We’d spent the whole evening planning the entire infiltration, while Amane looked over the Draenir’s townhall records. We all had our parts to play, each of us essential to achieving our final objective: getting Amane close enough to Amal for her to figure out a mass memory wipe method against the Perfects, then getting Douma and a bunch of devil-vipers out, provided none of them, Amal and Douma included, came back to bite us in our collective ass. At least we knew what to expect with the snakes.
“We’ll go invisible about five hundred yards from the colosseum,” I said. “After our last visit, they’ll have increased and improved security.”
“Cassiel will have told them about the invisibility spell,” Nevis warned.
I nodded. “That’s fine. They still can’t see us. None of them know how to counteract it, as Cassiel doesn’t know about the red garnet lenses,” I replied. “We’ll be extra careful not to get any weird liquid on us or whatever they might think of to spot us. Varga and I will keep our True Sight on at all times.”
“They’ll just use logic and physics to try and catch us,” Amane added. “Granted, we’d have to be crazy to go in again. They might not expect us.”
“Then again, we’ve constantly surprised Ta’Zan. He might actually think we have it in us to do it again,” Varga retorted, grinning.
“We’ll be—”
I was interrupted by a powerful explosion behind us. We all froze in the middle of the dark jungle. Varga and I looked back, using our True Sight to scan the area and find the origin of that bloodcurdling cluster of bangs.
“Oh, no…” Varga breathed.
“What?” Raphael replied, his eyes wide with anticipation.
“Big trouble,” I said. “Cassiel and a dozen Perfects.”
They’d just destroyed the entire mountain with a plethora of massive fireballs. The town was torn to shreds, splinters of limestone exploding outward. The trees, the homes, the glass, and the pipes, all of them blown to pieces and engulfed by flowering, bright orange flames.
A giant, oval-shaped hole was left on the side of the mountain, the rest of the town spilling out like broken entrails. It was all gone. The town hall, the alleys and the stairs, the blossoming skeletons… the Hermessi monument. Everything. Blown away.
Thirteen flashes of light shot above it, going in different directions before they reunited by the beach and darted toward our location.
“Crap!” I managed, then fumbled through my pockets and took out one of my invisibility spell pouches. I downed the whole thing, motioning for the others to do the same, and slipped the red garnet lens over my eye. “They’re coming.”
The rest of the crew took their invisibility paste and put on their lenses. Raphael pointed ahead. “Head south. Stay quiet and go as fast as you can.”
We nodded, then ran. My feet were light, my chest constricted, as I could hear the swooshing of Perfects flying at high speed over the water. How the hell did they find us? Was it because of the lights? It shouldn’t have been. The tree crowns were thick enough to stop the light from being visible beyond the mountain walls.
From a certain height, however, we could’ve been spotted. But what were the odds that the Perfects had been looking specifically in this direction? No, there was something fishy here, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Trees broke behind us. I instinctively shifted farther to the right, my legs moving faster than my mind in that instant. I wasn’t sure who was still with me. I only knew that I couldn’t confront a Perfect or twelve under these circumstances. We were too close to Ta’Zan’s archipelago, and we couldn’t afford to make any noise and draw more Perfects out here.
I managed to hide behind a tree, then stilled, listening to the sound of footsteps in the grass—the rest of my crew, running and dispersing, then also stopping. All of a sudden, it was quiet.
I could see the others, despite the darkness. Nevis was a couple of trees away, while Raphael, Kallisto, Varga, Dmitri, Ridan, and Amane were farther to our left. The Perfects landed like small comets, crashing through the woods and ripping the ground apart as they came to a halt, separating Nevis and me from the others.
Raphael put his index finger up to his lips as he looked at me. I nodded, then set my weapon to pulverizer mode. I stopped moving when Cassiel reached my tree, sniffing the air and smirking with too much satisfaction. The other twelve Perfects quickly got up and looked around, trying to spot us. Our scents weren’t masked, but they couldn’t see us. It was clearly frustrating for at least one of them, who cursed under his breath.
