. Unless it had been longer and he did not know it. “Tell me!”
“You must feed,” he said and shoved someone forward. She cried out and fell into the cell with Bastian, collapsing to her knees before him. “A gift. I must have your strength return along with the beast you were meant to be.”
The girl sobbed and Bastian snarled even as he forced himself away. “No, she’s a child for God’s sake!”
“God is not here,” the Master hissed and in a blur of speed, slammed Bastian into the rear of the cell with his nails digging into his neck until they drew blood. “You cannot resist forever. I have made it so.”
Bastian’s eyes widened in horror as the burning of his throat intensified so harshly, his vision blurred red. “What have you done?”
“What is necessary to ensure you are ready when they come; and they are coming, Bastian, they are coming for us all,” he leered, as he released the vampire. “Feed. Another will be brought soon, until your hunger is satisfied.”
“They? The ones you built this army to fight against?” he asked.
The Master’s eyes darkened. “The Order. Soon, you will see why I have done this, why I have gone to such lengths to grow stronger with each day.”
“You expect us all to fight your battle for you?” Bastian snapped. “After what you’ve done to us?” He stared at the young girl weeping, and snarled. “You torture us! Why would we not side with them?”
“You believe I caused you pain?” the Master asked quietly, a hiss beneath his words.
Bastian stood firm, but the hair on the back of his neck rose. The torchlight flickered violently as if a gust of wind had swept down the corridor. The Master’s eyes glowed crimson, lighting his face and the cell from the strength of his gaze.
“You know nothing of torture, Bastian, nothing of pain,” the Master stated harshly. “You know nothing of the cruelty I endured!” The air grew heavy in the cell, and with an enraged howl, he reached out and grabbed Bastian’s head in both hands, pressing against his temples.
Bastian growled in agony, trying to pull away, but the Master’s grip was too strong. His eyes scrunched closed as the searing pain worsened, but he was helpless to withstand the visions being thrust through his mind. Image after image of Catherine being tortured and killed by him, of Antoinette dying a terrible death, of everyone he knew and loved ripped out of his life and slaughtered before his eyes. Pain filled him, until in a brief moment of clarity, Bastian realized the pain was not his, but the Master’s. He focused on it, tugged hard on the connection and just as with Catherine, Bastian was dragged from his mind and into another’s.
Right into the Master’s…
“Vesper, please, don’t do this,” a weakened voice hissed from the shadows.
A man sighed heavily and something metallic clinked close by. “I have no choice. You must be purged of this darkness within you. I am sorry, Antony, it is the only way.”
“No…please, the pain…I cannot take it anymore! I have told you everything,” Antony’s sobs echoed around the cold stone room. “I have told you all I know. Kill me or let me go, please, I beg of you. For the love of God—”
“God? You dare pray to the almighty after what you have become?”
The sobs became harsher and the chains rattled. “I did not ask for this! I was one of you, I still can be!”
“Yes,” Vesper said and breathed out heavily. “Yes you can, once you are purged of the darkness inside you. Until then, you are simply another monster, untamed and unclean.”
A flame flickered to life, lighting the face of the man across the room. The chains rattled harder and Antony cried out, praying in deep, guttural hisses as Vesper came closer with the torch.
“Praying will not save you, not whilst you are unclean. Come, Antony, let me save you.”
Antony’s screams of pain turned hoarse, until no sound issued from his mouth, yawning wide in anguish as his flesh was burned from his body. The stench was unbearable, but Vesper never ceased his torture…
Then the room shifted and Antony was freed, killing Vesper with a deranged look in his glowing red eyes. Once the man was dead, he moved as a deadly plague through the fortress, slaughtering all in his path, until it became one single night of destruction. Village after village, any with ties to the Order, he burned to the ground. Antony murdered as many innocents as he could capture and drain of life, until blood covered him from head to toe and he was no longer perceived as a man, just a monster from a nightmare the world could never wake from…
The Master staggered backwards in the cell, shoving the girl to the side, as he glared at Bastian. “What did you just do to me?” he hissed, holding his head.
Bastian bent double, leaning against the wall for support as his vision righted and the room spun back into focus. “I do not…I do not know.” His stomach twisted and he vomited the little blood still in his body, as the stench of burning flesh came back to him, along with Antony’s cries.
“Antony,” he muttered. “You were one of them, weren’t you?”
Antony snarled and raised his hand as if to hit Bastian, but stopped himself. He straightened and smoothed back his hair, composing his face in moments. “Feed, Bastian, we will retur
n soon.”
“Answer me, you rat faced bastard! Were you one of them?”
But no answer came. Antony stepped out of the cell and snarled for the others to lock the door, leaving the girl inside. Bastian turned away from her, ready to refuse, until the burning intensified and sent him to his knees. The girl cried for mercy, pounding her fists on the cell door, but no one would save her. Bastian bit his lip hard, keeping his gaze focused on anything, but the pounding vein in her throat. A voice filled his mind, telling him to feed, telling him to drink. He resisted, digging his nails into the wall until his fingers bled, but the coppery tang of it struck his nose and all sense of reason fled his mind.
As he turned and lunged for the girl, she screamed, beating at him, but he never felt the blows. He gripped her hard by the shoulders, bent her head to the side, and bit on the sweet blood-giving vein in her neck. Her screams echoed in his mind, over and over again, but Bastian could not stop himself. He ravaged her neck until there was nothing left. He tossed her dead body to the side of his cell and fell back against the wall, angry tears pricking his eyes even as his body relished from finally being fed.
He stared at his shaking hands and sank down to the ground. Antony was turning him and there was nothing Bastian could do to stop it.
Chapter 2
Fire flickered in the humid breeze coming from the salt marshes, lighting Catherine’s pained face and the glimmer in her eyes. Liam’s body, along with the bodies of Mary and the two other girls who had died in the attack on the camp, were placed on pyres, waiting to be burned. Catherine held the torch in her white knuckled grip, steadying herself to do her duty as Liam’s kin.
“Whenever you are ready,” Tula said quietly beside her.
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