Vermilion Dreams_A Vampire Fantasy Epic

by M. U. Riyadad

  “Elsa?” I called. My voice echoed. My breath steamed in the air, but it didn’t feel cold. It didn’t feel like anything, really. I couldn’t feel the heat of the summer, the dampness of the clouds, or even the touch of the ashes when they landed on my skin. My fingers still prickled, and my feet still felt wet from earlier, but the lack of so many other sensations made my skin itch uncomfortably. All my senses wanted to take in more of the world than seemed possible. My eyes felt wrong for being able to stare into the fire without blinking. My skin felt wrong for not feeling the wet or cold of the fog. The lack of any smell was the most bothersome. It’s not something you’re ever conscious of, and so it becomes the first thing you’re aware of most when it’s gone. It made the air feel too thin to breathe, too weightless to hold in your lungs.

  “Dina?” Elsa called back. She grabbed my hand, and pulled me to kneel next to her. Her touch was warm and the beads of sweat on her palms felt like tiny bubbles. It was the only thing I could feel right at the moment. “Dina, what’s happening?” she asked. She looked down as she spoke, like she was trying to see her own voice.

  I hit myself in the thighs to make sure I could feel it. That’s how I usually woke myself up from dreams. The pain amplified, but it went away faster too. My skin throbbed from the hit and then the feeling disappeared in just a few seconds. My clothes rippled. My pants creased. All of it felt hard and brittle, like touching a sheet of sandstone or a leaf of plaster.

  “We’re still alive,” Nikhil said. Bits of his sword were evaporating into the air, turning into strands of ash like the pieces floating around us. They’d hover toward a cloud, and then disappear inside of the colors. He ran a finger around the edges of the weapon as he watched it happen. Jahlil watched next to him, then did the same. More bits crumbled wherever they touched it, and soon, it looked like something had nibbled on the entire outer part of the sword’s central ridge. Only the hilt, shaped like Yuweh’s triton, remained intact and unmoving.

  Elsa and Mawlik were mumbling something to each other. Mawlik had his eyes closed, squinting them shut like he was afraid they might open by accident if he let his guard down.

  All the half-men were still there, but the totem daemon was gone. In its place, there was a creature that resembled a large cat, something the size of a lynx, but it had the same wet clay face as the totem daemon. Its fur was gold with spots of black—not flecks or evenly sized spots, but large blotches of black that glistened in the dark like someone had spilled paint over the creature. The other half-men looked the same as before, but under the dim light of the fire and fog, their bodies seemed more desiccated and crude, like random collections of body parts sewn together in monochromatic patterns. They glanced around the valley in wonder, then slowly stepped away from us.

  “His ey-eyes,” Jahlil stuttered, pointing at Avisynth. The boy’s eyes were the brightest things I could see. Twin stars that changed seamlessly from one color to another like the clouds, and burned so brightly I couldn’t keep my own eyes on them for more than a moment. Bits of color leaked out from their sides like alchemical fumes, coral pink and forest green, ocean blue and summer yellow. They were feratu eyes. It was my first time seeing them, but anyone would know if they saw them. There were enough stories. The blinding glare, the heat and incandescence, dazzling and radiant like thunder in an open sky. The colors were so vivid and so palpable I felt like I could reach a hand out and touch the violet, or the green, feel the heat of the reds, or the cool of the blues, and then weave them into tangible things like cloth and colored sheets.

  The cat-like creature stretched on its hind legs and then gaped at us, showing off a long line of teeth while narrowing its eyes at Avisynth. Its eyes were a deep black, with only bits of white at the edges, thinner than leaves. It took a step forward, lean and tense with every paw just barely touching the floor as it walked. I thought it might jump at me or Avisynth, but instead, it hissed in a voice so acid I felt it ring at the back of my ears.