“Where the hell are they?” he asked. “I can smell the little rats!”
“Shush,” Cassiel said, stopping right next to me. “I know you’re here, Lenny,” he added, raising his voice. “Come out and surrender, princess. Otherwise, I’ll cut you up and deliver you to Father in pieces.”
Nevis was burning with rage and despair, staring at me. He was not comfortable with Cassiel being so dangerously close to me. I heard the clicks of other weapons going into pulverizer mode, then the crackle of frost spreading.
I looked past Cassiel and saw Nevis’s palm on the ground. The ice stretched out extremely fast. It caught the Perfects and Cassiel, covering their lower bodies. They didn’t have time to react. My crew shot the dozen and turned them to ashes, while I put the muzzle of my weapon against Cassiel’s forehead.
“You’ve got a simple choice now,” I said. “Surrender and have your memory surgically wiped, or die right here.”
Cassiel chuckled softly. “You all need to teach me the recipe for this invisibility spell. I’d love to have it in my arsenal.”
“You betrayed us,” Raphael hissed, coming closer. He, too, had his weapon pointed at Cassiel. “You don’t get anything other than your head cut off. And that’s your best-case scenario.”
“Morfuris,” I whispered, turning visible again. Technically, the chant was “Mor Fu Ris, three words of swamp witch magic designed to switch the invisibility spell on and off. But it worked when all three were pronounced in one go, so we’d stuck with it. It rolled off the tongue better. Cassiel’s eyes glimmered at the sight of me. “What’s it going to be, you backstabbing snake?”
“Hey!” Cassiel said. “The only reason I’m here is because one of the twelve idiots I was with actually noticed the lights! I wouldn’t have come around, otherwise. We were just patrolling the outskirts of the archipelago, that’s all.”
Dmitri groaned. “Ugh… I’d have thought the crowns thicker...”
“They are,” Varga replied. “We just got unlucky with one of the flying stooges being extra vigilant, I guess.”
One by one, the rest of my crew whispered Morfuris and turned visible. Cassiel looked around, offering an appreciative nod. “I do like the trick. It’ll take you places.”
“What’ll it be, Cassiel? Lenny asked you a question,” Raphael replied, gritting his teeth.
Cassiel looked at me. “I’m planning to fly out of here, my head and my memory intact,” he said.
“Yeah, not gonna happen,” I retorted, pressing the muzzle harder against his forehead. I would’ve destroyed him after the losses he’d caused. We no longer had Douma because of him, and I knew we might not get another shot with him at our mercy. One way or another, Cassiel was going to help us. “Where’s Douma?”
“Back home, where she belongs,” Cassiel replied bluntly.
“Did they do something to her?” Dmitri asked, his hands gripping his weapon with such strength that his knuckles and the tips of his fingers were white.
“What do you think?” Cassiel asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“You are making it incredibly hard not to kill you right now.” I sighed.
“Say what you will, Lenny, but believe me when I say this: I’m not fighting on Ta’Zan’s side,” Cassiel said. “I’m on yours.”
“Screw you!” I snapped. “You came after us with a small army! What kind of long con involves getting us imprisoned or killed
?”
“A very good one,” Cassiel replied. “Ta’Zan is doubtful, and I had to make sure I covered my hind first. He trusts me more, thanks to that small army. He’s worried about the Hermessi now, but he doesn’t know how to stop them. He just wants to catch you all and rebuild his ships so he can start conquering the universe. Lenny, we’re on the same page here. As you can see, I’m providing you with crucial intel.”
“Wait, he knows about the Hermessi?” Amane asked.
“He remembers something from the Draenir. It’s the only explanation that makes sense to him, and he doesn’t like it. He hates anything and anyone that he doesn’t have control over,” Cassiel explained. “He doesn’t know enough about the Hermessi to understand that they’ll be wherever he goes, but I won’t tell him. Like I said, let me go, and I’ll help you.”
