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Mestel awoke suddenly with an uneasy feeling. He got up from his bedroll on the floor and looked at Ellen and Faye sleeping peacefully in the bed. With every fiber of his being he wanted to be with Ellen, but the timing never seemed right. First, they saved the town of Wessex together. Then he had gone south to the Old Shetley Fortress and returned only to save the town from the Krone. Then her daughter had been taken and they had spent all of their energy worrying and rushing after her. What’s more, he had a job to do that didn’t involve loving a human woman. Martel had wanted Ellen to come along, there was no doubt of that, and they had spent that one night together after the giants had been defeated and all of Wessex partied as if that night were their last. Mestel had the feeling that they would always be together, even if they were physically separated. The bond between them would not be broken. They would find each other again.
Mestel watched her perfect form, with her daughter nuzzled up against her, until the feeling of unease returned and everything else was forgotten. Something was wrong. Something was out of place. Mestel grabbed his leather armor and put it on. He slung the compound bow Nero had gotten for him over his shoulder and put the belt containing his dagger around his waist. Without looking back, Mestel went to the door and exited into the hallway.
All was quiet. There was not a sound to be heard. The hall was lit by several oil lamps spaced out at even intervals. The walls and ceiling were made of finely cut granite while the floor was smoothly polished bone colored marble. Something about the temple was wrong. Was it that he was staying in another god’s house of worship? No. Fortuna was an honorable goddess.
Mestel started down the hallway. He needed to find his bearings. He turned around a corner and picked up the pace. He started looking in all the empty rooms, searching the hallway at an accelerated pace. What he was looking for he could not say, but he trusted his god and his instincts. Mestel searched the entire second floor but did not find anything amiss. He walked quickly back to his room and looked in on Ellen and Faye. They were both fine. He walked across the hall and opened the door to Valihorn and Evisar’s room. They were both sleeping peacefully. He walked down the hallway and gently wrapped on Nero and Xander’s door. Someone invited him in and Mestel opened the door. The inside of the room was dark, with Nero in one of the two single beds looking up at him.
Nero said, “Is something wrong?”
“I have an uneasy feeling.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know, but something is wrong,” Mestel said.
“You’re worried about nothing. We are under the Basilica’s protection. They have good men guarding the gates and roaming the halls on every floor.”
“No, they don’t.”
“What do you mean?” Nero asked.
“I mean I have searched this entire floor and there are no guards to be found.”
“That does seem a bit odd, but I still say you’re worried about nothing. Go back to bed and get some sleep. This may be the only good night’s sleep we get for the next several moons.”
Mestel nodded in understanding and slowly closed the door. Rather than being deterred by Nero’s words, their conversation had only made his feelings of uncertainty more profound. He walked quickly to the staircase and went down one level to the ground level. He walked through the dining area, the conference rooms, and the administration offices. No one was around. No one was stirring. Most importantly, just like on the level above, no guards were on duty. Mestel went to the staircase again and went down. Now he was below ground at the sanctuary level. He walked down the hallway toward the sanctuary, where he knew there had been two guards at the sanctuary entrance earlier in the day. Once again, the guards were gone. This left Mestel wondering if the Basilica didn’t place guards inside the temple in the middle of the night. It would be quite a hardship to stand watch in the middle of the night, day after day. Mestel walked into the sanctuary, walked halfway down the main aisle, and saw nothing amiss. He turned around and walked quickly out the tall, heavy wooden doors. He all but ran to the spiral staircase and took the stairs two at a time. He went up two floors to where his room was located. He exited out into the hallway with his head down in thought. When he raised his head, he was surprised to see Ellen walking down the hall toward him with a mischievous look on her face.
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Xander thought he must be asleep. He could tell that he was dreaming and that it was one of those dreams where he was awake enough to think he could manipulate it. He floated high in the air above a city. Locus, he assumed. He could see hundreds of miles in every direction. As he looked to the north, he saw a skeleton army of Seker marching on the Guard Tower of Kentar with the Lich in command. This disturbed him to no end, so he changed the dream; he brought himself straight down from on high. A cityscape rushed upward to meet him and as he got closer to the ground, he saw that the city was indeed Locus. He came straight down and landed with his feet on the slate stone in the middle of the forum. Xander saw the familiar scene from only a short time ago: the market, the bazaar, the streets leading away, and finally the platform where the Krone still dangled from his noose. As his vision zoomed in on the dead Krone, his black face rose up with dead eyes that stared at him.
The Krone said, “This could have been you, elf.”
The dead Krone startled Xander so badly that he forced the scene to change again; he retreated into the safety of the Basilica. He moved through several walls and went through the floor to the sanctuary in the basement. He relaxed knowing nothing could harm him here. As his vision scanned across the pews, he noticed an old woman where the altar to Fortuna should have been. His heart raced as he dared to hope. Xander walked down the center aisle toward the old woman. The woman was draped with an old blanket that covered everything but her arms below the elbow and her legs below the knees, including her head. Xander could not see her face. He continued walking carefully down the main aisle and with each step he took, the old woman changed into a younger woman. With each step she grew younger and more beautiful until her arms and legs were long, with perfect skin. Who was this woman who was kneeling on the very spot where Fortuna had first appeared more than five hundred years ago during the Year of Angels? At last, Xander stood not more than ten feet away from the woman. She looked up at him with her beautiful face and brilliant green eyes. She was the most beautiful human Xander had ever seen in his life.