  “Blooooooood magic,” the creature slurred. Its tongue still flicked like a snake’s, but its voice had changed. “This one. Thissssss one. It knows blood magic. The boy is daemon-born. Visyntha. Visyntha!” It no longer sounded playful or curious, but full of contempt and rage. It was a gruff, hoarse voice. What I sounded like after a good day’s worth of screaming. The creature glanced around our surroundings, paying close attention to the trees and the darkness surrounding them. It turned to Avisynth. “Take it back, boy,” it demanded. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Close the rip you made in your world. This is not the kind of alchemy you ought to play with, not the kind of alchemy you ought to use without knowing how to use it.”

  “Master, it’s cold here,” the half-man with the three legs said. His feet were shivering. The hairs on his legs stood up, as rigid as glass, and his hooves dug deep into the ash and soil. Every few seconds they seemed to sink several inches deeper, until he pulled them out and stepped somewhere else. “It’s cold, master, and empty, and the forest is gone. All the forest animals are all gone, and I can sense nothing but the old spirits of the woods.”

  “Master, is it blood magic?” the half-man with the long arm asked. “True feratu blood magic? An opening to the nether?” He looked fascinated, watching the dark between the trees, the clouds, and the flakes of ash around him like he had been waiting a long time for this moment. Then he beamed at Avisynth and watched the boy’s eyes with a blank and obsessive stare. His arm reached out to wave through a cloud. It moved as gently as a breeze, and for a brief moment, it looked more human than daemon.

  The cat-like creature ignored him, then continued speaking to Avisynth. “Bring back the moon and the stars, boy. Take us away from here now.” An edge had grown into his voice. It circled Avisynth, stretching underneath the clouds that were passing by and the ash that fell around it. Its legs looked strong and narrow, and its paws had nails that arched upward like steel hooks. They were sharp and polished, and bent evenly around its fingers as though someone had carefully coiled every claw into place.

  Avisynth stepped forward, his eyes still burning like charred coals. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said. “If I close this rip, you have to promise to let us go. We don’t want any trouble.” He turned around, pointing toward me. “Her sisters are here. She just wants them back. Let us get her sisters and then we’ll leave you alone if you leave us alone.” He strained his eyes to look around. He no longer looked dazed or disoriented, but his expression was still distant and remote, away or wanting to get away from what was happening around him.

  “What do you mean you won’t hurt them?” Nikhil asked.

  “Yeah—if you can hurt them then hurt them,” Mawlik shouted, still keeping his eyes closed. “They’re daemons, for Raya’s sake!”

  “Avisynth, where are we?” I asked, low enough that only he could hear.

  “We haven’t gone anywhere,” he whispered back. “We’re still in the forest.”

  “You really are feratu.”

  I paused for a moment.

  “What does the creature mean, about the nether? Are we in the nether? What kind of a rip did you make?” I spoke faster than I meant to, knowing I didn’t have time to get the answers to any of my questions, but asking them anyway.

  “Is this really blood magic?” Elsa asked. “Avisynth, your eyes. You’re feratu. You’re using daemon alchemy?”

  Mawlik opened his eyes. He turned to Elsa, and then to Avisynth. He mumbled something inaudible under his breath then closed his eyes again, covering them with the palms of his hands.

  Avisynth turned to the half-men. They were still large, and deformed, and the light hadn’t made them look any less threatening, but they no longer seemed dangerous, or inclined to hurt anyone. They huddled together like all of us, and looked just as frightened and just as bewildered by their surroundings. Some of them were trying to touch the clouds. Others were trying to rake the frost on the floor or grab a piece of ash from the air. They leaned into the fi
re, brushing their hands against it with confused expressions. They touched their threads and their needles, testing to see what they could feel and what they couldn’t.

  The cat-like creature purred, crumpling its clay face into a scowl. Bits of its face were melting away. Beads of a thick, mud-like substance dripped down from its forehead like its whole expression had been carved from a cake of soap too hot to stay solid. Its teeth were yellow, and spotted with dirt and ash. It had the gritty appearance of a stray city cat, but moved with the ease and dignity of a wild one. “We’ll let you go, boy!” it screeched. “We’ll let all of you go, but whether the girl gets her sisters back is not up to us.” It looked around at the darkness again, toward where the cave should have been. The alchemical lights had disappeared, and the fog was too thick to see anything through it. “Whether the girl gets her sisters back is up to the two of them,” the creature said, pointing a paw in the direction of the cave.