Raphael shook his head. “Nah. I think I’d rather just kill you and not risk it.”
“Don’t be stupid, Raphael. You weren’t Ta’Zan’s brightest because of your looks,” Cassiel hissed. “I had to reassess my position and pretend to play on his side when I saw the damage he can still do. You people have a limited supply of pulverizer pellets. He’s got the motherlode with his smoke version. Hell, he can create it in capsule form, too, if he wants. I need to find a way to disable that, first, and you can help me. Seeing the bunch of you here, I’m inclined to assume you’re looking to go back into the colosseum. Right?”
Dmitri exhaled sharply. “Seriously, Lenny, why is he still breathing?”
I didn’t have an answer. But there was a thread of doubt working its way through my head. What if Cassiel could be useful? He did look honest, but I had no way of telling for sure. Honesty wasn’t an emotion, and all I could read was anger and determination. There wasn’t any fear. It was hard to determine his truthfulness.
“We don’t want to risk another Merinos debacle,” Nevis advised me.
They all wanted me to do it. To pull the trigger and obliterate Cassiel. But doubt grew stronger inside me, a voice in the back of my head telling me that, despite his obvious shortcomings, Cassiel had the potential to be an absolute gamechanger in anything we endeavored to do—especially where the colosseum infiltration was concerned.
“What’s the best access route now, after our last incursion?” I asked. “I suppose Ta’Zan strengthened security, and then some.”
Cassiel smirked. “I knew you were a smart cookie. And you’re on the right track. There is a service entrance on the north side, fifty yards from the main gates. It’s obscured by trees and bushes, and the Faulties sometimes use it to run out and talk to the exiled ones.”
That was good information to have—not the service entrance, necessarily, but the fact that the Faulties communicated with the rogue ones. It meant we could spread the seed of dissent farther. We could talk to them, get more of the inside Faulties to rally against Ta’Zan.
“Thanks. So, again, what’ll it be? Head off, or pulverizer?” I replied, unwilling to play his game.
The others were right. Cassiel was too much of a risk at this point, with his memories intact. No way I was going to let him walk or fly out of here knowing what he knew. But I wasn’t ready to permanently destroy him. An amnesiac Cassiel was worth more than a pile of ashes.
“Seriously?” Dmitri grunted, then brought the muzzle of his weapon closer to Cassiel’s head. “Enough, Lenny. He betrayed us. He’s playing with us. We’ve got the right allies, already. He’s not necessary.”
“I don’t know. He’s one more fighter on our side, if we chop his head off and remove that memory chip,” I replied.
Dmitri was too angry to think clearly. He was seconds from shooting.
“Listen to Lenny, wolf-boy. I can get you your girlfriend back,” Cassiel said, keeping his eyes on me, as if not bothered by the many weapons pointed at his head.
“Or I could just end you here, and get Douma back on my own,” Dmitri growled.
He didn’t get to do or say anything else. The ground simply caved in, and Cassiel disappeared through a hole. We were all breathless, gawking at how the earth then filled the hole back in. We all knew what this was, and it made everything even more confusing.
“What in the ever-living—”
“The Hermessi,” Raphael interrupted my exclamation.
“The Hermessi took Cassiel?” Nevis asked, both eyebrows arched with astonishment.
Amane nodded, staring at the empty space that Cassiel had just left behind. “I think so,” she said. “What else would’ve caused this?”
“Maybe he’s got some earth elemental abilities from whatever fae genes he was made with,” I replied.
The ground shook beneath us, as if urging us to keep moving. We did. We turned invisible again, then walked away, going deeper into the woods and farther south, toward Ta’Zan’s colosseum. As soon as we left the mystery area, everything just seemed to… relax.
The air felt lighter, though I hadn’t even noticed the pressure until it was gone. The jungle was quiet and dark again, but for the occasional cackle and croak of nocturnal birds, and the purring of tiger-like predators.
“This is getting weirder with every minute that goes by,” Raphael mumbled.