The woman looked at him with kindness and said, “You have done well, my child. You have rededicated yourself to my principles and you shall be rewarded. Now it is time for you to wake. Evil has invaded my most sacred place. Know that I will be with you as you fight this evil. Go now and defend my house.”
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Mestel walked toward Ellen. She smiled broadly and trotted over to him. She looked more beautiful than ever, and Mestel had to force himself to think of something else other than his passion to kiss her. Ellen jumped into his waiting arms and hugged him fiercely. Then she kissed him passionately on the lips. When she broke away from the kiss, she had the kind of loving smile on her face that no man could possibly resist.
She leaned in and kissed his neck before whispering in his ear, “I can’t wait any longer. I have to have you, Mestel.”
Mestel dared to hope, but the rational side of his consciousness hadn’t completely lost sway yet. “I want you too, but what about Faye?”
“We’ll find another room. She won’t miss us for so short a time.” Ellen pulled away from him and took his hand with the mischievous smile still on her face. She led him down the hallway and into a room with a wooden table, eight chairs, and two fireplaces. She pulled out one of the chairs and playfully forced him to sit in it. Ellen shut the door and turned around to face him. Gods she was beautiful. Her kindness and love of life were everything a male could ever want. He had wanted her since the first time he saw her in the giant�
��s cage. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why he had foolishly risked his life to save her. She stood before him and slid the straps of her dress off her shoulders. The garment fell to the floor in a pile around her ankles.
She stepped out of the pile and walked seductively over to him. Ellen sat down in his lap and wrapped her legs and arms around him. Then she kissed him fiercely on the mouth. Not tenderly like he had expected, but lustfully. She kissed his mouth many times before turning his head to the side and attacking his neck in the same lustful fashion.
Mestel lost himself completely in the moment. He kissed Ellen back, but she kept her focus on his neck. She just kept kissing his neck. Then she started to nibble at his neck. Gods it felt good. Then she began biting at his neck. It hurt some, but that was part of the fun. Then she bit him harder and Mestel felt the first trickle of liquid running down his neck. Was it her saliva? Was it his blood? He didn’t care. He just wanted her. That was all he wanted.
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Xander shook his head from side to side and snapped to full alertness. He was still kneeling in front of Fortiac’s private altar with his hands folded neatly in front of him. Without hesitation, he jumped to his feet and drew his rapier. He scanned the room quickly and noticed that the window to his right was wide open, where it had not been before. Still further to the right, Xander saw a twenty-year-old human woman walking toward him. The woman was shrouded in a light fog that grew thicker and more opaque behind her. Unlike the woman in his dream, this woman seemed falsely beautiful, as if her beauty was a shroud covering the ugliness that was her true self. The woman continued to advance with the mist close behind.
The woman spoke in a trance-like voice that hinted at more to come. “I can feel your power and it draws me to you. I’m famous all over Locus for my ability to please men. Can I please you now?”
Xander could feel his body giving in to the woman. He could feel her seductive power. He lowered his rapier and the woman came closer. When the woman was close enough that she could not get away, but still far enough away that she could not reach him, Xander took a step forward and swung his sword. The woman had just enough time to frown in surprise as Xander’s blade cut across her neck and cleanly separated her head from her body.
The woman crumpled to the ground and the head rolled a few feet across the floor until it stopped, with the face looking up at him.
The detached head said, “Now you’re in trouble.”
Xander was surprised by his skill and strength with the blade. He looked up and saw that the fog had materialized into multiple human women – eight to be exact. They fanned out in an arc around the room and looked at him with what he could only describe as giddy expectation. Before anything else happened, Xander wanted to be sure whom he was dealing with. He said two divine words and suddenly the truth of what he was seeing appeared before him. The eight women were vampires. With their false beauty stripped away, their true human shape was put before him. Some of them were beautiful, some of them were plain, and some of them were horrors to behold. However, all of them had the sharp fangs of a vampire, and all of them were moving toward him. As Xander looked around the room, he thought he saw the shadow of a man in the back of the room by the window, but he could not spare any time to think about what it meant. He would be lucky to get out of this room alive as it was.
Xander didn’t know much about vampires except that they were undead with great supernatural power and that they couldn’t stand in the light of day. With his mind made up, Xander thrust his hand in the air and yelled out two divine words. Brilliant white light emerged from his hand and bathed the left half of the room in strong sunlight. The blinding light stunned four of the vampires and seared their skin. All of them shrieked in pain. Their screams were unnaturally loud and harsh, and must have been heard throughout the entire building.