  “It’s up to who?” I asked, pulling myself up to stand next to Avisynth. “Tell me where my sisters are. I’ll get them back myself. You don’t need to hand them to us. Just tell us what’s in the cave. Are they safe now?”

  “You won’t see them now,” the creature said, twisting its mouth into a smile. “You don’t understand what kind of a space we’re in, do you?” It raised a thick brow at me, letting more drops of the clay liquid fall from its forehead. Its whole face was glassy and sleek, covered in a thin sheen of moisture. It twirled its tail, a long golden thread that looked like its tongue when it was in its larger form, and then pointed it to Avisynth. “You don’t understand what the boy has done. You thought we were dangerous?” It glanced at the other half-men huddled near the campfire, and swung its tail toward them next. “Those are earth-borne daemons. Humans or animals that have been corrupted by daemon blood. Have you ever seen the things that lurk in the nether, girl? The things that are born there and spend all eternity in darkness and damnation?” It pointed its tail back at me. Then it walked around my side, disappearing behind a puff of colored fog.

  It continued, “The things that haunt your midnight dreams. The things that sound so alive in the crevices of your mind. Nameless, shapeless, thoughtless. The things you glimpse but never see, the things that you listen for but never hear. Those things that lurk just beneath the veil that separates this world and the one in between, the veil that thins when you sleep—” It stopped speaking and jumped back in front of the light of the campfire. It jerked its head to the left. Its ears perked up and it stood on its hind legs. It sat like that for a long time, then brought its tail closer to its body and held one paw over the other.

  I had never seen a daemon frightened before. It looked out of place. Ill fitting and stiff, with its grace and restraint all gone. It was like watching an adult suddenly move with all the awkwardness of a child.

  “They’re already coming,” the creature said, now speaking in a tone of resigned apathy. It licked a paw and rubbed its ears in a watery caress, then did the same with its neck. “You don’t know how to use blood magic, boy. You’re a child playing with fire. Bring us back before they’re here.”

  “Master, what is that sound?” a half-man asked. The daemons huddled closer together, their limbs and appendages clumping up into a knot of distorted bodies and loose threads.

  “Shut up,” the cat creature growled. It rolled its eyes, two black spots that were widening every passing second with a newfound sense of urgency. It turned to Avisynth. “Not much time now. They know we’re here. They can smell us. They can sense us. The fear, the apprehension, the terror, it calls to daemons from the nether, you know. They smell it the way we smell blood. Minutes. You have minutes, boy. Minutes before they get here and all of us are gone. Minutes before the dark takes us all.” It turned to its side, locking eyes with Nikhil. “They’re hungry. More hungry than any earth-borne daemon can ever be. Tell your friend to bring us back. You don’t invite things like that to this world. That kind of hunger doesn’t belong here. The things that sleep in the world in between, you let them fester in the dark where they belong.”

  “If you’re afraid, then he must be doing the right thing,” I said, raising a shaking finger. “Bring my sisters to me and Avisynth will bring us back. You can be off to your blue moon. Come to Chaya, even, but I want my sisters back and I want us to get out of the forest safely.” I meant to shout it, to demand Yephi and Iris back, but it came out as a plea. I looked at Avisynth from the corner of my eyes. He gave the creature a nod.

  “I CAN’T GIVE YOU YOUR SISTERS BACK!” the creature shouted. It lurched forward, purred with venom, then just as quickly it retreated back and lay calmly on the floor.

  “I know what I’m calling. They won’t hurt me,” Avisynth said. “But they’ll hurt you if you don’t leave us. They’ll take all of you. You’ll never come back.”

  The creature stretched its body again, letting its tail hang lazily from its back. It rolled in the soil and turned to me, now with a curious expression. “You’re wondering what is coming,” it remarked casually. It played with the soil and the ash. It chased after a passing cloud. All but its ears looked calm and playful. Those told a different story. They were rigid and alert, twitching at the slightest of sounds. They were listening intently in every direction, leaning toward wherever it could get any sign of movement. “I can see it in your eyes, girl. I can smell it on you. The curiosity, the fright, the glee. I know the feeling. I know it well. So well, so well, so well.” It sounded bashful and amused, back in its element.