“Why would the Hermessi help Cassiel?!” Dmitri wondered, clearly annoyed that he’d missed his shot. Not that I could blame him. The poor guy was in shambles after losing Douma. Retribution was the sweetest thing he could get to help mend his broken heart, especially after Cassiel had suggested that Douma had been reintegrated into the Perfect society.
“We’ll find out the next time we hear from them,” I said.
It was the only thing we could do. Wait.
In the meantime, we had a mission to get on with, hoping that Cassiel wasn’t going to bother us or try to capture us again. He could be quite a liability. Thankfully, he couldn’t see us, and we could evade his sharp nose inside, especially with Amane on our side.
Most importantly, he knew what kind of weapons we carried. Even with a limited supply of pulverizer pellets, he certainly understood that I was saving one especially for him. Hell, each of us had one pellet with his name on it, justice for his betrayal.
Elonora
With Cassiel gone, mysteriously taken away by the Hermessi, we had nothing left to do in those woods. Cassiel didn’t have earth elemental abilities—at least not that we knew of. Besides, he’d looked as shocked as the rest of us when the ground opened up and swallowed him whole.
We did decide to check the validity of the information he’d given us, and thus made our way toward the northern service entrance. With our invisibility spell still on, we settled on the edge of the jungle surrounding the colosseum, keeping still whenever Perfect guards came around. Something had definitely changed since our last visit.
“No ambush to take us down, so far. I take it Cassiel’s intel was accurate. But look, they doubled the guards,” I whispered from a branch, overlooking the colosseum.
The outer diamond walls were loaded on each level with at least two dozen guards, at all times. Along with the ones by the main gate, the handful near the service door, and the guards patrolling our side of the woods, we were looking at approximately three hundred Perfects within our vicinity.
That made it harder for us to move. The secret was to keep quiet, but with crunching dirt and crackling twigs and leaves covering the jungle floor, that was quite the challenge—so we kept to the trees. Those were easier to use, as we jumped from one gnarly old giant to the next.
“That’s a lot of them,” Raphael murmured once he reached Nevis and me, all three of us now settled on the same branch. Dmitri and the others were in the neighboring tree, keeping a close eye on the guards’ movements.
“How do we do this?” I replied.
We went quiet for a moment, as a group of Perfects passed by beneath us. Amane and Raphael had given us what was left of their black mineral dust to rub on our skin, prior to reactivating the invisibility spell. It helped smother our scent, prevent
ing the Perfects from sensing us. For herself, Amane had already devised a tiny serium blocker, which she wore around her neck at all times. It had been charged with the electrical energy caused by the flow of a river, and it helped her stay hidden from Perfects and Faulties.
After all, she’d always had this weird connection to them, where they could sense each other—not all of them, but enough to be a cause for concern if we brought her to the colosseum with us. Normally, they couldn’t sense her at all whenever she was near a body of water, but the serium blocker she’d devised was pretty much the next best thing. She hadn’t been detected yet, and plenty of Perfects had gotten dangerously close.
“There are six of them by the service entrance,” I murmured.
Two were right by the door, while the other four moved around, never beyond a thirty-yard radius. None of them carried weapons, but they’d been equipped with metallic armor—a new addition to their silken tunics. The metal was beautifully worked, though sturdy and heavy. It was designed to protect their torsos, their necks, and their arms, strapped with slim leather belts. The armor was significantly bigger than the cuffs and plates we’d seen before. To me, it looked as though they were only now beginning to dress up for proper war, having simply used us as training material until now.
“We have an immutable advantage here,” Nevis said, his gaze fixed on the six guards. They were our closest issue. If we played our cards right, all we had to do was slip past them and get in. That, of course, was our best shot at infiltrating the colosseum again. “If we draw attention to them, we won’t get in without a fight.”
“Ice-boy here has a point,” Raphael replied. “We need to distract them.”
A Shade of Vampire 66: An Edge of Malice Page 13