He lunged forward with both hands on his rapier. He slashed two of the stunned women with a mighty swing across the chest. Using the momentum of his charge, he buried his sword in the chest of a third vampire all the way up to the hilt. He rammed the third vampire with his shoulder and transferred all of his momentum to her. The third vampire flew backward and landed hard on the floor. With his rapier free, Xander quickly slashed to the right and cut the fourth stunned vampire across the stomach.
By that time the four vampires that had not been seared by his light spell caught up to him. Xander was hit from behind and tackled to the ground by two of them. He turned over to face his attackers, but by then they were all on top of him. Two of them held down his torso while a third one bit viciously into his sword arm. Xander yelled out in pain and felt his sword get yanked from his hand. He tried desperately to reach for the dagger on his belt and when that failed, he tried throwing off his attackers, but that did not work either. There were too many vampire women on top of him and he felt more piling on with each passing moment.
Xander looked up at the vampiress straddling his torso in time to see her eyes flash a brilliant red. She lustfully lunged forward, clamping down on his neck and biting hard. Xander shrieked out in pain, but it was no use. He felt his life energy draining away. He had the vague sensation of a second vampire continuing to bite his sword arm and a third vampire biting into his side. He had tried his best to honor Fortuna, but there were just too many of them. Xander continued to struggle mightily against those restraining him, refusing to surrender, but knowing that he was losing strength with each passing moment.
Somewhere off in the distance Xander heard someone yell out three divine words. All of the bodies and weight that had been holding him down were lifted away. Xander had just enough strength to lift his head up and see all of the vampire women pinned against the far wall, withering away. He watched with animosity as the women shriveled into dry husks and died. Off to the side, Xander still thought he saw the shadowed man standing in the corner, but he lost track of him as the strength in his neck gave out and his head slammed back onto the marble floor.
Xander moaned in pain, knowing he was near death and that he would soon see Seker again. At least this time his goddess might come to claim him since he died defending her church. As his eyes closed, he saw Fortiac hovering over him, laying his hands on his chest. He heard, but did not see, Fortiac casting a divine spell of healing. Xander’s departing soul instantly rushed back into his body. He opened his eyes and felt all of his vitality return. Fortiac had made him whole once again.
Xander was about to say thank you and get back on his feet when he saw a shadow move gracefully behind Fortiac. He yelled out, but it was too late. The shadow moved with a fluid grace and quickness that was not of this world. It simultaneously grabbed Fortiac’s arm and hair. As the shadow grabbed Fortiac, it instantly became visible as a male vampire. The vampire pulled the arm down and the hair to the side, taking Fortiac’s head with it. He brought his head down and bit deeply into Fortiac’s neck. Fortiac screamed out in pain, but there was nothing the High Priest could do. He had been taken by surprise, and he was powerless against the supernatural strength of the vampire.
Xander gathered his feet under him and pushed himself up with his arms. In a blur of motion, the vampire slammed his foot down on Xander’s chest and pinned him in place. Xander’s breath left his lungs and he struggled to roll away from the vampire so that he could get up, but he might as well have been a rat struggling against the snake coiling around him. Xander was not going anywhere and after the vampire was done with Fortiac, he was next.
Xander called out in desperation to the wizard in the gem but didn’t hear anything in response. He grasped the hilt of his dagger and pulled it from its scabbard. With a yell of primal triumph, Xander plunged the dagger deep into the calf of the vampire. The vampire screamed with surprise as he let go of Fortiac and backed a few steps away. Fortiac fell like a bag of potatoes to the floor, unconscious. Xander wanted to revive Fortiac so that he could help him fight this supernatural being, but he dared not look away even for an
instant. Xander jumped to his feet. The vampire pulled the dagger out of his calf and let it fall to the floor, leaving Xander without a weapon of any kind.
The vampire stood ten feet away staring at him. “So, you are the infamous Xander.”
Xander didn’t feel like being smart at the moment, so he said, “Yes.”
“You don’t seem like much to me.”
Without warning, the vampire lunged forward at an incredible speed. Xander had just enough time to throw his arm up and yell one divine word. An explosion of positive energy emerged from Xander’s hand and the vampire was lifted off the ground and thrown back against the wall. The vampire struggled mightily against the invisible force pinning him to the wall, but it was no use. He became more incensed the longer he was held. Xander watched, despite himself, as an irrational rage overcame the vampire and he lost all control. The undead monster flailed about and screeched an ear-piercing cry, the mere memory of which would haunt Xander’s nightmares for years to come.
Xander searched frantically for his sword and found it a few steps behind him. By the time he retrieved his weapon and spun around, the vampire had fought through the spell and won his freedom. He had recovered his composure and was all the more menacing for it.
“You fight bravely for a mortal.”
“I have the power of Fortuna at my back,” Xander stated.
The vampire shook his head ever so slightly, “Your pitiful goddess is no match for the power of the dead.”
“Funny, it didn’t seem that way when you were pinned up against the wall.”
The vampire’s eyes glowed red with anger. He brought up his right hand, snapped his fingers in a blur of supernatural speed, and instantly disappeared. At the same time, four new vampire women coalesced out of the mist by the window and rushed toward him with lightning speed.
Do the Gods Give Us Hope? Page 18