  “You look more afraid than I do,” I replied. “And that’s well enough for me. So well, so well, so well.” I threw my hands in the air, using the best mocking tone I could manage, even though my voice was shaking now. I wasn’t afraid, but I was anxious. Every second that ticked by made me more nervous for Yephi and Iris. And then I thought of what it meant if we weren’t in the Dwah Forest of our own world. What if Taa came and didn’t see us and we missed her? What if Father’s army came and saved Yephi and Iris but left without the rest of us? I considered telling Avisynth to stop whatever he was doing, but I wanted to wait out the minutes the creature said we had left.

  The creature laughed. The sound came out like a shrill murmur, high-pitched and heightened from the echoes of our space. “If I’m scared, then imagine how afraid you should be,” it cried. “You want to know what’s coming. You want to know if they howl like wolves, if they have nails like cats, or if they bite like dogs.” It stood up again, proud as a lion, prowling toward me on the tips of its paws. It licked it lips, and grazed the ash on the floor with its tail, picking some of it up with the fork at the end. “You’re thinking of the wrong things, the wrong comparisons, girl,” it said, eyes and face shimmering like lights in a mirror. “Most of the time they’re as silent as sleep. When they’re hungry, they flutter as quietly as a dream. When they eat, they’re as loud as any night terror.” It bared its teeth in a grin that stretched from one ear to the other. “The boy doesn’t know how to control them. They’ll be after your blood as well as mine. It’s yours they smell anyway. It’s yours he used to open the door and invite them in.”

  “I do know,” Avisynth snapped. He clenched his hands into a fist. He turned slightly toward me, eyes still alight. “I’ve never really done it before,” he admitted, somewhat nervously. “Not like this, but I know enough. Don’t worry, we’re going to be safe. Just remember what I said. Remind your friends if they try to open their eyes.” He tilted his head to Mawlik. “You watch them, I’ll take care of the daemons.”

  I nodded, keeping an eye on Elsa and the other four but still watching the half-men and the cat creature with most of my attention.

  “There’s no point in talking about it anymore,” the cat creature said. It spoke flatly now, with no inflection in its voice. Every word came out as dry as smoke. It wrapped its tail around its own throat. “They’re here now. Seconds away. Seconds. You’re all going to die. They’ll eat you faster than you could blink. Faster th
an your heart could skip a beat.”

  CHAPTER 11

  On the opposite side of the valley, behind the huddle of the half-men, I saw movement. My mind raced with possibilities. Nether-borne daemons. I imagined vampires with limitless appetites, werewolves that could take their forms with no moon, beasts the size of mountains with snakes for fingers, but it ended up being none of these things.

  Really, I was more curious than afraid, shaking more with anticipation than terror. I got this from Taa. I expected I might be afraid after I finally saw them and the danger became real and imminent, but in the few seconds before, I felt nothing but wonder. In the few seconds before, I even forgot about Yephi and Iris, about Father coming or Taa saving us. It was the kind of incredulity that you only see in children, sailors, and inventors. Don’t think me evil—Father said it’s a side effect of having a quick mind, and that I shouldn’t feel guilty about it. When your thoughts are always racing, finding something that can stop them short becomes its own kind of drug.

  Behind the dim light of the campfire, the dark moved. It wasn’t something in the dark, not something the color of shadow or obsidian or something with a dark complexion. It was the very dark itself. It was the space just beyond the light of the clouds and the campfire, exactly where my eyes could see nothing more. It rippled in the smallest of lines, no more a ripple than a feather could have made in water, and then it made a fluttering sound just as soft and gentle. It was the sound of clothes hanging in the wind, or of paper blowing to the side and upward and down in a breeze. It was far from us, but the sound seemed close. It wasn’t loud, just very clear and distinct, like the dark had fluttered next to my ears. I even turned my head to make sure it wasn’t right there to my left.